"Hard to Handle": Camp Criticism, Trash-Film Reception, and the Transgressive Pleasures of Myra Breckinridge

Twentieth Century Fox's Myra Breckinridge (Michael Sarne, 1970) is perhaps the most notorious studio-backed motion picture of its generation. This article adduces the reasons behind the film's initial failings, discusses its subsequent reevaluations by various cult fan communities, analyzes key scenes, and examines the "campy" critical rhetoric that has contributed to its shifting cultural status over the years. Despite its initial failure to connect with mainstream viewers, Myra Breckinridge has done much to destabilize taste-based assumptions of "trash" and "art" while collapsing distinctions between Old Hollywood and New Hollywood through a radical, transgressive textuality.