When I was in college, back in the 1960s, my friends and I used to watch 1950s monster movies and science fiction movies on the late show. Much of the fun arose out of the unintentional absurdities in those movies, including everything from the poor production values to the corny dialogue to the scientific nonsense. We did not use the word “camp” to describe these absurdities, for though we had the concept, yet we did not know the word.
Then, in 1966, the television show Batman made its debut. This was, to my knowledge, the first time a movie or a television show deliberately had camp value. As a result, there was a lot of confusion when it first aired. Children took the show seriously and enjoyed it on that level. Most adults realized it was supposed to be funny, even if they didn’t actually care for it. But there were a fair number of people that took the show seriously the way children did and criticized it for being juvenile.
I first started watching the show The Americans only a couple of months ago. On the very first episode, I found myself laughing. I wasn’t laughing throughout the show, but only occasionally. I would be taking it all seriously, and then something would happen or be said that would make me laugh. By way of contrast, I never laughed when watching Homeland. After a few episodes, I started wondering if there was deliberate camp value in this show, only much more subtle than in Batman.
I suppose the first clue was the hammer-and-sickle symbol of the Soviet Union being used as the “c” in the word “Americans.” Then there was the Ozzie & Harriet cover for the two spies, Philip and Elizabeth. Now, every sitcom family has next door neighbors to interact with. This does not happen so much with serious crime or spy shows. We never saw Joe Friday interact with his neighbors in Dragnet. We never see James Bond at home, let alone see him visiting his neighbors. But in The Americans, we do have neighbors, and what could be more appropriate than for them to have an FBI agent living next door.
And while I thoroughly enjoy watching Elizabeth kick butt and waste the “bad guys,” something inside me cannot help but be amused by it all. She is all communist. Philip, on the other hand, thinks about defecting, is less likely to kill, and feels guilty when he does. He is the weaker of the two. In other words, as with many comedies, the husband is dominated by his wife.
What really capped it off was when their daughter Paige discovered Christianity and wanted to start going to church. I don’t know if the Soviets ever planted spies in this country to pretend to be married and to actually have children. I should think that unwise. But if they did, would they not want the family to go to church to enhance their cover? In any event, in this show, the Jennings have apparently never gone to church or given their children any religious upbringing. And so it is that when Paige gets caught reading the Bible, Elizabeth is appalled. Speaking later to Philip, she comments about how horrible it is in America, what with all the churches and synagogues, all that “opiate of the masses” everywhere you look. How can they have her drop a heavy line like that and not expect us to laugh?
I’m only in the second season, so I cannot present any further examples. I asked a friend of mine if The Americans was deliberately camp, but it was his opinion that the show was meant to be taken seriously. In other words, this may be another Batman situation, only much less obvious. And so it is that I present this essay to see what others think.