Camp in Silent Film Versus Kitsch in Today’s Blockbusters: Bastardization, Evolution, orFacsimile?

Written by Tiesa Green, Cornell University

Imagine if a friend were to say to you: “Have you seen that new art exhibit that opened last week? It’s pretty kitschy.” What image would that evoke? Would you be excited, intrigued, or repulsed? Would you rush to see the exhibit at your earliest availability or would you avoid it like the plague? In other words, is “kitsch” a positive or negative quality?

For some of us, “kitsch,” “kitschiness,” and “kitschy” aren’t familiar concepts at all. For those who do have a concept of kitsch, though, the resulting associations are less than admirable. For the uninitiated, in its contemporary definition, kitsch connotes low-brow artistic endeavors–fluff pieces devoid of intellectual merit and any semblance of cultural commentary. While, in its most disparaging usage, kitsch disqualifies a creation from being art altogether, sometimes kitsch simply denotes a focus on saccharine cutesiness, like the porcelain figurines below:

In its purest, most denotative form, however, kitsch is less concerned with perceived artistic value and more with the non-ambiguity of desired artistic interpretation. Originating in German art markets in the 1860s and 1870s, kitsch described popular cheap drawings and paintings made marketable by their appeal to the consumer’s emotions, rather than intellect. Kitsch artwork distills the themes of societally cherished pop culture, traditions, and values into its most recognizable aesthetic elements, so that it unanimously invokes in its observers the emotions they associate with whatever object it mimics. So, if we connect this back to with figurines above, their kitschiness rests in their intentional evocation of pre-established warmth and fondness that potential buyers already feel toward kittens, puppies, small children, and flowers.

While visually similar to kitsch its melodrama and reference to existing aesthetics and culture, camp art is a performance that intentionally incorporates culturally-established markers of gaudiness and non-sophistication to challenge mainstream notions of the constituents of artistic valor. In other words, the dismissive, disdainful response that kitsch art sometimes evokes is an unintentional side-effect of how transparently it aesthetically appropriates genuine artistic pursuits, while camp is a counter-cultural performance that intentionally wraps its genuine artistic pursuits in the grating aesthetic package of so-called “meaningless” art like kitsch to challenge mainstream, modernist definitions of “real art.” In the simplest of terms, the distinction between camp and kitsch in art is whether its over-the-top nature causes the audience to laugh with it in a mutual understanding of its absurdity, or laugh at it in near incredulous mockery of its vapidity.

To make myself clear, I do not believe kitsch to be a cyanide of an artistic form that instantly poisons the well water of a film once present in any quantity. Contrastingly, I believe it can be argued that all films–with the exception of those belonging to the arthouse and experimental genres that forgo a concrete narrative altogether, must employ kitsch to some degree. All that being said, this kitsch is typically subtle and so highly justified that labeling it as such seems unfair to the modern, anti-kitsch audience: to ensure that a tragic scene is understood as such to the audience, the film uses culturally-agreed upon elements of tragedy like loss and isolation. Horror movies are made possible as a genre because of the near-universal fears of powerlessness and physical harm. It seems that kitsch shifts from a tool for camp to a label of a film in its entirety only when there’s no depth to accompany this emotional evocation.

So, where does this line lie? As we all know, the perceived presence of depth in art varies from person to person, as does the necessity of depth in art at all. Personally, I’m a strong believer in the idea that every piece of artwork does not have to have a “pin-down-able,” more worldly meaning–rather than representing a pursuit of objective “quality,” I believe that art only owes itself to be an emotional expression of its creator. And, put simply, sometimes the emotion the artist wants to express is lighthearted silliness. In other words, all art, including movies, can just be fun. I only believe that over-the-top emotional cues in art become kitsch in its pejorative sense when this heavy-handedness is used in the place of plot, rather than a vehicle for its expression.

In my eyes, silent films, especially when of the comedy genre, exemplify camp. From their inception in the late 19th century, silent film producers necessitated an orchestra accompaniment score, specifically to create a desired atmosphere and, vitally, to cue the film characters’ emotions as they developed on screen. The theater organ was utilized specifically as a tool for the creation of a medley of sound effects, all to draw attention to what were deemed the most important elements of a scene, whose given state during the film would most greatly impact the audience emotionally. For instance, while a bird’s singing–a commonly used sound effect in silent film–is perfectly at home in an outdoor scene, it would not be employed in, say, a dramatic chase scene on horseback, in which the scene’s stakes rest in the speed of the hero’s horse. Since this factor determines whether he would be captured by the villains or escape to safety, the organ would be employed to mimic the sound of horse hooves galloping against the ground, only.

Similarly exaggerated were the film stars’ acting style (at least, in silent film’s height), whose insistence on unnaturally unsubtle body language and facial expressions compensated for the lack of dialogue in its communication of the characters’ actions and emotions. Rather than attempting to transfer the sounds heard and human behavior observed in the real world as conventional of modern film, silent films were textbook camp in their performance of intentionally ridiculous movements in intentionally unrealistically-scored environments.

At a glance, contemporary blockbuster films specifically of the action-comedy genre exemplify the same over-the-top elements that give silent film their camp edge. Like silent film comedies, blockbuster action-comedy films also present a formulaic plot with the intention of eliciting a specific emotional response in its audience, merely swapping out the evocation of laughter for triumph, pride–and, depending on the film’s setting–, patriotism. Furthermore, blockbuster action-comedies apply the heavy-handed usage of unsubtle scores, both by way of orchestra in emotional scenes, and sound effects by way of explosions, crashing, gunfire, and to punctuate the landing of physical blows.

Despite these common threads, however, I argue that, upon the analysis of the intention of these similar tropes, silent films set themselves apart as distinctly camp in contrast to the opportunistic kitsch displayed by these modern films. Perhaps because of their now antiquated status, silent films often carry the connotation of high art via pretension, but silent films were often quite silly and did not take themselves seriously. Its mechanisms did not line up with reality out of a refusal, rather than an inability: these were stylistic qualities of the artform applied intentionally to underscore the plot, just as laugh tracks are stylistic markers of the modern sitcom that underscore its situational humor. In contrast, blockbuster action-comedies tend to use exaggerated stylism as the plot, hoping to distract the viewer with enough visual and auditory stimuli to mask the absence of a streamlined plot and undeveloped characters. I dislike this because it feels predatory, especially given that blockbuster action-comedies often come from graphic novel source material: such films glue it together unimagined action scenes and canned humor and cloak it in the appropriated image of stories produced with true effort and dedication to produce kitsch in its truest definition, after which they bask in the admiration (and dollars) of millions (and sometimes billions) of consumers in an act of what feels to me reminiscent of stolen valor.

With my reasoning now explained, I will at last get to the question presented in this post’s title: is blockbuster kitsch a bastardization, more evolved form, or facsimile of silent film’s camp? I argue that none suffice, as all three processes imply that this modern kitsch is a later form of silent film camp (for better or for worse). Throughout this exploration, I’ve come to realize that these mechanisms are perhaps “false cognates” of each other, so to speak, in the sense that, like actual false cognates, they carry a similarly perceived end result (over-the-top, heavy-handed evocations of emotion), but different “etymological roots” (a creative use of medium to overcome production limitations versus a cash grab produced to minimize effort while maximizing profit).

So, what does all of this leave us with? Ultimately, there is no objective method to delineate between cinematic camp and kitsch–of any time period–because such a distinction does not exist; the distinctions I make are no more than reflections of my own priorities as a viewer. As discussed, cultural context is essentially the only backdrop upon which we can delineate camp and kitsch due to the high similarity between their modes of expression, which implies that one’s acceptance or rejection of either artform will be a function of 1) the importance with which they hold the artistic intention behind a piece, and 2) the extent to which the person is aware of this intention. I know that artistic intention strongly influences my experience with art, as learning the context for the production style of silent film transforms it to me from an apparent admission of tone-deafness for how people in the real world communicate and gesture to the kind of distinctive stylism of which I am so fond (side note, to hear me talk about artistic stylism more, read LINK from earlier this year).

Above all, do not let this blog post’s rejection of blockbuster action-comedies as camp lead you to believe that silent film’s camp influence is dead altogether: when culturally-referential in the way that camp to some degree necessitates, we get the biting social satires and comedy-horrors that rule the modern indie film scene. One’s personal enjoyment of these films is one thing, but the notion that silent film lives on through them is factual. In some way, the refusal of silent film to die, even in the face of the intentional destruction it has suffered, is a beautiful symbol of the perseverance of culture in the face of strife: culture always remains, even if it has to reappear in a different form.