Gay Camp as Social Satire in Ernesto Schoo's _Función de gala_

Abstract

Ernesto Schoo's Función de gala, published in 1976, uses gay camp in both style and form to produce a powerful indictment of the bourgeois social norms and ideals of mainstream society at the turn of the last century in Argentina. By combining the essential elements of camp —incongruous juxtapositions, off-stage theatricality, and incisive humor— with a melodramatic plot full of fantasy and excess, the author succeeds in conducting an assault against the two most staunchly defended linchpins of the bourgeois value system: first, the belief that wealth is a sign of social status which confers prestige on the possessor and, second, that norms for gender and sexuality have always been and must continue to be "natural," stable, and unchangeable.