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.