Fearless vulgarity : Jacqueline Susann's queer comedy and camp authorship / Ken Feil.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Feil, Ken, author.

Series:

Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sexual minorities in literature.

Sex role in literature.

Camp (Style).

Susann, Jacqueline--Criticism and interpretation.

Susann, Jacqueline.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Detroit, Michigan : Wayne State University Press, [2023]

Summary:

Catalyzed by her notoriously "dirty," fabulously successful bestseller Valley of the Dolls, the "Jackie Susann Sixties" brimmed with camp comedy that now permeates contemporary celebrations of the author, from Pee-wee's Playhouse to RuPaul's Drag Race and Lee Daniels's Star. First christened "camp" by Gloria Steinem in an excoriating review of Valley of the Dolls and compounded by the publishing juggernauts The Love Machine (1969), Once Is Not Enough (1973), and Dolores (1976), the comedy of Jackie Susann illuminated conflicting positions about gender, sexuality, and aesthetic value. Through a writing formula that Ken Feil calls sleazy realism, Susann veers from gossip to confession and devises comedies of bad manners spun from real celebrities whose occasionally queer and always outre antics clashed with their "official" personas, the popular genres they were famous for, and the narrow, normative constructions of identity and reality shaped by the culture industry. Susann's promotional appearances led to another comedy of bad manners, this one populated with critics alternately horrified and delighted by an upstart woman vulgarian barging into the male literary firmament, and which continues to inspire fascination for the author, her novels, and their legendarily bad film adaptations.

Contents:

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Sleazy Realism and the Single Girl: Valley of the Dolls, the Roman à Clef, and the Comedy of Bad Manners

2. The Roman à Closet: Queer Irony, Closet Plotlines, and The Love Machine

3. Wit Is Not Enough: Comedic Gossip, Camping Susann, and Women's Authorship

4. Dykes, Gays, and Dolls: From the Queer Cult Following to the Gay Susann Revival

5. The Laugh Machine: Telling the Jacqueline Susann Story

Conclusion: Sleazy Summaries and Camp Positions: Lee Daniels, Carrie Fisher, and the Legacy of the Susann Sensibility

Notes

References

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780814346051

0814346057

OCLC:

1352258120