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This is the course blog for Fan Culture (FMST 85) at Swarthmore College, a space to raise questions, continue conversations, and share resources. Use the page tabs above to navigate to the syllabus and readings, or the Login / Site Admin link (under the Meta menu, below) to create a new post.

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Announcements

The Film and Media Studies Spring Screening will take place Thursday, May 8, at 7:30 in the LPAC Cinema. All are invited to come watch the Video Production Lab and senior film projects!

Open Thread: Semester Wrapup

May 1st, 2008 by Bob

All, I enjoyed our last class meeting today, but as usual, sensed there was more to talk about than time allowed. Use this thread to share further thoughts and discussion about any aspect of the class. Thanks again for your hard work this semester, and remember that your final papers will be available for pickup outside my office (LPAC 204) next Wednesday.

Posted in Blog protocol | 1 Comment »

Music and New Media

April 29th, 2008 by abreche1

I had a question for the panels today that did not seem to fit into the flow of conversation, so I thought I’d pose it on the blog. We’ve explored the impact of new media technologies and convergence culture as they relate to other fandoms, but I was wondering about their relationship with music fandom.

 It seems that new media is probably brought up more in regards to music than other products, but only from the perspective of legal ramifications of downloading and the effect those practices have on the music industry. I wondered if the proliferation of new media technologies might also have an impact on the fan experience. I am speaking very generally about everything from apparatus theory and the effect of location and medium on experience, to  the idea that ‘true’ fans listen to albums. Also, is there a parallel to the changes in fan demographics like we observed with vidding and computer editing technologies? Any thoughts…

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Musicology II: Industry, Identity, Anxiety

April 25th, 2008 by Danielle

Danielle Tocchet

Full Paper: fan-culture-tocchet.pdf

I will be looking at the relationship between The Beatles’ popularity and the mass production and promotion of Beatles paraphernalia in the growing mass media consumer market of the early to mid 1960s. The news and media at the time had a significant role in prolonging and bolstering the hysteria surrounding the Four Mop Tops from Britain. When The Beatles played a gig, newspapers did not write stories about how well the band had performed, but wrote instead about the scenes of chaos and hysteria they had caused. Using a couple of the most comprehensive biographies of The Beatles, I will argue that it was the combination of the individual personalities of the four Beatles that started the large fan following surrounding the group, and that once the media got involved, the business world recognized the “biggest marketing opportunity since Walt Disney had created Mickey Mouse.” This led to the mass production of Beatles paraphernalia and created a music fandom rooted in popular culture and the creation of star identities, rather than the music itself. I will also use the essays in Fandom to draw similarities and differences between other forms of music fandom, but this proves difficult because Beatlemania is such an extreme example.

Ileana Quintano

Full Paper: “Boys Don’t Cry”: The Search for Masculinity in the Indie Rock Community

Abstract: This paper will explore the participation of white heterosexual males in the fandom of indie (short for “independent”) music as a mechanism employed to cope with their insecurities, specifically ones concerning their perceived masculinity. Many male indie fans who have at one point or another during their lives been labeled with demasculinizing pejoratives, such as “queer” or “fag”, feel a connection to male indie stars who fit the cast of the sensitive poet. Indie stars tend to be deemed unmasculine because the sensitivity they convey in their lyrics and because of their physical appearance which tends to be of an effeminate nature. On top of that, such artists often find themselves the center of female fan attention, a clear indicator to male fans that they could easily attract girls without having to indulge in the macho persona of more mainstream culture. Instead, inspired by their indie idols, they take a more poetic route to the hearts of young women.

Ari Klafter

Full paper: fan-culture-klafter.pdf

Abstract: I look at common notions of fans of metal music and see how they match up with real life examples of fans. I interviewed students on campus and people in the Ville, asking them what comes to mind when they think of a metal fan. Using posts from message boards on the official websites of two popular metal bands–Metallica and Black Sabbath–as well as several examples of metal fans on campus and one article, I was able to compare them to the testimonies I collected. Save those concerning style, I found these common ideas about metal fans to be invalid.

Lauren Smith

Full paper: Popslash and Bandom: Two Waves of Celebrity Fandom
Popslash and Bandom: Appendix (Sources)

Abstract: Fans of popular musicians often extend their interest to the personal lives of those musicians, following their activities through entertainment journalism. Some fans transform this news about their favorite artists into narratives that are dramatic, not journalistic, and congregate online to share their stories, which range from write-ups of actual events to purely fantastical fiction. Many of these fans write and read “slash” fiction, which pairs musicians in homosexual relationships, usually between men. In this paper, I plan to examine two movements of such celebrity fandom from the last decade– “popslash”, which focused on boybands, and “bandslash”, which focuses on emo bands”, and conclude that academics studying fan relationships to popular media should mirror some of the practices of celebrity fans themselves in acknowledging mass-culture influences upon their own ideas. (To follow my own advice, I’m attaching an appendix of quotations and links to the sources of my own understanding of celebrity music fandom.)

Posted in Colloquium | 2 Comments »

Pulp Fictions: Comics, Cartoons, and Popular Culture

April 25th, 2008 by abreche1

Aaron Brecher – A Blond Bond? Divisions within a Fan Community

Full paper: fan-culture-brecher.pdf

Abstract: One of the often overlooked elements of fan studies is the extent to which fans of the same text can sharply disagree sharply with producers, fan icons, and other fans over particular issues. A case in point is the reaction of the James Bond fan community to the casting of Daniel Craig for the twenty-first ‘official’ Bond film, Casino Royale (2006). While a discussion of the Bond franchise and its fans might lead to several fascinating veins of exploration (such as the accusation of misogyny uncharacteristic of many other media fan communities), perhaps the most salient issue on the minds of Bond fans over the past few years has been the selection of Craig to replace Pierce Brosnan. The study used archived pages of the now defunct Daniel Craig anti-fan site www.craignotbond.com and compared this issue among Bond fans to Jenkins’ exploration of divisions within the Beauty and the Beast fan community, and found the cases to be similar in revealing diversity and a critical eye among fans of the same text that is often ignored by other studies of fan communities. Also the includes an acknowledgement that fans are acutely aware of the capitalist system in which they participate and (unsuccessfully) relied on the threat of a boycott to force the producers of the text to amend the franchise for the sake of pleasing their segment of the fan community.



Fletcher Wortman – Preaching to True Believers: The Decline of the American Comic Book Industry

Full Paper: fan-culture-wortmann.pdf

Abstract: The mainstream American comic book publishing industry has been in financial, and arguably creative, decline for the past twenty years. Periodicals produced by industry titans Marvel DC Comics which once sold hundreds of thousands of copies now struggle to maintain a tenth of their former audience. This paper will examine the financial and creative concerns which have lead to the downfall of the American comic. The industry’s economic decline can be attributed to the transfer of resources from mainstream commercial venues to specialty comic shops, as well as the industry’s failure to respond effectively to illegal downloading of copyright material. In addition, the industry has relied on storylines designed to appeal to existing fans; the industry’s attempts to attract new readers have been met with either indifference or scorn. Indeed, much of this recession can be attributed to the editorial decision to cater to an aging and rapidly diminishing audience of preexisting fans. Ultimately, the decline of the American comic book industry serves as a warning to those interested in exploiting fan interest for economic gain, and proves that fan support alone may not sustain a media franchise.


David Pupkin – Japan Conquers America: the Mainstreaming of Anime

Full Paper: fan-culture-pupkin.pdf

Abstract: My paper will be focusing on the growth of anime fandom in the United States. I will first outline the early fans; or the first American fans of anime, what attracted them to anime, how they watched it, and how their fandoms were expressed. I will go into a little bit of Otaku no Video for this, especially the interview with the American who came to Japan even though I know he was only one of Gainax’s American distributors rather than an actual American otaku who came to Japan. I will then delve into the past few years of American anime; from its massive and rapid rise in popularity to the mainstreaming of such. I will describe the cause of this rise and provide numerous examples in addition to merely describing it; con attendance numbers, examples of anime putting itself into new and diverse settings (ie: Lego and American cartoons), and Cartoon Network scheduling blocs if I can find them. Finally, I will attempt to predict the future, outlining the various routes as to where anime may go and what effects the mainstreaming of the fandom will have; whether it’ll eventually become a perfectly legitimate thing to do to “dress up for cons” as Sailor Moon or whether it’ll go back underground and become less mainstream.


Steve Wolf – The Transmedia Elements of Spider-Man

Full Paper: fan-culture-wolf.pdf

Abstract: This paper will focus on the fan community around Spider-Man. The first thing the paper will address is what makes Spider-Man ripe for a devoted fan following. It will also go into details of why particular portrayals of the character are able to pick up new fans while at the same time satisfying older ones. Along the same lines, it will focus on how the fans interact with these different portrayals of the character. Particular points of interests will be what domain originally attracted the fans into the Spider-Man universe, be it the comic books, one of the television show, a video game, or the movies. Additionally, it will analyze how the point of entrance possibly impacts how the person interacts with the different transmedia portrayals of the character. It will delve into what the typical demographics of fans of each portrayal as well as highlight differences between what each expects from future incarnations of the character.

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Alternative Fandoms

April 25th, 2008 by Kathy

Sarah Reynolds

Full paper: Jane Austen: From High Culture to Popular Culture [PDF]

Abstract: Jane Austen fandom sits in an interesting junction between two types of fandoms: high culture and popular culture. Johnson writes, “Unlike Star Trek, Austen’s novels hold a secure place in the canon of high as well as popular culture.” This paper will provide information about certain aspects of the fan community that has developed around the Jane Austen novels. It will begin with a history of the Jane Austen fandom and how it formed. It will look at the academic and intellectual beginning of Jane Austen fan audiences and then the transition to a popular “Janeite”fan audience. It will focus on the tension between the two as Jane Austen serves as both a text of high culture and popular culture. The paper will try to answer the question of how academic fans have reacted to the commercialization and popularization of Jane Austen fan objects. The paper will then move onto a case study of an off-shoot of a Jane Austen novel. “Clueless” is a 1995 comedic film based on Jane Austen’s Emma. We will focus on the extent to which “Clueless” is faithful to its Austen text and how audiences have reacted to it. Finally, the paper will close with personal accounts and insights into the ongoing debate about whether Austen’s novels can serve as both a focus of English literature classes and simultaneously a focus of popular culture.
Noah Lang

Full paper: A Fighting Fandom [PDF]

Abstract: Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a growing sports phenomenon which showcases multiple combat disciplines such as boxing, muay thai, judo, wrestling, jiu-jitsu and numerous others. The sport has seen steady growth since its inception in the early 90’s but recently has seen tremendous growth as the premiere MMA promotion, The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), has seen rapid expansion and visibility through promotions, name recognition andmainstream coverage. As this growth continues – including current network deals for programming, cross promoted events and MMA stars transitioning into mainstream media – the fans have always remained right on the pulse and have been as instrumental as any athletic commission or promoter in helping the sport continue to prosper. By looking at the example of a renowned MMA blogger and video editor known as Boondock, the greater influence of youtube upon fandom, and fan-created news websites upon MMA, I intend to frame the current development of the sport and why the fans continued interaction with the fighters, promoters and greater community has allowed the sport to continue to grow and find a greater audience and acceptance.


Kathy Alexeff

Full paper: The Producerly Land of Oz [PDF]

Abstract: Fan objects and creations can come from many different levels of production. Barthes and Fiske discuss the producerly text as one method of consumer engagement with the text. World creation, like the creation of Middle Earth of Tolkien, or the Matrix, opens up a text even more to fan interpretation. No one author, no matter how skilled, can completely fill in all the gaps, so fan creation and interpretation can step in to fill those gaps. Third, there is the producer’s response to the fan creations related to the text. Wicked; as a book, a musical and as a series; acts on all three of these types of fan creation. Wicked, the novel, fills in the gaps left by the Wizard of Oz fandom. The Oz world allowed the development of consumer production. Wicked the musical and the series continues to develop the gaps of Oz, and also respond to the fans of both the original Oz, and Maguire’s Oz. The gaps left by producerly texts cause not only reinterpretation of the text by the consumer, but the creation of a new, related world, created solely by the consumer.

Diana Pozo

Full paper: Wake up, Henry Jenkins, this is no Star Wars Galaxies!

An online virtual world different from other MMORPGs (World of Warquest, Everquest, ex.) in that its producers provide no stable theme or plot structure, Second Life is not so much a game as it is a detailed, three-dimensional visual environment. Because the world serves as a location for users to build and act out their fantasies, it is less of a media product that could have “fans” in its own right and more of a location where fans can build up detailed recreations of the world of fan texts, or explore the worlds built by others.

One such fan recreation is Hogwarts Reborn, the largest Harry Potter-themed group on Second Life, with over 600 members. HR is a role-playing game taking place in a three-dimensional recreation of Hogwarts castle and grounds, as well as in other Harry Potter-inspired environments. Unlike Star Wars Galaxies, the fan-destined MMORPG touted by Henry Jenkins as an example of a move towards egalitarian interaction between producers and fans, Hogwarts Reborn is a fan community, a detailed visual recreation, and a different kind of “game,” one in which the gamer-free atmosphere of Second Life and the desires of canon-based Harry Potter fans coexist.

Posted in Colloquium | 3 Comments »

Fan Identities: Gender, Race, Ritual

April 25th, 2008 by Bob

Ariel Horowitz

Full paper: Worshipping the Text: Fandom as Religious Practice in Modern Society

I explore the ways in which fan activity satisfies the lack of ritualized worship left by the secularization of modern society. It has often been posited that religions are created by humanity to satisfy some inherent need for belief, ritual, and an interpretive paradigm for navigating life. Presently in Western society, a large part of the population lives a generally secular lifestyle; even if many people celebrate technically religious holidays, their worldviews are not built with religious tenets. I theorize that for many people, fandom serves as a substitute for this sort of religious activity. Fandom provides an environment for the subsuming of self in a greater narrative. Fan texts are modern mythology, their archetypical characters ripe for investment with belief. This belief leads to fan practices that are comparable to religious practices. Fans sanctify the watching of weekly television shows like a sabbath. Fan tours to significant locations are transcendent in the same way as pilgrimages to holy sites. Fans deify the creators of texts and canonize fans that gain prominence. Finally, fans absorb the ideology of a fan text, incorporating the text’s representations of concepts such as morality and duty into their own. Fan engagement with texts is, I argue, directly comparable to religious adherents’ engagement with holy texts, and fan activity serves as a modern kind of religion.

Abigail Graber

Full paper: Racial Stereotyping in Star Trek and its Fandom

Gene Roddenberry conceived the world of Star Trek as a multicultural utopia, where the racial divisions that scarred the American social and political landscape in the ‘60s have been eliminated. This is also the vision of Star Trek depicted in official representations of fandom. Throughout Trekkies, fans are consistently quoted as appreciating the egalitarian ethos that pervades Star Trek—from the story Trekkies tells, the racial liberalism of Star Trek is one of the qualities that fans are most drawn to in the series. However, several scholars have recently questioned Star Trek’s pretensions to racial progressivism. Daniel Bernardi and Denise Alessandria Hurd, among others, document pervasive patterns of racial discrimination in the production of Star Trek, racial stereotyping in the world of Star Trek, and the placement of white actors, white characters, and white culture at the top of a racial hierarchy within the Star Trek-verse. Fans reproduce these racial issues. In fannish behavior surrounding Star Trek, the essentialization of biological race is taken for granted. In fannish discussions of problematic racial representations in Star Treks, stereotypes about human “races” are reproduced.

Nicole Boyle

Full paper: Female Fans, Published Authors

My project is about the transition of and porous boundary between fans and producers of media texts in a gender specific manner. I am looking at female fans who wrote/write fanfiction who have also published novels, in much the same way Henry Jenkins looked at the male amateur filmmakers who then become professional film makers in his book Convergence Culture. I discuss case studies of three fanfiction writers who are publishing or have published their own novels, Sarah Rees Brennan, Jaida Jones, and Naomi Novik. I look at personal correspondence, livejournal entries, and interviews to investigate how each author has negotiated their fannish production when they became published authors. This paper looks at the fan/producer binaries that have been prevalent throughout this class, and also suggests the further investigation in role of gender in the transition between fan and producer.

Brandon Washington

Full paper: fandom-performing-ethnicity.pdf

My paper is on Race and Fandom and the modes of performativity they activate . My paper will look at various examples within sports fandom in particular, and explore the role race plays in fandom. Some of the questions I will be posing are: How can race determine one’s fandom? Are certain fan cultures targeted towards certain races? Does fan culture point to race or does race point to a fan culture? In this analysis the parallels will become clear that fandom and ethnic identities are not mutually exclusive, but in fact are linked by the element of performance.

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Musicology I: Artists and Audiences

April 25th, 2008 by Dylan

Papers by Greg Albright, Dylan Smith, and Rachel Turner

Self-Conceptions of Jazz Fan/Musicians
Greg Albright

This paper seeks to examine the practices of jazz musicians and their interactions with jazz music as fan text(s). Interviews were solicited from members of the Swarthmore College Jazz Ensemble and other student performing groups, focusing on their conceptions of their playing; in particular, whether they consider their jazz performance to be a manifestation of their fandom of jazz (if they do consider themselves fans at all). In addition, it will engage the question of what can be considered “text” in the convoluted world of jazz performance as rewriting.

albright-jazz-fans.pdf

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Sharing with the Deadheads
Dylan Smith

This paper focuses on the fan community of the Grateful Dead, named Deadheads. I discuss aspects of the fan community that illustrate how it is a shared community, much like other media fandoms we have studied. But they were distinct in music fandom in certain ways. I emphasized two aspects of the culture, tape trading and “living on the road.” In addition, it brings up features of the band itself that allows this unique fan community to thrive.

(When Sheptoski is referred to, it is from Deadhead Social Science)
the-dead.pdf

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We’re Gonna be Big Stars: A Cavicchi-inspired analysis of Counting Crows’ success
Rachel Turner

David Cavicchi’s “Loving Music” outlines the ways in which music really began the media fandom that is encountered presently in society. His argument is compelling and can be demonstrated in a case study of the band Counting Crows, tracing their fan following from 1993 to present time. The band has tested the boundaries of their music over the last decade and a half to produce unique albums that are tied together by on-going themes and the distinct quality of singer and song writer, Adam Duritz. Duritz commonly uses real events in his own life to inspire his lyrical genius, as well as music from rock legends like Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and the Beatles. These drastic differences between the albums show the Counting Crows’ true love of creating music, highlighting their disinterest in pleasing the MTV status quo and their balancing act between success and sell-out. A “band’s band,” the Counting Crows interaction with fans through multiple contexts has allowed the fan base to remain strong for over fifteen years. In an examination of the albums produced by the Counting Crows, the transformation their musical palate combined with their ability to adhere to a personalized and unique sound, the band embodies an excellent exemplar of Cavicchi’s argument about music fandom.

cc-fan-culture-paper.pdf

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Disciplining Fandom

April 25th, 2008 by Loretta

Final papers written by: Loretta Gary, Bizzy Hemphill, Ben Mazer and Alex Weintraub

Vogue Anti-Fandom: Who Owns Luxury?
Ben Mazer

Full paper: Vogue – BMazer

Vogue, an influential magazine about women’s fashion, has come under attack for being elitist, conservative in their styles, and most recently, as racist. The April 2008 cover has sparked dissent and farther-reaching criticism about the magazine from within the fashion industry and fan communities. This growing anti-fandom within the larger world of fashion fandom is detailed and placed within models of fan communities. We conclude that anti-fandom of Vogue represents a disagreement with larger taste hierarchies and deserves a different type of analytic treatment.

A Defense of Theory Fandom and Anti-Fandom: New York Times Readers
respond to Stanley Fish

Alex Weintraub

Fan Artifact: “French Theory in America” (Part 1 and Part 2)

Full paper: fan-culture-weintraub.pdf

On April 6, 2008, literary critic, Stanley Fish, wrote an article for the New York Times discussing an upcoming book about the history of French Theory in the United States and his opinion on desconstruction. In the article, he posits that the polarizing reception of French Theory is based on a false notion that deconstruction can move beyond the rhetorical sphere and into the political realm. The article received over 600 posts, some from fans of Theory and some from anti-fans. In a follow up article published on April 20, Fish defends his point against selected posters’ arguments, both in favor of and against Theory. Again, the article received hundreds of posts in response. The incident brings up interesting issues of the politics of fandom and the use of internet forums for debate over fan/anti-fan objects. Fish’s thesis mischaracterizes Theory and ignores a broader, ongoing debate. Also, looking at the incident from outside the debate reveals many similarities between high cultural fandoms and pop cultural fandoms in ways that are covered by select authors in Fandom.

The Absolute Pleasure of Discipline: Rocky Horror Fandom and Foucault
Bizzy Hemphill

Full paper: Rocky – BHemphill

In this paper, I will examine the modes of disciplining in fandom, using the callbacks during Rocky Horror Picture Show as my main example. I will draw on the philosophy put forth by the editors of Fandom that studying fans is an important way to learn about interactions in a mediated society. While many (if not all) fandoms also have disciplining processes and rules that fans within the fandom must follow, Rocky Horror fandom is a particularly clear example because of the callback phenomenon: fans are expected to perform in certain ways at certain times. I will interview several Swarthmore students who identify as Rocky Horror fans about they have learned how to participate in Rocky Horror fandom, as well as objects from the producers, like the DVD, and the official fan club. Using Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish as a theoretical framework for understanding disciplining in society at large, I will examine the relationship between the subversive possibilities of fandom and how the disciplining of citizens in society can be used as a framework for understanding the disciplining processes of fans of a particular fandom.

The Thinning Line between Fandom, Consumerism and Citizenship: The Nickelodeon Nation & the Youth Consumerism Culture

Fan Site: Nicktropolis

Full Paper: Nickelodeon -LGary (better formatting. same content. sorry.)

In this paper, I would like to explore the blurring of fan practices with the accepted consumer identity through a discussion of the growing youth consumer culture. Throughout this brief study, I will argue that media producers are purposefully cultivating fans out of their young audiences in order to satisfy their own capitalist desires. Therefore, I believe there is a connection between the process of infantalization that Barber introduces in Consumed and the current growing acceptance of the adult fan. To address these issues, I will begin with a short introduction to the existing scholarship on youth consumer culture – which is almost entirely situated outside of fan studies. Then, I will provide examples from Nickelodeon to showcase how the youth consumer culture is a prime location for the blending of the fan identity with the consumer’s role and the practices of citizenship to create the new level of consumerism that we see taking over today.

Posted in Colloquium | 1 Comment »

Blake’s 7

April 25th, 2008 by dpupkin1

It seems that the show Blake’s 7, one of the shows listed as a work with a great deal of fan involvement has just been green lit for a remake.

The story is http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7364663.stm

There isn’t much to the story other than explaining that the show was being remade but, I’m wondering if there was fan involvement behind this? The question is whether SkyOne decided to remake a popular old sci-fi show due to the success of Battlestar Galactica or if there’s more of a fannish hand behind the remake, possibly a mass Internet petition.

Even more so, this doesn’t seem to be the first re release of the show, there was a radio drama done last year and in 2003 there was another attempt to remake the show, before the current sci-fi remake boom. It’ll be interesting to find out if fans had anything to do with these projects as well.

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Fan Artifact: Conceptions of Celebrity

April 21st, 2008 by bwashin1

Don’t Look Back (1967) was a film by D.A. Pennebaker that followed Bob Dylan’s life at the height of his celebrity in 1964. It portrayed him as an arrogant, elusive, cool character, and contributed to his image as a socially conscious poet. Despite the documentary-like shooting style, the authenticity of the performance is put into question.As the Sconce article claims, celebrity blurs the line between reality and performance. It claims that a celebrity used to be famous because he was talented in some way. Today, Sconce claims, celebrities act as entertainment by being famous — it is their job to be obnoxious, vacuous, and talentless. This is entertaining and lets consumers both envy and admonish the celebrity. A celebrity is now meta/meta-famous. In this Don’t Look Back clip (at the bottom of the post), it is unclear whether Dylan is posing and being especially angry just because he knows he’s being filmed. To what extent is Dylan’s fame due to his talent (music) and to what extent his caustic personality?

Sconce, furthering Baudrillard’s work, claims the Real has collapsed to be replaced by a self-referential Symbolic order. This basically means that no longer does the media refer to some “real” world, but that all media refers only to other media in a symbolic network, and that an Imaginary order (fantasy, culture, etc.) is created only from this network.

The difficulty of distinguishing between the Real and the Symbolic in celebrity fandoms is illustrated in another Bob Dylan film, I’m Not There (2007). It attempts to portray Dylan as a fragmented character, assigning each facet its own actor, many of whom are not actually similar to Dylan. The film combines rumor, story, and fact to create six different representations of Dylan. In doing this, the film acknowledges that the celebrity of Dylan is not solely located in Dylan himself. Rather, he is the idol on which fans’ experiences, subjectivities, and cultural perceptions are projected.

The film explains Dylan in terms of both how he “really” is in a biographical sense, but also “who” he is based on the mythos and media portrayals around him — both are given equal time in the film.

Which model of celebrity fandom (Don’t Look Back’s direct-cinema approach or I’m Not There’s hyper-reality approach) is most applicable to other celebrities? Do fans use cults of celebrity as modes of escapism, or are the dynamics more nuanced? Is this concern with celebrity as problematic as Sconce implies? He claims, for example, that California is culturally attempting to become the celebrities it houses. Are these sweeping criticisms valid? Have symbolic media orders taken over for reality? Do Californians really view the rest of the country as cold and bitter? Has celebrity gossip really replaced the news?

With regard to Bob Dylan, is it really a good approach to view him as a media creation (as in I’m Not There), or try to portray him in an unmediated (direct-cinema) way?

I’m Not There
Don’t Look Back

This week’s viewing is “Who the Hell is Pete Doherty”, a BBC documentary about an extremely popular musician in England. He was a lead singer/songwriter for bands The Libertines and Babyshambles. He is often a feature of the tabloids due to drug use, band conflicts, criminal charges, and his dating supermodel Kate Moss.

In the documentary, Pete is given ample time to “defend” himself. Questions to think about are:
1. What does Pete have to say about the celebrity culture surrounding him? Is he accurate? Is it as harmful as he thinks it is?
2. How “honest” is Pete being? Are we finally seeing the “true” Pete, or is he playing yet another role, despite the film’s advertisement as a documentary.
3. What role does Pete play in the lives of English music fans?

Posted in Fan Artifact Presentations | 1 Comment »

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