Fandom... Frenzied Crowd, Obsessed Loner or In Between?
Fans have been criticised heavily via the press as well as academic works. They have been given evil associations and stereotypes hugely based on the news coverage and opinions of extreme cases such as that of Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley. Joli Jenson mentions these cases briefly to give an example of the obsessive loner type as opposed to the frenzied crowd member in her academic piece, ‘Fandom as Pathology: The consequences of Characterisation’. Again, both these definitions are negative opinions on the fan, but the text also touches on the way some people blame the ‘media influences for fan obsession’ (Jenson; 92; 10) and these characterisations. The essay states that fans are ‘a response to the star system’ meaning that ‘passivity is ascribed to the fan…’ (Jenson; 92; 10) This essay seeks to explore just how true it is to say that fans are passive and ‘entirely convinced by media artifice’. An analysis of a site dedicated to the film star Ryan Phillippe, created by a fan, as well as references to others fan sites such those dedicated to James Dean will be used to help achieve this. The argument Ruddock has given in the question to this essay is a fairly strong one, and has been commented on by
commercial pop media encourages girls to value can be challenged by looking at the ways some fans do actually use their knowledge of some fictional characters but apply them for their own creative purposes or self-expression. For example, after analysing the fan site titled ‘Bonny’s Devoted Site To Ryan Phillippe’ (see appendix 1), and reading the contents under the section ‘Fun Stuff’, the understanding of how fans can be very ‘devoted’ and creative with their knowledge of their passion becomes apparent. In the ‘Fun Stuff’ section were four further links, titled, ‘Quiz’, ‘100 degrees of Ryan Phillippe’, ‘Marry Ryan’, and ‘Fan fiction’. The example of how ‘Bonny’ created a fictional text using her readings of Ryan as a star image as well as his character from the film ‘Cruel Intentions’ amazed me (see appendix 2). In this fictive story (that the fan titled as ‘fan fiction’) Bonny calls the characters by their real star names ‘Ryan’ and ‘Reese’, and uses real associations with the stars (“Reese has an agent?”). However, Bonny also applies elements from the movie in which they starred together (Cruel Intentions) by using the plot of that film, “she got all mad about me not wanting to sleep with her, but do you blame me?”, and then illustrates his/her understanding of the way the star system works, “then the press got involved and I was stuck with her.” Although, the story speaks of the characters, ‘as if they had an existence apart from their textual manifestation’, the fact that the fan has labelled the story ‘Fan Fiction’ already indicates that he/she has acknowledged that text is just ‘fiction’.
Some topics in this essay:
Ryan Phillippe’,
Cruel Intentions,
Ryan Phillippe’s,
Finsbury Park,
Cause NRay,
Ryan Phillippe,
Joli Jenson,
James Dean,
Henry Jenkins,
Ken Carpenter,
james dean,
fan site,
garratt 94,
ryan phillippe,
fan culture,
‘fan fiction’,
jenson 92 10,
storey 2001,
dean fan,
‘virtual marriage’,
storey 2001 183,
2001 183,
dean fan site,
convinced media artifice’,
james dean fan,
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Approximate Word count = 1821
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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