Metro Weekly's 13 Camp Films Everyone Should See
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From Hollywood's golden age to John Waters's trash cinema, the camp films that define a genre
By Sean Bugg, Will O'Bryan and Doug Rule
February 22, 2012
Camp, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
For some, a camp movie is the unintentional hilarity of an earnest story gone wildly awry. For others, the best camp movies are those in which the camp is intentionally baked in from the beginning.
We all know that a camp movie by definition is filled with quotable lines, like Divine’s ”I told you cha cha heels! Black ones!” But a movie with memorable quotes isn’t necessarily camp, like Steel Magnolias‘ ”Drink your juice, Shelby.”
It’s just all so confusing. So when we set out to pick our favorite camp movies, we focused on the movies that we’ve watched over and over until they’ve become part of our queer pop-culture DNA. They’re the movies we watch with old friends and the movies we introduce to new friends. They’re the movies that over decades have become the shared cultural touchstones for everything gay.
And, frankly, they’re simply and supremely silly, even if they’re trying not to be.
These aren’t the movies that won Academy Awards (with one notable exception). They’re the movies that gave us an attitude.
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1 new
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
1975, in 13 top lists Check -
2 new
Mommie Dearest
1981, in 2 top lists Check -
3 new
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
1962, in 15 top lists Check -
4 new
Psycho Beach Party
2000, in 1 top list Check -
5 new
Showgirls
1995, in 6 top lists Check -
6 new
The Women
1939, in 8 top lists Check -
7 new
Polyester
1981, in 3 top lists Check -
8 new
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
1994, in 6 top lists Check -
9 new
Young Frankenstein
1974, in 14 top lists Check -
10 new
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1966, in 19 top lists Check -
11 new
Lust in the Dust
1985, in 0 top lists Check -
12 new
Can't Stop the Music
1980, in 0 top lists Check -
13 new
The Birdcage
1996 — a.k.a. Birds of a Feather, in 3 top lists Check
Last updated on Mar 22, 2021; source