29: The Camp of Za Za
Most human beings have a pair of chromosomes that are commonly described as either “XX” or “XY”. They are probably the most well known and well discussed chromosomes in the English speaking world, as unlike the other 22 chromosome pairs in the human genome they mostly fall into one of two configurations that weirdly contain societal expectations along with their physical characteristics. An XX chromosomal pair typically results in the human in question having ovaries, and an XY chromosomal pair typically results in the human in question having testes. A host of other physical characteristics also typically accompany these barring hormonal intervention: where we grow body hair, where we store our fat, and various bone structure differences for example. There are a host of societal expectations assigned upon testes havers vs ovary havers, everything from the clothes we wear, to our expected range of professions, to the acceptable ranges of how we wear the hair on our head (and the rest of our body for that matter), to whether we’re expected to order a glass of rosé or a bottle of india pale ale at the tavern. There’s of course far more to it than this, and gallons of ink has already been spilt on the subject*, so I in my minor film minutiae blog will not remotely attempt to cover it in its entirety, but the gamut of these societal expectations and collective experiences is typically referred to as “gender”. For many people, we are blithely unaware of our gender, it simply how we exist. We don’t think about the gender we occupy any more than we think about the fact that we are currently breathing air. Those of us who are trans or nonbinary of course have thought about this very hard, realizing that the mode of existence being forced upon them by the world does not match the one in their souls and thus need to redefine their existence via a never ending transition that often continues through the rest of their lives. Some —for example in the world of drag— continue to exist primarily in their assigned gender, but appreciate the performative aspect of gender, and choose to occasionally play in a gender they do not usually inhabit. Some however understand that there’s nothing inherently “natural” about inhabiting a gender based on anatomy, but yet decide to inhabit and perform their assigned gender anyway, embracing its very unnaturalness. The act of embracing the unnatural and performative has a name, and that name is camp, and these folks who inhabit their assigned genders in a performative way I will call for the purposes of this essay “ciscamp”. Dolly Parton is ciscamp. Gaston from Beauty and the Beast (1991) is ciscamp. The series run of Married, With Children is ciscamp, and the character Za Za from The Hudsucker Proxy is ciscamp**.
Za Za is played by Anna Nicole Smith, herself a fascinating figure. Smith was born Vickie Lynn Hogan in 1967 in Houston, Texas. Her childhood was tumultuous to say the least, with familial changes causing her to change her name twice, first to Nikki Hart due to an intra-familial adoption in 1971 where she relocated to the tiny town of Mexia, TX and again to Anna Nicole Smith after a brief marriage to a man named Billy May Smith in 1984. After her brief marriage she left Mexia and relocated back to Houston, where her transformation into the person we now know as Anna Nicole Smith fully took place. She got a job as an exotic dancer, where she was able to save up for several cosmetic surgeries seemingly specifically designed to make her look as much like her idol Marylin Monroe as possible. Interestingly, she didn’t have immense success as a dancer, potentially partially due to her imposing height (Smith stood 6’ 0” in flat feet, and she commonly wore heels), but at the suggestion of a boyfriend in 1991 she went to an open casting call for Playboy magazine and became an instant hit among the highbrow softcore pornographer’s audience, ultimately becoming Playmate of the Year in 1993***. At this point Smith spent the remaining 15 years of her tragically short life as a kind of public shaming vehicle. Her first exposure to the wider world beyond nudie magazines was a cover photograph of New York Magazine in which she appeared in an unflattering photo in cowboy boots and daisy dukes munching on potato chips for a cover story titled “White Trash Nation”.
She then became a public figure containing equal parts fame and infamy. Each of Smith’s triumphs for the rest of her life were matched with some kind of public shaming. She became the face of Guess Jeans but was also the most publicly known trophy wife of her era, having married an 89 year old oil magnate in 1994. She was a pioneer of reality television, being the subject of 2002’s The Anna Nicole Smith Show, but on the other hand she was a pioneer of reality television, being the subject of 2002’s The Anna Nicole Smith Show. She was an object of lust who was constantly mocked for her weight and her size, a walking and talking embodiment of every double standard subjected to women in the modern age.
The Hudsucker Proxy was Smith’s first film role, and as with Harry Bugin’s Aloysius, she doesn’t act so much as exist in the film. She is present in two scenes. First as Norville’s star is rising after the Hula Hoop has taken the world by storm, she exists as an object of Norville’s corruption. She’s not present in the press conference where Norville exudes a kind of “aww shucks” energy, being earnestly shocked at just how successful the hoop is. She pops up in a subsequent interview as Norville is being interviewed as he gets a spa treatment at the barbershop. In this interview Norville doesn’t even allow the reporters interviewing him the dignity of showing up for a proper press conference, being shaved with cucumbers over his eyes (a common technique while getting facials to prevent crow’s feet wrinkles, a sign of his newfound vanity) as he announces his plans to give himself a raise and create pointless alternate versions of the Hoop. This interview sets the mood that Norville is no longer the bright eyed affable doofus from Muncie, but has in fact become a hardened New York power broker. Our first hint of this beyond the presence of Norville’s vanity cucumbers is when a reporter asks him about rumors of him being attached to high fashion model Za Za, to which Norville responds in a manner intended to make us think he’s not-so-coyly downplaying such rumors and say they’re “just good friends” before the camera pans to Smith as Za Za, delivering one of her two lines in the film, a sexy tiger-like growl.
Za Za is described in the script as simply “Every man's dream, in a tarty sort of way.” Za Za’s hair is big and coiffed and swept to the side, a kind of cutting edge of fashion, showing off a style more associated with 60s women’s hairstyles. Her makeup is styled more or less naturally but for a giant pop of incredibly red lipstick, and she’s dressed in a form-fitting leopard print dress with matching gloves. The dress is open at the chest and under it she’s wearing a spangly and sparkly strapless top. The outfit, the makeup, and the hair are all there to show off Za Za as a society tart. It’s not merely that she’s a sexpot, putting her in shorts and a tank-top would achieve that goal, it’s that there’s some sign of class to it. Her outfit doesn’t reveal too much skin or cleavage, but what skin it does reveal immediately frames her breasts. Her dress is form fitting, showing off her curves, and by suggesting an animal’s fur suggests that it (and thus she) would be pleasant to touch. Her ahead-of-the-curve hairstyle suggests that she’s a bit of a sophisticate. She probably reads Vogue Italia to stay on top of trends. She of course brings Marylin Monroe to mind, as Anna Nicole Smith in the early 90s cannot help but bring Marylin Monroe, herself a notable lover of high profile men such as Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, and John F Kennedy. As a result, Za Za is an object of lust both of sexuality and of status. Being romantically linked to Za Za doesn’t just mean “you have an attractive partner” but in fact “you are a powerful man”.
Za Za’s name of course also brings to mind fellow mid-century sex symbol Zsa-Zsa Gabor.
Gabor was born in Budapest to parents of Jewish ancestry. She had some minor success in European theaters until fear of the Nazi invasion of Hungary caused her to flee to the US in 1941 where she truly picked up notoriety as a performer. Her breakout role was in a film adaptation of the once-too-raunchy-for-mainstream-society novel Lady Chatterly’s Lover in 1949, which established her as simultaneously a symbol of old-world elegance and also as a modern sex symbol. Further film roles in Moulin Rouge (1952), We’re Not Married! (1952) and Touch Of Evil (1958) reinforced this image. She also became known and judged —much like Anna Nicole Smith— for her personal romantic life. Gabor was married nine times during her life, often to wealthy men, most notably to Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton Hotel empire. She once quipped "I am a marvelous housekeeper: Every time I leave a man I keep his house." Her own beauty with her love of finer things and serial marriages made her a symbol of high society promiscuity, and thus with a kind of gaudy opulence. Her biographer Gerold Frank said “Zsa Zsa is unique. She's a woman from the court of Louis XIV who has somehow managed to live in the 20th century” simultaneously bringing to mind the elegance of old world courts, and also the decadent style of nobility that ultimately ended up inspiring the French Revolution. Gabor once more was a symbol of status as well as sexuality as is the case with her homonymic namesake Za Za in Hudsucker.
The second scene in which Za Za appears however brings a new dimension to the character. As Norville runs into Buzz the elevator operator outside of New York’s famed 21 Club, the Coens show us how Buzz has not just bounced back from his despondency at being fired from Hudsucker Industries by his cheery demeanor, but that in fact he’s been elevated by Mussburger into his own 15 minutes of fame, as he is not merely celebrating, but that he’s celebrating at the 21, one of the poshest nightclubs of all time. It’s not merely that he’s got a beautiful girl on his arm, it’s that the beautiful girl on his arm is the one and only Za Za. Buzz himself is exactly the kind of convenient pushover shmoe that Mussburger needs to bring down Norville, and is in fact clearly the dunce that Norville never was, given that he somehow believes Mussburger’s tale that Norville stole the idea of the Hula Hoop from him despite the fact that it contradicts Buzz’s own memories. It’s not after all that Buzz says “The hoop was a swell idea, and you stole’d it” but “the hoop was a swell idea, and Sid says you stole’d it!”. At this point as Buzz’s manufactured anger starts rising out of him, Za Za delivers her second line “Well wuddya waiting for, Clarence? Pop him one!” This line is not delivered in an elegant Hungarian accent one might expect out of a Zsa Zsa Gabor stand in, but in fact in the drawl of a woman from Mexia, Texas. It’s tempting to say that Smith chose not to or perhaps could not credibly imitate Gabor’s accent, but for two things. One, the shooting script which does not shy away from putting its characters who speak with accents’ lines in an onomatopoeia of what those accents should sound like, as Luigi the taylor’s lines are written “Meesta Moosburga, the double-a stitch, she last-a foreva!” and Dr. Bromfenbrenner the psychoanalyst’s lines are written “Patient dizplayed liztlessness, apathy, gloomy indifference und vas blue und mopey.” If Za Za’s one line that contains words and not just animal noises was intended to be spoken in a Hungarian accent, they would have been written “Vell vat ahr you vaiting for, Clarence”, not “Well wuddaya waiting for, Clarence”. In addition, the line is delivered in an accent much more intense than Anna Nicole Smith’s natural accent. Za Za sounds more intensely Texan than the Texan actor who plays her. In giving Za Za this down home southern accent, and further, purposefully choosing to do so, the Coens add another dimension to her character, making her a little more down homey and approachable. Za Za is not a symbol of old world elegance. She is still elegant, but that elegance does not come with old world pedigree. She is thus simultaneously an object of class, but also an object of familiarity. She’s the girl next door who also shops at Tiffany’s.
She occupies under a minute of screen time, but everything about Za Za’s existence is a meticulously calculated performance of a certain kind of intensely sexualized heterosexual woman. The cut of her dress matched with gloves, her stylish hairdo, and her evocation of old Europe in her name suggest a ladylike elegance and high mark of status. Her (artificial) curves and sultry red lipstick project an intense sexuality, and her dress’s leopard print and her southern accent a kind of trashy approachability. Everything about her is a construct to be “every man’s dream, in a tarty sort of way”. She is a construct of everything artificial about femininity, and in doing so she is the most marvelous kind of camp.
* Gender Troubles by Judith Butler is a good place to start if you’re curious and would like a good nonfiction book on the subject. Orlando by Virginia Woolf is also a wonderful place to start if you’re more into fiction and has a marvelous 1992 film adaptation starring Tilda Swinton.
** All these examples are cribbed from a piece by humorist Daniel Lavery from his now sadly defunct humor website The Toast, located here: https://the-toast.net/2015/03/13/syllabus-course-camp-heterosexuality-not-yet-asked-teach/, Lavery is a gem, and his books Texts From Jane Eyre and Something That Will Shock And Discredit You I cannot recommend highly enough.
*** Among the 59 years Playboy magazine has had a Playmate of the Year, I would argue that just two of them have become household names since their coronation, and weirdly enough they came in consecutive years. One is of course 1993’s Playmate of the Year: Anna Nicole Smith. The other amazingly came the very next year, as 1994’s Playmate of the Year was the future dating show host, talk show host, and notable anti-vaccination nutjob Jenny McCarthy.