Fandom studies or whatever they're called

[lesbiassparrow]

Do most people actually do any research when they write essays on pop culture, or is it just a case of 'well I and my dog, Pickles, think fanfic/fanart/fanvideos/fanangst are a post-modernist response to late capitalism and thus I must be right'? Honestly, just uncritically absorbing the material, flinging on a bit of theory, and then using 'and' to connect your ideas does not make something worthy of publication.

And can someone please do some writing on something that isn't a cult show?  I'm not sure the world needs another article on the subversion of phallic symbolism  in Buffy. (Hell, I'm not sure it needs one article on that topic.) I know that Buffy has taken Xena's place as the TV show that it is okay to write scholarly things about but it's been off the air for years now and it would be nice if we moved on it.  It's not the Iliad; you will run out of things to say about it sooner rather than later.

And while you're at it, I'd love to read a reasoned discussion of why most tv shows that are very popular on the net seem not to be top ten shows in the ratings.

Comments

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I find a lot of it... weirdly uncritical. As though anything written about something you like must be true, as long as that thing makes your thing look cool and interesting. I mean, dude, I'm only trained as a sodding historian and I twitch at how some of this stuff goes down. For instance, it's like an unquestioned assumption that fandom and fanfic are subversive, or that slash is about women controlling their sexuality, or that Buffy hates on the patriarchy. And the thing over at fanthropology (not the sole party involved, but an obvious one) where referencing something published is taken as proof. That's not even getting in to how freakishly incestuous it all seems to get.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is that the study of popular culture is not necessarily an uncritical field. If you look at the studies of past popular culture it is often stellar in terms of its research and scholarship. And when you see one of these essays published alongside yet another Buffy vs. the patriarchy piece you really begin to wonder why the standards are so different. Research isn't that bloody hard - and footnoting the story you found in your last minute search on the 'net is not research.

So much of it is filtered through some bizarre desire to partake of opression and to see one's writing as a liberating not only for yourself but for everyone who reads it that it boggles the mind. It's like every piece of erotic fiction suddenly becomes Das Capital in its revolutionary implications.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I suspect that this mantra of self-liberation's why fannish academia seems to be approached so uncritically. As if anything that makes us seem special has to be true. And, dear God, there are so many ways we could argue against the idea that Buffy is taking on the patriarchy, as just one obvious example. And "fannish history"? Omg don't let me even go there. It's fun shit to talk about, but sometimes it really does feel like it's been co-opted by a subset that take it all deathly serious.

Also, there's some surprising stuff we never speak of (http://www.livejournal.com/users/nostalgia_lj/820759.html). *shamelessly pimps own post*