Feminist Frequency Radio

One question we wanted to ask in our Summer "Camp" season was: does a remake add or remove layers of camp? Especially when it's one of John Waters' best-known films that's moved to the mainstream with a musical adaptation turned Hollywood. Does the overall cartoonishness of Tracy Turnblad's world flatten all of the story's core messages about society? We tied ourselves in knots talking about it... and of course, the casting choice of John Travolta.

Discussed in this episode: @jencapella's Hollywood Handsome Man Chart

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Welcome to our new season: Summer "Camp"! What better film to kick off these episodes with than Roger Vadim's 1968 space romp Barbarella. It's a perfect example of a movie that succeeds in its aesthetic endeavors, but isn't enough of a good sum of its parts to be considered well-made. What we can't deny is that none of it works without Jane Fonda's commitment to the optimistic naïveté of the character. We also talk about the difficulty of appreciating a film that had a troubled production, often affecting lead actresses. And A.C. poses the question: could Sydney Sweeney (potentially starring in a Barbarella remake) ever be camp?

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Before we dive into our brand new season all about camp cinema classics, we had to reacquaint ourselves with the aesthetic sensibility at the heart of the style. So, we re-read and discussed Susan Sontag's 1964 essay Notes on "Camp." Of course, we digressed into the 2019 Met Gala, Kat's personal history with James Charles (yikes), and the economics of film production. Do we totally nail our understanding of what fits the definition? Time will tell as the season unfolds...

Discussed in this episode:

That time a man-on-the-street interviewer encountered Baz Luhrmann

Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth's The Five Obstructions

Find Kat:

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Find A.C.:

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A.C. and Kat experienced Andrew Ahn's remake of The Wedding Banquet across somewhat of a generational divide. He finds it relies on a millennial aesthetic portrayal of queer identity, with inauthentic politics. She (who watched it with Gen X family members) thought it was sweeter and more satisfying than he did. But, having also seen Ang Lee's 1993 original, Kat thinks the movies might be trying to accomplish two different things. Overall, we both wanted higher stakes and a lot more of the incredible maternal characters played by Youn Yuh-jung and Joan Chen.

Discussed in this episode:

Plugged In's review

This meme that made A.C. think of the shack two of this movie's characters live in

Our 2024 episode about Pedro Almodóvar's short film Strange Way of Life starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke

The "Driver's Ed" sketch from I Think You Should Leave, featuring Patti Harrison

Kat's essay about Twin Peaks

Justinian Huang's novel Lucky Seed

Find Kat:

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Find A.C.:

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It was an absolute joy to spend time in the world of Spike Lee's 1994 bildungsroman Crooklyn. Co-written by Lee and his siblings Joie and Cinqué, the film follows nine-year-old Troy navigating herself, her neighborhood, and her extended family in 1973. We're refreshed to see Lee's rich visual language as the backdrop for a young girl as the hero of the story of growing up. Especially when so many other auteur's attempts at this have left us feeling unimpressed. It's a messy movie, sure, but beautifully shot by Arthur Jafa (Daughters of the Dust) with knockout performances from the kids to the parents—played by Alfre Woodard and Delroy Lindo.

Discussed in this episode: Common Sense Media's Crooklyn review, RuPaul's Starrbooty

Find Kat:

NEW: katexmachina.substack.com

letterboxd.com/katexmachina

bsky.app/profile/katexmachina.bsky.social

twitter.com/kat_ex_machina

Find A.C.:

letterboxd.com/aclamberty

instagram.com/aclamberty

Find Us:

Our Website

Subscribe to FFR on Apple Podcasts

Twitter

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Letterboxd

bsky.app/profile/femfreq.bsky.social