Fandom is fandom because of fans’ activities and participation. The fandom object can be any canon, we could argue then. Descriptions of typical canons still emerge. Sometimes they originate from what is already the result of fannish beheaviour. Indeed, Pearson says about a similar discourse in 2010:
The definition accorded with film studies’ use of cult to refer to marginalised films that were perceived as trashy or, worse, offensive (due to violent or sexual content), that were hard to see (at least in pre-internet days), and that were treasured by a core group of aficionados who kept moving the goalposts to insure that rarity of what they valued.
As these texts were treasured, of course, the fans accessed them even when that required them to put in work, not required by regular viewers. It was not that these texts are treasured because they are hard to access. But Wu, in 2019 does show that a sense of exclusivity can arise from this extra work that the fans do.
So, if my love creates work, can my work also create love? Pearson also points at that many limitations were lifted due to the appearance of the Internet and we live in a different world of global media today. If that sense of exclusivity disappears, will the goalpost move again?
Fans not only help each other to access texts, but also to access different readings, an initiation described by Jenkins. Fandom is still the fandom of fans’ activities and participation.
Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge.
Pearson, Roberta. 2010. Observations on Cult Television. In The Cult TV Book, ed. Stacey Abbott, 7–17. London and New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd.
Wu, Xianwei. 2019. “Hierarchy within Female ACG Fandom in China.” Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 30. https://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2019.1456.
Academic Heteronormative Bias, Or: How One Word Made Me Really Angry
While I was reading my way through "Transmedia Fandom", a collection of essays on BBC's Sherlock published after season one aired, I stumbled across this sentence:
Roberta Pearson; The Good Old Index, Or, The Mystery of the Infinite Archive, p. 160. In: Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom. Essays on the BBC Series. London, 2012.
I stumbled, literally, since I was walking while reading, yet the reason behind it wasn't clumsiness, but rather the content of that sentence.
That is, the blatant heteronormativity it showcases.
She presents different kinds of fan discourse, starting with discussions on Amazon, IMDB, and "traditional" Sherlock sites and makes her way to the likes of LJ and dreamwidth.
This brings us to the quote depicted above in the context of slash and slashiness:
At one point, when John inadvertently sends the wrong signals, Sherlock says, "I think you should know I consider myself married to my work and while I am flattered by your interest, I am really not looking for anyone."
I know that this was two years before the advent of TJLC and that with only season one to go on, TJLC does not seem as likely as it does in light of season 3.
However, what I take offense at (or rather: what makes me inexplicably angry) here is how incredible heteronormative and superficial the author's viewpoint is.
Doesn't science pride itself with objectivity? Or with an analytical gaze that goes beyond personal bias? Though as an anthropology minor I know that every act of speaking is speaking from somewhere and that said somewhere is directly influenced by the speaker's subjective experiences.
So objectivity is an illusion, I know.
Still, the sentence shows how superficial Pearson was being. If she had looked closer at the scene, would she still have used "inadvertently"? Or maybe she would have ascribed more ambiguity to the scene? Because no one can deny that it IS ambiguous (no matter if it was played for comic effect or in the larger framework of TJLC).
I didn't expect a critical analysis of homoerotic subtext from the book. Just a bit, I don't know, more depth? A bit more effort? Not taking everything we see at face value?
One more thing that made my blood pressure rise:
While Pearson argues against a very limiting definition of "fannish" attitude regarding Sherlock fans, she still writes about slash and "slashy practices - fanfics, vids, art, photos, and so forth" (p. 160) in a rather condescending manner.
Well, at least it seemed like that to me. Like: "Oh, yeah, there's a part of fandom that always see homoerotic themes that inspire their art. Yeah, they of course love the allusions to homosexuality in Sherlock."
I might be a bit oversensitive in this regard, but it does make me angry. Slash is not something to belittle. Slash is not worth less than anything else, even if there is genuinely no queer subtext in the source material.
Don't devalue queer people by degrading their chosen form of expression and interaction with popular heteronormative culture.
I'm not saying Roberta Pearson is queerphobic or anything like that. It seems to me that she really, really isn't. (And she does state that affirmational fan works, that don't change the source text, are equal to transformational fan works that do - like slash.) Only maybe she does have a slightly superior attitude towards slash because of her position as a professional looking at fandom from the outside.
Maybe I'm wrong and it just seemed that way to me while I was reading the essay. Maybe Roberta Pearson is writing her own slash fics. I don't want to offend her or any other authors of that book.
I'd just wish that someone would finally take slashers seriously, and not just smile at them indulgently.
PS: Just to be clear, I really might just be overreacting. Yet I found it incredibly interesting how one word could make me SO ****** ANGRY, and I wanted to explore this reaction.
