Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

To get the ball rolling for our discussion tomorrow, I’ve created this post for you to talk about the TV series and episodes you watched this week. What show did you choose? What drew you to it? Which episodes did you watch, and how did you like them? What connections can you draw between the activities of “fan critics” described in Jenkins and your own take on the texts?

I found something interesting the other day.  I was flipping through my roommate’s issue of GQ when I found a small article describing popular slash texts.  It was entitled “Lord of the Cock Rings” and gave the title, author, a brief synopsis, and a quote from each of the four texts (my favorite is “You’re a nice kid, but if it gets around that Tony Soprano swings both ways…you’re dead.  Capeesh?”).  This article interests me because it serves as an example of Dick Hebdige’s concept of the incorporation of subculture.  Historically, slash has been very much an underground fan community.  Due to its (homo)sexually graphic and fantasy-based content, it’s usually met with shock and disapproval when encountered in the mainstream.  But here we see it as the subject of an article in a mainstream magazine.  Like the television station that ran a story about “punk families”, this magazine makes money by covering innovative cultural phenomena.  But by running an article about slash, GQ brings this type of fan production into the mainstream, and perhaps robs it of the exclusivity that has historically characterized it.

  Going off of what Bob was saying today, and also what Jenkins talks about, it got me thinking a little more about fandom in relation to series.  On the bottom of page 98 and top of 99, Jenkins talks about how Star Trek  “remains self-contained.”  In each episode a particular problem is usually resolved by the end of that episode.  The next episode will be a new adventure.  Of course there may be allusions to early episodes, or permanent story changes among episodes, but for the most part they seem to be their own unit.  For example, “Amok Time” was my first Trek episode, and I did not have much trouble following everything.  I did keep bugging Diana with questions, but mostly out of curiosity.

When reading this part of Jenkins, I immediately compared it to another fandom potent genre, anime.  This “self-contained” aspect does not characterize anime at all.  For all the Dragon Ball Z fans out there, I have felt the pain all too often of watching a character just charge up and talk the whole episode without throwing a punch.  Bob was saying today how TV encourages watching more TV, and anime is completely guilty of that.  How can you justify watching two hours of characters talking about how great the fight is going to be and not watch the actual fight?  So I guess my first point is that this difference in genres is really interesting.  They each use their own type of hook or cliff-hanger.

My second idea is about actual fandom for these genres.  On the surface to me, it seems anime would have a lot more room for extended fandom because of the continuity between episodes.  It is one long narrative, and rich with information.  But Jenkins convinced me otherwise.  Because of the seemingly long gaps in between Trek episodes, it invites speculation among fans.  The fans have more power because less information is given.  There is now more interpretation.  What happened between episodes?  What happened to those aliens saved a few episodes back?  And so on and so forth.  I think that is part of the fun of fandom and why it has become so big.  This power given to fans is quickly grabbed and put to use.

For our fan artifact, we found two pieces of media that we felt exemplified this week’s reading, both related to Beauty and the Beast.

The first is a video from an online fan documentary entitled Beauty and the Beast: 20 Years of Remembering, which explores Beauty and the Beast fandom as it exists presently. Specifically, we were struck by the second chapter: the second chapter (link is to a 63 Mb .mp4, just to warn you), Blame it on the Beast, described thusly:

“He was looking for his Catherine. She was looking for her Vincent. Despite the three thousand miles that first separated them, Nicholas and Jennifer Thalasinos of Colton, California managed to find the loves of their lives thanks to Beauty and the beast and an Internet bulletin board.”

We noticed the connections that these two fans chose to draw between a television show and their real lives. Jenkins on page 107 explores the concept of “emotional realism” and the need for fan texts to be emotionally applicable to the lives of fans. Especially interesting was the inclusion of imagery from September 11th as an analogous danger to that which Catherine faces in the pilot episode and from which she is rescued and comforted by Vincent. Jennifer describes Nicholas as a comforting presence, who “really took care of her”, during this time of “emotional trauma”. The two were in L.A. at the time — Nicholas did not in fact rescue Jennifer from the WTC, but the two apply the narrative to their relationship regardless, fitting with Jenkins’ theory. Furthermore, Nicholas proposed to Jennifer at tunnel entrance similar to the Tunnel World where Vincent and his ilk dwell.

Secondly, we found a piece of fanfiction called Of Love and Magic, a crossover between Beauty and the Beast, Labyrinth (the David Bowie one), Gargoyles (the mid-90s animated series that has a bizarre number of parallels with BatB), The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Les Misérables, and Phantom of the Opera. This fic elevates three cult fan texts that the academy might situate as being lower on the hierarchy of taste by juxtaposing them with three classical works of literature. Furthermore, its premise of a happily-ever-after ending changes and indeed challenges the meanings found in both the text itself and the explicit wishes of the producers (especially of BatB). In five of these six texts, the romances are tragically unfulfilled: the romantic heroines (Catherine, Sarah, Elisa, Esmeralda, and Christine) are separated forever from their outcast romantic heroes (respectively Vincent, Jareth, Goliath, Quasimodo, and the Phantom). Les Mis is the only exception to the rule. In Chapter 4 of Textual Poachers, Jenkins discusses the idea of reading generically and the expectations on the part of fan readers that that entails. In this example, Lady Rosesong and her readers have interpreted these texts as part of the fairy tale tradition and therefore expect the conventions thereof to be represented. They choose to fix producers’ “errors” by constructing alternate narratives of the texts; in some cases these “correct” fan readings replace the producers’ intended meanings. This model of generic reading and “correction” can be seen in both fanfiction and the application of fan narratives to the fans’ own lives.

Please note these changes to the reading & screening lineup for next week:

Reading: Textual Poachers chapters 3 & 4 (“Fan Critics” & “Not A Fairy Tale”). Save chapter 5 (“Scribbling in the Margins”) for week 6.

Screening: Rather than gathering everyone together on Tuesday night, I would like you to view this week’s material on your own time. Here’s the plan: go to the library and view two episodes of either Beauty and the Beast or Twin Peaks. (Both box sets are on reserve at McCabe.) You can do this anytime up till Thursday’s class. On Thursday, we’ll split into groups to discuss the texts and fan-reading strategies of the different series, based on the episodes you chose to watch.

I’m making these changes after reviewing the Jenkins chapters and deciding that next week will be most productive if we collectively put together a “big picture” of the TV texts: comparing our impressions and noting patterns across multiple episodes, rather than working from a singular text as we did with “Amok Time.”

Please let me know if you have any questions about this change in plans. And as always, thanks for being flexible …

One of the most intriguing things brought up in class today, to me, was Abby’s question of why fans feel like they get to prefer meanings and control access when they take that very ability away from producers. I came up with three answers:

1. Fandom is dangerous. Maybe the obscenity suit was a bit of an exaggeration (^^;;;), but imagine if the people who made Closer were kindergarten teachers. Now imagine if their principals, or parents in their communities saw this video. There would be hell to pay, not only for this but for a lot of slash and explicit fic. There are a lot of jobs and positions in society where saying “I write/draw/edit gay and/or fetish porn about fictional characters/actors/musicians/newscasters” will get you ostracized if not fired (see, this isn’t an exaggeration; note that this website about Internet crime has articles about fic on LJ). One of the primary uses of the fan community really is self-protection, at the very least from people thinking you’re weird, but on a very real level, to protect people who write Snarry from being perceived as people who would actually tie children up in dungeons and molest them. Within fandom, you get to label things with proper warnings, both to protect the producer of the fan text and to protect anyone who might not want to read it (anyone from people like Jamison, experienced fans who don’t want their souls tarnished, to actual honest-to-god innocent children). Especially concerning slash, one of the major things that slashers learn is that we’re doing things with characters that might really upset other fans, who are very invested in a different view of the text (not that they’re not doing the same to us sometimes). And, hearkening back to my fanifesto, fandom is in some sense about caring and emotional investment: we don’t want to harsh on other people’s squee by letting them accidentally read something that they don’t want to see, and we don’t want them to harsh on our squee in response.

2. Texts are produced in a capitalistic system and fan texts are not, by and large. We pay for books and movies and we watch commercials during TV, which means that we’re giving something in fair exchange for a text. In some sense, viewers “own” the text, then. If you buy a painting, the painter has no place to say that you can’t scribble all over it in crayon, because you own it, it’s your property. I think a similar thing happens with fan texts: once we invest our time and money, the text is fair game (I’m saying nothing about the actual legal definition of fair use, though). Fan texts, however, are not paid for, they are shared. You wouldn’t scribble all over a painting in someone else’s house that they’re letting you see, so why would you mess with the meaning of something shared with you (rather than bought by you)? I’m not trying to make this argument necessarily the most logical thing, but more to explain and perhaps justify a feeling of violation on the part of creators of fan works.

3. This is more an exception than an explanation, really: there are times when fans are totally okay with people re-interpreting their works. For example, there’s a practice known as “remixing” in which authors write a missing scene or a different perspective or just generally a re-interpretation of others’ fic. However, remixing is entirely consensual, as it were: authors agree to have their fic remixed. There are conventions for this sort of thing. This, to me, is a huge trend in fandom: anyone is perfectly welcome, as long as they play by the rules (for example, these LJ etiquette rules, all of which were familiar to me but had never been spoken to me at all).

This may be completely off-topic, but I just thought of this nice Star Trek Original Series and Lord of the Rings connection, which shows really well how much fans assume other fans are familiar with Fandom in general…

This is from an album released by Leonard Nimoy called “The Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy,” (sorry about the dubious link) exploring both Nimoy’s in-character, and highly folk-inflected out-of-character self.

This second one is part of a much larger oeuvre by Legendary Frog called “One Ring To Rule Them All 2.” 

What kinds of assumptions are Leonard Nimoy and Legendary Frog making by using “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins?” Would you consider Nimoy’s recording of this song as a commercial strategy, or as an expression of his own fan tendencies? Is Legendary Frog trying to gain more knowledge cred by using a very specific Nimoy reference in an otherwise tangentially related video, or is he also just expressing membership in two fandoms?

What are some uses for intertextuality in fandom that we haven’t discussed yet?

I like Jenkins. His writing style is engaging and I appreciate his efforts to legitimize fans for academics and others. But the whole concept of textual “poaching” really does leave out a large class of fans who just like to consume media and give credence to the original author. This is an issue that has been discussed in class, and surely such  people (like me, incidentally) still qualify as fans even if they are not members of the type of fan communities that Jenkins explores, but what kind of fans are they?

Many of the fan activities described by Jenkins in the first two chapters of TP apply to me, especially gossip about texts (interesting that this is so gendered, but, a discussion for another time), but so many others do not. I think Jenkins is responsible enough to recognize that his examples hardly apply to all fans, and has wisely  chosen to present a study made up primarily of case studies rather than give readers general rules for describing fandom…but it is still frustrating.

 I am passive in many ways. I sit in front of a tv and I wait to see what Ron D. Moore and his team of writers has brought me on Battlestar Galactica this week. I enjoy watching. I talk about the show and that can involve speculation, but not fiction. I often think that the spectrum is a useful model for many academic questions, but is it necessarily the case here? Surely there is a spectrum of the level of fan activity, but is being lower on that spectrum make you a less serious or devoted fan. Am I lower on the spectrum of fandom because I find the material produced by “the establishment” more compelling than that produced by fan writers.

 It is an honest question. I would be interested in learning what people think actually constitutes a “hardcore fan” Just a thought….

Just a quick post to update those of us who were speculating on the future of Gabriel Koerner, the teenager with the impressive 3D modeling skills and precise pronunciation featured in “Trekkies.”

After a google search on his name, I found his website (personal or professional, you choose!). Be sure to check out his reflections (sorry, I couldn’t make this one link: from his personal page, click ‘bio’) on his appearance in “Trekkies.”

Notice that he deftly he avoids the issue of his Trek fandom, which I find interesting considering that he worked on Star Trek: Enterprise (again, no link: from professional page, click ‘resume,’ scroll 1/3 of the way down).

As far as his fandom goes, I didn’t find anything that smacked of fan activity in a few quick searches, but maybe this discussion is itself fan activity?

First, a note about tonight’s screening: due to rotten weather, I handed projection duties over to Natan, whose own schedule will make it necessary to screen Trekkies before “Amok Time.” (I had planned to show them the other way around, but I want to respect Natan’s needs.) You won’t be watching the slash vid “Closer” at tonight’s screening, so please view it on your own before Thursday’s class. Lauren has posted an immensely valuable guide to the “Closer” debate and provided a number of resources on fan vids, so please check out her post before you watch the vid.

As usual, feel free to respond to any of the prompts below with your comments, or raise other questions / share other perceptions about the week’s screening and articles.

• Trekkies sets out to document the Star Trek fan community. What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of its approach? How would you characterize its overall take on media fandom? And what similarities and differences do you see between Trekkies and other “portraits” we’ve been exposed to, from Shatner’s “Get a Life” sketch and Jenkins’s recuperation of it to the more “objective” accounts offered by Radway and Seiter?
• Can you place Trekkies (which was released in 1997) on the time scale of fan studies offered in the introduction to Fandom (“fandom is beautiful” and so on)? How does the documentary’s rhetorical position reflect a particular moment of mainstream culture’s reaction to media fans?
• How are the fans featured in Trekkies creative? What kinds of material practices characterize their fandom?
• Picking up on our discussion of authority, how are various kinds of authority invoked in the film? What role do Trek’s professionals (writers, actors, etc) play in establishing this authority?
• Once you have watched both “Amok Time” and “Closer” (and followed some of the links provided by Lauren), can you evaluate the vid as an instance of what Jenkins calls “poaching”? How does it differ from the kinds of fan activity described in Chapters 1 & 2 of Textual Poachers?
• Given your experience of fandom (as participant or observer), where do you see poaching happening today? Does the poaching model still hold up? How could we revise/improve it?
• Chapter 2 of Textual Poachers identifies a number of reading traits associated with “excessive” fandom: the collapse of critical distance; the in-depth study of a show; the recording and remixing of media; gossip. Do you see these behaviors reflected in contemporary fandom? How have they been transformed in the years since 1992? Do the technologies available to fans play a role?
• Finally, what did you think of the Star Trek episode? (I’m particularly interested to hear reactions from people who have never seen the 1960s series!) Can you imagine yourself in the various interpretive and affective positions of the historical fan? Does the show “scan” for you as a fan object?