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The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media PDF

257 Pages·1992·2.18 MB·English
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The Adoring Audience FAN CULTURE AND POPULAR MEDIA edited by LISA A. LEWIS London and New York To the memory of Delbert E. Lewis, my greatest fan First published in 1992 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001. © 1992 Lisa A. Lewis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Lewis, Lisa A. The adoring audience: fan culture and popular media. I. Title 302.2308 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Adoring audience: fan culture and popular media / edited by Lisa A. Lewis. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Fans (Persons) – United States – Psychology. 2. Television viewers – United States – Psychology. 3. Groupies – United States – Psychology. 4. United States – Popular culture. I. Lewis, Lisa A. HM291.A343 1992 302.23 – dc20 91–37332 ISBN 0–415–07820–2 (Print Edition) ISBN 0–4515–07821–0 pbk ISBN 0-203-18153-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-18156-5 (Glassbook Format) The Adoring Audience Fans get a bad press. The familiar images of fandom are loaded with negative stereotypes and labels of deviancy. Yet in many ways we are all ‘fans’, and fans remain the most visible and dedicated of any audience. What defines and motivates this intense admiration? And why is it so maligned and stigmatized? The Adoring Audience considers the relationship between fans, stars, media texts and media industries. From Beatlemania to Elvis worship, from science fiction fans and ‘Trekkies’ to Hollywood films about fans, this fascinating collection of essays examines the way in which fandom relates to identity, sexuality and textual production. Its contributors argue for fandom as a complex and contradictory arena for critical enquiry, rather than a subject to be trivialized and dismissed. They also recognize fans as creative and energetic resondents to their often repressive social milieux, and cultural producers in their own right. The editor: Lisa A. Lewis is a commercial TV producer in Tucson, Arizona, and author of Gender Politics and MTV: Voicing the Difference. The contributors: Sue Brower, Cheryl Cline, Barbara Ehrenreich (with Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs), John Fiske, Lawrence Grossberg, Steve Hinerman, Henry Jenkins, Joli Jensen, Lisa A. Lewis, Robert Sabal, Fred and Judy Vermorel. Contents Notes on Contributors vii Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 PART I Defining Fandom 1 Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization JOLI JENSON 9 2 The Cultural Economy of Fandom JOHN FISKE 30 3 Is There a Fan in the House?: The Affective Sensibility of Fandom LAWRENCE GROSSBERG 50 PART II Fandom and Gender 4 Essays from Bitch: The Women’s Rock Newsletter with Bite CHERYL CLINE 69 5 Beatlemania: Girls Just Want to Have Fun BARBARA EHRENREICH, ELIZABETH HESS, GLORIA JACOBS 84 6 ‘I’ll Be Here With You’: Fans, Fantasy and the Figure of Elvis STEPHEN HINERMAN 107 7 ‘Something More Than Love’: Fan Stories on Film LISA A. LEWIS 135 v CONTENTS PART III Fans and Industry 8 Fans as Tastemakers: Viewers for Quality Television SUE BROWER 163 9 Television Executives Speak about Fan Letters to the Networks ROBERT SABAL 185 PART IV Production by Fans 10 A Glimpse of the Fan Factory FRED AND JUDY VERMOREL 191 11 ‘Strangers No More, We Sing’: Filking and the Social Construction of the Science Fiction Fan Community HENRY JENKINS 208 Index 237 vi Notes on Contributors Sue Brower completed her doctorate in Radio–Tele vision–Film at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has focused on the relationships among promotion, television fiction, and viewer practices. She has written about tabloids, ‘Dallas’ viewers, promotional strategies of ‘Cagney & Lacey,’ star biography in ‘Moonlighting’ and seriality in television of the 1980s. Cheryl Cline writes for Bitch: The Women’s Rock Newsletter with Bite and is at work on an encyclopedia of rock musicians. Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of the book, The Hearts of Men. Her articles have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, Vogue, The Atlantic, and the Wall Street Journal. John Fiske teaches in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and has held appointments in the UK and Australia. He is author or co-author of Reading Television, Introduction to Communication Studies, Key Concepts in Communication, Myths of Oz, and Television Culture. Lawrence Grossberg is a Professor of Speech Communication and Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana. His newest book, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Rock Politics and Postmodernity is a study of relationships between popular culture and the new conservativism. He is co-editor of Marxism and the Interpretation of vii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Culture, Rethinking Communication, and Cultural Studies: Now and In the Future. Elizabeth Hess is a free-lance writer who has written for the Washington Post, the Village Voice, Art in America, and Ms., among other publications. Stephen Hinerman is a Lecturer in the Departments of Communication Studies and Humanities at San Jose State University. He wrote extensively on popular music as a rock critic at the Colorado Daily and Denver’s Westword between 1979 and 1984. In addition, he has written academically about both mass culture and rhetoric, presenting a number of papers discussing the political dimensions of popular culture. He is working to produce his play about Elvis fans entitled Burnin’ Love. Gloria Jacobs has served as an editor at Ms. and written for publications such as Mother Jones, Women’s World, and Daily News. Henry Jenkins is an Assistant Professor of Literature at MIT. He has published a number of journal articles on media audiences and is the author of the forthcoming book entitled Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, to be published by Routledge. Joli Jensen is interested in twentieth-century culture and society. She has published articles on country music production, and on the typewriter as a communication technology. Her recent book, Redeeming Modernity: Contradictions in Media Criticism, analyzes media criticism as displaced social criticism. She is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Communication at the University of Tulsa. Lisa A. Lewis has published widely on the subject of female musicians, music video, and female fans culminating in Gender Politics and MTV: Voicing the Difference (Temple University Press, 1990). She holds a PhD and graduated from the American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies. She works as a video and film producer in Tucson, Arizona. viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Robert Sabal teaches film-making in the Department of Media Arts at the University of Arizona. He has written, produced and directed the feature film, Indian Summer. Fred and Judy Vermorel are conducting research with fans in the USA and Britain for an updated version of their previously published book, Starlust: The Secret Fantasies of Fans, which is now out of print. ix

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With stories of hysterical teenagers and obsessive fans killing for their heroes, fans and fandom get a bad press. The Adoring Audience looks deeper into fan culture, particularly as it relates to identity, sexuality and textual production.
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