posted instruc.

34 UNDERSTANDING FANDOM ff ry of some of its main Fandom's concluding chapter o ers a summa contributions and suggests some avenues tor further _research. Understanding Fandom aims to treat its subject with dignity and mspect. While adopting a critical and logical approach remains an appropriate aim, no scholarly activity is ever completely impartial. My approach translates to not saying anything about fans that I would not say about myself, not least I I med· 18 fan " Rather than claiming to be a comprehensive because am a so a · . . . survey of the field, this book has a more modest aim: introducing some key themes and thinkers and exploring commonalities that connect the different kinds of fandom for various media objects. 2 Fan stereotypes and representations Starting points • What are the social functions of fan stereotypes?

• To whatextent.does it make sense to talk about different degrees of fafldom? • Why aren't all forms of media fandom valued equally by society? In 1947, Ellen Roufs came up with an idea that thrilled film fans throughout the nation. As president of the International Fan Club League, an umbrella organization that co-ordinated the activities of over 500 different movie star fan clubs, she decided to revive the idea of the national fan club convention, a meeting that had been held annually in the 1930s. In June, she proposed that over 250,000 fan club members meet in Hollywood, learn about each other's activities, go on studio tours, and meet their favourite stars.

According to Movie/and magazine, it promised 'to be the biggest thing that ever happened to fan clubs'. But when news of the proposed convention reached the studios and press, Roufs's hopes began to dim. SAMANTHA BARBAS 2001, 159 account of movie audiences, Samatha Barbas showed the 'strength of feeling amassed against the first post-war incursions of fandom. · 9ussing Ellen Roufs's efforts to create a Hollywood fan convention she 1:

I 36 UNDERSTANDING FANDOM reports that the New York Times urged fans to keep their 'half-neurotic, half-idiotic hero worship' at home. Roufs ignored the naysayers and held the convention without the addition of studio tours. Why were the industry, press and public so against what she reprnsented? In the 1940s film fandom acquired a social stigma for representing .what respectable critics aimed to repress: a widely accepted, passionate, collective expression of fondness for Hollywood icons. To the critics,.

movie stars were inauthentic industrial products who d1stract.ed audiences from more worthwhile cultural pursuits and turned them into subservient and addicted worshippers. Such views came from a tradition that said that high culture _ epitomized in traditional but elite events like opera and ballet - represented the most graceful and lyrical flights of the human, spirit and if those events were not immediately accessible, 1t was a critics place to help cultivate appreciation for them. In an era where electronic ma.ss media had socially marginalized such activities, fandom becam.e perceived as a byword for the public's supposed gullibility. Representations of collective fandom located individual fans as members of irrational mobs 1,a.ble to exceed the constraints of civility at a moment's notice. This elitist view .of culture was exemplified in the arguments of English scholar F. R. Leav,s, who claimed that only a minority in society were appropriate custodians of culture, able to discern the finest human achievements in an era. of general decline (for a good summary see Storey 2009, 22-8). The growing centrality of mass-produced culture throughout the twentieth century reduced general interest in Leavis' claims. Yet, accord1n.g to Cav1cch1, 'Unfortunately, fandom's origin in the reorganization of public performance by capitalism and technology has meant that fandom has often come. to epitomize those changes, particularly for critics' (1998, 3). To question fandom, those critics drew on dominant discourses about the deplorable state of mass culture. . Even in the mid-1990s, fans were still seen as a marginal group: As Harrington and Bielby explained at the time, 'A staff me~ber of the National Association of Fan Clubs says that one of the group's explicit goals ,s to improve the public image of fans and fan clubs' (1995, 105). If recent ,years have seen some change, traces of the critique of fandom still remain: Historically fans have been known to act a bit odd . . But the so-called cult fan ,s more myth than reality, a definition based on a skewed understanding of audience behavior that is largely outdated' (Robson in Abbot 2010, 209). Although th.e failure of the Leavisite project has gradually become more apparent, public perceptions of fandom have, nevertheless, survived as a kind of after image.

Even in 2002, Matt Hills reported: FAN STEREOTYPES AND REPRESENTATIONS 37 To claim the identity of a 'fan' remains, in some sense, to claim an 'improper' identity, a cultural identity based on one's commitment to something as seemingly unimportant and 'trivial' as a film or TV series. Even in cultural sites where the claiming of a fan identity may seem to be unproblematically secure - within fan cultures, at a fan convention, say, or on a fan newsgroup - a sense of cultural defensiveness remains, along with a felt need to justify fan attachments. (2002a, xii) Othering Much of cultural studies devotes itself to the political study of popular culture.

The academic term othering is used by scholars to describe processes in which one group of people label another as different, an embodiment of everything that they are not. For the group in control of media representation, the other becomes a terrain on which to project anxieties and desires. A classic example of this comes from the work of Edward Said. In his book Orienta/ism (1978), Said showed how the Western world used othering as a pretext to legitimize its colonization of far-away countries. Western adventurers, ambassadors and governors interpreted the Orient as everything that the West was not, or rather everything that they did not wantthe West to be: erotic, barbaric, uncivilized, dangerous and exciting. This construction of an imagined space of potential was a way to both excuse the creation of the Empire and to define Western society through contrast as a superior, civilizing culture: a move that in turn naturalized the invasion and rule of foreign countries. The concept of othering is extremely useful because social groups · of different identities continue to differentiate themselves in our society in yvays that are based on mistaken perceptions and claims to superiority. Fans .;9ave long been othered by their critics, academics, mainstream audiences j'a,nd even each other. Fan stereotypes 'r y Jenkins has presented a more nuanced description of how othering .

ates to create stereotypes of fandom. For Jenkins, 'Public attacks on · {' fans keep other viewers in line, making it uncomfortable for readers ~pt such "inappropriate" strategies of making sense of popular texts' $~'.40). Jenkins carefully described how this happens. Analysing a comedy -----------irr----·-- J I 38 UNDERSTANDING FANDOM sketch on Star Trekfandom from the American TV series Saturday Night Live, he found a series of stereotypes which suggest that Trek fans: a Are brainless consumers who will buy anything associated with the program or its cast (DeForst Kelly albums). b Devote their lives to the cultivation of worthless knowledge (the combination to Kirk's safe, the number of Yoeman Rand's cabin, the numerical order of episodes); c Place inappropriate importance on devalued cultural material ('It's just a television show'); d Are social misfits who have become so obsessed with the show that it forecloses other types of social experience ('Get a Lile'); e Are feminized and/or desexualized through their intimate engagement with mass culture ('Have you ever kissed a girl?'); f Are infantile, emotionally and intellectually immature (the sugges_tion that they should move out of their parents' basement. _their pouting and befuddled responses to Shatner's criticism, the mixture of small children and overweight adults); 9 Are unable to separate fantasy from reality ('Are you saying we should pay more attention to the movies?'). (Jenkins 1992, 10) Jenkins's list of stereotypes remains a useful tool for interrogating rep­ resentations of fandom. Some of its items are explicable 1n terms of the Leavisite project, particularly charges (b). (c) and (!). Fans are, for example, often stereotyped as 'a group insistent on making meaning from materials others have characterized as trivial and worthless' (Jenkins 1992, 3). An example of this is mentioned in Stephan Elliot's 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. In the famous ABBA turd scene, Adam Whitely (who performs as 'Felicia JollygoodfeUow' _and_ is played by Guy Pearce), looks through his wardrobe and explains his trinket collection to Ralph (who performs as 'Bernadette Bassinger' and is played by Terence Stamp):

(holding up jar) What's this?

That my darling is my most treasured possession in the whole Ralph: Adam: wide world.

Ralph: But what is it? Adam:

Ralph:

Adam: FAN STEREOTYPES AND REPRESENTATIONS 39 Well, a few years ago I went on a pilgrimage backstage to an ABBA concert, hoping to grab an audience with her Royal Highness Agneta. Well - when I saw her ducking into the ladies loo, naturally I followed her in, and alter she had finished her business I ducked into the cubicle only to find she had left me a little gift, sitting in the toilet bowl.

What are you telling me, this is an ABBA turd? (looking at dress) I know what we can do with this.

In a movie about cross-dressing stage performance as camp parody, the ABBA turd scene lambasts fandom as a tasteless pursuit. How many ways to degrade fandom can you spot in Adam's explanation of his interest? The scene marks Adam out as a fan in denial of his own lack of taste: by looking at his dresses alter Ralph's final question, he changes the subject. The choice of ABBA as a cultural interest is a comment on both the group's place in the cultural hierarchy - as a pop (not rock) act subjected to endless parodies - and their particular role in relation to the more macho elements of Australian culture. While it operates as a scatological denigration of fandom, what is perhaps more worrying is that at least one serious researcher has taken it as a realistic example of fan behaviour:

Fandom in general thrives on stuff that bears some trace (literally) of the figure that the fans adore: the pap smear from Madonna that is treasured by one of the kids in the movie Slackers; the reliquary-like 'Abba Turd' that is the prized possession of one of the characters in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; the black leather jacket worn by Elvis that is lovingly highlighted at Graceland Too. Like many fans, the MacLeods [proprietors of exhibition/ home Graceland Tool rely on visual, touchable stuff to signal Elvis's special status and stake their claims on him. (Doss 1999, 59-60) •examples framing fandom as a tasteless pursuit are easy to dismiss, ste­ otypes of mass cultural consumption still hold that fans have an appetite _what seems to be trivia. When 'trivia' is defined in particular ways, such arges can appear right. The question then becomes a political one: who is control of deciding what 'trivia' means and what seems trivial? This issue ident when we consider the UK's fortnightly music magazine Smash /'Which ran from its inception in 1978 into the middle of the last decade :Jfered a glossy and wonderfully irreverent celebration of pop for the · .e market. In its 1980s heyday, Smash Hits' journalists would treat omantic pop stars as celebrities rather than musicians, gleefully asking uestions about what they had for breakfast. The magazine arguably -------------,r-· ~~~~~~~~~~ 40 UNDERSTANDING FANDOM contributed to a process of trivialization which, allied to an increasingly intru­ sive media, helped to change the status of celebrities from icons of privilege to victimized opportunists. Yet those 'trivial' questions also helped pop celeb­ rities to seem ordinary and brought them within reach of the imagined worlds of their fans. Part of fan interest in 'trivia', therefore, is that it provides a cer­ tain feeling of intimacy with each chosen celebrity (see Barbas 2001, 126). It is important to realize that all stereotypes contain a grain of truth, but it is the generalization and misinterpretation of that kernel that creates the problem. The first aspect of stereotyping challenged by Jenkins dealt with the idea of fans as consumers discussed in the last chapter In particular, the angle here was that fans are undiscriminating followers of mass culture.

This locates fandom as a kind of tool of the media industry and denies fans agency as end products of its marketing process. In reality, fans often make untutored choices about what or who to follow and how to relate to them. Indeed, fans do not just follow whatever is popular: some popular shows have no real fan base and some rare ones have thriving, extended fan communities (Jenkins 1992, 90). Equally, to casual observers, specialist fan knowledge can seem like a questionable voyage into obscurity (Brooker 2002, 129). Yet, as Harrington and Bielby (1995, 91) found in their study of soap audiences, fan expertise actually represents a highly developed form of literacy: 'They are keenly aware of the constructedness of the genre, are savvy about production details, and often believe that they know the show better than those who create it.' Sharing such information also means that dedicated fans exhibit 'epistemophilia' -a pleasure in exchanging knowledge (Jenkins 2006, 139).

Media representations of fictional fans often amplify the notion of the fan as immature or infantile (see Jensen 1992). 1 The term groupie arose in the 1960s and was usually given to female fans who aimed to create a real sexual or romantic liaison with their favourite rock or pop musician. Portrayals of groupies have epitomized this perception of fandom. Jody Long, a schoolgirl played by Jessica Barden in the recent comedy drama Tamara Drewe (Frears 2010), provides a classic example. Long is infatuated with boy-band drummer Ben (played by Dominic Cooper). She unsuccessfully attempts pursue her crush by combining a break-and-entry of the house where he is staying with a clumsy attempt at planned seduction. While it is true that a fraction of fans have found all sorts of ways to enter the real lives of their objects and the locales in which they live, Jody's belief that Ben will easily fall for her ordinary and underage charms positions her fandom as a central part of her na"i e and innocent persona. This theme is pushed to its limits in the British exploitation feature, Groupie Girl (Ford 1970), in which Esme Johns plays Sally, a fan who IS sexually interested in members of the rock band Opal Butterfly. The feature's American poster read, 'I am a groupie! ... A rock group freak all the way- but 1 FAN STEREOTYPES AND REPRESENTATIONS 41 what I collect ain't autographs. All I own is this suitcase and all I want is this pad for tonight'. While Sally hopes to find the reflected glamour of being with the band, she becomes increasingly used by members of their entourage to a point where she realizes that her dreams have been exploited to her own detriment, compromising her reputation and sense of self-respect. She is not portrayed as in control, collaborating or establishing a relationship. Instead she appears na"ive, low in self-esteem and manipulated by the very people she hoped would rescue her. Groupie Girl therefore does cultural work by presenting a cautionary tale about female vulnerability and simultaneously exploiting it as a thrilling moment of lascivious titillation. Real life 'groupies' - who were both lauded and exploited by music magazines like Rolling Stone as the epitome of young, sexually liberated womanhood -were represented as a stereotype of late 1960s and early 1970s rock fandom in a process that clearly showed how anxiety and desire could be projected on to fans as a seduced other (see Rhodes 2005).

Perhaps the most important charge on the list of stereotypes unearthed by Jenkins was (g) that fans could not tell their fantasies from reality. A pair of terms from the philosophy of knowledge are worth introducing here: ontology and epistemology. Ontologists examine systems of knowledge to see how they conceptualize what there is to know about the world. Epistemology is the study of how people form acceptable knowledge. In relation to fandom the stereotype of fans as fantasists suggests that they have got it wron~ ontologically (in believing that they can fully 'know' a celebrity, if, for example, they find out what he/she ate for breakfast). It suggests that they have also made an epistemological mistake in gathering their knowledge about stars because they cling to a grave falsehood (the celebrity image) and perceiv~ commercially mediated encounters as reliable sources. The critique of fandom therefore suggests that fans cannot tell fantasy from reality and • 1are on the road to trouble. Harrington and Bielby (1995) reported that on Jhe Lifetime Channel's Jane Pratt Show four daytime soap actors said they ere regularly greeted in public by their character names. When the actors ndered whether their fans could tell the difference, 'A male audience ember shouted, "But that's all we know you as". He felt that calling actors ,the1r own names would be presumptuous given that he is familiar with the [acters only' (Harrington & Bielby 1995, 103). Addressing soap characters 1 heir real names was therefore conceived as an overly familiar invasion of acy. In this situation, it was evident that the fan could tell the difference ., 1,;.een the actor and his character, but focused on the latter image. The ,,~rchers assessed this by asking about fan mail and related that 'only 2% ;,respondents report having written fan letters to the character rather ,he actor, and many more were amazed (if not insulted) by the question' 42 UNDERSTANDING FANDOM (105). Likewise, music fans recognize that they do not actually know Bruce Springsteen; they are highly aware that the image is not always the same as its bearer (Cavicchi 1998, 54). They understand that their idol is an industrial participant and not simply a folk singer who can bring his mess_ag_e straight to the people (60). Fans realize that they are watching a sort of f1ct1on, but find that approaching the characters as if they are real adds to their pleasures.

What is going on is not that media fans are epistemologically mistaken, or that they do not care about the difference between people and the screen roles they play. Instead many fans deeply enjoy playing with the line between the fictional and the real. As one soap fan told Harrington and Bielby, 'Sometimes the actors and the characters blend into a believability so strong that you almost feel you're eavesdropping on real lives and it is fascinating' (1995, 91). The pair of researchers concluded that most fans, far from being fooled, consciously played with the boundary between fiction and reality. This play is also part of a process of self-investigation. For Cavicchi, In addition, Springsteen fans' conscious discussions of self making do not indicate that popular culture is shaping their identity but rather that they are shaping their identity with popular culture ... Identification with characters in the music, for instance, raises questions for some fans about how to define identity itself. But in the end, for fans, participating in the world of popular music serves rather than destroys, enhances rather than diminishes, their perception of themselves as unique individuals.

(1998, 157) A further point here is that fans are cognizant of their image and may work to avoid the possibility of being stereotyped. Harrington and Bielby (1995, 95) found that some fans do things to emphasize that they are not stupid people divorced from reality, but they instead have political concerns, for example. Many fan clubs raise money for charity. It is almost as if they are compe_nsat­ ing for a public perception that they know is mistaken, but one that 1nev1tably affects their daily lives. In that sense, as we discussed in the last chapter, fans are performers too, aware of the ways in which wider society can greet and stereotype them. . . What is the function of stereotyping? The list of supposed charactenst1cs that Jenkins discovered through his perceptive analysis of mainstream television primarily functions to normalize the rest of the media audience. In constructing fandom as an other, it locates 'ordinary' viewers as a hidden, idealized opposite to the fans: (a) discriminating, in control; (b) and (c) pursuing worthwhile cultural projects; (d) and (e) socially adept; (f) mature and (g) able to fully differentiate the real world from the imagined. Behind this superior r FAN STEREOTYPES AND REPRESENTATIONS 43 portrayal is a kind of fear that fans inevitably identify in ways that suggest they experience an alien set of feelings and operate on different assumptions to other people. If this appears like it might be true, it is crucial to note that fans come from the ordinary population and the existence of their fandom does not automatically make them into the grotesques sometimes presented by the media. Fa.ndom and the ordinary audience While mainstream media producers often present fandom as an other in order to normalize mainstream audiences, fans also consider ordinary audiences in different ways as their counter-parts. Considering what separates them from the ordinary audience, Cavicchi describes the perspective of Springsteen's fans: 'This distinction, from the point of view of fans, is clear enough: Fans have a connection to Bruce Springsteen that nonfans do not. However, in reality, the distinction is far more ambiguous and difficult to pin down' (1998, 87).

The first thing to notice here is that the unified audience is partly a fiction of the media industries. Cavicchi observed that the rock audience for Springsteen was diverse: 'During these songs, I noticed a clear division between people in the audience. In particular, while many older fans sang along to "The River", many other people got out of their seats and moved into the aisles to get another beer or some food' (30). Industrially, fans are therefore not so much opposites as intermediaries between producers and ordinary audiences (Jenkins 2008 73). They have a capacity to scout out and enthusiastically discuss particula; new series and products. Yet as these series continue, fan communities can also be disappointed that programme-makers have pandered to more casual audience factions -the 'commodity audience' -and not specifically fannish interests (Jenkins 1992, 30).

There are also qualitative differences of approach and experience separating fans from other audience members. Devotees build knowledge from a different starting point: 'For fans, a Springsteen concert is not a single fheatncal event but rather a ritual in which they regularly participate over time' Cavicchi 1998, 92). Unlike the ordinary audience, fans also stay 'in frame' ter the performance ends. Typical/Minimal fans? Way to think about the distinctions between fans and other audience . .bers is to consider whether we can talk about 'typical' or 'minimal' r' ii I I 44 UNDERSTANDING FANDOM fans. Jf fandom for Jess hip cultural forms like soaps is an 'abnormal' practice, then the question becomes how we can determine and understand 'normal' fandom. When critics use ideas about rationality and 'staying in control' to define normal fandom, what they are often doing is actually attempting to isolate excessive, 'extreme' or 'obsessive' fandom as an other. The division of roles between fan and non-fan has made it hard to see quite where normal fandom exists, especially as those attempts to other extreme fandom can actually locate it as fandom's most representative form. Also, to different degrees, everyone participates in the practices that are used to define fandom including the use of the media to define identity, so perhaps -as Harring;on and Bielby (1995, 112-16) suggest -we should really be thinking about a kind of continuum that stretches between the least committed fans and the most dedicated ones. This notion of a continuum allows empirical results to be interrogated in several ways: breadth (genre) versus depth (single show) fandom, the way that fandom emerges from different points of access (like storyline or character) and also other matters like fan self-identification, community participation, consumption of publicity material and arch1v1ng. However, debating the line between fan and non-fan is not a scientific matter undertaken by neutral observers. It is part of the way that fans negotiate their identities, especially during periods when the audience for an icon is dramatically changing. Making a firm distinction between minimal, typical and extreme fans is an idea that has significant limitations. Daniel Cavicchi (1998, 30 and 87-96) examined this issue in more detail, noting that the distinctions allow people to distance themselves from others in elitist ways. It can also mean that fans who do not follow practices to obsessive lengths feel that they do not measure up. While the notion of the minimal or 'casual' fan is debated in fan communities, if we adopt that idea then it is much harder to isolate fans from other audience members. This may be flowing with the tide of the media industry, however, as we are living in an era when ordinary audiences are being invited into subject positions that increasingly resemble fandom. Indeed, back in 1998 Abercrombie and Longhust argued:

Our view is that 'ordinary' audience members are more like fans and enthusiasts than might initially be thought and that, given the increased contemporary salience of media fan-like and enthusiast-like qualities, sociation patterns are increasingly likely to resemble some of the relationships identified in the fan literature. (122) Over a decade later their statement seems prophetic, because the combined forces of celebrity culture, box set product lines and accessible social media have conspired to make the former practices of fans more easily enacted by FAN STEREOTYPES AND REPRESENTATIONS 45 a much wider public. One response to this is to say that we are all fans now as media audience members and that the distinction no longer matters. An associated perception is that fans were the pioneers who spearheaded the current age of audience participation. Yet if cult film and TV series are increas­ ingly organized as elaborate franchises, if media products are orchestrated to provide a greater depth of cultural stimulation, if box sets and streaming Websites allow any of us to watch our favourite episodes again -and if view­ ers are encouraged to leave comments on line (see Gorton 2009, 40-1)- does that not automatically make everyone a fan? The distance between media consumption practices may be narrowing, but contemporary culture still marks out an emotional and rhetorical divide between the identities of the fan and the ordinary audience member. Owning a box set does not make one a fan. Neither does watching every episode. There has to be a peaking of fascination inside the individual that is expressed in some way. Furthermore, while fans may have become the talkative poster-children of an era of new media, beyond academia they are still framed as inadequate by significant sections of society, especially when they pursue particular kinds of interest and objects of attention. Marginalized fandoms The incident [of encountering a male Philadephia Eagles fan] reminded me that a sort-of social hierarchy still existed when it came to 'fandoms', and within the hierarchy sports would always be at the top of the pile while media fandom would be regarded as slightly suspect by the mainstream. There's nothing odd at all about flying your team flag in front of your house, but can you imagine your neighbours reaction if you hoisted up the iconic Doctor Who logo? DEBORAH STANISH 2010, 31 '/.Suggestions by some scholars that we no longer need to challenge pop cul­ ture stereotypes of fandom may be premature. Deborah Stanish's recent dis­ ssion as a Doctor Who fan marks out a social distinction between sports .ndom ~ which is shown on TV and in the press as socially acceptable - d media fandom, which has arguably been marginalized. In other words, hough sports fans are normahzed as a prime embodiment of acceptable !!ctatorship, media fans are sometimes represented as an eccentric faction th interests beyond the comprehension of the ordinary media audience. , ermore, there are subtle processes of othering going on between quite li!r media fan phenomena and also within some types of media tandom. --- 46 UNDERSTANDING FANDOM The development of perceived cultural hierarchies can occur between differ­ ent objects of fan interest. This section will not so much theorize them, but simply note that tor many observers, they are there. Within sci-fi, for instance, there is a spectrum of fan objects that- especially tor adolescents interested in peer approval - depart from the respectable into the eccentric, from Star Wars, through Star Trek, on in to minor objects like Batt/estar Galactica and Buck Rogers, and finally through to Doctor Who: 'It wasn't cool Brit like the Sex Pistols or vintage Bowie, but weird Brit with bad teeth and laughable special effects' (Stanish 2010, 33). Similarly, we know that liking certain kinds of music can place a person as relatively highbrow or low brow, cool or uncool. Attacks on fans can make it uncomfortable to speak publically as a fan (Jenkins 1992, 19). Partly for this reason, hierarchies of acceptability are sometimes reproduced within fan communities. On one level, this appears to be a re-enactment of external processes of labelling designed to ward off what are seen as the 'worst' elements of cultural excess frorn more 'cool' areas. For example, in analyzing gendered responces from his sample of Star Wars fans, Will Brooker found that 'obsessive fandom is acceptable as long as it avoids the unacceptable social types of perpetually single misfit and homosexual' (2002, 3). Another instance of this internal marginalization is the use of the term 'squeeing' in sci-fifan communities to caution against emotional exuberance when fans discuss shows or meet well-known participants. Using a metaphor from addiction, Lynne Thomas explains that when visiting fan conventions, 'I was hooked on the "getting to meet celebrities on my show" experience. A "squee" girl was born - despite my not having yet heard of the term' (2010, 81). Thomas simultaneously acknowledges her response as enthusiastic yet somehow unwelcome and abject in game of sci-fi fandom.

The term 'squeeing', however, makes little or no sense in relation to forms of fandom that are premised on emotional enthusiasm, such as rock fandom. To shout out loud at a rock concert is to participate as a fan in the spectacular experience of music being expressed as a form of social energy. Here the musical medium becomes a space in which people can let themselves go as full participants in what is, ultimately, also a form of collective culture. For this reason, we might say that the process is usually one of collusion rather than mutual distancing -or rather that processes of communality and social distancing often go on at the same time. Another point here is that desire for emotional intimacy has traditionally been socially coded as feminine, so spaces of community in popular culture may conceivably liberate fans who might otherwise have trouble in letting themselves go. . To help them ward off the taint of overzealous enthusiasm, fans of certain genres use discourses from art appreciation that imply a kind of emotional FAN STEREOTYPES AND REPRESENTATIONS 47 distancing from the maker of the cultural product. Art discourses register critical separation rather than emotional connection (see Jenkins 2006, 23).

Discourses supporting traditional criticism champion the idea that viewers should keep a certain distance from the object of their passion to allow them to make up their own minds after standing in judgement. While fans cannot be fully distanced from their object, some do airn for this kind of critical distance. One way it is expressed is by putting a focus on the work itself - on the media product, not its maker. In effect this evokes a literary approach to popular culture. Backstreets, for instance, is a professional fan magazine for Bruce Springsteen followers and has an editorial policy not to discuss Bruce's personal life, even though some fans are interested (Cavicchi 1998 54). Editorial policies that focus on a creative work, not its maker, indirect!; promote the maker's agency as an author and therefore attempt to move their object up the cultural hierarchy. This approach is limited, however, because celebrity-following is a dimension of most fandorn, and some icons -such as Elvis Presley in his 1960s Hollywood phase -rode out whole periods where their releases were universally criticized by the entire audience: critics, fans and star alike. Such moments go to show that we understand icons as larger than their media output. When their releases fail to reach an appropriate standard, fans either support them by using an estimation of what they are capable of, or by empathizing with their struggle. Both factors suggest that fans are not literary critics who marginalize everything except for the finished product.

Furthermore, there are occasions when fans realize that their own goals may be in conflict with how they want their object portrayed to the whole of the audience. Samantha Barbas (2001, 116-23) describes one function of individual and collective fan behaviour. Boosting means lobbying industrial agents to raise the profiles and float the careers of new stars. Once people realized it was best done collectively, boosting became a shared practice that helped to generate many fan phenomena of the classic Hollywood era. If marginalizing their own fandom aids the boosting process, some fans will make the sacrifice. For instance, while Doctor Who was off air in the 1980s ,and 1990s its fan community was criticized for their inability to move on. When if was regenerated from the inside by media professionals who described ,hemselves as remaining fans, the insider term 'fanwank' was repeatedly : entioned to police 'excessive' demands for the use of obscure continuity ,aterial that might push away fresh viewers. This view assumed, perhaps ,_h,elpfully, that long-term fans and wider audiences wanted different things JJls 2010b, 60-1). The idea of 'fanwank', which was premised on opposing tand non-fans, stereotyped particular sections of the fan community as nt1le. 2 48 UNDERSTANDING FANDOM Anti-fans The plethora of cultural options online and a reduction in the power of professional critics may have appeared to create the ultimate in audience choice, yet the critic's abdicated chair has sometimes been filled by other audience members who rail against specific cultural tastes. Jonathan Gray describes these anti-fans by saying, 'Opposed and yet in some ways similar to the fan is the anti-fan: he/she who actively and vocally hates or dislikes a given text, personality, or genre' (2005, 840). The idea has been taken up by other researchers. Discussing audiences for the reality TV series Survivor (1992-), Derek Forster (2004) separated ordinary viewers, 'official fandom' (fans who do not play with the world of the text), guerrilla fans (who seek to spoil the text) and anti-fans (those who find pleasure knocking the show rather than enjoying it). Such typologies have a degree of logical coherence, but they arguably tend to taint fandom by lumping it together with unconnected modes of audiencehood. What, then, is the difference between an anti-fan and a critic? We might usefully distinguish ordinary and loving cultural critics here. Ordinary critics, whether amateur or professional, make it their business to trawl through the whole range of products in order to decide the best and worst of the crop. To do this they must separate themselves from what they see, internalize a set of artistic criteria and use them to stand in judgement. A loving critic cultivates no such critical distance. Instead they become so bound up with their particular text or genre that they become disappointed if new products do not reach standards achieved elsewhere in the franchise or canon. They may not even be able to articulate why the product has failed. Ordinary criticism has traditionally come with an embargo against emotional passion. Fans can be loving critics, but they have to put their fannish identity aside if they wish to play the role of the ordinary critic. Meanwhile, anti-fans, in Gray's sense, are neither fans nor ordinary critics.

Instead they are the inverse of loving critics; as hating critics they are bound up with the text and vehemently complain about it. They have dropped the ordinary critic's embargo against passion because they passionately dislike or even detest the object of their attention. Consequently, rather like the idea of 'anti-matter' in physics, although Gray's label is illuminative -insofar that it points to something formerly invisible in a sociocultural sense -it does not quite grasp its own subject. Anti-fans are not inverse fans, but are inverse loving critics. There are many examples of anti-fandom and many reasons why anti-fans might appear. One reason is a wish to revel in critique or contradict mass sentiment.' Sanderson and Cheong (2010, 336) mention how some writers T FAN STEREOTYPES AND REPRESENTATIONS 49 on _the online platform Twitter used condemnatory language to emphasize therr contempt for a recently deceased Michael Jackson. These anti-fans ma well have disliked the wave of support for Jackson in light of the allegation:

of child abuse that haunted his career. The comments of anti-fans often contain what S_heffield and Merlo (201 DI have called a 'rhetoric of superiority', a phrase 1mply1ng the display of 'elite' status. 4 Anti-fans often take a moral or 1deolog1c_al stance too. Diane Alters described how one family that she studied was particularly_ upset by television series like Ellen because, in contradiction to therr evangelical Christian religious values, the show casually portrayed a lesb1a_n lead character (2007, 348). Anti-fans can emerge on a more parochial level if they believe tha_t a new media franchise will usurp the fan base of therr favourite show. This can set up mutual antagonisms between different fan base_s, because fans of populist phenomena can believe that if their community loses size then it might be in danger of being forgotten. Doctor Who, for example, had run on British television from 1963 onwards while Star Trek came later 1n 1968. In Who fan lore, if you like Doctor Who you are likely to be an anti-fan of Star Trek (Hills 201 Ob, 55). Similarly, in popular music, press stones often set artists up against each other in supposed battles. Examples here include_ Elvis Presley against Pat Boone in the 1950s, the Stones against the Beatles 1n the 1960s, Guns N' Roses against Bon Jovi in the 1980s, and Blur against Oasis_ 1n _the 1990s. While such oppositional pairings create news copy by h1ghhght1ng important distinctions in the masculinity or cultural onentat1on of each pair of contenders, what such music battle stories -or sc1-f1 contests, for that matter-forget is that ordinary fans frequently like both contenders and may well be dedicated fans of both of them.

_Elaborating on the anti-fan idea, we might say that the stance of certain artists (and consequent expectations of their fan base) actually include an elem_ent of invited anti-fandom. On one level, certain stars seem to invite . cntic1sm by not engaging with their audiences. Some are famous for avoiding therr fans. Greta Garbo, for example, refused even to offer her signature so th~t the fan mall department at MGM studios could fake it on replies to well wishers. Other stars have complained about the way that media fans follow m as celebrities rather than for their professional output. One argument at ~s a cultural worker, each successful actor or musician is simply doing b, like a_ plumber, a_nd why would anyone want to visit their plumber's se?_ln his book Toxic Fame, Joey Berlin recalled that the film actor John ?vich told him, 'I don't have any desire to be popular. It's humiliating I 11996, xv). A critic of mass culture might agree that popularity is n~t ~a.sure of great_ art, then point out that Malcovich's fans are doubly 1 ~frr_st for following a perso_n who is un_grateful to his fans, and second wing a person who 1s deliberately being nai"ve about the operation of --- 50 UNDERSTANDING FANDOM his profession. Apart from those who claim to find interest only in enjoying Malcovich's film output and therefore see him as a cultural worker, there is also the idea that what he says may not matter to his fans because they primarily interpret him as a figure of ego-identification (an outspoken role model), rather like a group leader. It is one thing if such individualists have loyal fans, but quite another when stars purposefully provoke their audiences.

A good example here is Bob Dylan. Dylan's distinct combination of creativity and rebelliousness locates him as a bohemian hero, particularly for scholarly or lower middle-class fans. He is famous for playing electric guitar in the face of expectations from a folk audience, and is therefore associated with both a sense of literary or artistic creativity and outspoken social rebelliousness. In his heyday, Dylan was loyal to his first cohort of fans, but he also very much enjoyed the vitriolic energy of his anti-fans. As the singer's interviewers, Nora Ephron and Susan Edmiston, recalled, he asked his secretary to save two kinds of fan mail:

[Dylan saved] either violent put-downs (the ones that called him a sell-out, fink, fascist or Red), to which he said, 'I really dig those', and the ones from old friends: 'These are letters from people who knew me in New York five, six years ago. My first fans. Not the people who call themselves my first fans. They came in three years ago, two years ago. They aren't really my first fans'. (Eisen 1970, 68) That Dylan might be involved in a game with his critics implies that he actively provoked his own anti-fandom. The notion of his loyalty to his 'first fans' is also interesting here. Tied to a shared sense of locality, early fans can often claim that a performer is one of their own and form an ambiguously critical connection once he/she outgrows the locality. Those first fans can actually become anti-fans of new members of the fan community. The pattern is simi­ lar when artists change direction and pull a large number of new recruits into their fan base. Under such conditions old and new fans can be antagonistic towards each other. Finally, there are whole genres where a kind of anti-fandom, or at least critical distance, is written into the contract that fans have with their heroes. Punk rock, for example, was founded on a 'Do It Yourself' ethos that linked a sense of social nihilism to an attack on the institution of music stardom. Audiences who understood the punk ethos were expected to be vocal. They were expected to spit and heckle at live events as part of the ritual (see Duffett 2009). Johnny Rotten's incendiary attitude was therefore a kind of test case which ignited a whole generation of fans who were conflicted about how to proceed. In fan mail, they either expressed r l I J I I FAN STEREOTYPES AND REPRESENTATIONS 51 a conflicted sense of critical distance or identified with their heroes by expressing shared individualism and rebelliousness (see Duffett 2009 and 2010c). Polysemk representations The last chapter showed that the place of fandom in society has gradually shifted. As part of this a range of media producers have used fandom as part of thei_r _public image. Fan passions have been part of the story for a range of celebrities, many of whom have used their fandom to distinguish their own celebrity brands and genres of media output. Auteur theory is the idea that certain individuals stamp their creative signatures on the process of cultural production. Consider some of the following individuals and how their own fandom has been represented as part of their image: Andy Warhol Steven Spielberg, David Bowie, Princess Diana, Quentin Tarantino, Lady Gaga. In the image of each of these characters, fandom can indicate a disarmingly common touch ('she's just like me') or mark out a moment of dedication to craft. Here, to be seen as fan is to reveal your credentials as an ordinary person. H1gh-prof1le fans also help to regenerate the image of fandom itself as an acceptable form of cultural identity.

In a media environment that is polarized between fans and their critics producers can sometimes find themselves having to face a compromise i~ order to encompass the whole of the audience, both the mainstream and fan population a_li_ke. They have used irony and parody as tools to help. Polysemy rs the capab1l1ty of an artwork or media product to leave itself open to diverse interpretations. Modern representations of fandom are often strategically polysem1c as a way to encourage the collective interest of a fragmented audience. Whether these products stereotype or support fandom depends on the perspective of the viewer and-is therefore open to debate. Discussing J~e telev1s1on documentary Wacko About Jacko (IWC Media, 2005), Matt Hills found:

Jackson fans do not monolithically approve or disapprove of Wacko About · .Jacko, and that a range of fan readings are made from its structured ?olysemy: some being almost wholly oppositional to the programme's stereotyping of Jackson fandom, and others choosing to read selectively or_der to "rescue" parts of the documentary. Despite these differential ,,adrngs, it is difficult to argue that any one reading would or could be [efeffed', as the structure of the documentary seems to deliberately enact em1ot1c splitting between extremely pathologised 'wacko' fandom and 52 UNDERSTANDING FANDOM b . I d monized 'good' fandom while still representing Jackson less o v,ous Y e . , ·r • a d fans within specific ideological limits thereby enabling pos1 ,ve n 'negative' fan readings even while continuing to cater for, and reproduce, a 'deology of 'irrational' emot1v1st fandom. (2007b, 475) common-sense 1 ' It is possible that fans who participate in one way and are then portrayed in quite another might sympathetically read such a documentary as an excuse to defend their own participation. Nevertheless, Hills' wmk rem,n_ds us that I f f dom Often both operate within the remit of social stereo- portraya s o an . . ·d 'f typing but unpick the stereotypes by helping us to find points of ' ent1 ,ca- tion V-:ith the subject. In other words, while films about extreme fand_om I I tend to other and dismiss it as a socially inappropriate a most a ways ) d. · of the activity -see, tor instance, Kirstyn Gorton's (2009, 37 _,scuss1on Stephen King film Misery (Reiner 1990) - many comedies, drama_s and documentaries about fandom contain moments when we, as an audience, are at least asked to acknowledge that the tans portrayed are more than their role and just like us. 5 3 Beyond the text Starting points • In what ways have acodemics tradition!llly undetstood.fandom? ;-' ' , __ ' ',' __ ', <':,, ' ' < : ,' • Howl')'lightwe understand how fans niak" meaninQ~ul use of media texts? · · · • Why has it been useful.to conceptualize.fan$.a.stextval poachers? All that The Waverly {cinema] produced was a minor amount of ballyhoo {in readiness to screen The Rocky Horror Picture Show]: a few balloons, and the practice of playing the soundtrack recording in the auditorium a few minutes before the film came on. The remaining impetus came from a few isolated individuals who met and became friends in the process of starting a cult, which quickly spread to other theatres and cities . ... There is first · of all an established speech by Piro who welcomes 'virgins' (i.e.

'newcomers) to the cult, introduces out-of-town guest performers , . and offers a few local rules and guidelines ('We don't call Brad an "asshole" every time he appears'). After this the assembled )turned performers (usually more than a dozen) dance the 'Time Warp' to the soundtrack before the lights dim. JONATHAN ROSENBAUM 1980, 78-9 or in this book I have held off describing media products and franchises texts, though this is the dominant metaphor used in media studies ltural studies. The idea of the text (and also the canon) came to these