The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media: Part Two

Those of us who love literary theory, or possess a reasonable amount of fear in approaching it, can agree that Jacques Lacan is a bona-fide genius. Unfortunately, when fellow scholars abuse his words, extolling the virtues of his theories to the point where they drown out all other critical approaches, the long-winded result can be unsettling. (And I know anyone who has been stuck in a classroom or conference situation with one of these devout Lacanians can attest to this unholy truth!) Nevertheless, when Lacan is done right, a reality that Stephen Hinerman accomplishes in his contribution to The Adoring Audience, “‘I’ll Be Here With You’: Fans, Fantasy, and the Figure of Elvis,” I can believe in the theory of literary theory benefiting scholarship. In a coherent manner, Hinerman situates his discussion of Elvis fans by first defining Freudian psychoanalysis regarding the effects of fantasy urges upon an individual and combining it with Lacan’s mirror theory, which defines the process of a child learning how to integrate the differences occurring in the “I/Not I” binary. When the author subsequently applies these theories to his readings of Elvis fan narratives, I gained a more sympathetic understanding of their mindsets and questionable testimonials of encounters with this rock ‘n roll icon.

Editor Lisa A. Lewis’s chapter, “‘Something More Than Love’: Fan Stories on Film,” offers an interesting reading of a particular sub-genre of cinema appropriate for discussion in her collection: the obsessive fan film. Amongst the films she discusses are I Wanna Hold Your Hand, a movie centered on a group of Beatles fans, and Heartbreak Hotel, in which one Elvis fan manages to kidnap the King. Speaking of Kings, however, Lewis’s discussion of The King of Comedy, a 1983 comedy-thriller (if I can call it that) directed by Martin Scorsese and starring regular collaborator Robert De Niro as comedian Rupert Pupkin, is what clicked for me the most as a reader. Like Scorsese’s underrated and underappreciated thriller After Hours, The King of Comedy offers a psychological study of a lead character whose story unfolds in the urban environs of Manhattan.  In Pupkin’s case, he wishes not only to connect with idol Jerry Langford (played in a delightfully sardonic fashion by Jerry Lewis), but to use Langford’s clout as a talk-show host as a means to achieving fame for himself as well. Lewis writes about Pupkin, “His comedy instruction is a product of a fan’s imitation of the star, but his producerly impulses have advanced him to the point where he has developed his own act” (151).  This comment interests me since many successful actors, writers, and singers started out as a fan of somebody. What, then, separates a talented fan who achieves fame and success from one who genuinely possesses talent but does not find the right “connection” or receives that “lucky break” that so many people who “make it” claim to have experienced?

For Part III of The Adoring Audience, Lewis groups the essays under the title of “Fans and Industry.” Sue Browder, in “Fans as Tastemakers: Viewers for Quality Television,” provides a thorough overview of a well-organized fan organization called Viewers for Quality Television (VQR), weighing how their efforts define what  a “quality TV show” is during the era of 1980s network television against the potential elitist ramifications of these classifications. When it came to reading Robert Sabal’s contribution, “Television Executives Speak about Fan Letters to the Network,” however, I questioned its value as a worthy inclusion in the book as it simply offers a short, curious transcript of a conversation that took place between Sabal and three television industry representatives.

For Part IV, “Production by Fans,” Fred and Judy Vermorel’s chapter, “A Glimpse of the Fan Factory,” is another oddity in Lewis’s collection as the authors present official, unedited examples of fan letters written between 1977 and 1988 to such musical celebrities as Kate Bush, David Bowie, and Barry Manilow. Although the latter fan  missives humored me in their self-aware application of salutary phrases like “In much Manilust as always” and “Much Manilove now & always,” I was left feeling as if I were a voyeur reading the majority of the other letters.  Maybe I can attribute this feeling of guilt due to the fact that these fans’ vulnerable, heartfelt, and, at times, depressingly disturbed expressions to their respective stars were meant to be read by their idols alone, not by the clinical eyes of academics and students who probably could never completely emphasize with their fanatical mindsets.

The closing chapter of The Adoring Audience, “‘Strangers No More, We Sing’: Filking and the Social Construction of the Science Fiction Fan Community,” grants me the feeling I have come full circle in my understanding of Mr. Jenkins’s theoretical evolution, as he was on the eve of his pivotal work, Textual Poachers, being published. I enjoyed reading about his thoughts concerning “filkers,” science-fiction fans who write, compose, and perform (usually at conventions) folk-like songs containing comical lyrics on such subject matter as the original Star Trek crew experiencing a three-day shore leave blow-out and the lamented cancellation of Blake’s 7 and how these songs help add another intimate layer to convention-based fandom. I hit early-Jenkins’s gold, however, with this quote: “Fandom is a ‘scavenger’ culture built from poached fragments of many different media products, woven together into a coherent whole through the meanings the fans bring to these fragments and the uses they make of them, rather than by meanings generated by the primary texts” (232). As someone who has participated in Doctor Who fandom, engaging in or appreciating fan art, costume contests, late-night karaoke performances, and only occasionally entering into casual complicated conversations regarding the show itself (DW’s “primary text”), I can affirm and celebrate the wisdom of Jenkins’s astute observation on my fellow fan-scavengers!