Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

Having seen http://www.newsweek.com/id/129592 in Newsweek, I’m once again reminded of how intimately tied together the stars of Star Trek are with the show.  From both angles, the interviewer talking to Stewart about Trek and Stewart defending “Trekkies,” it is another first hand look at how the people that participated in the show are intimately tied to it and how they view it as a positive thing long after they have left it.

Fletcher Wortmann and Dylan Smith

Week 10: Sub-creation, Seriality, and Media Franchises

In July of 1940, the Marvel Comics publishing corporation hit upon a breakthrough gimmick to increase sales. The company published the adventures of several popular superhero characters (The Sub-Mariner, Captain America, The Human Torch) independently. In issues 8 and 9 of Marvel Mystery comics, it was decided that The Sub-Mariner and The Human Torch would meet and fight one another. It was an effective marketing ploy, as fans of one character were compelled to buy any additional comics featuring their favorite hero, and their exposure to another character might convince them to buy that characters title.

It was with this simple gesture that the ‘Marvel Universe’ was created. Since then, Marvel has created any number of popular characters (Spider-Man, the X-men, the Fantastic Four). The same publishing rules applied, as a popular character could ‘guest star’ in another’s title to help boost sales, and so all of these characters were shoehorned into the same fictional universe. Unlike the fictional worlds of Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings, which are guided by the vision of a single creator, the ‘Marvel Universe’ thus developed as a mishmash of different characters and ideas. The X-Men (science-fiction mutants) would interact with the Silver Surfer (an alien), Dr. Strange (a magician), and Howard the talking anthropomorphic Duck. Marvel represents the development of a complex, fan-friendly fictional universe as an explicitly economic publishing strategy.

This brings us to our fan artifact for the week. A quick search on Google reveals two major Marvel Comics wiki sites: the Marvel Database (http://en.marveldatabase.com/Main_Page), a fan-run wiki focusing on the Marvel characters, and ‘Marvel Universe’ (http://www.marvel.com/universe/Main_Page) an official wiki included as part of Marvel’s official web site. The two sites demonstrate how corporate involvement can influence fan productivity. The official Marvel site includes animated graphics, character statistics and ads for subscriptions to Marvel comics. The unofficial site lacks these things, but features more extensive articles on a greater number of characters. The official site also requires that any edits are approved by site editors hired by Marvel; users who contribute information may be rewarded by being hired as editors or being allowed to participate in special promotions on the Marvel web site. Interestingly enough, the official web site also seems to omit some information about the characters. The ‘Marvel Database’ cites a comic where Spider-Man reveals that he was once sexually abused as a child; the official ‘Marvel Universe’ page makes no mention of that issue.

Discussion Questions:

1. With the conception and flourishing of this shared universe, in what ways has it created both masculine and feminine forms of fandom? Does it favor one over the other?

2. What is the sentiment on Marvel sanctioning one of the wikis? Is this good because Marvel is acknowledging the popular wiki system and seemingly ensuring its accuracy? Or is it bad because it is another example of the corporations trying to make money (there are many ads) off a clearly fannish activity?

3. What is the effect of the omission about Spider-Man’s childhood trauma? Is this is an example of the creators having final say in their creations, or an innocent way to keep our beloved icons “pure”?

4. Could these wiki’s be seen as an economic threat to Marvel? With all this information easily obtainable and in great detail, is it worth spending the money on the actual comic books?

5. Who would win in a fight between Dr. Doom and Magneto? Show your work.

We didn’t spend much time discussing camp in class but I think its important to discuss that initially the word  often refered to, and still refers to homosexual behavior. The word was certainly used in the 1920s to refer to a certain type of effiminate behavior from men. Sontag discusses this in her article, stating how gay men tend to be the biggest supporters and performers of camp.

So I want to know how much the word camp has moved beyond its association with gay men? The Wikipedia article on Mika uses his “campy” stage performanc as evidence that he is gay. My roomate says that camp and homosexuality are completely intertwined, and I think that the media definately associates the two. So to what extent should the gay connotations of camp impact its place in fandom? Can any discussion of camp occur without discussing the stereotypical “gay” aspect of it?

By: Alex Weintraub
VS.
Fan Artifact(s): Facebook Groups
Critical Theory and Theorists are HOT!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2209644563

~4 all the people that think paris hilton is HOT~

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2236228004

Up until now, the class’s focus has been directed to pop culture fandoms. A few discussions on the blog have arisen concerning the possibility of high culture fandoms (see http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/students/fmst85_s08/2008/01/29/continuation-of-defining-fandom/). Even still, the class has remained primarily within the contexts of pop culture. However, McKee, Pearson, and Tulloch focus their attention on fans of high culture (theory, classical music/literature, and Chekhov, respectively). Despite the different objects of fandom the writers address, all three share the belief that just as easily as one can be a fan of Star Trek, one can be a fan of high culture. In the same way that the authors find common ground between high fandoms and popular fandoms, I chose the Facebook group as the fan artifact because the standardized format will help emphasize the similarities.

McKee explains that the activity between theory fans and any other type of fan is basically the same. Theory fans consume all the material associated with the object of their fandom, form communities around authors and the theories they espouse, and identify strongly with the fantext, often making it a part of their everyday life (such as identifying as a Foucauldian). This can be seen in both Facebook groups, as members in each forge an online community in which they discuss the object of their fandoms and to advertise events within the given fandoms. Texts are interpreted and debates are held on the discussion boards. McKee makes it clear that all fans operate within a capitalist framework, not to reduce fans to passive consumers but rather to show that theory fans ought not be held above other types of fans just because they enjoy anti-capitalist texts. The Facebook group is a perfect example of how high fans and pop fans may operate within the same framework; the critical theory group even acknowledges the inherent contradictions in the debate on “What would our favorite thinkers say about Facebook.”

Roberta Pearson states that fans of high culture are not really any different than fans of popular culture. She describes that the lack of critical attention to high culture amongst fan studies is due to the resistance amongst high culture fans to be labled as fans. The view of these two worlds as being separate, she argues, is arbitrary and that high culture fans even share the same emotional investment to fantexts (such as the lively debate about Bach.) This similar emotional investment can be seen in the Facebook groups, as members of both groups speak of the object of their fandom in similar terms (different registers of speech may be due to differences in cultural capital).

John Tulloch “re-approches” high culture fandoms by showing how the different types of fan characters are replicated in the high culture context. For example, he describes amateur actors viewing Chekhov plays as being “enthusiasts” because of their focus on the production of a work. In the same way, different types of fans may be viewed in the context of the Facebook groups. Some are more concerned with production (When is Paris Hilton’s new show coming out? When is the next Foucault conference?), while others deal more with their own production (active users on the discussion boards.)

Finally, Matt Hills describes how scholar fans and media/cultural studies scholars in general have “recoded” aesthetic judgments towards which texts to study, favoring ones deemed politically productive. Therefore, all academics can be considered fans of what they study, despite their attempts to remain outside of fan culture.

Questions for discussion:
1. What is at stake when high culture fandoms are introduced into fan studies?
2. Do you agree that one can be a high culture fan? Do you think that high culture fans are as productive as pop culture fans?
3. Are there any differences between pop and high culture fandoms, other than fan objects, that the authors of these chapters don’t address?

By Illy Quintano and Abby Graber

Fan Artifact: Christopher Walken

His IMDB page.

In their essays on the camp and cultish, Susan Sontag and Umberto Eco respectively focus much of their analysis on the idea of form over content. Sontag’s definition of camp is explicitly “neutral with respect to content” (Sontag, 277); it is basically an aesthetic concept. Similarly Eco’s exposition on the cultish aspect of Casablanca focuses on the construction of the film itself: what is important is that the film is composed entirely of tried and true archetypes. The actual content of those archetypes is relatively irrelevant. Both Sontag and Eco mention communities surrounding camp and cult objects, but ultimately they emphasize the location of campiness and cultishness within the objects themselves.

Our fan object, Christopher Walken, both exemplifies Sontag and Eco’s concept of camp and cult and points to where their theories might be underdeveloped. Walken is in many ways similar to Greta Garbo, Sontag’s quintessential camp actor. Like Garbo, Walken does not play characters, he plays himself. The direction of fan adoration is focused on Walken, not on the contact of the character he plays. Thus it is easier to respond to Walken on the screen as an “instant character” (Sontag, 286), and one expects no further development. Because audiences are responding to Walken and not the character, they often make the leap to his past roles. Watching Christopher Walken, one can often get the pleasurable sense of déjà vu that Eco attributes to cultish viewing. Christopher Walken is an archetype of himself. Finally, Christopher Walken fans often disaggregate Walken films into the parts Walken is in and everything else. For example, the way the famous “Watch-in-my-Ass” monologue has been extricated from Pulp Fiction. This exemplifies Eco’s “Unhinging” theory: Walken causes films to become unhinged.

However, although Sontag and Eco briefly mention the community aspect of the cult and the camp, most of their writing seems to view these aspects as being located in the object. We think that the community surrounding the cult or the camp deserves more attention. Urban Dictionary’s definition of “cult”, for example, says a “film or book that has a large non mainstream following over a long period of time”. Here, the emphasis is on the following, not on the film or book. This could also certainly be said of the cultishness or campiness of Christopher Walken. Part of fans’ pleasures comes from their membership in an exclusive community of people who “understand” and are intelligent and devoted enough to recognize his sardonic and dry humor as a type of genius. Liking Christopher Walken is like sharing an inside joke among friends. There’s clearly a dialectic between who Christopher Walken is and the fan response to him that creates him as an object of camp and cult fandom.

Here are some questions we think come out of our fan artifact presentation and Tuesday’s readings:

1) Are campiness and cultishness the same thing?

2) How arbitrary are these definitions?

3) What is the relationship between the size of the object’s audience and its cult/camp status?

4) Does camp/cult mean “unskilled”, or does it require a certain aesthetic sensibility as Sontag claims?

5) Is there a difference between a cult object, a camp object, and a fan object?

I think our discussion of gender was cut short on time during the last class. There is definitely more to discuss on the subject, but I was taken aback at first by the Diana’s introduction of gender into the topic of contemporary fandom and fandom identity politics. 

The way I interpreted her comment was that the “emotional attachment” definition of fandom is “feminine”, and the more time/activity-dependent part of fandom was “masculine.” Contemporary fandom focuses more on defining fans as activity-based and that both ignores and “Others” fans who have important emotional relationships with texts. This marginalization is a masculine marginalization of a feminine approach. 

I was taken aback because I do not see emotional fandom as feminine. Perhaps I am interpreting too literally (by ascribing feminine/masculine roles to biological males and females), but are most female fans emotional while man fans activity-based? Jenkins brought up this hypothesis in Textual Poachers and it seemed controversial in the class.

  I simply do not see contemporary fandom as marginalizing women in this respect. Take, for example, sports fandom. Many sports fans have very emotional attachments to their team and sport. This doesn’t seem particularly Othered, and it is highly male-dominated. If one argued that fandom related to relationships/romance was feminine, perhaps some empirical evidence would be available, but claiming that mere emotional involvement is feminine is not supported by evidence and is belittling to men by playing off a stereotype traditionally used by males to subjugate women (their emotion is “irrational”).

The conversation on this topic was short, so it is easily possible that I have misinterpreted a more nuanced argument. I hope we can discuss it further on the blog and in class. I am particularly interested in analyzing the current gender composition of different fan activities. Jenkins argued that slash/fan fic was at the time of his writing female oriented. I wonder what gender compositions exist in this “new” age of fandom.  

Here are some thoughts to help synthesize this week’s readings and screenings. As always, feel free to use the comments section to explore or go beyond these prompts.

• Star Trek: New Voyages (a k a Star Trek: Phase II) seems to illustrate key points of Chris Anderson’s “Long Tail” thesis: it’s the product of newly “democratized” tools of digital video production, it’s distributed via online channels to the specific audience that seeks it out, and it represents the collaborative blending of amateur and professional talent. At the same time, the show’s near-religious allegience to the established Star Trek franchise suggests that the coming era of grassroots media production may play out along the same branded, consumerist lines as always. What do you think the show indicates about contemporary media authors and audiences? Do you see it as an anomaly, part of a coming trend, or something else entirely?
• Rebecca Tushnet discusses the legal definition of “transformative works.” Where might New Voyages fall in the taxonomy she lays out? In what ways does the participatory culture of the New Voyages makers complicate our ideas of copyright and intellectual/artistic property, if at all? Finally, how would you compare the New Voyages to slash vids, fan fiction, and other types of fan creativity we’ve looked at?
• Galaxy Quest presents us with yet another fantasy of texts “coming to life,” but does so with frank acknowledgment of the tawdry backstage end of franchises: aging actors struggling to make ends meet by appearing at conventions and bank openings. The film, in other words, seems as much about the business of fandom as it is about fans themselves. It also appears to be concerned with the importance of community (here figured as different types of “family”) to fan belief and practice. Does Galaxy Quest seem to shed a different light on the pictures of fan identity and fandom we’ve seen previously? What does it say about contemporary culture that a mainstream science-fiction comedy film on this subject was greenlit and released to audiences (and to pretty good box office)?
• Going back to points raised in today’s discussion (and perhaps between the lines of Jenkins’s “Afterword” and Kristina Busse’s essay), how does gender factor into both New Voyages and Galaxy Quest? Are these texts parables, in different ways and on different levels, of “boys and their toys”? How do women figure into their narratives, and what implicit messages/meanings about gender are constructed thereby?

As requested, a link to the stream of the ep:

http://stnv.dragonfly.com/STNV-WEAT.html

And from the New Voyages site so you have the option of torrenting it:

http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/episode_weat.html

Enjoy!

sperber_on_being_a_fan.pdf

I came across this article (link is listed above) about sports fans in the Chronicle of Higher Education and thought it would make a good addition to our discussion on fandom. Considering that the term “fan” first appeared in reference to followers of professional sports teams (Jenkins, 12), I thought it would be important to bring more attention to sports fans since we haven’t paid them much attention up to this point. I also felt that we could draw a lot of parallels between the nature of sports and media fandoms, so that is what I tried to do in this post.

Murray Sperber wrote this article about the nature of sports fandom, but about collegiate sports specifically. He starts off his discussion by recounting a visit to the University of Washington, where he answered questions students had about his book, Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports is Crippling Undergraduate Education. In the book, he critiqued the way in which big-time colleges and universities, such as the University of Michigan, have treated their athletic programs as professional teams rather than fostering successful student-athletes with an emphasis on the word “student.” One student in the audience, knowing that Sperber was actually a sports fan himself, asked Sperber if he was engaging in “double speak” by criticizing collegiate sports while simultaneously supporting his favorite collegiate team, the Cal Berkeley Bears. This sparked the discussion about the power of sports fandom over logic and reason and caused Sperber to look a little bit deeper into the sports fan’s psyche.

In addressing this issue of whether Sperber contradicts himself by being a fan while also critiquing the direction in which Division I athletics have been moving, I think it’s useful to remember one of Henry Jenkins’ arguments in Textual Poachers, where he argues that fans’ responses often involve “not simply fascination or adoration but also frustration and antagonism.” He goes on to say, “it is the combination of the two responses which motivates their active engagement with the media” (Jenkins, 23). Later, he quotes a Star Trek fan that says, “If we didn’t care, we wouldn’t criticize” (Jenkins, 86). This would seem to indicate that you can be both a critic and a fan at the same time, and that they are not necessarily separate entities. In fact, it seems to show that criticism is an important part of fandom since it encourages improvement in a text, team, etc, and demonstrates the fans’ deep knowledge of the object of their fandom. This is the realization that Sperber came to in his article when he admitted, “although I was a critic of big-time college sports, I was also a fan and rooted for my team.” He, like many other student sports fans seemed to “acknowledge the dysfunction of college sports while fervently following its teams and games.”

Making another link back to Jenkins’ discussion of media fandom, Jenkins notes that fans often choose certain interests “in order to facilitate greater communication with friends who share common interests or possess compatible tastes” (Jenkins, 40-41). In relation to sports fandom, this might help explain why some fans choose one sports team over another. When he asked fans how many games of their favorite team they had attended, Sperber found that many admitted that the number was zero, indicating that these fans were motivated by some other emotion and connection than the team’s performance alone. Sperber found that many of these attachments stemmed from childhood experiences and family bonding, while other fans admitted that their attachment to a team somehow connected them to positive memories of their college glory days. This would seem to prove Jenkins’ theory that many fans are motivated by the process and activities of fandom more than the central show, movie, team, etc. itself (Jenkins, 91).

So, after drawing some similarities between sports and media fans, I guess my big question is, what makes the distinction between the two types of fandom in the way they are perceived by fan culture scholars and the mainstream? Sports fans still seem to be more acceptable than media fans, even though they both engage in similar practice, so I am curious to figure out where the differences lie.

I was looking through the New York Times today, and there was a fairly negative article
on the Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales. I don’t really have much of an opinion on this article because I don’t really know much about Wikipedia besides what’s in the reading. I was wondering if people would mind talking a bit more about their experiences with Wikipedia and similar sites especially in regards to the reading. Ben made an interesting post before where people got talking in the comments, but I’d like to bring it up again and see what people are thinking and perhaps get more perspectives.