WEBVTT - 2. Camp 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:02.600 Hello, this is Jesse and Holly with a quick note 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:03.279 before we start. 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:05.920 This is the first time that we've ever made media 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:09.440 that's published in the United States, and in light of that, 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.000 we have a couple of things to say. Number One, 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.759 we are not ever making any speculations on Bruce Bringsteen's 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:18.120 sexuality or gender. 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.320 Number Two, we wanted to give you a heads up 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.040 that in this episode we use historically derogatory language which 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:35.360 we have reclaimed as queer people. So this is every 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.320 Bruce zem I've ever made. 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:38.320 So I think. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:40.680 It's yeah, it's from queers. 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:41.720 Near to town. It's just part you. 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.440 Nobody thinks about loneliness and small town fatigue like Bruce. 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:53.400 Nobody can write so succinctly about the dark, quiet emptiness 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.400 when you are lonely and out of place, and then 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:57.280 wrap it up in a three minute pop song like 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.240 Bruce can. Nobody can write about them danity of depression 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.560 and the infatuation of being in love like Bruce. I 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.280 was Bruce in born to run thunder Road, ready to 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.559 break out of my small town and never look back. 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.840 I was Bruce in dancing in the dark, staring in 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.480 a mirror, hitting my clothes, my hair and my face. 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.040 I was tired and bothered myself and dreaming of getting out. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.520 And sure I had crushes of plenty, but more than anything, 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.520 I just wanted queer friends to make me feel normal, 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.360 and that just didn't exist in my small town. It's 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.040 all a bit emo and dramatic now considering I've lived 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.240 in a big city with queer friends and culture and 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.000 punk and art in my life, but things are a 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.880 bit emo and dramatic when you're a lonely teenage queer. 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:45.720 And Bruce understood my pain. I'm Holly. 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.520 You're hearing recordings of me in my natural habitat, sitting 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.360 on the floor in my bedroom, surrounded by my zeines. 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.160 I was just reading from one I made about Bruce 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:59.760 Brinkstein called Queer's on the Edge of Town. I started 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.120 makingnes in the nineties when I was living in a 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.080 small town in West Yorkshire, and it was my entry 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:10.040 to the world of DIY queer punk. It's not very 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.440 common for queer DIY punks to be into Bruce Springsteen. 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.840 When my friends found out about how much I loved Bruce, 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.440 they'd often just take the pace, not understanding why I 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.680 spent so much time listening to this pretty mainstream rock musician. 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.959 So one night in twenty ten, I decided to make 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:30.920 a zine that would explain why I'm. 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:32.600 So obsessed with Bruce Springsteen. 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.960 This scene was made while listening to Nebraska, the Rising 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:43.400 and Live in New York. The introduction says, wait, you 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:45.959 like Bruce Springsteen, but Holly, I thought you were super 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.520 cool and punk rock and awesome Bruce Springsteen. 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:49.160 Really. 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.840 I made I think ten copies, gave them to my 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:55.720 friends and was like, this is how Bruce Springsteen makes 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:56.239 me feel. 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:57.800 Stop making fun of me. 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.280 About a year later, my friend convinced me to take 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.200 some copies to the Queer sine Fest in London, and 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.840 about halfway through the day it already sold out. It 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.160 was the first time I realized that there were other 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.960 queer Bruce Nerds out there, So I started making mousines. 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.320 Issue Too, a bit of a soppy one Is This 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.120 Issue Too, came out in twenty thirteen. 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:21.400 Me and Bruce and. 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.919 My dads Why a Northern Queer, working class feminist fam 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.800 Love of Druce Sprinsteen, which is literally just all about 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.720 my dad and class and being working class and working 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:38.720 factories and the similarities there's really famous Bruce Sprinsteen songs 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.040 like Born's Ron thunder Road, which are all about escape 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.400 and leaving somewhere and never coming back. But Bruce is 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.640 also really good at writing about what about the people 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.160 who don't leave? What about the people who can't leave 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:56.240 because they're stuck? And I feel like it was just 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.680 this big thing to listen to Bruce Springsteen. 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:02.800 And hear my family. My dad reflected in those. 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.720 Lyrics if she got lost in the move. 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:08.960 I moved house se many times in London. It's just 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:10.040 I lost the originals. 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.080 Leading to issue four, which you heard at the start 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.160 of the episode. I'm just going to read a segment 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:23.039 from an updated edition about the many queer butch camp 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:29.680 personalities I've projected onto different eras of Bruce Brinstein's fashion. Okay, 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.479 I want Bruce to be queer. I want Bruce to 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.880 be a hot butch girl. I'm thinking about Bruce in 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.160 the eighties now, with muscle teas and high waisted jeans, 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.480 plaid shirts tucked in, hair slipped back but curls, breaking free. 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.640 Bruce the mechanic as she slides out from underneath the car, 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.600 Gruce stains on her overalls I'm thinking of Tunnel of 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:58.680 Love era Bruce with baggy blouses and tailored suits as 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.760 Bruce abandoned the denim and plaid and embrace being forty 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:05.359 and handsome as fuck. Or Bruce as a silver Fox, 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.359 the hot older academic, smart jeans and a waistcoat and 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.279 shirt and slicked back hair. I want Bruce to be 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.919 the butch girl of my dreams. I want Bruce to 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.800 be a fag. I want him and his leather jacket 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.920 and his tight, scruffy jeans making out with all the boys, 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.839 messy hair, messy beard, white vests and tight black jeans. 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:30.720 I'm thinking about seventies Bruce when he was at his 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.360 musk gruffy and his must cheeky Bruce dancing in the 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.840 dark with Clarence on stage, leaning back as Clarence pulls 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.719 him in for a kiss. Or eighties Bruce when his 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.320 muscles were completely out of control, his super match of 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.800 biceps bursting through his shirt, demanding to be set free 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.920 in tight white vests, Bruce grunting and leaning up against 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.680 Miami Steve on stage, playing guitar back to back and 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.000 singing about being blood brothers and singing of his one 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:00.839 true lost love. 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.320 I want Bruce to be the queer boy of my dreams. 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:15.000 Because this is because the bus belongs to us a 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.960 podcast where two queer friends who bonded over their love 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.279 of Bruce Bringsteen go on a mission to get the 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.600 bus recognized as the queer icon we know that he is. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:25.520 Hey Jesse, Hey Holly. 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.279 I love all the imagined versions of Bruce and your Zcene. 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:31.800 I too want Bruce to be the twinkie vag of 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:32.400 my dreams. 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:35.719 And the fact that Bruce has had so many looks 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.160 over his career is part of what we're talking about today. 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.320 Yes, because last episode we made a big decision. 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.440 Yeah, we decided to annoyt ourselves with queer icon scientific 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:46.640 research leaders. 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.719 To prove that Bruce Bringsteen is in fact a queer icon. 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.520 In order to do this, so the thing with Cam 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.719 is that you can never really completely pin it down. 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.360 We spoke to an expert on our first point of 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.360 queer icondom Camp. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.040 I'm an Ellena Medhurst and I'm a historian of lesbian fashion. 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:19.080 Her account Dressing Dykes has taught me so much about 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.240 queer fashion history, and she just published a. 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:27.000 Book Unsuitable, A History of lesbian fashion, which I'm really 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:27.840 excited about. 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:30.320 In order to find out if we can see Bruce 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.480 through a camp lens, we need a definition for camp. 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.600 I think that there's like different kinds of camp. 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:44.760 There's the more archetypical, gay, male centric camp, the one 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:48.880 that's more widely recognized feathers and glitter and Priscilla Queen 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:53.600 of the Desert. My uk R reference for camp is 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.360 like strictly come dancing is like so camp and if 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.240 you're American, that's dancing with the stars. 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:05.200 Camp is extravagant and knowing. 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.800 But I do think that that kind of camp as 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.120 well is quite difficult to actually achieve, like you have 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.239 to really know what you're doing. It's quite self referential. 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.560 I will say this kind of stereotypical camp aesthetic that 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.520 Eleanor's describing glitter, lights, sparkles, et cetera. 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:30.280 That's not really Bruce's vibe. But I love the phrase 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:34.720 extravagant and knowing. None of Bruce's like center like glitter, 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:37.240 but I definitely think that some of them are self 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:39.440 referential and over the top in his own way. 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.160 There's this complete are the side of camp that's very 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:48.640 down to earth, practical, like die Key camp. And I've 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.920 written before about like sensible footwear being lesbian camp and 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.320 how like a search for pump and a very sort 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:00.440 of again this self referential like knowing the stereotype and 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.480 embracing them anyway, it's kind of cam. 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:05.480 The thing that I'm getting for you is this like 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.480 that self referential and like awareness of what you're doing 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:11.880 is really important in camp. Yeah, and so that kind 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:13.800 of makes sense in terms of if you're like sensible 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.560 footwear for lesbians camp, because that's making an in joke 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:17.800 about what lesbians are like. 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:19.800 Yeah, and that way it is. 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.120 Over the top, even if the product is like a 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.240 comfortable slipper. 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:26.640 Yeah, for sure. 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.000 The problem is, though, you can't always be sure what 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.640 people are referencing when they're wearing certain clothes. I had 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:35.400 an experience where I was like out in a club 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:39.480 and I was like dancing with this person who is. 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:44.440 Wearing cordalry trousers and had a mullet, and then I 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.480 like try to get with her, and then she was like, 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:53.000 hife straight, Oh, obviously that's totally fine. But in the 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.600 moment my reply was like, but you can have a mullet, 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.440 and so is there so it's like kind of progression 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:03.640 of like marginalized communities do it first, and then it 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.160 slowly becomes absorbed, and then marginalized have. 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:07.840 To come up with news. 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:09.080 Yeah, kind of like things. 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.720 Yeah, and this is something that's been going on for 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.160 a while. There's a quote that I use quite a 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.000 lot in my lectures and stuff, which is from nineteen 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:18.760 ninety seven. 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.440 I think looking Good The Lesbian Gays and Fashion Imagery 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:23.640 by Raina Lewis. 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.880 Raina and Lewis said something like we used to just 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.880 know by looking at a pair of sensible shoes, but 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:34.200 then everyone started wearing Doctor Martin's and foot wears. Lesbian 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.160 coding was undermined. And that's for me, you know, twenty 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:42.800 six years ago. And like you said, like dongarees very 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:48.200 fashionable for any straight woman at the moment. But I 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:50.280 always say, like, people ask me this quite a lot, 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.040 and I say, I think that's a good thing for 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.840 like women, especially because great, you're wearing comfortable clothes. 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:01.240 Good for you. I'm so pleased, do you know. 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.559 I mean, I agree, I'm very happy for straight women 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.760 to be comfortable. But yeah, it does kind of change 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.560 queer people's ability to be self referential, as your clubbing 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.439 experience shows, we need to know how to spot each 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:16.160 other two. 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.000 I think this is also a good illustration of why 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.680 camp is so hard to pin down, because, like queer fashion, 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:27.920 camp is by definition contextual. Clothes themselves do not camp make, 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.679 but they can form part of a bigger camp picture, 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:32.560 depending on the circumstances. 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:37.840 Eleanor, shockingly is not really a Sprinstein fan, so she 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.600 didn't know about just how versatile Bruce was with his looks. 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:46.640 He like serves b looks like. It's not that he 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.440 consistently looked one way for his career. He looked so 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.240 many different ways, and a lot of them for us. 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:53.640 Feels super queer. 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.440 To get Eleanor up to speed, we sent her a 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.880 bunch of photos of Bruce Brinstein's different outfits, which we 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:04.280 very professionally labeled daiki Bruce looks and faggy Bruce looks. 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:15.880 That's after the break, Jesse Holly. 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:18.600 Because the bus belongs to us. 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:23.680 We asked Eleanor aka are queer fashion expert dressing Dykes 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.079 to put Bruce to the camp test by analyzing photos 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.960 of his different fashion eras hang. 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.720 On because I saved them on my phone we started 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.080 with the faggy Bruce Looks folder the Born in the 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:37.400 USA Hubbo. 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.439 Released in nineteen eighty four. It's a picture of his ass. Basically, 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.040 he's wearing a white T shirt, tight blue jeans, and 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.319 a black leather studdard belt with a red cap hanging 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.679 out of his right back pocket. This image is superimposed 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:53.880 over the red and white stripes of the American flag. 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:57.320 It's giving a hanky cut. 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:04.599 There's a photo series by Hal Fisher called Gay Semiotics 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:09.760 from nineteen seventy seven that documented fashion and signals war 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.240 my gay men in San Francisco in the late seventies. 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.199 One of the pictures is of the Hanky code and 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:22.400 its two men wearing jeans. It's like the same amount 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.280 of their body is on show as in the Born 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.440 in the USA cover. They both have handkerchiefs in their pocket, 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.480 red handkerchief. It's in the same pocket as Bruce has 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:33.520 his red cap. 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:34.800 I don't know. 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.600 I don't think it was intentional, but it's just such 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.280 a solid connection, Like I'm sure there were gay men 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:44.120 who saw that, pitch loads of gay men or queer 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:46.520 people of all kinds who saw that picture and went, 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:47.479 oh my god. 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.760 Brice Let's sing, Yeah, yeah, exactly. 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.439 Look, we're not saying that Bruce wants a fist up 0:13:55.480 --> 0:14:01.640 his ass, but regardless, this image is so rooted in queericnography. 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:07.160 Having that reference to gay culture, to the hanky code, 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.680 with the red, white and blue, with the stripes, with 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:11.240 the born. 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:11.680 In the USA. 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:17.160 There's something about mixing the like American patriotic symbolism with 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:19.320 quer symbolism and going. 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.520 This is this is the thing that's happened. Now, what 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:22.640 are you going to do about it? 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.560 We can't ever know the intentions of Bruce and the photographer, 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.640 but could this count as a tick for Camp if 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.800 we take Eleanor's description of Camp as extravagant and knowing, 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.560 we can at least agree that this look checks the 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:36.960 extravagant bucks. 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.400 To continue the research, we switched over to the DIKI 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:44.800 Bruce Looks folder. We started with a foot that I 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.640 like to call Bruce's stone butch blues. He's older in it, 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:50.280 salt and pepper vibes. 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:54.400 In a sort of like western outfit, a denim jacket, 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:58.120 a shilling jacket on top, holding a cowboy hat. I 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.200 was looking at them with my wife and she went, oh, 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.480 that looks like Kadi Lang so much, and we were like, 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:05.680 these are all KD. 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:06.160 LG. 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.760 Yeah, yes they are. They're the same. 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.920 And there's an early picture of Kadie Lang from Cadie Lang, 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:18.760 and there are clines a cover from an album from 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:22.920 nineteen eighty seven where she's wearing like the same outfit 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.600 and has a cowboy hat in her hands. 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:28.880 If dear listener, you would like to compare these licks 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:33.640 yourself image that Bruce Springsteen Western Stars Jacket and Kadie 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:36.360 Lang Absolute Torch and Twang nineteen eighty seven. 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.680 Can you see? Oh, I've put them next to each other. 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.920 It's like the same as Oh my god, that's made 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:43.440 by Deer. 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.800 I cannot stress enough how identical these licks scene, both 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.640 in double jackets, blue denim underneath with brown on top, 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.120 both on cowboy hats, oozing butch sexiness. 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.600 As recommended by our lawyer, we do have to say 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.240 that we are not accusing Bruce of stealing looks from KD. Lack, 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.480 but in terms of his camp credentials, this look is 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:08.280 hell a butch. 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.000 It's like you squint and everyone can be a butch. 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:16.640 I love this. 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.240 I will be squinting for the rest of my days. 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.320 It's actually a famous name in the queer Bruce fandom world. 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:23.440 I shared it all my books. 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:25.920 Springsing jag account is a screenshot of a tweet on 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.600 Dumbler asking can a sis guy be butch? 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.680 And someone I was commenting Bruce Springsteen. 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.160 Some of the images we said, eleanor are from his 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:43.600 eighties muscle era, so much plaid, lots of tight jeans. 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.840 Cut off shirts, bandannas around his head. 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:54.920 Yeah, what would be your kind of like professional fashion analysis. 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.920 Of those bits of his fashion journey? 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.680 As you know, it's very gender, it's very like playing 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:04.359 with like hyper masculinity in a way that can almost 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.560 come back round. I think a lot of queer people 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:14.280 have also experimented with using materials like plans, like denim, 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:22.280 haptile like masculine, almost industrial again, like working class esthetics. 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.760 It's funny because we're looking at these outfits through the 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.280 lens of our own experience, so it's kind of impossible 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.399 for us to not see a sexy, butch muscle queen. 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.119 Are we projecting onto him? Do people choose to be 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.520 camp or is it chosen for them? 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.159 In my job as a lesbian fashion historian, I have 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.800 to look at the evidence. Often people who can't even 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.880 speak for themselves anymore. It's people who have often been 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.480 recognized as just being straight, and you have to go, well, no, 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.600 I don't think that's the case. And this is part 0:17:55.720 --> 0:18:00.720 of this history that I'm writing now for us. Yeah, 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:04.399 if you can see Bruce Springsteen as a camp bike on, 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:06.520 then Bruce Springsteen is a camp hyicon. 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:08.880 We wouldn't all be. 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:13.479 Here talking about it if we didn't recognize. 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.720 It as camp. I'm so happy that Bruce will not 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:16.880 being cleaned in your book. 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.879 On lesbian Yeah, I'll have to like do a little 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:21.720 addition somewhere. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.840 Okay, So a lesbian fashion historian has said we get 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.280 to decide if Bruce's camp. She agrees he has campusthetics 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:31.880 mission a gump list. 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.240 I know Eleanor said we can just cheese, but I 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.000 can't shake that it might just be us seeing the 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.760 stuff in him. We see plaid sleeveless shirts and tight 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.359 blue jeans as really butch, but another person could just 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.119 look at these photos and just think they're really madly. 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.879 I do think there's an extravagance to his performance of masculinity, though, 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:57.800 because there's Massilira Bruce, But there's also like studded leather jacket. 0:18:57.520 --> 0:18:58.560 Twin here at Bruce. 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.000 It feels like he's trying on different versions of masculinity 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:02.800 in quite. 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:04.240 A playful way. Yeah. 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:08.240 The leather look in particular, like that has a long 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:09.360 queer history. 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:10.840 Yeah, I don't know. 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:12.760 I think it's I think it's sort of powerful and 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:14.720 empowering to have someone wearing that. 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.240 This playfulness trying on different versions of masculinity feels close 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.679 to the idea of gender as a performance, which is very. 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:24.720 Rooted in queer culture. 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:29.640 And Bruce said in his autobiography, looking back on these photos, now, 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:33.920 I look simply gay. I'd probably fit right in down 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:36.399 on Christopher Street in any one of the leather bars. 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.360 So it seems like, at least in retrospect, he has 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:41.760 some awareness of the queerness of these looks. 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.480 The other huge thing about Bruce's esthetics are that he's 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:46.840 often choosing to reference a. 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:51.200 Particular working class culture. Yeah, totally. He makes loads of. 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.960 References about how he grew up working class in New Jersey. 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:56.720 There's that lyric where he says rich man in a 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.120 poor man's shirt, and he seems to think a lot 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.960 about his own class status and rolling class struggles. He 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:06.600 acknowledges this funny position he's in. His dad worked in 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.840 a factory, but he himself started playing music at sixteen, 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:12.600 and he now jokes that he's never worked a day 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.679 in his life, but his songs are about the lives 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:20.480 of working class people. His relationship to class is super interesting, 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:22.800 but I'm not sure if it's got anything to do 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:23.520 with queerness. 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:38.399 That's next a way back, because. 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.720 I feel unsure about Camp's relationship to class. We've just 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.520 spent a whole conversation looking at a bunch of amazing 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:48.520 Bruce outfits that actually a lot of people would just 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:51.760 see us working class clothing and kind of conflated them 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.480 with queer aesthetics. And Camp does that sit right with us? 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:00.199 Is Bruce doing like extravagant working class looks? And if so, 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.960 is that solidarity or taking the piss is saying certain 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:09.359 looks are Camp looking down or laughing at. 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:11.920 It does feel sometimes like we're treading a fine line 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.719 with appropriation. I guess I've always seen Camp as more 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:19.119 of a camaraderie, a recognition that we're all failing the 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:21.080 made up standards of what we're told we have to 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.840 be like to be a respectable human adult and then 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:25.439 finding excellence in how we fail. 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:27.560 Yeah, okay, being. 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:31.399 Like capitalist heteropatriarchy is fucking us all over, so we 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:33.840 might as well make our failures fabulous. 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:39.439 Camp is always about being in on its own, Joe Like, 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:42.360 you can laugh at others because you're doing it lovingly, 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:44.919 because you've spent your whole life laugh at yourself, and 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:48.000 you know that life is full of things that you 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:50.439 have to lear to keep from crying about. This is 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:54.560 brick Bropalmieri. I write a lot about history about queer culture. 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:57.639 All of LiLine like writing an art is sort of 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:03.160 around DIY, like small, homegrown, underground kind of like culture. 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:07.080 About five years ago, Brooke launched a learning platform combined 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.000 with the zine and print library and resource pulling together 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.960 references to queer and gender nonconforming histories, and. 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:17.119 I called it camp Books because for me, the idea 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:21.240 of camping it up is a really fun and accessible 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:25.600 and timeless way of participating in a counterculture in a 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.480 kind of esthetic or fashion of like working against the 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:30.840 norms of the world around you. 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.600 Brooke was the first ever queer Springsteen fan I met. 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:37.359 They said to me that Bruce has a soul of 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.000