Metro Weekly

13 Camp Films Everyone Should See

From Hollywood's golden age to John Waters's trash cinema, the camp films that define a genre

13. The Birdcage (1996)

The Birdcage

The Birdcage

With drag queens, you expect camp. Before anyone entered the theater, they knew what they were getting themselves into. What The Birdcage really did is make gay campiness accessible to the mainstream.

It doesn’t have the esoteric quality (of simply being foreign) of its French forebear, La Cage aux Folles. It has star power. And audiences are paying for the gaiety. It’s the masses getting to see how the queer half lives, fictionally speaking. There’s Hank Azaria as houseboy Agador in all his resplendent ”Guatemalanness.” There’s the Grecian dinnerware with a motif of sodomy that could possibly been interpreted as boys and men playing leapfrog. And there are the placebo ”pirin” tablets — aspirin with the ”a” and ”s” scratched off — to help Nathan Lane’s Albert calm his nerves. Look at those wacky gays.

That is the accessible camp. Something a bit more genuine, a bone for the gay audience, is that Lane played this drag role before coming out definitively. He knew he was gay, we knew he was gay, but he hadn’t quite gotten to the point of saying on a very public platform, ”I am gay.” The joke for the gays is that some may have actually considered that Lane was merely playing gay in the same manner as co-star Robin Williams.

For both those in the know and those on the outside, the icing on the cake is Gene Hackman in drag, looking just as uncomfortable as we hope he is. It’s The French Connection — in heels!


Don’t Miss: 20 Gay Short Films Everyone Should See

Support Metro Weekly’s Journalism

These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!