On Being a Fangirl (and not normal).
I was just reading Nancy Baym’s ‘Tune in, Log On’, and I came to the passage where she talks about how having an identity which is at least partly constituted by fannishness means negotiating where/when to open up about your passions when explaining yourself and your interests. I read a lot of this in academic criticism. I like to think I’m pretty much an open book about my idiosyncratic passions - but I guess this is partly because my fannish love-objects have always had the double-edged honour of being ‘cult’ - Lord of the Rings, Heroes, Arthurian legend, DS9, Star Trek, Supernatural. None of them are particularly mainstream, but they’re all a bit ‘edgy’, not to mention masculinist. (Which is not to say my engagement with them is necessarily masculinist. Why yes, I *had* noticed that they all involve pretty boys wielding weapons and negotiating simmering sexual tension, thanks for asking ).
They’ve all been deemed worthy of at least peripheral academic attention. If I loved something that was genuinely devalued, like a soap opera, perhaps I would feel more constrained by the fannish closet (but then, I like to think the *reason* that I hate soap is because it’s shit and I’m too smart for that shit. So, vicious circle).
But when someone asks me, ‘What are you doing your Phd on?’, I tell ‘em. Granted in a strictly academic context I’m more likely to stress the theoretical side, like I’m using Foucaultian discourse theory because I think Bourdieu is kind of done to death in fan studies and I’m frankly more interesting in language than anything else, rather than just saying ‘it’s about Supernatural and its fanfiction, because I freaking love Supernatural and fanfiction but I also find it problematic sometimes’, though I don’t leave that aspect out if we get to talking about it. I’m really just.....cool with being a fangirl. My friends know it. Every guy I’ve gone out with has known it. And yes, they’ve known about the slash, too - reactions ranging from tolerance to enthusiasm. Honestly - I don’t have a closet. I am a massive geek, there is nothing socially normative about me, and I like it.
In some ways this reminds me of Sconce’s point in a book of essays on Cult TV (sorry I forgot where, I’ll look it up if anyone wants to know) that instead of arguing that Star Trek has created a) a generation of neurotics or b) a generation of the empowered, we should embrace the fact that Star Trek has created a generation of empowered neurotics *raises hand*. This is probably because normativity has always been completely beyond me - I’m female, I’m half-Arab and look it, and I was a smart kid in a comprehensive high school. That was before I developed anorexia and wound up hospitalized and all that. Perhaps the relentless pursuit of bodily effacement (through work, self-discpline, absolute resistance to pleasure and temptation in all forms in the name of a greater good) was my one and only attempt at capitalist normativity. Now I truly couldn’t give a toss about it.
This is all very good and personally empowering. The question is where does it leave the social aspect of thoughtful media consumption and creativity. I suppose I feel that wider society is fundamentally unethical. I mean, there is nothing ethical about capitalism. Its aim is the pursuit of profit at the expense of everything else, including and especially the environment. I don’t think I’m positive about the future of what Henry J would call ‘mundania’. I feel like if the mundanes feel fans are nuts, then good, because if normative society is sane I’ll have no part of it. Part of this is because I went to a lecture by the awesome Bob Franklin (who teaches Journalism courses at my Uni) and was much affected by his discussion of Nick Davies’ Flat Earth News, an expose by a top reporter on the corruption of global media:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distortion/dp/0701181451
So affected that I dreamed about Flat Earth News last night. I kid you not. On which note, I bring you some hilarious yet depressing entertainment by the magnificent Dan and Dan, with their ‘Daily Mail* song’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI
Enjoy.
* The Daily Mail is a notorious yet immensely popular and opinion-making right-wing tabloid here in the UK. I have, however, shown this to my friend’s American bf, who loved it, so I don’t think you have to be British to get it.