The Diva's Camp: The Appeal of Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is possessed by the spirit of Joan Crawford. Like that notorious über-bitch immortalized by Faye Dunaway in the camp classic Mommie Dearest, Hillary bulldozed into a Democratic primary dominated by men and brazenly declared, as any self-respecting diva would: Don't fuck with me fellas! This ain't my first time at the rodeo!

Hillary Dearest doesn't take no for an answer. Melodramatic and megalomaniacal, Hillary, like Joan, is an aging super star whose career is on the wane, but she refuses to exit the stage. I'm not going anywhere, she dishes out defiantly! Like Joan, Hillary will embrace any identity and any performance even if it requires sacrificing her own children (her party) at the altar of winning. And God help anyone who gets in her way: Christina, bring me the ax!

Barack-olytes cannot wrap their minds around HillDiva, who seems more like HillDemon to them. Why, they grumble, hasn't she -- that train wreck with eyebrows -- self-destructed yet? How does an unlikable, shrill, mendacious, and bloodthirsty monster manage to challenge the dignified, mild-mannered, and pure-intentioned Holiest of Demorcratic Holies? How can that woman, who represents nothing and who will say and do anything to win, hold a candle to Him who represents everything? Yes, we can, they marvel, but how can she? When, Andrew Sullivan pleads, will this horror film end?

In fact, however, Hillary is no monster. Sullivan and the Barack-olytes don't get Hillary because they don't get the aesthetic genre she is working in. Hillary Dearest is no horror show -- she is a camp phenomenon and fast on her way to becoming one of this century's greatest camp heroines. Hillary's camp should be taken seriously; it offers a critical alternative to Obama's Romanticism. And many Americans just cannot get enough of her.

Whether as Madame President or Vice President or just former First Lady, HillDiva will enter the Pantheon of Prima Donnas alongside the great gay-male camp icons of yore: Judy Garland, Mae West, the Divine Miss M, Madonna, Cher, Liza, the Joans (Crawford, Collins, and Rivers), Liz, Diana, Tina, Mariah, Beyonce.

Like all of these queen bees before her, HillDiva is continually reinventing herself. With each new hairstyle and each new outfit; with each new rhetorical strategy and each new scandal, we meet a different kind of Hillary. We have comeback Hillary, forgiving Hillary; victimized Hillary; lying Hillary; bellicose Balboa Hillary; Northern Ireland peace-brokering Hillary; vetted Hillary; sarcastic Hillary; survivor Hillary; tearful Hillary; experienced Hillary; Jesus-loving Hillary; vast right-wing conspiracy Hillary; sleep-deprived Hillary; 3am Hillary; feminist Hillary; cackling Hillary; patriotic Hillary; high-road Hillary; kick-him-while-he's-down (or "He wouldn't have been my pastor") Hillary; "Not some little woman standing by my man" Hillary; Bill's Hillary; Chelsea's Hillary; Obama-loving Hillary; "Not as Far as I know" Hillary; "I'm human" Hillary; McCain-loving Hillary; the Hillary I know.

From her burlesque biography to her faux-marriage; from her stylized overemotionality to her pseudo-drag admixture of male and female traits and gestures; from her synthetic stump speeches to her outrageous pronouncements and staged lies; and from her international acclaim to her most recently discovered wealth, Hillary, whether intentionally or not, embraces melodramatic excess at every turn.

Hillary, like camp, always comes back for an encore.

To be sure, Barack-olytes find camp unsettling and it is not difficult to see why. If the appeal of Hillary is the appeal of camp, then surely the appeal of Obama is that of Romanticism. The world according to the gospel of Obama is a world of drama (not melodrama), of spiritualism, of authenticity, of beliefs, of more perfect unions, of the national community, of teleology, and of the serious power of words. For Barack-olytes, the melodrama of camp reeks of heresy and antinomianism. In the context of messianic expectation, there is not much room for laughter.

But camp is (by definition) not purely a laughing matter and Hillary's performances are not just some theatrical joke. Camp loves the artificial, the spectacle, and the ridiculous because it refuses to maintain the illusions of political rhetoric. Camp exposes the masquerade of political theater by flaunting the grandiose pose and the ironic overstatement.

Camp celebrates theatricality because through its showboating excess camp reveals that our dominant cultural narratives -- whether on gender or sexuality; nationalism or politics; religion or society -- are artificial constructions. Through its ridiculous staging and dishonest spectacle, camp undermines the false illusion (upon which political rhetoric depends) that expression is a straightforward vessel which conveys intention. Camp reminds us through its conspicuous duplicity that there is a large gap between feelings and words and that all political rhetoric is just that -- rhetoric.

HillDiva's camp, which is monstrous to some, is a source of comforting laughter for others. When we laugh at her ridiculous and self-destructive performance, we recall that politics is artifice. In a political climate dominated by the audacity of hope, Hillary's camp is refreshing and instructive. Hillary offers no prophetic returns to a pre-Nixonian or pre-Watergate cultural faith in politicians and politics. Hillary will not usher in the End of Days.

Ironically, it is Barack Obama, the harbinger of change, who disseminates a political aesthetic that relishes in the uncritical mythologies of national community and national destiny. Hillary, the so-called establishment candidate, challenges us to remain critical of our political leaders and institutions.

Camp is the lie that tells the truth and Hillary, as a camp heroine, is the liar who breathes veritas.

Comments

[zip47]

See further discussion here: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/04/hillarys-appeal-the-diva-theor.php

[sapre aude]

What a load of garbage.

[efranklin]

Hers is no Rocky Horror Picture Show, but a campaign for the presidency. We can leave a movie theater, but not all of us can emigrate. While we're giving her a shot of gay cred, how is it she has any support in the LGBT community with legislation like the homophobic Defense of Marriage Act?

[Shantee]

I think your article was very amusing....and a needed break from all the seriousness....however, this presidential race is dead serious. All the divas you mentioned were in show business, so they could afford to be outrageous or psychotic, because that would only affect their children. Hillary's psychosis affects America.

To me Hillary is looking more and more like a drag queen, because there is nothing inately feminine about her. There is no there there. True femininity comes from within, and she ain't got any. The Chers and the Madonnas and the Joan Collins of the world have husbands/ boyfriends, because these broads have a lot of money. They bought the men in their lives. As for Joan Crawford she was fascinating to watch but she also physically abused her children.

Your article basically makes a case against Hillary.

[kmsosa]

I doubt that Madonna has bought the men in her life.

And, if this race is so "dead serious", why the attention on Hillary's femininity? I am also not clear why whether a diva gets her man with money or with sex is important to a dead serious election.

Your reply basically makes a case showing that satire and levity, even when very well done, is so rarely understood.

[JoeSun]

In other words, Hillary is a joke.

[missjabez]

I'm not sure if I agree with Halper's analogies. Even I don't think she's as bad as Mommie Dearest. I don't find her antics amusing, but maybe I will when this is all over.

[wingman1]

You silly man.

[trustedcommenter]

Ooh, he said "monster"! Off with his head!
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[standforpeace]

While all campaigning is about public performance, I believe that camp requires a deliberate consciousness in it's mockery. I'm pretty sure therefore that Hillary is not engaged in camp. Neither are her followeers who don't exhibit much in the way of humor or awareness of irony. So perhaps for you and a few others in the know, this performance might be categorized as campy but for the rest of America it looks like politics as usual.

[huffthemagicdragon]

"I believe that camp requires a deliberate consciousness in it's mockery" - perfect.

[Emmaboverry]

Is this double-speak for "she's a shallow liar?" If HRC wants to trip the light fantastic onstage, that's fine with me. But the fact is, she's trying to bitch-blast her way into the presidency. And that's a matter of life and death. She can take the USO show to the combat zone where she helped send our young soldiers to dy because she needed to prove she was comander-in-chief material.

Or maybe she just didn't have the political guts to stand up. Or maybe she didn't have the time to read the NIE report.

About any of the above, no one but a sociopath can have a sense of humor.

[DavidHealy]

So, are you trying to explain why the Philadelphia gayborhood is inexplicably supporting Hillary?

[riconap]

This is the most insightful Blog yet to appear on these "hollowed" pages. The Obama-Opiate has been effective on the masses beyond the wildest expectations of Karl Marx Axelrod. The co-conspiratorial media, those same showmen that trumpeted the Bush electoral victories in two elections, are equally responsible for surrendering the now archaic journalistic art of objectivity in exchange for a new story on the cheap.

[Emmaboverry]

Jaundiced.

[dwt]

I suppose you would fall under the category of Clintonista on Downinjoisey's list of irrational and intransigent HRC supporters.

The only way they can "support" HRC is by trying to marginalize Obama as being "the black candidate," coddled by a fawning media, supported by starry eyed hypnotized dreamers, etc.

Because it really must be difficult for them to find something positive to say about, and to find actual qualification and merit in, a candidate who continually panders to the electorate, who continually gets caught in lie after distortion after whopper, and is a phony to a degree that makes one's hair hurt.

There are two kinds of Democrats: those who can sit through a speech like the following with a straight face, and those who cringe in awe at the audacity of artifice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUCWyWW2YDQ

Tell the truth: whose supporters are on drugs, HRC's or BHO's?

[riconap]

First of all dwt, it is you who brings "race" into this discussion, but that's "OK." It is totally compatible with the Obama Camp game plan. A recent New York Times article quoted a well known Obama supporter as saying that his phenomenal ascendancy was due to his ability to transcend race, because he is viewed as bi-racial by whites and African American by blacks. A bit "Gerry Ferraroish"; don't you think? Secondly, note that practically all ad hominem attacks are registered by Obamanistas against Hillary while almost the entire anti-Obama discourse is critical of the religious intoxication of his entranced followers and the stark truth that he is a poorly resumed individual who has perfected the skill of ambitious political calculation as an art form.

[Moose49]

No offense intended, I'm always happy to read articles critical of Hillary, but aren't you channeling a bit too much of Maureen Dowd here?

[DoninJoisey]

I see a few bastions of her support -
1) Feminazis who want a woman president. Any woman. Even one who would not be on the national stage if not for "wife of". I would think they'd want a self-made woman, but, whatever.
2) Clintonistas. Those who long for "the good old days", remembering better times, while forgetting some of the cost of those better times.
3) Racists. I'm not talking sheet-wearers, but those who fear what they can't identify with. They may not even recognize it, but they are numerous.

Unfortunately, logic won't shake any of those 3. Only those who were objective, and liked what they heard, are now able to recognize that what they heard is artificial.

[Emmaboverry]

Nailed it Donin.

[kmsosa]

You must be joking. Nailed what? That little list is just a load of crap. Those are the three categories into which Obama nation likes to sequester Hillary supporters. How about this...

Obama's supporters can be divided as follows.

1) Kids who don't vote, won't vote, and have no idea what they're talking about
2) Arrogant liberal intelligentsia, for whom selecting a presidential candidate is a theoretical exercise, having no concern for the gritty consequences of this very real choice
3) Blacks

Nailed it!

[smartypants7]

I beg to differ.
Camp is deliberate.
Lacking any hint of insight, Hillary Clinton is all cheek and no tongue.
That is why she is so tiresome.
Where is Susan Sontag when we need her? RIP

[loper2008]

right on on

although my gay male friends love her. i think the melodrama/psychodrama appeals to some people and completely turns off others. these candidates are either loved or hated depending on how we relate to their personas and communication skills. it's not like there is a HUGE difference on issues. we are basically fighting over which one we like better.