Camp is a style of art that is closely tied in with Queer Theory; both topics are of great importance in understanding John Waters‟ contribution to both the art world and the gay community. His work sexualizes the unsavory, glorifies the abject, yet it is done in such a manner that laughter ensues. This is a product of camp art, which explained by Susan Sontag in her article “Notes on Camp”, “The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful and anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex to „the serious.‟ One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.”1 I‟m interested in using the Camp theme along with Julia Kristeva‟s work with the abject and Queer Theory to delve deeper into the artistic style of John Waters. Much like the content of his films, his artworks play into that frivolous side of the serious, he accentuates the frivolous by his inclusion of the abject finding something artistic and beautiful in the least desirable of locales.
John Waters is best known for his accomplishments as a filmmaker and director in films that just push the envelope far enough to upset many people‟s idea of normality by likening the absurd to the normal, treating the normal in turn as Other. He accomplishes this through the medium of Camp, which he continued to utilize in his art making and collecting. Following in the footsteps of Andy Warhol, he applies similar tactics in finding desirability in persons and items not readily associated with beauty per se. The photographic still; 12 Assholes and a Dirty Foot, along with his films Pink Flamingos and Pecker showcase his interests while the city of Baltimore provides the backdrop for his work and remains the thread that ties his work together.