Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America

by Esther Newton

Book Overview

For two years Ester Newton did field research in the world of drag queens--homosexual men who make a living impersonating women. Newton spent time in the noisy bars, the chaotic dressing rooms, and the cheap apartments and hotels that make up the lives of drag queens, interviewing informants whose trust she had earned and compiling a lively, first-hand ethnographic account of the culture of female impersonators. Mother Camp explores the distinctions...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226577600
• ISBN13: 9780226577609
• Release Date: May 1979
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 158 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

etnografia urbana

Me gusto mucho el libro, ademas ha sido de gran ayuda para poder acercarse a un trabajo antropologico, especificamente de etnografia. Claro que es un clasico y vale la pena constrastarlo con trabajos contemporaneos, pero en general es un libro que logra cautivar al lector, los ejemplos son nutridos y los analisis muy interesantes. Es un libro que debe ser leido.

A classic, and for good reason

Mother Camp is one of the foundational texts of gay studies, and for good reason. Not only is it incredible ethnographic work, but Newton was one of the first to treat queer culture with the kind of scholarly care it deserved. It's beautifully written, sharply observed, and filled with empathy for her subjects. Particularly given the resistance to her work she had to deal with (which she details in her essay collection "Margaret Mead Made Me Gay"), Mother Camp is a courageous, groundbreaking piece of scholarship. And without Esther Newton there would have been no Judith Butler: Newton's work is crucial for Butler's analysis of drag in "Gender Trouble."

An Excellent Snapshot

Newton's research in Mother Camp is now dated, however its lasting value is in the rich snapshot that she has captured of gay street and performace life pre-liberation and feminist movements. For those who were there, much of Newton's work will ring true and for those who weren't, her book measures the distance between where gay liberation was and where it is today. The reader may wish for a more poignant feminist or cultural analysis of Newton's subject but when one considers the date of the research and writing (1965-69), Newton's analysis actually displays a surprisingly astute and diasporic handling of the sex/gender system. Newton steers clear of the exceptional epi-centers of gay activity (New York, San Fran) and in doing so manages to sieze upon a drag sensibility that may be more familiar to the majority of middle American gays and lesbians. In my estimation, this book makes a perfect if not necessary historical compliment to studies that include films such as Paris is Burning or other works on drag, camp, performance, or early gay culture.