Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

The McCourt/Burkart article discusses online music services. I thought it would be useful to visit a few modern and popular incarnations of the types of services they discuss.

1. One type of service mentioned is “listening machines” that automatically analyze and categorize music based on actual waveform, tempo, etc. A free and popular service that does this (related to the Music Genome Project the article discusses) isPandora.

2. Another type of service is “collaborative filtering” where the musical tastes of people who listen to similar music as you dictate suggestions. A popular and free service for this type of site isLastFM.

I think it is worth continuing the discussion about the merits of franchises that span TV, movies, comic books, action figures, McDonalds Happy Meals, etc. Previously criticisms were raised about its destruction of traditional narrative techniques — completeness, comprehensibility, enjoyability, etc.

I briefly mentioned Star Wars in relation to this, and I’d like to outline its cross-media tradition and give my opinion about it, but there are many series worth discussing here. Professor Rehak, for example, focused on The Matrix, and made the insightful comment that the series has not really “stuck around” like Star Wars or Star Trek.

1. The original Star Wars trilogy made reference to many elements not explained in the context of the movies. What are the Clone Wars? How did the emperor seize power? How did Darth Vader become who he is? Many places and technologies were also only mentioned in passing. Most of these “comprehensibility” complaints were not raised by viewers of the Trilogy. My opinion is that it’s because the movie followed archetypal narratives — a war is a war, and we can imagine the details of the Clone Wars. An evil dictator is an evil dictator. The plot could be understood without understanding the details. Many fans would later find enjoyment in these details, however, with publications similar to those shown by Professor Rehak about Star Trek. Of course these details also left room for the new trilogy.

2. The new trilogy in my opinion followed the same techniques in many ways as the original trilogy. Yet there was a negative response about most aspects of the new movies. Plot holes were declared marketing ploys for more action figures, video games, etc. However, the difference is that in the original trilogy, the details truly were unexplained. In the time between the two trilogies, cross-media story telling had taken over and, for example, in novels and comic books many of the “plot holes” in the new trilogy had already been explained. The villains in the new trilogy, for example, were not brand-new creations, but had complex backstories already published.

So the question is whether one could understand the new trilogy without reading all these other cross-media sources, and whether one should have to. I know that after watching Ep.1-3 the first time, going back again had them make a lot more sense, even without resorting to extra-textual information.

I’ve been meaning to ask a question about The Rocky Horror Picture Show and wasn’t quite sure where it fit on the blog, so I figured I would just make a brief post.

After watching the film and experiencing a less extreme version of the whole callback phenomenon last week, I was wondering how this interaction with the text began. Are the callbacks something that have always existed with the film? I was just curious because I don’t think I have ever heard of this type of participation and interaction with other films, so I was wondering if this phenomenon was particular to Rocky Horror or a part of a broader fan practice that I was just not aware of. If it is particular to Rocky Horror, then, I am also curious as to what it is about the film that inspires this sort of fan participation when other cult films have not attracted the same type of response. Can anyone help me out?

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?

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.  

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.

Fan Artifact Presentation by Noah Lang and Kathy Alexeeff

In 2004 Brian Burton, also known as DJ Danger Mouse, produced a mashup album combining The Beatles self-titled 1968 album (also known as The White Album) and Jay-Z’s 2003 album The Black Album. Originally intended only for close friends and to encourage further mashup experiments, the album’s popularity spread rapidly culminating in EMI sending Burton cease and desist letters regarding the album’s continued release and promotion.

Later in 2004, music video directing team Ramon and Pedro released a music video mashing up concert performance footage of Jay-Z and footage of The Beatles playing on The Ed Sullivan Show. The video attracted similar internet popularity and picked up much of the same mainstream coverage that Burton’s mashup was given.

You can watch the video here.

The Grey Album demonstrates several key concepts introduced by Chris Anderson in The Long Tail. As a niche market product, The Grey Album was never intended for a large audience but through the internet the album reached the same audience an industry backed “hit” would hope to reach. Despite its widespread appeal and acclaim, The Grey Album has never been commercially released and Burton has received no direct compensation for his work. Since the album’s “release” Burton has essentially been co-opted by the mainstream he originally was outside of and ironically he is currently contracted by the same record label which threatened to sue him, EMI. Entertainment Weekly named The Grey Album record of the year in 2004 and GQ named Burton one of their “men of the year” following the album’s popularity and mainstream coverage. Oh yeah, he also won a grammy for his production work on the Gorillaz second studio album, Demon Days.

Basically Burton was able to leverage a non-commercially viable product into a successful music career on products that are commercially viable such as the Gorillaz album and further works with MF Doom, Gnarls Barkley and an upcoming collaboration with Beck. Anderson describes this trend: “ such profitless publishing can be lucrative all the same…such [works] are best seen as enhancing the reputation of their authors”.

However, such liberal use of copyrighted material is not without the threat of potential litigation. Following EMI’s extensive litigation to prevent further “releases” of Danger Mouse’s work, an NPO known as Downhill Battle organized an event called Grey Tuesday which took place on February 24, 2004. The event called for websites to post copies of the album for free download in order to protest the record industry’s apparent ignorance of fair use laws that permit limited use of copyrighted materials. The event culminated in over 100,000 downloads from participating websites and not a single charge filed in court against the organizers.

The Grey Album and further related media as well as Downhill Battle’s Grey Tuesday, touch upon issues we have previously discussed in class with the Grey Tuesday representing an apparent fan community protecting transformative works against the powers that be. New concepts addressed in the readings include the continuing issue of copyright and its relation to new media as well as the utility of seemingly non-commercially viable products.

Things to consider-

(1) Should we care about copyright when the copyright owner is not the artist? (I.E.-Michael Jackson originally controlled the Beatles catalogue after outbidding Paul McCartney for the rights)

(2) Is it possible for other forms of entertainment to be as thoroughly digitalized as music has been transformed? For example, will books remain physical objects or will they too become digitalized?