Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

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

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

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

So, I was having an extreme senioritis afternoon yesterday and came across these two videos on College Humor. They both take scenes from a movie and place them in a different order and context so that the movie appears to have a totally different meaning than the original. The first clip uses scenes from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to portray the film as a horror film rather than a comedy. The second clip does very much the opposite by making scenes from American Psycho appear to be part of a romantic comedy. These videos made me think of the Fiske reading and his definition of producerly texts in that these texts seem to have gaps large enough within them that entirely new texts can be produced in them. Even though we perceive these videos to be funny and sort of ridiculous because the new texts appear so different from the originals, we can still understand how these texts could make sense when the scenes are put into a new context. So, are these examples of texts being, as Fiske says, beyond their own control?

Ferris the 13th

American Psycho- Romantic Comedy

I’ll start this post off by saying that relating it academically MAY be a stretch, but I think anyone who takes the time to watch these youtube clips will understand. Both are parts of a video made by 80’s soap opera celeb Brenda Dickson. In each she tells viewers her point of view on fashion, makeup, excercise, and diet. They are long(ish), but totally hilarious.
Clip 1:

Questions concerning the Clips:
1. These clips are examples of media made for fans of a particular celebrity (presumably because she isn’t in character in the film.) How do these fans affect the theories made by Seiter of soap opera fandom? Do the fans of celebrities in a given fantext exist in the same fandom as the fans of the text itself?

2. On Youtube, most people watch this clip ironically, which is how it became viral. What does it mean to be an ironic fan? Is there a difference in fan practice? In trying to decide the answers, keep in mind that many of the fans have created new fantexts by restaging the video parodically (For Ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goOsKCok6FM&feature=related). As someone who isn’t typically involved in fantexts, I was also wondering if there is usually a tongue-in-cheek element inherent in most of the practice? While I understand that people take the quality of slash/het seriously, is there still some sort of a joke involved? If not, is that one of the differences between fan practice and ironic fan practice?

3. Finally, do viral videos like these exist as separate fandoms or are they all part of a common one? Given that there are TV specials devoted to airing sets of these clips (see The Soup). I’m inclined to think that their may be a viral video fandom, and that I may be a fan of them.

After reading the Hebdidge piece regarding subcultures, I was struck by how well he defined the process by which a subculture – or the content they are gathered around – becomes incorporated into mass media and culture. Basically when the “noise” becomes part of the definition of “sound”.

In class on Tuesday we even took this one step further when one of the discussion groups provided an archetypal example of this sort of incorporation; Hot Topic and gothic/punk culture. Hebdidge categorizes subculture incorporation with two key examples of how they may “breach our expectancies” (Hebdidge, 92). The styles that set apart these subcultures are most easily recognized and thus come first (I.E. – Makeup, dark hair, leather, etc). After these are made apparent in mass culture we come into contact with their greater implications of attitude and beliefs (I.E. – anarchy, satanism, etc).

The interesting fact about these subcultures, regardless of what their beliefs actually entail, is that they are almost always adapted and redefined for mass consumption. The Sex Pistols were signed by every major record label in the UK for at least some period before Virgin Records put out Never Mind the Bullocks. Sure they were dropped by two or three record labels before Virgin due to their legendary drug abuse, and destructive tendencies but the fact remains that they inevitably released the album to the greater public through the very social constructs they despised and to the same people John Lydon complains about almost daily on his radio talk show.

The price of getting your art out into the public means artists like Anti-Flag, Rage Against the Machine or even a Green Day means adapting your doctrines for a mass media audience. Would they prefer if their albums were printed entirely on recyclable materials and their tours were supported by non-corporate sponsors? Probably, but the fact remains that given the pervasiveness of media conglomerates and their control over media content, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to understand when RATM puts out albums through Epic Records and plays at Coachella.

After all, lead guitarist Tom Morello once famously said “When you live in a capitalistic society, the currency of the dissemination of information goes through capitalistic channels. Would Noam Chomsky object to his works being sold at Barnes & Noble? No, because that’s where people buy their books. We’re not interested in preaching to just the converted.”

Greg and I discussed this at the end of class. This is what resulted.  

Bob gave me a heads up on a response thatwas made on the Convergence Culture Consortium about the NY Times article I posted regarding the issue of fan fiction and a critically acclaimed but ratings incompetent shows like NBC’s Friday Night Lights.

I have to admit that I strongly agree with pretty much everything she says in her response to the article and frankly it brings to light a lot of the same questions I asked myself when I decided to take this course and when I began my fanifesto (although I left FNL off for reasons I am not completely sure of).

I consider myself a serious fan of the show but my fandom is not manifested in any sort of creative manner.  I think about the show a lot, I check their ratings information on Zap2it as soon as possible after a new episode airs and it always kills me when their share or ratings are down even a point.  Furthermore, I post on forums about the show, read and watch interviews with cast members and keep myself entirely up to date on the actor’s and actresses careers (most notably Zach Gilford who was coincidentally my trip guide on an outdoors trip I took to New Zealand two summers ago).

Li argues that Heffernan’s article ultimately made the mistake of assuming fans of the show are not actively involved in participatory fan cultures like those associated with Heroes or Star Trek because it is simply too good.  Part of me actually sort of agrees with this assumption but I say this only on a personal level.

Let me put it this way.  I got to know Zach Gilford pretty well on the trip I took with him but as soon as I started watching the show, I completely detached the character of Matt Saracen from Zach Gilford the actor that I knew.  That really excited me.  I rarely get excited over television narrative because I always end up eventually getting really disappointed due to absurdity of a show’s narrative as it continues (Prison Break, 24) or end up getting attached to a show that’s end comes too soon (Tom Goes to the Mayor, Arrested Development).  Friday Night Lights has always genuinely kept my interest and I find myself constantly pleased with the direction the narrative takes and frankly I have no interest in thinking of alternative plot possibilities or messing with the careful balance of the show I have in my mind.

The show is personally too good for me to actively enjoy on any level other than constantly singing its praises, interacting with other fans regarding the show’s future, etc.  Maybe when the show is inevitably cancelled I will participate in other manners but for the time being I am too invested in the show’s characters and lives to try to do anything but continue to support it with my viewership which I think is incredibly important to a show with as devoted (albeit, small) fanbase as FNL has.

With that being said, entry number two for The Smash Williams Chronicles is up on Azizisbored.com and its pretty golden too.  Buddy Garrity makes an appearance.

While we did talk mostly about entertainment fandoms in class a few days ago, there are numerous others as discussed again in class on Thursday. One fandom which I do want to bring up is historical fandoms. This certainly encompasses the armchair general, the Civil War reenactor, and even the war gamer. These are generally pretty well known ways of participating in historical fandom. With the rise of the internet, however, and the spread of memes, fandoms have been changed at their core, even those like historical fandoms. The link below links to one such alternative depiction of historical fandom:

<a href=”http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j228/musashi1600/Afghanis-tan/?action=view&current=Afuganisu-Tan_cover.png” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j228/musashi1600/Afghanis-tan/Afuganisu-Tan_cover.png” border=”0″ alt=”Photobucket”></a>

((the rest at http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j228/musashi1600/Afghanis-tan/ ) This is a manga version of the history of Central Asia, focusing on the nation of Afghanistan. What makes this so alternative is that the nations of Central Asia (the “stans”) are depicted as “cute young girls.” Not merely an elaborate work of Japanese punning (the suffix “-tan” is used for young girls in Japan and commonly used to modify anthropomorphic personifications of objects as manga-style girls (see Os-tan)), this work shows genuine love and interest for the region. This manga, not merely informative, shows the intensely unique ways that fans make the work, or the history their own. The author/artist, using his unique talents and skills, was able to make this fandom completely his own.

Going off our discussion in class today, I’ve been thinking about fandom of inanimate objects. Ariel’s point about the importance of narrative in fandom is well-taken but still, what about food? This sounds ridiculous but can someone be considered a “fan” or food or a particular type of food? The knowledge of some wine “connoisseurs” about the intimate details of French vineyards rivals that an X-men fans knowledge of different characters and backstories. Plenty of people devote considerable amounts of time and energy learning about differences that completely escape the causual wine drinker. People will travel from vineyard to vineyard tasting different wines in the company of other wine connoisseurs (indeed there are trips you can take that tour several vineyards in a day in Napa Valley, CA). Is this comraderie based on wine that different from the conventions of Harry Potter fans? I would argue that there is no real difference between a “fan” and a “connoisseur” beyond the mental connatation attached to the different words. Both have an extensive knowledge of a subject, beyond what in necessary for basic enjoyment, and a group of people and culture that supports and shares their interests. Any thoughts?

My friends and I came upon this site and I thought it was particularly (yet kind of far-fetched-ly) pertinent to this class. It’s tvcarnage.com, but some of their highlight clips can be found on youtube. I thought it was interesting to look at in regard to this class because it’s a mashup. It takes stuff you’re familiar and unfamiliar with and creates something new. It reminded me of Jenkins’ description of the fan as a producer. While these are decidedly ironic, I think they are valuable to at least look at. What’s perhaps more interesting to us is the use of new spaces (alternative publics) like youtube and the fact that it is so easy to mash up both known and unknown footage to create new narratives for all to see. To me, it’s like a digital video zine that can reach billions of people. These videos parse different pieces from different people’s lives and stick them together in this meta text of pop and sub culture references. While people have been doing mashup in music for a while (think of sampling), it’s recently become much more huge with artists that exclusively do mashup work (like Girl Talk or The Hood Internet). Why is it that mashup is becoming such an important part of pop culture? I guess you could argue that this is happening everywhere (Pullman taking from Paradise Lost as well as Biblical elements… isn’t that a mashup?), but I feel that it has never been as overt as it is now. The creation of hypermedia meta texts (oh man so many intertextual spaces!) is a new phenomenon, related to many things, obviously the creation of the Internet and other fast forms of communication and tied to that globalization and transnational flows of information. What do you all think about mashup as a metatext/fabric in an intertextual space?

by the way, the photo is of Cyndi Lauper and Dizzee Rascal, taken from the Hood Internet website, where they did a mashup of the songs “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” (Lauper) and “Fix Up, Look Sharp” (Dizzee Rascal) into a song entitled “Girls Just Want to Fix Up.”

   Check this article out.    If you know me at all, you probably know that I am a diehard fan of Friday Night Lights on NBC (Fridays at 9 o’clock).      This New York Times article about the show brings up some very compelling points about the current trend of branding and marketing of television shows and how fandom has come to be a necessity of a product’s success.   Basically she argues that the show is a stand alone product and without the sort of active fanbase most runaway hit shows possess, it is doomed and inevitably headed for cancellation.  Interesting read.      Don’t know how disappointed I am that their won’t be any Slash fan fiction of a romance between Smash Williams and Tim Riggins.  That would throw off my whole world.     In response to this article, stand up comedian Aziz Ansari from the MTV2 sketch comedy show ”Human Giant” wrote a blog post called “Friday Night Lights: The Smash Williams Chronicles” with a hilarious premise of the show’s star running back being recruited by the CIA.  Who cares if it is intended to be ironic?  Any active fan activity for this diamond in the rough of a show is fine by me.