This week I am looking at the topic of fan culture. So what is fan culture? . . .fan culture or fandom, is simply a subculture for fans. Whether a passionate fan of comic books, video-games, music, TV series etc. there is a place for such a person in the world of fandom.
Today fan culture is based heavily online but also consists offline too. Fans from all corners of the world network about their favourite episodes or characters. On fan forums and websites, the fans can write their own stories, episodes and variations about their objects of affection, this is known as fan fiction.
Fans not only write stories, but recreate them visually too. This fan made video is a great example. I'm not just saying that because I'm a batman fan.
One of the earliest forms of fandom came long before digital culture. When a TV series named 'star trek' (in case you haven't heard of it) was cancelled in 1969, the show gained a cult following in the proceeding years through re-runs. These fans became known as Trekkies/Trekkers. They organised fan conventions and setup clubs. They made their own costumes and dressed as their idols. They carried out letter campaigns to bring back the show. Largely due to the fans and because of a continual popularity in the series, a movie was made. The movie was succesful and this eventually led to the revival of the series in 1987. Many of these offline characteristics still exist in fan culture.
Today, fan culture does not only exist online. Offline some of the biggest events take place. Possibly the most famous example is Comic con, which is an annual 3 day festival that gives fans a chance to dress as and meet their heroes. Not only can the fans meet their heroes, they can be their heroes through the medium of costume. Fans also have the chance to put their spin on their heroes’ outfits. Fans across all platforms unite for such events as comic con and from this they may decide to stay in touch online. If not they may still cross paths on online fan-sites.
I have also been looking at remix culture lately. A remix is when you take an original piece of work and recombine it, possibly with other works, to produce a new/modified recording. This is also known as a 'mash-up'. Today in a master class I saw a brilliant example of a mashup from John Callaghan. It is a mashup of George W. Bush singing the John Lennon song "Imagine". You can see it at this link here. So this leads me to wonder, can fan made videos be seen as mashups?
If we think of fan made videos such as the unofficial movie trailers for 'the Dark knight Rises' ,we can technically classify these videos as mashups. Such videos take original clips from previous batman movies and combine them with different movies with the same actors. Action sequences from other movies may also be added and the music is often taken from a previous official trailer for the movie. All of this combined produces a new modified recording or a remix.
However, it can be argued that the previous example is taking things too literal. Fan culture is also about fan fiction. Can fan fiction be seen as a remix?. . .technically yes. It is taking original characters and remixing the environment and situations they are in to reproduce a mashup of original official content. If we look at slash fiction for example. The characters emotions are remixed by the fan in order for the character (often the protagonist) to develop feelings for other characters of the same sex (often the side-kick or villain), resulting in a mashup of the character’s personas.
It is difficult to say if fan remixes contribute to a genre or distort it. I think the fans are what makes a book,series or franchise successful. So if a fan made piece is widely acclaimed amongst fellow fans on fan forums across the internet, then I think it is unfair to say such a piece of work distorts the original. Also, their has been so many different official fan series/movies/comics over the years that one can argue that to remain current, a character has to be distorted to evolve.
As an example, there has been many different faces of Batman through the years. Christian Bales Batman character is vastly distorted from the Adam West Batman which in turn was a distorision of the original Batman character in the DC comics. Many Batman fans would argue that a sexual relationship between the joker and batman is distorting the world of gotham city. However, fans of slash culture are also part of the reason that the like's of DC comics' Batman franchise continues to be successful as it is the fans money that is spent on fan memorabilia. So long as the fans keep writing about their objects of affection, they will always keep them alive.
However, enough culturing around for this week.
Until next time, Same blog time, same blog channel
Robin
P.S
I forget!
No comments:
Post a Comment