What Describes "Campy" to You?

[DuelMark]

Often I hear people defending the comedy of the Zelda cartoon calling it a campy show.

I on the other hand, disagree.

My reasoning is that campy holds kind of a different meaning though I could be wrong so I did my research on the term through Google.

From what I can gather, campy usually refers to admitting the silliness of the moment, treating it very tongue and cheek in some way.

Adam West's Batman was the king of campiness. Batman: The Brave and The Bold combined both the serious aspects of superheroes as well as the campiness of superheroes, especially given it was based on the silver age. Heck, one could argue movies like Evil Dead are campy, combining horror with tongue and cheek comedy. Power Rangers, in the early days were campy, with a concept and some ideas ridiculous and of course being able to breath on the moon. Most of those were tongue and cheek or at least accepted the goofiness of what they presented.

The Zelda cartoon's humor though... I wouldn't describe as campy but rather immature and bland. If it were parodying or acknowledging while making fun of conventional tropes and cliches about fantasy then I could see it as campy, but otherwise I don't.

Still, that's my definition of campy, albeit one based on a guy who doesn't really watch that much campy stuff. What does campy actually mean to the rest? Is my definition accurate or is there something I'm missing?

 

[Beckira]

I agree with the definition of "campy" primarily referring to a self-parody; not taking oneself too seriously, breaking the fourth wall, and being over all rather silly. The issue I think lies in the fact that people may be combining the term "campy" with anything that can be considered a cult classic, such as the Zelda cartoon. Overly campy movies and shows often have a very small but wildly loyal fanbase, frequently slipping into the realm of cult classicism. It could be that since campy shows are often cult classics, people may be confusing the terms to be synonymous.

Then again, I can see how a fan of the Zelda cartoon may interpret the show not as immature, but rather sarcastic. It's the kind of series that's so ridiculous, it skates the line between really tongue-in-cheek and, well, bad.

 

[TriforceHunter]

I think Campy refers to that self-aware tone. Like Adam West's Batman, It's self aware of it's ridiculousness but it still takes it and runs with it for comedic emphasis. But then it could also refer to something not taking itself too serious, like Scream.

 

[Dan]

I agree with triforcehunter it sort of needs effort in some ways to be campy most of the time. That or really cheesy.