Fandom and a general audience (part 2)

[solaristist]

I was teaching a seminar this week along with one of my senior colleagues whose course it is. At the end of his lecture on media theory (which was a whistle-stop tour from Adorno to Jenkins) he very briefly mentioned fan vids - it was a one sentence comment about Star Trek slash (although he didn't call it that). Unfortunately, he presented it in such a way that made it sound slightly ridiculous and the class laughed.

After the break, I had 30 minutes at the end of the seminar to present some examples of recent developments in online television shows, but I managed somehow to segue into a brief explanation of slash. Any way, they seemed to get it (and didn't laugh!), but I continue to find it interesting how misrepresented fandom is on occasion.

Comments

[ua_the_terrible]

I continue to find it interesting how misrepresented fandom is on occasion

I am so with you on this. I recently wrote up a prospectus for a paper on fandom and the public sphere for the seminar I'm currently taking, and I had to have a meeting shortly after with the professor to explain to him a)what fandom, fan fiction, and vidding might have to do with academia b)why he should care c)how fans are not just a bunch of unproductive bloggers who live in their parents' basements and eat hot pockets four times a day. I was surprised, because my professor is a relatively smart person who doesn't seem like he'd harbor such markedly essentializing, silly beliefs, but I realized that he had these kind of ridiculous notions about fandom because of the larger misrepresentations within culture. That being said, it's nice to know that there are some folks in the world actively working to fix those misconceptions and misrepresentations! :D

[solaristist]

Thanks a lot for the comment UA_THE_TERRIBLE. I think part of the problem is that, very surprisingly, a lot of academics don't connect up fandom with the intellectual traditions around alternative and resistive readings of texts. I just made a comment concerning this on the LJ cross-post of this entry which absolutedestiny responded to. If the discussion seems relevant to your paper let me know and I can give you some references that might be useful.