#sleepaway camp

[ahdor]

"neither of you have done anything morally or objectively wrong so I think you're both safe" I say confidently as one of them checks a box immediately after

[justpassingbys-stuff]

[theactualbianca]

First day of school today!

Got to school at 7:15

0 period was Bio HL

1st period was AP U.S History

2nd period was Honors Precalc

3rd period was AP Psych (tho I switched to AP environmental science)

4th period was English HL

5th period was Madrigals choir

And then I went home!!!

I only had about an hour of homework and then I went to a travel meeting at school in the evening since I leave for camp in a few days!!

[testosteroneandtirades]

Sleepaway Camp Made Me Gay

Ok, not really (since I was already gay), but I thought it was a funny title, because Sleepaway Camp does a hell of a good job inviting viewers to engage in the homoerotic gaze. If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it and then come back. Otherwise, you’ve been warned about spoilers and accept the consequences.

80s media was full of what would now be considered gender-bending or gay concepts of masculinity: long hair, big muscles in small clothes, makeup, close-ups of male bodies (though very few full-frontal nudes, unfortunately), and men getting really physical with other men. So, I’m hard-pressed to find an 80s film that doesn’t evoke some sense of gayness within me. However, Sleepaway Camp takes this to a whole new level.

The entire film seems focused on the nubile bodies of young men and boys: sexy, muscled, and hairy camp counselors in short-shorts and crop tops; or camp attendees with muscular abdomens, low-riding shorts, who seem to use anything as an excuse to remove shirts. The boys are often roughhousing and finding excuses to touch each other, even play homoerotic pranks on the less attractive of the characters, such as the “mind over matter” scene where one character is forced to ‘kiss’ the ass of one of the more attractive boys, almost like they are playing at homosexuality and find the pranked kid’s distress absurd (wait, is this a gay movie?).

The film tends to linger on these scenes and shots without giving much direction to what the viewer should be focusing on, except the sexy boys, of course! Meanwhile, the girl and young woman characters are rarely shown in any sexual fashion, except for Judy (we’ll come back to that). At first glance, the film seems to lack plot and shots seem almost random or pointless, but while the viewer is scanning for clues, it encourages those second, third, fourth - Oh, what the hell! I can’t keep my eyes off these sexy boys any longer!

While there is only one scene that explicitly shows gay desire, Angela’s flashback to seeing her father post-sex with another man, there are several explicit depictions of heterosexuality. Judy is the most prominent of those.

Judy is the only overtly sexualized girl/woman in the film, a stark contrast to other slasher flicks, such as Friday the 13th. Judy is described as having large breasts and being desired by the boys. She wears the most scantily clad outfits of all the girl/woman characters and really likes to show off her cleavage. However, she is depicted as such a cunt (haha, see what I did there?) that the boys lose interest in her. Instead, Angela is depicted as the shy and mysterious object of desire, and Judy can’t understand why Angela’s lack of femininity intrigues the boys. In essence, Judy’s heterosexuality is treated as undesirable.

In fact, all depictions of heterosexuality are considered undesirable. Angela’s almost rape scene (straight man and presumed straight girl) is shocking as the film’s first depiction of heterosexuality; very few viewers would find that sexually appealing, and most are rooting for Angela to be rescued from this demonized version of male desire. Mel, the camp owner, has a sexual relationship with one of the much younger counselors (you guessed it: a woman). The relationship is treated as inappropriate and gross by the film, and the counselor is killed for interfering with the movie’s homosexual direction. Even Angela’s aunt couldn’t hold onto her heterosexual marriage; she tells us in a flashback that her husband left (for another guy?). Notice a pattern? Heterosexuality = bad, homosexuality = good. A strange direction for a film of the age of the AIDS scare…

Which is why the ending is so shocking. Ok, sure, some people were surprised to find out that Angela is actually homosexual Peter who was socialized as a girl by his crazy aunt. I think it is shocking because the film is essentially forcing viewers to engage in the homoerotic gaze and shun heterosexuality, only to be told that they were crazy to do so. The full-frontal nudity (I did say few, not completely absent.) in the closing scene draws the viewer’s, now homoerotic, gaze towards Angela’s murder-induced erection. While the phallic metaphors aren’t as strong in this movie as other slashers, it is clear that penis envy (I swear I’m not projecting as a trans man!) is the true killer.

Take the curling iron scene, for example. A phallic object is used to rape the heterosexual body of Judy, essentially burning away her womanhood, the very thing that draws men towards her and away from homosexuality. Angela could be read as jealous that the penis of the boy she desires was being eaten up by the monstrous feminine, and thus the evil vagina must be slain.

However, the closing reveal of Angela as murderer shocks us into questioning our empathy and compassion towards Angela, and thus homosexuality. Sleepaway Camp was released in 1983 during the beginning of the AIDS panic, when homosexuality was not only culturally coded as immoral but disease-ridden. Remember now, gay men are killers! They pass on the deadly AIDS virus, essentially murdering innocent men by maliciously tricking them into acts of sexual deviance! Sleepaway Camp seems to echo this sentiment by making male desire for the male lethal through its twist of the male gaze now turned homoerotic. And to further add scrutiny to the viewer’s participation in the homoerotic gaze, the whole film acts like a trick to make you question any and all possible empathy you could have for gay men; even worse, the film implies that actual gay or questioning viewers are monsters and mentally deranged.

While the following is not the focus of my essay, I will address the elephant in the room: transphobia. This film seems to follow along the same lines that are currently being used to argue against trans women being allowed to use women’s restrooms: secret men planning to hurt daughters. However, there are two spins here: 1) it is actually sons these trans women are after, not girls, and 2) Angela is not actually trans since she was forcibly raised as a girl by an adult. Again, the message seems to not necessarily be about trans women, but really about AIDS and the dangers of allowing your children to commit sodomy.

While Sleepaway Camp is not a blockbuster hit by any means with its crude acting and terrible lines, it does stand out in the slasher genre for its intense crusade on homosexuality, after manufacturing that very desire within the viewer. A strange take on the slasher genre when most 80s slashers focused specifically on heterosexual sex, and thus sex in general, as immoral. Guess only deviance needs to be manufactured since everyone is straight until proven otherwise (an essay for another time).

[cygne-noirette]

this is so fucking stupid

[ilovesparkyunicorns]

when the fandom's so small most of the stuff you find is people horned up for the men in the movie

[ilovesparkyunicorns]

wait i'm still thinking about sleepaway Camp (the movie, not the place), so MAJOR spoilers below the cut!

i've seen a lot of people talking about how they find the movie to be transphobic, so here's my semi-controversial opinion on that:

this is not meant to come off as transphobic in ANY way, but honestly I don't think the movie wrote her to be perceived as trans…if that makes sense. she was forced to be raised as a girl, she didn't feel like a girl inside (presumably), it was just forced upon her from her mentally unstable aunt. the movie is campy, and I think her having a penis isn't intended to be a dig at trans people, but rather just to be a plot twist, adding to the audacity of the whole movie! also I don't think she killed people because she had a penis, I think she killed people because she was mentally unstable after watching her father die in front of her. my theory is that she repressed those memories, because she was so young when it happened, but then being sent to that sleepaway camp, the same one where her father was killed, triggered those memories (which is why we see the flashbacks of her father and her aunt). overall I just DONT think the movie was necessarily making her trans, nor making out trans people to be monsters (or, at least, that wasn't the movie's intention).

also I CANNOT believe this movie is getting a reboot. and Keenan Thompson? PLEASE be serious!

[ilovesparkyunicorns]

omg I just watched sleepaway camp IN THEATERS and I need to talk about it

(spoilers ahead so if you're one of my irl friends who I said i'd watch it wish don't read!!)

first of all, gayest shit i've ever seen. like, INSANELY gay. I was kind of thinking that throughout the whole movie, especially in the baseball scene when the guys are all in fucking booty shorts (??), and then...well I guess you could say the movie REALLY came full circle by the end...

kind of on the same note, there were so many themes of...queerness? like yes, obviously the ending is gay as hell (more on that later), but the boys saying "fine we don't need you girls, we'll make our own fun" and then running into the lake buttass naked???? that KILLED me in the theater lmao

ok STILL on the gay note - I was looking at what people were saying on TikTok about the ending and I saw somebody say it was transphobic?? like how it made trans people look like monsters, sort of. i'm not personally trans, i'm queer, but I honestly disagree. of course, take my opinion with a grain of salt, cause like...duh. but I feel like it was just campy- if that makes sense? like I dont ACTUALLY think that Angela was written to be perceived as trans rep. I feel like because of when it was written, it was just meant to be written as a girl who has a dick. ok that's bad. point is, I don't think the movie's INTENTION is to be transphobic, or have Angela perceived as trans. I'm sorry, this is written so poorly!

Speaking of things written poorly, the script and acting FRIED ME!! the kids going from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds was killing me. like when the guys throw a water balloon at Angela and her cousin starts cursing them out??? I was laughing my ASS off! also, like the counselors/older folks had the opposite problem?? their acting was so bad. enough said!

a lot of the tiktoks I saw were saying that they thought the girl with the boobs (I forgot her name, trust this is important to her character i'm not trying to be rude) was in highschool? i'm sorry, the entire time I thought she was at LEAST 23, probably older.

OMG back to the gay thing, what the hell were the costumes??? they put the costume department to WORK, and they must've had an Adidas sponsorship because WHAT????? the jacked guy who came out in the beginning, dick almost all the way out, omg. like WHO came up with these costumes??? what???

ok I also saw a lot of people talking about how Angela seeing her dad as gay must've scarred her for life? guys what are we on. but also plot wise, I did not understand how the dad being gay was relevant. I guess that's the 80s, idk.

ok I have a lot more to say but I need to go to bed...comments are open if anyone wants to talk about this movie though!!