Page 9 - Camp Project Final
P. 9
Camp as an Adjective
This gallery focuses on Fanny and Stella, two famous
cross dressers in nineteenth century Britain. They were part of an underground gay culture and language known as “the female dialect.” Referring to one another as “campish” when one was behaving theatrically was common in this subculture. Fanny and Stella were arrested for crossdressing in 1868. Police stripped them to “confirm their gender.” Both were charged with felonies. They became a media spectacle, and later, queer icons.
“Camp is by its nature political, subversive, and even revolutionary” - Bruce LaBruce
6
