“Just Look At Yourself, You Little Fat Ass!”: Giving Hillbilly Elegy The Camp Respect It’s Entitled To
Camp / Film / Trash

“Just Look At Yourself, You Little Fat Ass!”: Giving Hillbilly Elegy The Camp Respect It’s Entitled To

“Oh, fuck you! Those are heirlooms. My family heirlooms!” Wild-eyed and bunny-eared with her Appalachian drawl, Amy Adams’ Bev Vance delivers those lines with the pathos and conviction of a woman who just lost her cherished, long held inherited treasures, passed down from generation to generation of country folk. What are these heirlooms of which … Continue reading

Why Isn’t The Paperboy A Canonized Camp Classic?
Camp / Film

Why Isn’t The Paperboy A Canonized Camp Classic?

You can tell a whole lot about a film’s impact by the GIFs that remain peppered throughout the Internet even years after its release. For Lee Daniels’s gloriously trashy The Paperboy, its afterlife is preserved in slow-as-molasses, steamy grabs of heartthrob Zac Efron’s Jack Jansen languishing in itty bitty, tighty whities, flexing his tautly muscled … Continue reading

Life As A Punch Line: I, Tonya’s Camp Resurrection Of Tonya Harding
Camp / Film / Trash

Life As A Punch Line: I, Tonya’s Camp Resurrection Of Tonya Harding

When I was eight years old, I wanted to be Tonya Harding. Well, at least momentarily. Playing outside on a particularly frozen day in 1994, I pretended to be figure skaters with a friend. Did I want to be Nancy Kerrigan with her perfect brunette ponytail, Vera Wang-designed white costumes and sophisticated poise? Hell no. … Continue reading

Picking Up The Trash Aesthetics In “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class In America”
Books / Trash

Picking Up The Trash Aesthetics In “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class In America”

In Divine’s classic hit song “Born To Be Cheap,” that bewigged bastion of filth snarls, “As sure as there’s trash, I was born to be cheap!” Not only a rallying cry for gaudy girls everywhere, Divine also hits on an important factoid: Trash is forever. Not just those bags of garbage dumped at the side … Continue reading