Working Like a Homosexual: Camp, Capital, Cinema

Rating:
Summary: "Working" requires a bit of labor on the part of the reader
Review: Tinkcom's text is hard to digest at times, especially the lengthy introduction that exposes the manuscript's origin as a dissertation. Work through the intro pays off for tenacious readers, as the book is an insightful inquiry into camp using Marxist theory and a menagerie of examples drawn from both "high" and "low" forms of filmic art. The author does a decent job of historicizing different types of cinematic queer cultural production while engaging his assertion that camp forms a critique of capitalism. If one can muddle through the excessively exhaustive introduction they will find the cinematic examples the author uses and the research he has undertaken compelling. One can only hope that Tinkcom's work is indicative of forthcoming scholarly inquiries critically engaging queer subjectivity in the vein of Richard Dyer's recent and more accessible volume of essays, The Culture of Queers (2002).

Rating:
Summary: "Working" requires a bit of labor on the part of the reader
Review: Tinkcom's text is hard to digest at times, especially the lengthy introduction that exposes the manuscript's origin as a dissertation. Work through the intro pays off for tenacious readers, as the book is an insightful inquiry into camp using Marxist theory and a menagerie of examples drawn from both "high" and "low" forms of filmic art. The author does a decent job of historicizing different types of cinematic queer cultural production while engaging his assertion that camp forms a critique of capitalism. If one can muddle through the excessively exhaustive introduction they will find the cinematic examples the author uses and the research he has undertaken compelling. One can only hope that Tinkcom's work is indicative of forthcoming scholarly inquiries critically engaging queer subjectivity in the vein of Richard Dyer's recent and more accessible volume of essays, The Culture of Queers (2002).