GLEN OR GLENDA? (Edward D. Wood, Jr., 1953)

In “Note #2” in her essay “Notes on Camp,” Susan Sontag claims that camp, with its emphasis on style, “is neutral with respect to content…the Camp sensibility is disengaged, depoliticized—or at least apolitical.” Camp may indeed be a “sensibility” that revels in artifice, stylization, theatricalization, irony, and exaggeration rather than “content,” but in reality both the content and the very structure of Camp make it political.

First, as a cultural challenge, Camp can take on a political meaning when minority groups appropriate and ridicule the images of the dominant group, perhaps most notably with gay and lesbian groups. Sontag points out that Camp in a sense belongs to the gay liberation movement, used as a means of integrating into society. She claims that it “neutralizes moral indignation [and] sponsors playfulness.” Sontag views camp as the core of what might now be called “the homosexual agenda”, that is, a concerted effort to undermine morality so people will have no basis for objecting to homosexuality. She fails to acknowledge that this act, at the core of the popularization of Camp, is political, but if Camp has become part of the “canon of art” as a result of homosexual taste, then its political roots cannot be denied. As Meyer says, Camp is not simply a style or sensibility, but rather “an oppositional critique embodied in the signifying practices” that constitute queer identities.

Ed Wood’s 1953 film Glen or Glenda has become a cult classic of Camp for its much-cited over-the-top acting, convoluted narrative, and poorly written script. But though the film’s flaws subvert its message and render the style “Camp,” its message is highly political nonetheless. One scene in particular indicates the political nature of Wood’s subject matter. During the “dream wedding” sequence, the devil, as part of the wedding party, looks from his place on the alter directly out to the audience. This returned gaze brings the audience in on a joke with the devil – the joke of the sham of the marriage between Glen and Barbara, since Barbara doesn’t know of Glen’s alter ego Glenda. Though the scene is itself is overwrought and full of excess, the truth of what is communicated in that scene is crystal clear.

The project of Wood’s narrative is to subvert patriarchal authority through complicating the notion of gender—a politically charged notion without question. The fact that the seriousness of Wood’s message fails and renders the film “Camp” does not make the film apolitical. What is ironic is that Wood sought to call into question normative heterosexuality by addressing, directly, a patriarchal audience. He succeeded, although not in the way he thought he would.

Glen or Glenda can also be seen as a challenge to notions of what constitutes femininity – especially those notions in 1953. Drag, an important part of early Camp sensibility, involves female modes of dress, especially accessories – makeup, hats, gloves, high heels, wigs, jewelry, fur, etc. This form of Camp is squarely in the realm of the feminine—fashion, decoration, and fancy frills. This Camp sensibility can have an important influence on female audience; by exaggerating certain stereotyped features of femininity, Camp can undermine the credibility of those features. We see Glen parading around as Glenda (undergoing only superficial physical changes to become his female alter ego – wig, fake boobs, angora sweater), while Bela Lugosi absurdly announces that women have it better than men because they have comfortable clothes to change into after work and hats don’t cut off circulation in their heads. The film’s content may be “seriousness that fails” (Sontag), but the Camp structure is predicated on the serious nonetheless.

Following Sontag’s definitions, Glen Or Glenda is a prime example of ‘pure’ or ‘unintentional’ Camp. The film (apparently) seeks to educate the public about the troubled lives of transvestites and demonstrate that they are people too. The subject is no laughing matter to the filmmaker, it would seem, yet it is the film’s inherent “seriousness that fails”, which offers one major qualifier for labeling Glen or Glenda as Camp. However, although the film could easily be described as containing the “proper mixture” of a number of elements deemed Camp-able by Sontag—“exaggerated,” “fantastic,” “passionate,” and “naïve”—such terms entail subjective judgment that necessarily relegates Camp to the realm of reception theory. Although Sontag’s delimitation of these qualities is implicitly based on audience reception, Sontag never explicitly acknowledges this fact.

Of course, no reading can escape subjectivity; yet to read a text as Camp necessarily requires a subjective reception in a degree heightened above other theoretical approaches. For example, Aristotle’s definition of tragedy can be simplistically applied to Oedipus in a structuralist/formalist approach that points to clear markers in the text as evidence for such a reading. Camp, on the other hand, relies solely on the nature and tendency of an audience or audiences. We could cite virtually any scene out of Glen or Glenda—none the least being Bela Lugosi’s frequent reappearances and stern exhortations to “Pull the string!”—and we would easily recognize the connection between the film and such Sontagian qualifiers as exaggeration and naïveté; yet such a conclusion, while likely to find widespread agreement among modern audiences, would still lack positive, determined qualification. Despite the numerous points offered by Sontag, it appears that Camp remains based on a “I know it when I see it” paradigm. This is not to say, however, that Sontag’s attempt to define Camp is wholly misguided; instead, Sontag historical context lacks the post-modern entrenchment that we find ourselves in today. To that end, we may say that Camp is a (pre)post-modern entity, that is, its refusal of referentiality and exultation of difference enacted the post-modern before even such a theory was named.

   >  >  >   g e n d e r  h o m e 


Page layout and design ©2004 by Hugh S. Manon for the Oklahoma State University Film Program. Some images on this page are the property of a third party and are used with permission. The marks of Oklahoma State University are controlled under a licensing program administered by The Collegiate Licensing Company.

Last update: 8/27/2004