Mother camp
Subtitle: female impersonators in America
By: Esther Newton.
Edition: Phoenix ed.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1979
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 136
Subjects: Transvestites -- United States.; Homosexuality -- United States.; Female impersonators -- United States.
Description: For two years (1965-1966) anthropologist 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 that drag queens make among themselves as performers, the various kinds of night clubs and acts they depend on for a living, and the social organization of their work. A major part of the book deals with the symbolic geography of male and female styles, as enacted in the homosexual concept of "drag" (sex role transformation) and "camp," an important humor system cultivated by the drag queens themselves.--From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Reprint, with a new pref., of the 1972 ed. published by Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., in series: Anthropology of modern societies series.