Camp in the Works of Luis Zapata

Modern Language Studies
Camp in the Works of Luis Zapata
Author(s): Maurice Westmoreland
Source: Modern Language Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Spring, 1995), pp. 45-59
Published by: Modern Language Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3195289
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Camp in the Works of LuisZapata
Maurice Westmoreland
1. Zapata
The following study will analyze the appearance and use of camp
in the writings of Luis Zapata, its function as both an aesthetic style and a
referent to the homosexual. In Luis Zapata's novels, Hasta en las mejores
familias (1975), Las aventuras, desventuras, y suenos de Adonis Garcia, el
vampiro de la colonia Roma (1979), En jirones (1985), and La hermana
secreta de Angelica Maria (1989),1 the main protagonist is a gay male in
his late teens or early twenties.2 The homosexual theme also appears in
his short novel Melodrama (1987), in several short stories included in De
amor es mi negra pena (1983) and Ese amor que hasta ayer nos quemaba
(1989), and indirectly in his short work of childhood memories De cuerpo
entero (1990).3 Brushwood includes Zapata in the Mexican generation of
'67, a group identified by a playful literary style (80), and the thematic
treatment of the city as a collection of diverse neighborhoods (26).
Zapata's writings characterize both of these points, and offer a rich, and
often playful, literary account of Mexican urban homosexuality. In his
works, we find a "commitment to a different world-view that conditions
the entire narrative" (Schaeffer-Rodriguez 32), as sexual difference, at
times "third-world" at times "bourgeois," is acted out for an emergent
homosexual and homosympathetic readership.
The traditional Latin American literary presentations of the
homosexual condition have been the homosexual either as outsider,
monster or vampire, or as victim, of a violent, machista society (Foster
3-4). In the Boom literature of the forties and fifties, the appearance of
sexual themes, including the issue of marginal sexualities, both reflected
the need to escape personal solitude and illustrated the collapse of
traditional values (Shaw 276). During the sixties, homosexuality began to
appear as a sub-theme,4 either as an act of "irremediable soiling" or as a
psychological condition of "pederasts, lovers of father figures, and [or]
homosexuals fixated on their mothers" (Schwartz 256). In each case, the
most general treatment has been to present the "problem" of"being" (or
"acting out") the homosexual. By contrast, the appearance of Zapata in
the seventies is concurrent with what Austen has noted as a trend in
North American gay fiction towards deproblemizing homosexuality (216).5
More than other gay Spanish American writers, such as Puig or Arenas,
Zapata draws promiscuously from two very different literary traditions,
post-Boom Latin American (specifically Mexican) narrative and postStonewall gay Anglo-American fiction.
2. Defining Camp
Studies generally define camp as either a conflation of specific
artistic traits or a device to signal the homosexual. As the former, it
comments on the incongruity between reality and archetype, and is
45
interpreted variously as "failed seriousness" (Sontag), or "a lie that tells
the truth" (Core). The significant element here is a playful focus on the
distance between "what something is" and "what it pretends, or tries, to
be." Kiernan views this as a contrast between "negligible content and
elaborate form" (12); and while camp often has this quality, it does not
define camp. Newton notes "objects or people are often said to be
campy, but the camp inheres not in the person or thing itself but in the
tension between [emphasis mine] that person or thing and the context or
association" (107). Sontag's early essay highlighted several features of
camp, including its emphasis on style, irony, extravagance, detachment,
plasticity, and role-playing. Core notes that acerbic wit, frivolity, hypertheatricality, and artificiality are camp markers.
A secondary, yet important, distinction is that between intentional camp, which playfully focuses on the incongruity between reality
and archetype, and inadvertent camp, which stumbles across it. Sedgwick's observations on kitsch types mirrors this difference: "the imagined kitsch-producer is either at the abjectly low consciousness level of
kitsch-man [a true kitsch consumer] or at the transcendent, and potentially abusive, high consciousness level of the man who can recognize
kitsch when he sees it." (156).6 Detachment is pivotal to the presence of
intentional camp, as are the manners through which one obtains it:
through wit, silliness, and cynicism, and often exaggeration and theatricality. Sedgwick further adduces the power of kitsch to its relation with
"the sentimental," defined by "the insincere, the manipulative, the
vicarious, the morbid, the knowing, the kitschy, the arch" (143). Many of
these qualities also adhere to camp, and are central in a narrowly
ontological definition of it.7 Newton explains the relation of archetype to
drag (and by extension to homosexual camp): "... I wondered why drag
queens' portrayals of women were so limited. Now it seems to me that as
in any art form, the non-essential details have been pared away and the
core archetype simply accentuated" (57).
The word camp derives from the French se camper "to parade
around in an exaggerated military manner," popularized in the mid1800s (Galef & Galef 19). As an adjective it appears in an English 1909
book of words, where it refers to "actions and gestures of exaggerated
emphasis," used "chiefly by persons of exceptional want of character";
by the 1920s the term had evolved to denote "effeminate homosexual
actions ... but still retained its more general application to actions and
gestures of exaggerated emphasis" (Kiernan 13). On the association
between Oscar Wilde and other fin-de-siecle writers and camp's emergence, Thomas notes that "while camp, in whatever class, is normally
associated with homosexuality ... it is debatable whether this is a
necessary relationship. The line between Aestheticism and camp is often
difficult to draw, though rigorous formalists, being entirely serious and
resistant to distortion, do not 'camp'" (122-23). Galef & Galef however,
do link Beau Brummell Dandyism to Oscar Wilde to camp to Andy
Warhol Pop to Camp Lite (20-21).
Camp style has become associated with modem homosexual
culture. It is now an historically-produced position from which homosexu46
als may identify and express themselves.8 Its relationship to homosexuality has existed for at least most of this past century (Sedgwick 144), and
as a homosexual act, it serves various purposes. Beyond being a coded
message of in-group membership, it also provides an outlet and a
substitute for homosexual desire, a permitted act through which one may
"perform homosexuality." Bronski (42-44) and others argue against
Sontag's suggestion that the camp act is disengaged and apolitical,
asserting that this intentional mocking of reality serves to transform it by
exposing a major lie within the dominant paradigm. Camp, prevalent in
postmodern culture, is political in the same way as postmodernism; "It
[camp] conspires rather than excludes. It is bitchy rather than aggressive" (Melley 5).9 It obtains its political effect not by confronting, but by
"plundering dominant codes, dominant narratives" (Smith 212), and
beyond the acting-out, the camp/drag mimicry of the female disingenuously reveals the "nonessential masquerade of femininity" (Smith 212,
and Butler for a more extensive discussion of this point), as traditional
"survival strategies of subordination-subterfuge, lying, evasion-are
aesthetically transvalued into weapons of attack" (Dollimore 310). Finally, Bredbeck censures the devaluation of the "epistomological importance of triviality and frivolity," noting that within the flippant and the
camp, "one can glimpse a radical potentiality that not only bespeaks an
importance but also questions the importance of'importance'" (268). In
spite of all this, it is commonly accepted that homosexual camp is
inextricably bound up with, and unarguably the product of, the homosexual closet. Thus, it is not surprising that we find it in conflict with
current (bourgeois) gay liberation goals: "All of this [camping] is against
the whole ethos of the gay ghettos. The camp queen coming on
outrageous offends them profoundly. She is the Stephen Fetchit of the
leather bars" (Melley 5). In both Sedgwick's and Newton's analyses,
binaries of overt/covert and male/female are central to understanding
modern constructions of camp, homosexual identity, and homosexual
camp. Newton defines camp as a "strategy for a situation," which
"signifies a relationship between things, people, and activities or qualities, and homosexuality" (105). Ultimately, it is an act which, in code,
reveals the homosexual.
3. Manifestations of Camp Style in Zapata
The presence or absence of camp in Zapata defines a central
difference within his works. Camp topoi, such as detachment, levity,
archetype, and the plundering of popular culture, especially cinema,
offer a coherent stylistic presence in three of his works (Hasta en las
mejores familias, Melodrama, La hermana secreta), and are generally
absent, or are present only as gay cultural markers, in two other works
(Adonis Garcia, En jirones). In addition, camp's function, as defined
above, correctly predicts its thematic appearance in Zapata: the two
groups of literary texts differ in essential ways in their attitude towards
homosexual passion, and the homosexual closet.
Zapata's first work, Hasta en las mejoresfamilias, concerns most
47
clearly the issue of camp as a device which hints at, without fully
revealing, the homosexual secret. Octavio, the narrator, identifies himself as heterosexual, but has many camp traits: he is a poseur and a cynic,
flippant towards both his grandmother's death and father's homosexuality. Frivolity and, by extension, attention to the frivolous, is a significant
feature of camp: "All other forms of humor are encumbered, even
defined by a covert morality; camp is something more free-a frivolity
unbound" (Kiernan 17). Zapata's short novel, Melodrama, is written in
intentional camp style: aestheticized, practiced and formulaic, detached.
Like Hasta en las mejoresfamilias, it is a narrative of a (homosexual) son
trapped in a family of upper middle-class values, whose members each
fail to construct an authentic personal identity. Zapata's most recent
camp novel, La hermana secreta, is the story of Alvaro, a hermaphrodite
who takes on a female identity, Alba Maria, and ultimately becomes a
transsexual singer and performer, Alexina. Butler notes that "in imitating
gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself-as well as its contingency" (137). The narrative is a stylized
deconstruction of the characters, which distances the reader emotionally
from the text and intellectualizes the content. In these three works,
camp plays a central thematic and aesthetic role.
In contrast to the above three works, Adonis Garcia, Zapata's oral
narrative of a gay hustler, and En jirones, a story of gay romantic and
sexual obsession, display few camp elements. In the former, Adonis
Garcia, openly accepts his gayness, has a seventies' gay identity, and
displays few camp moments or qualities. The lack of camp in the work
and character is due its openness and homosexual acceptance. Enjirones
is a narrative in the form of a diary of Sebastian and his affair with A.
Divided into sections relating to different stages of the affair, the work
presents an attempt to reach an understanding of love and desire:
"Unicamente cuenta nuestra historia, la historia de nuestros sentimientos, o el presente de nuestros sentimientos" (266). The position and
presentation of homosexuality and camp in Enjirones is similar to that in
Adonis Garcia.
The appearance of camp in Zapata acts narrowly in specific
situations where characters are "revealing" themselves as homosexuals,
and more broadly as a sensibility related to certain characters, or to the
author/work. It also appears as a cultural signifier, when Zapata is
presenting a gay urban subculture where camp has become institutionalized as a mode of communication. The latter is the only motivation for
camp's appearance in Zapata's non-camp works. Zapata's assumption of a
gay readership favors camp's appearance, just as the use of camp
increases in specifically all-gay passages: the gay bar scenes in Melodrama and La hermana secreta, the party scenes in Hasta en las mejores
familias, Adonis Garcia, and Enjirones. The relationship between camp
and all-homosexual situations (camp as a cultural marker) has been noted
by Newton: "Camping goes on wherever gay people congregate ...
homosexual gatherings do not discourage, and frequently encourage, by
means of an appreciative audience, the expression of this identification"
(36).
48
Detachment's importance to intentional camp style, and examples of techniques which increase critical distance, appear most often
in Melodrama, the most archly-stylized of Zapata's texts, where clearly
the reader is encouraged to view rather than involve himself in the
melodramatic situations. Authorial intercalations both break the narrative (31, 79), and periodically remind the reader of its fictive nature:
"Ahora vemos a los protagonistas de nuestra historia: los miembros de
una familia adinerada como hay tantas, pero en cuyo seno no dejan de
desarrollarse dramas a veces insospechados" (16). The omniscient, thirdperson voice contributes to the smarmy, self-knowing style; as cynicism,
levity, silliness, and playfulness also contribute to detachment. Octavio,
in Hasta en las mejores familias, uses these devices also to reveal the
reality behind appearances, particularly with regards to family and
gender roles (26, 138), and sex and romantic love (30, 35, 97, 171).
In the camp works, and specifically in Hasta en las mejores
familias, linguistic playfulness is common, and word-play provides both
humor and an elliptic thematic reference: Octavio speaks of his promiscuous aunt and her reputaputaci6n (60), tells the maid that only people
decentavos can engage in unencumbered sex (100), and plays with the
words anal/anual and rectos in alluding to his father's secret gay group
(153). Galef & Galef see a voyeuristic effect produced where, such as
here, double entendres are "masked in ultra-polite diction" (15). There
are camp passages of levity and silliness, as well, in La hermana secreta
(54-56) and Melodrama (55-68).
Affectation is a frequent source of humor, and a distancing device.
In Zapata's camp works, there appears an effeminate overuse of the
diminutive, and a pretentious use of French or English. The purple
prose of the narrative style of Melodrama is affected, with the frequent
use of learned vocabulary and the preposing of adjectives (72). The type
of humor in these works contrasts with that of Adonis Garcia, where
humor is based primarily on sexual imagination (34), and En jirones,
where subdued camp humor appears in limited contexts, and almost
exclusively in relation to gender or sexual roles (23-24, 157-58).
The application of archetypes, in which the individual becomes
emblematic of a type, is common both to melodrama and camp. Characters in the genre of melodrama "assume primary roles, father, mother,
child, and express basic psychic conditions" (Brooks 4), and the melodrama "refers not only to a type of aesthetic practice but also to a way of
viewing the world" (Gledhill 1). In Melodrama, Alex is referred to as el
joven, el atleticojoven, el musculosojoven, etc, rather than simply as el or
Alex. Characters conform to a type: joven inocente moderno sereno;
padre de sesenta anos que ronca; madre de sueno nervioso y ligero (16).
Names are significant: Alex's lover, Axel, is an obvious anagram. Camp
reduces "established male/female categories to mere roles, exaggerated
and consciously stagy" (Kiernan 15). Emotions and actions are exaggerated and cliche, as in the melodramatic genre per se; however, the
incongruity between the normal heterosexual objects of purple prose
and the story's homosexual protagonists lends the narrative an additional
subversive, camp quality. Melodrama is associated with the presentation
49
of stock charactersand stereotype;in orderfor somethingto be camped
it must first conformto a rigid type. For melodramato become camp
requiresthe knowledgethatone is producingromanticschlock,andboth
enjoyingand mockingit:
"-Ay,mi amor,eres divino;me encantas.
-Yotambienlo adoro,mi nifio.Es usted mi consueloy mi raz6nde
vivir"(Melodrama,95).
In La hermanasecreta, names reveal special charactertraitsand
are themselves emblematic (Betto, el Inminente;Amanda Murillo, la
Otraora;la Futura;el Nuevo), distancing and framing the narrative.
Individualmoments or particularproblems are treated emblematically
(El Monstruodel Insomnio, el Abandono de la Droga), situating the
referent in a different plane: "La acomete de nuevo Esa Extraina
Sensaci6n:des acasola cercaniadel Mal?,co algo definitivoesta a punto
de suceder?Tal vez se aproximael EncuentroVerdadero"(140).
In Hasta en las mejoresfamilias, the narrativeis organizedinto
sections whose title reifies a theme and explains the context of its
development:"TRAGEDIANARVARTEfAQUE (NO) EXPLICAEL
PORQUE DE LA CONDUCTA DE AMADEO"(38). Life is either a
cliche, or a subversionof it. The story begins, not with Octaviohaving
sex with Leni, but with him strikingup a cigarette afterwards:"Que
fumes despues de hacer el amorcomo protagonistade churroeuropeoo
gringo,mas por costumbreo paysadaque por deseo" (13);and he openly
portrayshis parentsrelationshipas a subversionof the cliche.
The comedic, pleasureful component of camp should not be
underestimated;it is, in essence, a formof humor.Dollimorenotes:"the
hollowing-out of the deep self is pure pleasure, a release from the
subjective correlatives of dominant morality (normality,authenticity,
etc.)" (311). Here, as well, the applicationand subversionof archetype
appearswith the use of the feminine (gender)to refer to the masculine,
commonlyassociatedwith homosexualcamp. In Zapata'stwo gay works
where camp is less prevalent (AdonisGarcia and En jirones), genderswitch is the principalmanifestationof camp, and occurs primarilyas a
realisticelement of worksthat deal with urbangay communities(Adonis
Garcia,29, 118-21, 124, etc; Enjirones, 157).
4. Cinemain Zapata
Cinema is central to modern reality as an educator and reproducer of popular types, and thus lends itself generously to a tight
relationship with camp. In Zapata'scamp works, film may displace
reality, merge with it, or be the basis for a hyper-reality,and point-ofdeparturefor protagonists'actions or attitudes. In camp tradition,cinema also holds a specialplace as a locus for escape froman unglamorous,
banalexistence.10
Cinema as homosexualescape is at the center of La hermana
secreta. Alvarohas spent a large part of his childhood in moviehouses
(23), and the celluloid narrativesoffer him an education,his models for
behaviour, dialogue, and mannerisms (23-4). He identifies with the
50
actress Angelica Maria, and views his own life as a film: "la imita:
recuerde los parlamentos de sus peliculas, tantas veces vistas, y los
repite, en voz alta cuando nadie lo observa ... una hipotetica camara lo
sigue" (54). The themes of spectacle, glamour, voyeurism, and celebrity
receive considerable attention. An individual without an identity, Alvaro
attempts to find one through a relationship with the cinema. His
ignorance concerning his origin-abandoned at birth because of the
hermaphroditism-allows him to invent a past, and a relationship to
Angelica Maria. Her importance is her mythic significance as "la Mitica,
la Autentica, la Verdadera Estrella ... la Hermana Mayor, la Hermana
Secreta, la Compafiia Perdurable" (67). The nature of their relationship
is further illuminated when Alvaro later blames her for his failures: "Esa
es la mujer que le ha impedido triunfar ... su hermana, pero tambien su
mas feroz enemiga, la usurpadora, la que ha ocupado el lugar que le
estaba destinado" (151). In the end, Alvaro/Alexina ends up in a mental
hospital, thinking (s)he is a famous star acting in a movie entitled La
hermana secreta de Angelica Maria (155-57).
The motif of text as film, and film as a producer of reality appear in
each of Zapata's camp works. Melodrama is presented as a film: the work
begins with the screen's illumination (15), ends with its darkening (117),
and offers film direction within the work. There are frequent allusions to
specific films, as characters feel, act, or are seen as a certain film's
character: "Unos murmuran 'camina como Bruce Lee'; otros, 'no, como la
pantera rosa'; 'The pink panther', dice, erudita, la Quiquis; 'The punk
panther', corrige Adela, haciendo gala de su ingenio; 'pero que mal viste,
objeta Madame Chanel, y Lady Baltimore, mas migajona, remata: 'parece existencialista de pelicula mexicana'" (56). In Hasta en las mejores
familias, Octavio associates his experiences with specific movie scenes
(20, 55, 91, 196), and describes his parents' early years together as an old
movie (101). His aunt/girlfriend is an actress, his parents' house is used
as a film location, and he is a self-employed cine-club organizer. These
details reflect the unreal, cinematic nature of the family's existence.
Film often offers a popular example of severe role-playing, particularly, but not exclusively, as it relates to gender; and thus is often paired
with camp. Conforming to a societal role is both what produces the
closet, and what camp critiques. In Hasta en las mejores familias,
Octavio's cynicism and use of camp address the hypocrisy and duplicity
of family roles. Defining himself, rather than just his role, is Octavio's
concern, as it will give him an indication of what to do (41). His
relationship with the reader of "la historia de mi vida" is explicitly that of
vessel and agent: "mi vida comenz6 cuando llegaste tu [el lector]" (109).
His dependence is noted by Alma: "tuino eres capaz de hacer nada solo
... Siempre necesitas de los demas" (195). In Melodrama, there are
allusions to movies, and to life as a movie (or play). Rebolledo, while
seducing his friend's wife, observes "La vida es un drama ... Es un
drama, cuando no una farsa" (69). In La hermana secreta, the narrator
states: "La vida es pocas veces una superproducci6n. La mayor parte del
tiempo no deja de transcurrir dentro de los modestos mairgenes de una
pelicula de serie B" (101); and when Amanda relates her story as if it
51
were a melodramatic movie (57-59), Alba Maria realizes it's the same as
one she's seen before, and Amanda agrees: "Si, la vida es como una
pelicula, chula, solo que maislarga y, por lo mismo, mas dolorosa" (59).
Identities, reactions, and feelings are not original, but instead chosen
from a personal (film) arsenal: "contesta, recordando la evasiva respuesta
de Angelica Maria en Cinco de chocolate y uno de fresa" (20); "Alba
Maria vive los ultimos dias de su estancia en el mundialmente conocido
Puerto de Acapulco como si fuera una pelicula de terror ... nada mas
lejos de la alegria bulliciosa de los jovenes Mayte Gaos y Paco Cafiedo en
Buenos Dias, Acapulco" (50-51). Characterization is obtained by the
selection of whom (else) to be and when, and one is lost when they
cannot relate their own personal situation to what they have seen on the
screen: "Opta por decir su parlamento como lo haria Mary Esquivel,
entre dubitativa y coqueta" (126); "Como la Mufieca Fea, Alba Maria
busca los rincones y la soledad. Nunca ha visto una escena semejante en
el cine" (132). Cinema is further seen as something hyper-real: "La
realidad no es drastica ni sintetica: solo el celluloid posee esas virtudes"
(24).
In these works, the use of cinema, archetypes, and camp also
commingle in place descriptions. The intentionally unoriginal background descriptions in the camp works (Hasta en las mejoresfamilias 38,
Melodrama 112, and La hermana secreta 104) appear taken from a B
movie or a travel brochure: "las extensas y doradas playas de Copacabana
hormigueando de bafiistas; los lujosos hoteles que bordean la gran
avenida Atlantica; la bahia de Guanabara, la laguna de Ipanema; los
verdes cerros, los morros, abundantemente poblados de favelas habitadas por negros alegres que cantan y bailan sambas y batucadas" (Melodrama, 112).
The significance of cinema in Zapata's non-camp gay works is
less. In Adonis Garcia, films are just another source for shaping opinions
(22), rather than a basis for reality. In En jirones, the narrator makes
occasional references to movies, but these are just one of many elements
of a description.
5. Homosexuality and the Closet in Zapata
In the treatment of homosexual passion, sex, and love, each of
Zapata's works is unique, and the presentation of homosexuality, and
particularly homosexual desire, is significant in determining camp's
presence and nature. Sedgwick suggests camp plays the role of revealing
homosexuality in contexts where explicit, overt references to it would be
taboo; it thus, also, plays an equal role of concealing it, by not dealing
with it explicitly. Camp generally plays the role of performing homosexuality in lieu of more explicit and direct performances of it; thus, its
general association with the homosexual closet. In the non-camp works
of Zapata, camp appears only as the product of an authentic portrayal of
an urban gay community, in which it has become institutionalized as a
mode of communication. In Zapata's two types of works, we see a
differing attitude towards homosexuality and homosexual desire.
52
In Hasta en las mejoresfamilias, Octavio is cynical or indifferent
towards desire. There is little concrete description of sexual acts, and the
limited descriptions of sex (54, 99-100, 118), are generally homosexual,
although Octavio identifies himself as heterosexual. In Melodrama, both
descriptions of straight sex (53, 69), and gay sex (41, 65, 85) offer a camp
mixture of purple prose, comedy, and romanticized explicitness: "Baje el
cierre de la bragueta, ensaliva abundantemente su mano y frota con
delicadez el ahora portentoso falo del detective. Con la boca, vuelve a
ensalivarlo generosamente y le da ligeros mordiscos en la base. Axel
Romero pone los ojos en blanco. Goloso, el joven mete los detectivescos
testiculos en su boca, mientras con la mano aprieta el enorme priapo"
(85). The inability to express desire realistically or seriously is a central
quality of camp; Core notes that "the need to make desire decorative is
an obsession essential to camp" (17), and Galef & Galef observe that "the
camp aesthete may take a highly charged sexual object and neutralize it
through undue emphasis or parody; conversely he may appropriate a
neutral object and invest it with extrinsic effect. Interestingly, the simple
expedient of framing can accomplish both ends" (15).11In La hermana
secreta, descriptions of sex are limited. The protagonist flees contact
with men, and describes the male sex object as something hideous (39).
The body is a source of horror and physical self-alienation, reflected in
the visceral description of the changes Alvaro's body undergoes at
puberty as the two sexes vie for control: "Alvaro siente que su cuerpo
esta cambiando: ciertas zonas aparecen abultarse, como heridas infectadas que apenas pudieran contener el pus" (43).
In the non-camp gay novels of Zapata, descriptions of homosexual
desire are numerous, and usually presented in a genuine, serious, and
lifelike manner. The narrative of Enjirones contains graphic descriptions
of gay sex (20-21; 28-29; 41-45; 61-62; 65-67; etc.); and although
Sebastian's desire is disruptive, obsessive, and circular, he criticizes the
(camp) tendency to fall into acting rather than feeling (40, 82, 99), and is
wary of the banal or melodramatic in writing about desire: "me juzgo un
poco ridiculo: dpor que el exceso?, Cporque la sobreactuaci6n? Mi papel
ya no recibe aplausos, sino algunos silbidos, cuando la no indiferencia
total del puiblico"(99); "Me siento ridiculo al escribir esto: la emoci6n del
momento, al caer en el papel, se banaliza, cuando no se vuelve cursi"
(19). In Adonis Garcia, the descriptions of gay sex are explicit and
realistic (53, 82, etc.), although generally less detailed. For Adonis, gay
sex is natural (31), although a homosexual identity, and camp (an element
of gay culture) must be learned: "yo no podia entender que un tipo
pudiera pagar por cogerse a un puto / o sea / lo que yo no entendia / no
sabia / era que el que se cogia al puto tambien era homosexual" (54). For
Adonis, his sexuality is a deliverance from an impoverished existence;
and the gay baths, symbolic of omnipotent pleasure, can, temporarily at
least, replace the outer world of material needs and inequalities: "pasa
una cosa muy curiosa que es que / bueno / hay muchisima cooperaci6n
entre todos Cves? / como si todos fueran iguales / ahi / las clases sociales
se la pelan al sexoeverdad?" (201). Mexico City is presented as a sexual
playground: "todos conocian a todos y todos / este / se protegian / se
53
ayudaban / era como una gran hermandad gaya" (208); "y asi toda la
ciudad dno? / cada riconcito tenia un encanto muy particular / muy
sexual / era maravilloso / podias coger todo el dia / todos los dias" (200).
Themes of the closet and revelation are central to the camp works
of Zapata, but play only a minor role in the non-camp works. Hasta en las
mejores familias treats most explicitly the conceal/reveal function of
camp. Octavio, sexually ambivalent, discovers his father's homosexuality, and eventually at the novel's end goes to bed with a gay friend. The
theme of discovering, uncovering, revealing, and alternately concealing,
appears directly when Octavio criticizes his father's homosexual concealment: "Pero, dpor que tan hip6crita?; hubiera preferido saberlo siempre,
para no estar otorgandote una posicion que no merecias y obligandome
hacia esta" (185). His father responds: "No sabes que dificil es vivir asi.
Siempre escondiendote de todos, cuando quieres ser tu mismo; siempre
fingiendo, con una mascara, como tu dices, para poder conservar el
trabajo, las relaciones, los amigos que no son como tu; para poder
mantener a la familia .. ." (185). The basis of the homosexual (and camp)
theme of Hasta en las mejores familias is a contrast between a homosexual father who is discreet and avoids camp or any secondary "reveal"
mechanisms, and a son who camps and reveals but who avoids engaging
in homosexual acts. Octavio's repressed homosexuality, and his incestuous feelings for his father, are clearly revealed in the description of him
breaking into his father's desk drawer in order to uncover his father's
secret: "Al abrir el caj6n Octavio experimenta grato y fuerte orgasmo
emocional, al satisfacer la necesidad reprimida durante tantos afnos ...
Este acto de violar la sagrada intimidad de su padre y respectivo
cajoncito obedece a la imperiosa necesidad que tiene de conocerlo ... Lo
abro con exagerada lentitud para gozar plenamente el momento.
Aaaaaaaaahhhuuuuuuummmmmmmm" (81).
Society in general, and family in particular, often encourage the
hypocrisy of the closet, and their appearance generally correlates to the
appearance of camp as a response to the homosexual double-bind of both
needing to conceal and wanting to reveal homosexual desire. In Hasta en
las mejores familias, Octavio's desire to flee his family is an attempt to
escape the poses that undergird the closet and oppress him (193). In
Melodrama, camp serves to reveal elemental truths about the family and
individual characters. Alex's mother, when she overhears him using
gender-switch in a phone conversation (19), concludes that he must be
homosexual (20); and hypocrisy revealed and accepted is what permits
the family's survival (116-117).
The theme of the closet, and that of concealment and revelation,
is central in La hermana secreta, in that the protagonist's sexual doubleness is a secret whose revelation entails both death for the revealer, and
a rebirth for the protagonist in three separate instances (45-49, 92-94,
96-98). When Alvaro's secret (hermaphroditism) is uncovered by Tofio,
Alvaro, fearing both the further revelation of his secret and its sexual
exploitation, murders Tofio (87). Later, in the description of Alberto's
discovery of the secret we see the trauma of revelation: "y agarra tu sexo
con sus manos calientes y te grita asustado que tienes aqui, que es esto, y
54
se separa un poco y te baja las pantaletas y viola con la mirada tu mas
secreta intimidad y se aleja horrorizado" (97). The fluidity of identity and
gender is both a problem and a solution for Alvaro, and a basic
assumption in homosexual camp. Revelation of the sexual secret and a
murder to maintain this secret are the motivation for Alvaro's transformations: from Alvaro (male identity in a mixed body) to Alba Maria (female
identity in a mixed body) to Alexina (exclusively female). This suggests
what we may posit as a norm for camp works: revelation of the homosexual secret is what transforms the heterosexual into the homosexual,
rather than any particular act or identity.
The situation in Adonis Garcia and En jirones contrasts with
those in the above works, as there is no homosexual concealment, or
need to reveal. In neither of these two works is the theme of the family,
or adjustment to heterosexual society central. In Adonis Garcia, homosexuality is a presence throughout, rather than something which is
concealed and then revealed. There is a clear openness regarding
homosexuality and the position of its difference, although the nature of
this difference is something learned little by little (13). Adonis is both
aware and casual regarding his body and its potential for pleasure, and
his sexual imagination and desire offer his salvation. In En jirones, love
and desire are themes of a first-person romantic gay narrative, and overt
homosexuality and a gay subculture are present from the couple's first
date (18). Where camp occurs, it is primarily a reflection of the narrator's
integration into a gay subculture.
6. Conclusions
Camp is central to understanding and appreciating Zapata's
works, and how they differ from one another in basic ways. As a concept
and category, it may explain otherwise nebulous, but deeply sensed,
differences between his diverse (gay) fiction. Its appearance relates
primarily to the presence of a certain attitude towards homosexuality:
concealment/revelation. As such, the use of it in Zapata supports
Sedgwick's observations on the general function of camp. Narrative
devices or topoi associated with camp, such as detachment, levity,
archetype, and the use of cinema/popular culture, appear in predictable
ways and contexts in Zapata, given Sedgwick's theory on camp's function, and other studies on the nature of camp style (Sontag; Newton). The
study here additionally argues that an understanding of Zapata'swritings
needs to include an understanding of the core thematic concern found in
them (homosexuality), and the various ways it manifests itself (including
the use of camp) across texts.
SUNY-Albany
NOTES
1. For reasonsof space, I have abbreviatedZapata'stitles in the followingway:
Las aventuras,desventuras,y suefos de Adonis Garcia, el vampirode la
55
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
56
colonia Roma (=Adonis Garcia), and La hermana secreta de Angelica Maria
(=La hermana secreta).
While the narratives of La hermana secreta and Adonis Garcia cover a broad
time frame, the bulk of the narrative refers to that period of the protagonists'
life. While there is room for debate on La hermana secreta's Alvaro/
Alexina's sexual orientation (is he/she really gay?), the theme of sexual
otherness may, at the very least, be seen as a metaphor for "homosexuality."
The dates for these works are antedated by the author's final notes on when
the texts were written: Hasta en las mejoresfamilias (1974), Las aventuras,
desventuras y sueinos de Adonis Garcia, el vampiro de la colonia Roma
(October 1975-December 1977), Melodrama (March-October 1980), De
petalos perrenes (February 1980), Enjirones (June 1982-October 1984), La
hermana secreta de Angelica Maria (April 1986-September 1988). Melodrama was originally published by Enjambre (Mexico City, 1983), and De
petalos perrenes by Katun (Mexico City, 1981). For this study, I use the
more familiar Posada 1987 edition of Melodrama. For reasons of space and
lesser interest, I have omitted a discussion of Zapata's short stories, De
petalos perrenes, and De cuerpo entero.
The first Mexican novel with a homosexual theme, El diario de Jose Toledo
by Miguel Barbachano Ponce, appeared in 1964 (Schneider).
Smith (1992), in his discussion of Peninsular gay culture, suggests that "the
Spanish gay movement (like the French and unlike the British and North
American) understood the first stage of liberation to be the critique, rather
than the celebration, of homosexual identity. Many Spaniards do not seem
to believe that homosexuality can be the basis for a political community. It is
perhaps significant that novelists such as Tusquets and Goytisolo, filmmakers such as Almod6var, rarely address the relation between gay and
straight society, the problematics of the closet and of coming out that are so
much discussed in English-speaking countries. It is also noticeable that
their representations of lesbian or gay relationships rarely coincide with
what was until recently the ideal of many Anglo-Saxon gays: a reciprocal
relation between two partners of more or less equal status" (4-5). I do not
see a similar position with respect to Zapata's writings, and question
whether Smith here is not overinterpreting class or individual differences as
national or ethnic differences. The Mexican gay world that we find in Zapata
is rich, and his characters are variously concerned and unconcerned with
the closet, and interested variously in equal and unequal relationships. The
presentation of homosexuality within Zapata is, as well, conditioned by the
socioeconomic reality of each character; and the conceptualization of sexual
identity is, at least originally, reflective of both Newton's and Alonso &
Koreck's observations on differing conceptualizations of homosexual identity. On divergent class (Anglo-American) definitions of sexuality, Newton
notes that "The middle-class idea tends to be that any man who has had
sexual relations with men is queer. The lower classes strip down to
'essentials,' and the man who is 'dominant' can be normal (masculine)" (102).
The lower-class conceptualization parallels observations made by Alonso
and Koreck on sexual self-definition in traditional Mexican culture, where it
is interpreted along the lines of macho (dominant = normal) vs. joto or puto
(passive = homosexual), with lesser importance given to the issue of sex
object. We see then that what is viewed as the "lower-class" conceptualization of homosexuality becomes popularly over-generalized as "Mexican/
Hispanic," and the "middle class" conceptualization of it becomes popularly
over-generalized as "Anglo-American."
Isherwood (110) made the distinction between Low Camp, roughly homo-
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
sexual camp ("a swishy little boy with peroxided hair, dressed in a picture
hat and a feather boa, pretending to be Marlene Dietrich"), and High Camp,
roughly intentional "artistic"camp. These four categories (low = inadvertent;
high = intended) correspond to Sontag's distinction between pure (naive)
camp and deliberate camp. Isherwood noted that "true High Camp always
has an underlying seriousness. You can't camp about something you don't
take seriously. You're not making fun of it; you're making fun out of it. You're
expressing what's basically serious to you in terms of fun and artifice and
elegance" (110).
The line between kitsch and camp is defined by Ross as an issue of power:
"That is why the British flag, for Mods and other subcultures, and Victoriana, for the Sergeant Pepper phase of the later sixties, became camp
objects-precisely because of their historical association with a power that
was now in decline. The Stars and Stripes and most Americana, by contrast,
could only be kitsch (gracelessly sincere), because they intend serious
support for a culture that still holds real power in defining the shape of
foreign tastes" (140).
Regarding this, Newton suggests that camp's emergence as a gay marker
reflects the "deliberate recognition of the moral implications of homosexuality and a fall into disillusionment which comes from the gay man's awareness that society will not morally sanction his identity" (cf. Free 22).
Bredbeck indirectly offers a somewhat similar argument: "One need only
think of the common derisions of homosexuality as 'unnatural,' 'abnormal,'
and 'insane' to recognize that its representational scene is inherently
codified as other to such deferred diachronic schemata as 'nature,' 'normality,' and, in the broadest sense, 'reality' and 'meaning' " (271). Galef & Galef
observe that camp is involved in the adoration of the artificial as a guard
against sentiment, "the avoidance of which stems back to the aversion to the
natural, or one's own interiority" (12).
Smith (1989) further observes that "For Sontag, camp was the sign or
symptom of the collapse of the moral or political into the aesthetic. Thus
sexual object choice (for example) was removed from the sphere of ethics or
religion and transplanted to a realm of pure affect, pure 'taste.' But if camp
itself claimed to be apolitical, this did not mean it was 'outside' politics: just
as Jewish liberalism was an act of prolepsis, an attempt to anticipate and
disable the illiberalism of the gentiles, so the camp of the homosexuals
served as self-defence against the attacks of the moralizers. Thus the very
apoliticism of camp can be read as a political strategy, albeit of a highly
oblique kind. The same may be true of the style known vulgarly as
postmodernism" (175-76). Similarly, on the use of mimicry as a political tool
against colonialist discourse, Homi Bhabha notes "mimicry is both a strategy of colonial subjection-an appropriation, regulation, and reform of the
other-and, potentially, a way of menacing colonial discourse in and
through an inappropriate imitation by the native, one which reveals the
normative structure of colonial control" (as quoted by Dollimore 313).
For a similar description of the importance of cinema to other well-known
Hispanic gay writers and its intersection with camp, see Smith's discussion
of Terenci Moix (1992, 44-50), and Puig (1989, 193-202).
Galef & Galef further note that "some camp icons have no apparent sexual
characteristics, while others have exaggerated organs, but in either case the
intent is the same: to avoid true, naked sexuality. One strategy actually
makes it disappear; the other effectively accomplishes the same purpose by
turning it into a lampoon" (17).
57
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