Fandom Lecture

Here's the notes i took from our online Fandom lecture


Pathologised fandom – fans seen as dysfunctional – something wrong with them mentally.

How are fans seen in my eyes:
Obsessive
Conventions
Violent football fan
Screaming teenage girls
Geeks
Male Star Trek fan

Geeky male fan – lack of masculinity
Football fan – excessive masculity

Fans – knowledgable audiences as they organise themselves

Fans active – tend to have large online presence – creative with media texts – actively discuss fan objects

Do we discourage or celebrate fans

Cult Fans and Mainstream Audiences
Cult – find niche media texts – tend to become experts as not many people research into it

Mainstream media fandom – men or women
Twihards
Gleeks

Fan Community
Acceptance
Friendship
New public spheres for discussion
Also have higherarchial structures – based on extent of knowledge (fan cultural capital) – connections to industry or industry (fan social capital)
Offer space for fans to articulate identities
Affection and knowledge

Justification of fandom

Most fans are not just in one fandom or do not stay in one fandom for life (cycles of fandom) – challenges devotion idea – links to idea of process of discovery.



Fans are often presumed to be deficient in some way - the fandom is seen as some kind of replacement for "real" human relationships and preoccupations

so that's why we get anti-fans? Coz people who don't understand think there's something wrong with fans

Fans can sometimes become quite obsessive and behave in strange ways. people are scared of what they dont understand and thats why they react so negativley sometimes

Fandom = religion?

Fans and Non-Fans – are you a non-fan because you don’t attend conventions or buy the clothes – maybe in the eyes of fanzines.

So how can we see stereotypes of male and female fans in relation to dominant ideas of masculinity and femininity?
They replicate
women tend to become stereotypically followers, and men aim to become leaders. t's all the horrible stereotypes put into practice.
female fans are looking for the hero - men are wanting to be the hero
Charlotte: I guess stereotypes are all about making something complex and diverse very simplistic - but they may be accurate for some people in some ways

both sexes go weak at the knees for their heroes... grown men cry at football... i think both sexes become passive when they have to follow the object of their fandom

it’s hard to be rational about something you’re emotionally attached to

Online forums allow for people to show their emotions as there identities can be hidden – it’s like a dirty little secret.

It’s ok to be subjective in ethnography of fandoms – as reflecting on your own experiences and subjectivity may show how the research will be affected – but you wouldn’t really want to research a fandom unless you like it

Mainstream fandom is often linked to girls


Shipping
Supporting fictional romance relationships

I think everyone gets involved in shipping when you watch a film or tv programme – because it’s a point of discussion – will they won’t they etc.

Fan Fiction and Fan Videos – change the story so that they’re favourite characters get together eg Harry and Hermionie – Ned’s Declassified
Slash Fiction – imagining two straight characters becoming couples in media texts – eg Harry and Draco

Both seen as ways of reading against the grain as fans try to exploit any suggestions in text of putting their couple together.

Can challenge dominant ideologies of text and channel unseen ideologies

EG. Twilight – fan boards all showed shipping as being central – so shipping can be one of staple pleasures in Twilight – offers pleasures of fantasy and escapism, investing emotionally in the media text. Twilight is an extreme because of the Team Edward, Team Jacob usage – fan practice of shipping travels across national borders.

Ideology and Cultural Identities
Jacob and Edward slash shipping – but most seen in Twilight support dominant ideologies of sexuality – shipping showed heterosexual desire in setting of an community – ideologies of gender through characters – some challenged dominant ideologies (were these anti-fans or did they just want to change subject to gender power).

Audience Power
Critiques of characters in love triangles etc – use of text twisting and analysing reading against the grain

Fans show their power over the text as they oppose some of the ideas – could even re-write and give texts to other fans. Most fans do accept the preferred reading – but Twilight saga is open to interpretation.

Why do fans ship?
Happy Ending
Fulfill a fantasy
Creativity
Escapism
Experimenting with sex and sexuality