Eleanor Epilogue: Prison CAMP

So…Permit me to lean one last time on the sturdy presence of actress, Eleanor Parker. And, in turn, briefly on the bevy of extraordinary character actresses that I’ve forever linked her to—based on my earliest memory of seeing her in a film

This film is not one to be mocked. It shocks us to the extreme with the cruel and criminal treatment of a group of women prisoners. Its screenplay is rich, tight and ripe with quotable moments. We start with a terrified young woman who’s just been deposited into the institution. We see everything from her perspective as she’s subject to untold humiliations. From what we can see, this young girl’s crime is guilt by association. She’s been incarcerated based on her proximity and foolish support of a criminal boyfriend. For the next two hours we’re witness to her sentence and gradual hardening as she survives incident after harrowing incident. The cell of women is a microcosm of injustices governed by a fascistic matron played by the extraordinary Hope Emerson.

Camp is an amped up gay code for longing and desire. It’s easy to understand 

Over these many years, Caged has been relegated in gay circles to a kind of camp stature.  Gay culture often takes delight in extreme behavior. I believe the nature of camp, coming from my observations and association with it all these many years is an  amped up code for both longing and desire. As experience and perspective play so great a part in it, it’s almost impossible to find a general definition for it. It’s deeply rooted somewhere between the reality of harsh treatment and the longing for a more romantic means of re-defining it. It’s a cathartic healing tool in creative gay culture offering almost always a sense of heightened melodrama—both realistic as we need to identify it—and ridiculous—as it provides us with a healing perspective to the often cruel ways of the world in which we live. I’ll say this again…The best of camp must be rooted in reality. The laughter that it elicits must have roots in real experience. I contend that if something is self consciously comic—meaning it chooses to comments on itself, that It is best defined as burlesque and not as camp. It’s all in the inexplicable emotional response where imagination is employed as a means of surviving something. Think of the plays of Charles Ludlam. Anger, survival, acting out, laughter in defiance—at his best all of these things come into heightened play. Think also of the gay hero of Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel, Kiss of the Spider Woman. Camp must have a fearlessness in its attitude. And, attitude—in turn— is almost always inflated with flair and theatricality.

But, I digress…

Caged has a brilliant Oscar nominated screenplay is by Virginia Kellog who’d been nominated just the year before for another almost expressionistic Warner Brothers classic, White Heat.  It should be noted that Kellog received permission by authorities to be incarcerated with a false conviction for embezzlement. She served in four prisons doing research. What we see in Eleanor Parker’s performance as convict, Marie Allen is certainly mirrored from Kellog’s unflinchingly raw experiences of having actually been there and seen that.

Eleanor Parker. Is in many ways the definition of the best of camp. Never mocking—always honest and tied so strongly to reality that she almost shivers in theatrically portraying it. You also see the delight she takes in exposing you to what she’s delivering. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post—it’s impossible to take your eyes off of her. And, as is the case with the best of leading actors—she understands the balancing act of sharing with those who are there to support. In the case of Caged, that support is realized by a cast of character women that includes among others the great Betty Garde, Gertrude Michael, the aforementioned, Hope Emerson and Lee Patrick in what is arguably the greatest role in her illustrious career as a versatile supporting actress.

But, I digress…

I believe I’m obligated now to dedicate time to these exceptional women somewhere  down the proverbial pike.

In time, I’ll do that.

For now, and as usual…

Be Well.

And stay engaged.--