This week I read Part I, “Approaching Fan Cultures,” of Matt
Hills’s book, Fan Cultures, (Routeledge
1992), which serves as a sobering reminder that my evolution as a fan cultures scholar
will involve a longer process of educational
gestation than I initially imagined. The beauty – and edge – of Hills’ approach
to his subject matter is that he has not only mastered the art of academic
prose, whether he is applying cultural studies or psychological rhetoric, but
he is also deftly measuring theorist against theorist in an engaging yet
critically decisive way. For instance,
he discusses how theorists Henry Jenkins and Camille Bacon-Smith are at
opposing poles when it comes to critiquing fan cultures, as Jenkins thinks Bacon-Smith
takes a negative approach to fandom while Bacon-Smith believes her opponent
offers too much of a positive view on fans. In response to their contradictory views,
Hills argues that they both Jenkins and Bacon-Smith seem “to embody two sides
of the same coin” as “both refuse to let go of one-sided views of fandom….And,
oddly enough, the ‘reality’ of fandom that each seeks to capture in broadly
ethnographic terms may exist between their respective moral positions” (70).
What impresses me about this moment in Hills’s writing is that he is not siding
with either Jenkins or Bacon-Smith, theorists who were academic stars in cultural
studies at the time of Fan Cultures’ publication;
instead, he is mediating a critical conversation point, a neutral zone of scholarly
harmony, so to speak, where both theorists can find common ground.
I was likewise impressed when he earlier defended the work
of Theodor Adorno, a critically maligned Frankfurt School theorist, in Chapter
1, “Fan Cultures between Consumerism and ‘Resistance.’” Whereas scholars,
including Jenkins, had been dismissing Adorno’s theories as too simplistic, Hills
defends the man’s work, saying the following in regard to Adorno’s entry in Minima Moralia titled “Toy Shop”: “the
playing child is not entirely resigned to, and caught up in, the capitalist
world. The child is able to side with ‘use value’ against ‘exchange-value,’
using his or her toys in seemingly ‘purposeless ways’ unanticipated by the
toymaker. The child’s play rehearses the ‘right’ (i.e. better/utopian) life in
which the evils of ‘exchange-value’ are temporarily done away with. (33). On a
personal level, Hills’s brave argument in Adorno’s favor reminds me to always
choose to defend a favored particular theorist even if colleagues or greater
academia view my position on that individual as passé. On a more immediate
level, I can now, thanks to Hills’ act of critical reclamation, apply Adorno’s
application of Marxist theory to my own future work on fan cultures modules.
As an example, taking comic-book fandom as my object of
study, I can explore how a fan’s entry point into comic-book collecting begins
with a box of dog-eared comics given to him or her by a parent. The young child
will then enjoy the comics for their use-value (in other words, as Hills
writes, “what we can actually use a cultural object for [30]”) of pure
entertainment. As the child grows into a teenager and adult and chooses to
continue with his comic-book collecting, his approach to his (or her) collecting
habit will evolve. Hills comments on this process of a life-long commitment to
a particular fandom in Chapter 4, “Between ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Reality’”: “Texts
which are more likely to be retained would seem to be those which appeal from
the very beginning to both children and adults, either through a form of
double-coding or through an emphasis on sociological dislocation/fantasy which
can support both child and adult engagements” (109-110). When it comes to
comic-book collectors, factors such as economic need or personal financial
success will often determine whether he (or she) will either sell off valuable objects
from his collection or invest in more expensive items. This is where “exchange
value” (in Hills’ definition, the “‘exchangeable’ value that an object has when
mediated through money” [30]) comes into play. From my aca-fan perspective,
playing hundreds or thousands of dollars for a particular comic book issue or
piece of original art seems rather extravagant. In all honesty, I collect
comics on a limited budget and more for their escapist, stress-relieving
entertainment value. But, as much as I realize that an autoethnographic
exploration (an act of humbling self-assessment which Hills champions in the
first half of his book) of my own biases toward comic book fandom is necessary
for me to have a more sincere approach to my scholarship on the issue, I
realize I must also objectively approach the differing collecting habits of my
fellow fans. Thus, if I were to discuss the
AMC reality-based TV show Comic-Book Men in
my projected dissertation, I could explore how the oftentimes heated haggling
occurring between the staff of comic store Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash
and the people who come in the shop to sell valuable comic books, toys, and
original comic-book art serves as a nexus point in which the cultural forces of
childhood nostalgia, machismo, and subcultural capital, along with the plain
economics of supply-demand, investment, and profit, coalesce in an act of play.
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