Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

This summer I became obsessed with the bad movie phenomenon that has been taking off all over the internet. If you aren’t familiar with what I am talking about check this youtube video out.

Originally I was just checking out the videos out for a quick laugh but eventually I found myself doing a little bit more research on some of the forums at BadMovies.org and reading about what these “fans” were talking about.   Interestingly, Troll 2, the film lampooned in the youtube video for awful dialogue delivery, has developed a substantial cult following partially due to the success of viral videos like the one mentioned above.   Michael Stephenson, the child actor in the film, is currently directing a documentary film called The Best Worst Film Ever which follows the film’s cult standing and staple at late night cinemas around the country as well as annual Q&A sessions between the filmmakers, actors and fans.  We’ve talked a bit about the tendency of audiences or fandoms to gather around content they don’t necessarily think is particularly good (I.E.-sarcastic fans of Heroes or Saturday morning cartoons). This pseudo-franchising that has happened with Troll 2 and similar terrible slasher-esque cult favorites (Sleepaway Camp, Prom Night) is indicative of this new trend which has fans re-appropriating and redefining their respective content.  Check out this “trailer” for Troll 2 which has been entirely re-edited as a feel good, festival independent darling. I have always found fan cultures of terrible media really interesting and it’s funny to see that viral media has helped redefine these fandoms by making mass presentations of fan media easier.

I’m interested to see Stephenson’s film and find out how important brief and out of context clips such as the infamous “Oh my gosh!” scene have been to giving this film an entirely different life outside of VHS and sarcastic threads on Something Awful forums.