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On Camp Miasma

This one pissed me off lol.

Got curious about Camp Miasma because, frankly, I have some of the same thematic occupations as Mx. Schoenbrun. I'm very interested in the eroticism of violence, I've written about it a lot in my criticism, it shows up in my fiction. I'm also (and I promise this will be the only time I bring it up) a horny person with a lot of sexual hang-ups. In theory, a movie about a person working through their trauma and arriving at some kind of wholeness at the end of film is of interest to me. I did walk this to this expecting to not like it, because of some of my friends' reactions and my own distaste (but not hatred!) for TV Glow, but I do always, always want to try and have an open heart for these things.

Unfortunately, I think basically every single instinct I loathed from TV Glow is turned up here. It's even more self-conscious, constantly explaining and re-explaining itself to you. The rare moments it lets an image sit on its own, it will follow up and explain itself later. The characters are, somehow!, even more one-note, not even two dimensional. The dreamy CGI, which was a real highlight of TV Glow, is put to such soul-deadening use here, resulting in muddy images which feel almost comically trite.

But the thing that really bugs me is how afraid it is of its own implications. A few years ago I read "It Came From The Closet" an anthology of essays on horror by queer writers. Like such anthologies tend to be, there are a few good essays but most of them are mid to bad. One of the trends which really bothered me was a tendency to hedge. So many of these essays went, more or less, "I know this is problematic but let me explain why it resonates despite that." I kept wanting to scream "It resonates BECAUSE it is problematic." Horror is about taboo violation. It is a place where the normal rules fall apart, which is why these films can meaningfully address serious things in a way some mainstream film can struggle to. Great horror is tapped into the vein of culture. I think this is why people can be dramatic about horror's "ultimate" conservatism or liberatory qualities, because, whatever any given film is doing, it reveals something about how we think about fundamental human questions.

I'm pretty sure Schoenbrun would agree with me on this, because she draws some (unfunny) comedy out of Chris' constant bemoaning how misogynistic her own fantasies are and how transphobic the original Camp Miasma film is. She learns to feel instead of think. It's sex and death baby! Let it in. It's just play.

But, let me just ask this. What if Chris actually wants to die? You see, in Camp Miasma, the blood and guts are essentially just metaphorical. The violence is so outrageous, it could never be real violence. This is a cowardly move. Rather than honing in on the taboos of slasher films, Camp Miasma runs away, insisting that it's all fake, you can always turn it off. As some other folks have pointed out, Chris' fantasy is a fantasy of sexual assault. I don't say this to pearl clutch. I think a movie actually about that would be the way more interesting film! But rather to say that the movie runs so far and fast away from its own themes that it lands into a solipsistic fantasy land, where mommy buys you candy, understands everything you want without you having to say anything, and tells you are good. It's quite literally cozy horror! The real death (little or otherwise) of real characters is far, far away.

And hey, that would be fine in discord esex or for some smut on A03. But I don't see why I should watch it or what it is supposed to reveal in me. Seen some claims that the movie is a subversion, that Chris' and Billie's romance is tragic. I'm unconvinced by this, but even if it felt true that would turn the movie from candy fantasy to moral fable. Fucking snore.

Rewatching Twin Peaks over the last year or so made be like TV Glow even less, but this has made me appreciate it a little more in retrospect. I do think TV Glow gets at something at least a little real, even if it has ugly implications and is simplistic to a fault. This feels so fake. And if it is all fake, if none of it is real, why the hell should I care?