Thinky-thoughts, I has them...

[denorios]

slavelabour linked to an interesting essay on the death of the Western, which is well worth a read on its own*, but at the end it went on a little digression about fandom death and shrinkage, which is what I'm pondering on here

Comments

[suzie_shooter]

I suppose you could argue that Doctor Who is an example of a fanbase that was so strong that not only did it keep going through the years when it seemed there wouldn't be any more ever, but to such a degree that it produced actual professional fanfic in the way of books, audio adventures, even tv spin offs (PROBE, I'm looking at you, Gatiss).

[denorios]

This is true. And I think it's ties into that timeless thing I was talking about - a show that can go anywhere, anytime, anyplace, isn't rooted in one place and time the way other shows are, and being rooted, particularly in a time and a context, is what dates a lot of shows - because the world and the people watching move on and the show doesn't.

[farad]

Well, I think you're on to something with shows that 'date' themselves in setting themselves 'in the present' too much. I recently did a rewatch of 21 Jump Street which was one of my favorite shows at one point in my life. IT's still a good show, but to understand it, you have to have an understanding of the time-period when it was made.

The 'thing' with westerns as that they're conceptually timeless: the basic themes are man against nature, man against himself, and the conflict of the individual against society. Buffy may have dated itself, but Firely is still out there because Whedon reset the western in 'outer space'. IN Mag 7 fandom itself, we take the characters and the ocncepts and do the same with them, creating multitudes of AUs in which the the best stories still address the timesless and perhaps universal concepts that the classic western addresses.

[huntersglenn]

I definitely think that fandoms for shows that are either set in fantasy (which would include science fiction, where anything might be possible) and historical times have a better chance of maintaining long life. I love the show "Emergency", but it's definitely a victim of its time period in so many different ways (after being a fan of "ER" for a long time, it's odd to watch "Emergency" and not see blood in the emergency room...or anywhere else, for that matter