Fan Cultures: Part Two

As I approached reading Part II of Matt Hills’s Fan Cultures, “Theorising Cult Media,” I decided to give myself a theme to play with in relationship to Hills’s scholarship: Star Wars fans.  Naturally, this fandom is part of my projected six modules of fandom (also involving fans of Doctor Who, comic books, zombie narratives, tween genre novels, and anime) I would write about for my theoretical dissertation if I were locked in a comfortable room for an elongated period with unlimited access to books, periodicals, DVDs, and the Internet – all necessary components for a good scholarly (and ludic) assessment of fan cultures and their relationship to academia and the greater cultural sphere!

In Chapter 5 of Fan Cultures, “Fandom between Cult and Culture,” Hills examines the relationship between fan cultures “to notions of religious devotion” (117). Linking fan cultures to religiosity is a problematic process as the two cultures of fandom and religion indeed surround themselves with iconic figures and objects of devotion in both connective yet divergent ways. With a regard to the liminal space occurring between the two cultural sites, Hills discusses the role of the “auteur” as a form of devotional figure: “Cults…operate through the creation of interpersonal relationships, especially those of a powerfully affective and hence ‘significant’ nature. One could observe that the ‘auteur’ provides this locus of ‘charisma’ and coherence in terms of the media cult, and although the construction of such a figure varies according to specific media, this does seem to be a near-universal figure of the media cult” (126).

Utilizing Star Wars creator George Lucas as my media cult auteur, I could trace and discuss his affective relationship with his fans. Around the time of the original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983), Lucas experienced a positive relationship with fandom. Coupled with the fact he was already a respected director based upon his early, non-Star Wars films, THX1138 and American Graffiti, one could posit him as an accomplished filmmaker. After 1983, he retreated from filmmaking to concentrate on building up his various media companies. By the time he returned to the Star Wars universe with the Original Trilogy (OT) Special Editions (1997) and the Prequel Trilogy (PT) (1999-2005), he experienced a well-publicized ambivalent relationship with fans as their opinion was deeply divided upon the value and meaning of these films. Some fans felt betrayed by Lucas’s tinkering with certain sequences in the OT while others dismissed his depiction of a younger Anakin Skywalker and the Jedi Knight Order in the PT. For these fans, Lucas has become a failed auteur, hence a fallen cult leader for their fandom. Lucas, in turn, via his further alterations of the OT with the subsequent DVD (2004) and Blu-Ray (2011) releases, has embraced an antagonistic relationship with “purist” Star Wars fans as he enacts his agency as an auteur interested in continually pursuing a superior vision for his artistic vision. Most likely, Lucas’s affective relationship with Star Wars fandom will continue as he serves as a creative consultant for the upcoming Disney-produced new trilogy of films (Episodes VII-IX) and promised spin-off movies. This communicative process (or lack thereof) between Lucas and fans, however, will manifest itself in message boards, blogs, and Lucas’s official responses via interviews and media appearances, providing significant fodder for a scholarly examination of a media cultic auteur-fandom generated discourse.

While Lucas exists as a subject for scrutiny and criticism from the media and fandom alike, his fans, regardless of their support or dismissal of his auteur choices, have grown in stature to become an object of study in themselves. On this process, Hills comments in Chapter 8, “Cult Bodies: Between the Self and Other,” that “The contemporary cult fan, then, is no less subject to those very process of objectification and spectacular ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’ which have traditionally been examined as a feature of stardom or iconicity. The costumier or impersonator does not only imitate a specific cult icon or character taken from a cult text: he or she embodies the process of stardom and textuality, self-reflectively presenting the body-as-commodity” (170). When the media reports on Star Wars fandom by featuring cos-players on display at the mammoth Star Wars Celebration Conventions held in Orlando or at the annual Comic-Con International occurring in San Diego, such fans are simultaneously afforded their fifteen minutes of Warholian fame and subjected to ridicule from casual television viewers and cynical Internet message-board posters. Ironically, then, their costumed, embodied expressions of their Star Wars fandom are experiencing the same sense of media (and academic) scrutiny as they perform upon Lucas himself. As a result, my potential scholarship on this issue, like the exceptional empirical work of Hills, Henry Jenkins, John Fiske, and other cultural studies theorists, must appropriately navigate and articulate this affective tension taking place between my famous auteur object of study, Lucas, and his oftentimes equally prominent fans…

Fan Cultures: Part One



 



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.