Monday, November 19, 2007

An Ode To Angela

I was thinking about doing a list of the greatest queer villains for today's Queer Film Blogathon - for my previous pro-queer-villain rant click here; just know, unsurprisingly, that I love me the Evil Gays - but as my brain bounced around from Catherine Tramell to Bruno Anthony over this past weekend I kept coming back to one figure. One figure that I love unconditionally, even though it represents one of the nadirs of queer representation in film. I say "even though" but I might as well be honest and admit that it's probably 3/4's of the reason why I love this character so; the fact that it is such an "irresponsible" portrait. That it's so offensive on so many levels that... well, I'm helpless in my admiration.

This figure is sweet little Angela from Sleepaway Camp.

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If you're unfamiliar with this 1983 summer-camp-slasher gem, let's just say... Angela's different from the other kids at camp. She gets taunted a lot for being so timid, but somehow, horrible things befall these cruel souls who taunt poor Angela...

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I'm not going to get too in depth with the kills in Sleepaway Camp because they're wonderfully gruesome and some of my all-time favorites and will one day soon make their way into my Thursday Kills series, but let's just say that Angela - yes, spoiler! Angela's the killer - is one ingenious lil' minx. I'm especially partial to the curling iron scene...

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No, I'm not exactly sure what Angela does with that curling iron, but... well, I suppose we can allow our imaginations to do the talking. But Judy's a total bitch!

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She totally had it coming. Anyway, the stupid-offensive idea behind Sleepaway Camp is this: In the opening scene we see a hot guy -

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- with his son and daughter playing on a small sailboat. It tips over, they fall in the water, and an out-of-control speedboat runs them over. Hot Dad is killed, as well as one of the children, while a man we learn later on was Hot Dad's boyfriend, aka Other Dad, watches from the shore. We think the sibling who dies is the little boy, leaving the little girl to grow up to be Angela, but we learn later on that Angela is really the little boy grown up, and it was his/her sister who died, but Other Dad went insane and made the little boy into a little girl, i.e. Angela, as well as turning himself into a woman:

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It all makes more sense - totally offensive sense - when viewing the film; I'm realizing that trying to describe this convoluted pronoun-aplaooza in words is coming off horribly... well, convoluted. If you've seen the film you get it; if not, just know Angela's really a boy and her parents' Hysterical Gayness leads to a little boy-girl with serious issues. Like making with the serious hack-slash-stab.

You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a more ridiculous take on queer issues than Sleepaway Camp - gay parenting is presented as The Most Terrifying Prospect Ever, with all the flashback scenes set in some black-stage purgatory where the camera swirls around in madness -

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Gay men are presented as so unstable that a death of their loved ones causes them to lose all sense of identity or sanity and not only turn themselves into freaks but force such identity-issues onto the children oh-so-woefully within their care... yet, despite myself, it's just this totally silliness that I embrace about the film. It spins so far over-the-top not just in its homophobia but in its everything that 25 years later it's still a blast to watch, and political-correctness be damned - the final shot revealing Angela's little "secret" still gives me the willies (ahem) every time.

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There's so much wrong (in the Uncanny sense) with that moment - it's (supposed) adolescent nudity for one, but Angela's unmoving open-mouth smile-scream, and the fact that it's really a naked man (due to laws about showing, well, an actual naked adolescent) with a prop Angela-head on... it continues to add up to a bundle of creepiness.

So yes, makes no bones about it, Sleepaway Camp is wholly reckless in its portrayal of queerness: it's something to be feared, something that veers in an instant into madness. But then, to be fair, the film isn't exactly loving in its representation of the heterosexual bunch - the camp-cook tries to molest Angela, and Judy the Teenage Vixen is a conniving sexually-predatory bitch. And the teenage boy who romances Angela - much to his eventual beheaded chagrin - is horny to the point of cartoonishness, eventually helping to push our little Angela right over the edge.

But in the end I certainly can't defend the film as progressive in its politics, except for the fact that it was addressing fears that were out there while nobody else was. In a disturbingly homophobic manner, sure, but it never takes itself too terribly seriously either. Hell, it doesn't take itself seriously in the slightest. So it might not be right then, but it is okay. If okay equals a hoot. And oh does it ever.

Plus: Greatest Worst Fake Mustache Ever!!!

16 comments:

StinkyLulu said...

I love you for doing this...

NicksFlickPicks said...

Just, Yes. Sleepaway Camp is clearly the Be All End All of a certain kind of homophobia/homophilia mixture that the film doesn't even pretend to understand or make itself accountable for, because it's having too much fun just being insane.

The filmmaker commentary track is really hilarious, especially when the director and "Angela" vent their frustration about everyone treating The Crying Game like it was some big thing a full 10 years after Sleepaway Camp.

If I ever actually meet you, I'm sure we can compare imitations of Angela's final close-up. A fun party game, once you've made all your friends watch the movie.

Anonymous said...

There is so much to love and so much confusion, but in the end it is all about Judy. This is one character in all of horror that it makes sense for 28 to play 16. We all knew a early developed Judy who bullied and tortured until she graduated at 18 looking 40 with a mustache and saddlebags. I love Judy

Jason Adams said...

nick - I'm so looking forward to an Angela-off! And I've never listened to the commentary; consider it penciled in for the very near future though. Going thru SC this morning it got me thinking about The Crying Game and its penis-reveal publicity theft!

homeslaughter - I know! Judy's so wonderful I just had to include some grabs of her. I took a bunch more but had to resist the urge to make too much of the post an ode to Judy, even though she deserves it. She's AWESOME.

Anonymous said...

First off, I just wanted to provide my IMDB review of said AMAZING film, maybe to show that we think more alike than one would think:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086320/usercomments-153

Second, I would like to address your accusations of homophobia in the film. It is safe to say that I take films more "seriously" than you (I am less flippant, dismissive and casual in my assessment of them, seemingly ostensible foibles and all), but without getting into a shouting match over a slasher film, I would like to adduce the idea that this film in as homophobic as the countless "straight" horror films that deal with sexual aberration are heterophobic.
Horror deals with conventional circumstances made frightening via some absurd or collectively harrowing variation in the reality we've come to expect. In this circumstance, we have a homosexual couple that is portrayed (albeit briefly) as a healthy set of parents, until tragedy befalls them. The behavior of Angela's "mother", according to horror logic, is perfectly, terrifyingly logical. It is not as if these homos were abusing their offspring without raison d'etre. Also, the "straight" folk are quite reprehensible, and merit little sympathy from the average audience member (especially the heterosexual child molester in the beginning). To assert that this movie malign queer folk simply because it has to do with queer folk says more about your projection as the LGBT crowd as "other" than the director's.

Just a thought...

Joseph "God" Jordan
a.k.a "Putz"

Jason Adams said...

Argh. Seriously?

Gretchen said...

growing up in indiana, your slumber party was lame ass if you didnt have this movie. we loved its campiness (and there was kind of a penis) despite my better judgement i have an enduring love of this movie.

Anonymous said...

Skip the commentary, it is sad sad thing and makes them sound like they had no idea what they were making.

Marius said...

I have to see this movie. Thanks for blogging about it, Ja.

CryptoGay said...

OMG, yes!! sleepaway camp! i included this in a mini-queer filmfest under the sub-category of "gay monsters," and no one there had ever seen or heard of it.

i swear to god, that although i've seen the film several times, it never registered that "gay dad" had transformed himself into a woman. i always thought that the kid had been taken away to live with the previously divorced mother or something. wow, how did i miss that? i think i was just anticipating the green-face-tiny-wiener ending too much.

Anonymous said...

I just had a viewing party for this movie on Friday and it was an amazing, hilarious mindfuck of a movie. I did listen to the commentary, and it is pretty pathetic: the director and the girl that played Angela don't get what is going on in this movie AT ALL. Not one reference to how the boys wear the way-too-short shorts and the shirts that are either too tight, mesh, cropped or worse! Not one mention of the fact that the women in this film are either dykes (Meg), drag queens (Aunt Martha, Judy) or in fact a boy who is forced to be a girl (Angela herself). Apparently the director is now married and has children, which is disturbing to learn, considering the movie is a gay fantasy world.

However, this movie being fresh in my mind, I have to disagree with your theory that the gay dad turned himself into Aunt Martha. In that first flashback scene, the gay dad says that they have to get out of the water because "the doctor will be here soon." We find out in the next scene that Martha is a doctor (don't know how she pulled that one off), as she can write the children's physicals herself. Also, young Angela asks if the doctor would be bringing Ricky along and dad #1 says that he is staying with his father that weekend. So I think gay dad #2 probably just disappeared from the picture after the boating accident, seeing as he would have no legal claim to the surviving child. Martha's over-the-top, drag queen appearance and acting make it plausible to think she is a man masquerading as a woman, but i don't think it is really the case here.

Thank you for writing about this movie! It is really something to be seen!

Jason Adams said...

r, I think you are right; checking on IMDb (which I should've done in the 1st place, before making such a proclamation, duh) it does appear that they were played by two different actors, Aunt Martha being played by a woman. Oh well, the idea still basically holds true, re: the character's freakish drag-queeny femininity.

Thanks for writing, and I'm glad you caught the film. It's so ridiculous, but fun.

Anonymous said...

No problem, just discovered your blog today and I am really enjoying reading it. And the photos are nice too! ;)

Laura Palmer said...

A brilliant commentary. You have inspired me to create a new section called "Spotlight On..." when a fan of Sleepaway Camp actually writes something decent and worth reading. So I'm adding this to my site, with your permission of course.

One thing though --- Lenny, Daddy's lover was not Aunt Martha. They were two completely different characters. It was always a wonderful theory which many of us fans had, but it isn't so.

http://camp.sc83x.org

Jason Adams said...

sc83x - Your site rocks! I might get lost in there for days. I'd love it if you used my piece, thanks for the offer.

And my mistake, re: Lenny/Martha, has been brought to my attention. If I weren't so supremely lazy I'd have gotten around to correcting the mistake already... should do that soon. Thanks for writing!

Laura Palmer said...

Working on adding it right now. But no! Leave that mistake in! Because it fits perfectly! More on that when I'm done updating the page on your piece/post.

<3