A close read of Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay, “Notes on Camp,” as it relates to Prince and his cult classic, second feature film, Under the Cherry Moon. Here, we’ll discuss aesthetics, sensibilities, and the accompanying score (aka the album, Parade), arguing that not only is UTCM a cinematic achievement but moreover, a Pure Camp work of art.

Chinisha Scott is an Emmy-nominated, award-winning, multi-hyphenate creator with 20 yrs of experience in Film, TV, and media production. She began her musical training at the age of nine and continued through grad school, with a brief stint as an engineering major in her freshman year of college. (She had Mae Jemison dreams of becoming an astronaut – here’s hoping they need filmmakers in space.) She is passionate about music, science, environmental and social justice, and learning – they find their way into all that she creates. In that, she is genre agnostic, with most of her work living in the liminal spaces of dramedy, sci-fi/speculative fiction, and documentary (with a significant amount of experience in sketch and live comedy…).

She has been quite fortunate over the years to work on projects in direct alignment with many of her personal interests and values. From her sci-com writing on the Vox series The Future of… (Netflix) voiced by Jurnee Smollett, to her work as a producer on programs such as United Shades of America with W Kamau Bell (CNN) and the Emmy-nominated The Black Church (PBS) hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Chinisha’s sense of humor, storytelling, and wide range of production experience has landed her on some exciting and worthwhile productions.

Her work on the PBS special Our Cameras, Our Stories (a DCTV production) has been recognized with a NY Emmy nomination (2015) and a Robert F. Kennedy Award in Journalism (2016). She was named a 2021 Film Independent Fellow in the Film Independent + CNN Original Series Docuseries Intensive alongside her producing team for the non-fiction series (fka) From the Top. She has received three Webby Awards for her writing, direction, and series production on season 2 of Black History in Two Minutes (or so…), hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as well as an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Historical Documentary (News & Doc) for her work on the series The Black Church: This is Our Story, This is Our Song (PBS). The Sesame Street digital series for which she directed, Sesame Street in Communities: Talking About Race, was also nominated at the Children’s & Family Emmy Awards for Outstanding Non-fiction Program. Some of her more recent handiwork has been w/ The Daily Show as a director/writer.

She is currently in various stages of development and pre-production on: a documentary limited series, a narrative feature, a digital native series, and a musical stageplay. Chinisha is a Prince super-fam, nerdy geek-girl, and cheerful nihilist w/a penchant for witty, sometimes self-deprecating humor. She attended The New School where she received her MA in Media Studies, and a BA in Cinema Studies and African-American Studies from the CUNY Macaulay Honors College, cum laude.