Detouring between the Mass and Elite Culture: Research on Susan Sontag’s Camp Sensibility

Abstract

Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay, “Notes on ‘Camp’,” was penned against the backdrop of a pervasive elitist culture in New York. Through her exploration of Camp taste and its corresponding artistic styles, Sontag scrutinizes the rigid standards and hierarchical orders within the context of art criticism, challenging the conventional dichotomy of good versus bad art and moral aesthetic criteria. Sontag emphasizes the aesthetic function inherent in language and artistic forms, uncovering marginalized and even theatricalized nonmainstream expressions. She advocates for a life experience that transcends utilitarianism, through a sensuous engagement, and calls for a return of art to life and to the core of aesthetic sensibility. More importantly, her narrative adopts an “innocent” stance of a bystander, artfully detouring between the culture and tastes of mass culture and elite culture. The introduction of ‘Camp’ creates a possibility for transcending the boundaries between mass culture and elite culture, and for facilitating interaction in the implementation of aesthetic experiences through education. It connects the communicative exchange processes among individuals and groups at the level of tools or media.