Not to sound like cranky old Andy Rooney, but I'm getting tired of every pop magazine and web site referring to old TV shows as "campy." Exhibit A is last week's People Magazine (the one with Owen Wilson on the cover). There's a brief article about the new Bionic Woman series that notes how the re-imagination won't be "campy" like the old show. This clumsy description recalls for me all the media buzz about the new Battlestar Galactica when it came out a few years back, and how the old (1978) Battlestar Galactica was "campy." Here's a campy reference; here's another; and here's one more. You see?
The Bionic Woman campy? Battlestar Galactica campy? Now, I might go along with the term "corny," given the age of both series and the manner in which audience sensibilities have changed in thirty years. But neither series is inherently or deliberately campy. "Camp" is a tongue-in-cheek attitude, a knowing (and purposeful) attitude of "so serious it's funny." Neither The Bionic Woman nor Battlestar Galactica is actually "campy" to any measurable degree. An example of a truly campy TV show is the original Adam West series, Batman; which played the Caped Crusader and his universe as "ultra-serious" to the degree it was amusing. Perhaps Kolchak: The Night Stalker occasionally was campy too; playing tongue-in-cheek moments over some of the rubber monster suits and other oddities (such as vampires running around on rooftops).
Yet The Bionic Woman and Battlestar Galactica are being called "campy" by writers whom - I suspect - never saw either original series at all; and simply (and lazily...) found an easy descriptor: "campy." I mean, it sounds good doesn't it? It's not true to history, however. In the 1970s - the age of Star Wars, The Six Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica and The Bionic Woman - entertainment on film and television was at a very different point than it is now. It was more theatrical; more artificial. Today we demand abundant grittiness and naturalism and so our entertainment is "dark" and brooding to more accurately reflect how vieewers apparently see "real life." However, just because a film or TV show is more artificial or theatrical than naturalistic does not mean it is by definition campy. If it does mean that, then add Star Wars to the list of campy entertainments, I guess.
The Bionic Woman campy? Battlestar Galactica campy? Now, I might go along with the term "corny," given the age of both series and the manner in which audience sensibilities have changed in thirty years. But neither series is inherently or deliberately campy. "Camp" is a tongue-in-cheek attitude, a knowing (and purposeful) attitude of "so serious it's funny." Neither The Bionic Woman nor Battlestar Galactica is actually "campy" to any measurable degree. An example of a truly campy TV show is the original Adam West series, Batman; which played the Caped Crusader and his universe as "ultra-serious" to the degree it was amusing. Perhaps Kolchak: The Night Stalker occasionally was campy too; playing tongue-in-cheek moments over some of the rubber monster suits and other oddities (such as vampires running around on rooftops).
Yet The Bionic Woman and Battlestar Galactica are being called "campy" by writers whom - I suspect - never saw either original series at all; and simply (and lazily...) found an easy descriptor: "campy." I mean, it sounds good doesn't it? It's not true to history, however. In the 1970s - the age of Star Wars, The Six Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica and The Bionic Woman - entertainment on film and television was at a very different point than it is now. It was more theatrical; more artificial. Today we demand abundant grittiness and naturalism and so our entertainment is "dark" and brooding to more accurately reflect how vieewers apparently see "real life." However, just because a film or TV show is more artificial or theatrical than naturalistic does not mean it is by definition campy. If it does mean that, then add Star Wars to the list of campy entertainments, I guess.
Nobody's perfect. I've used the descriptor "campy" imprecisely in the past as well. But I don't like this epidemic of labeling everything made two or three decades ago "campy," so today I'm proposing a moratorium on the clumsy use of the term. At least here, I won't be using the word "campy" synonymously with "corny" or "old fashioned." Let's hope some other writers do the same...
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