Celebrating Rice Boy and Vattu: An Interview With Web Comics Creator Evan Dahm (Part Three)

Current Issues and State of the Field

James Lee: So maybe we can shift to talking about platforms and other issues, the state of the field here. You've been through many changes in the field of webcomics from the early days of web rings, the push towards merchandising t-shirts and such, and so on. How does this current era compare to prior times and what do you see as key issues these days?

Evan Dahm: Whoa big one. Okay how does it compare… I feel like I got in sort of on the tail end of the merchandise-heavy thing or that it’s never been a big part of my stuff because I approached webcomics not being totally aware of webcomics and not being interested in the sort of gag comic strip thing that a lot of webcomics were at the time. But because my stuff has been so tailored towards going to be a book, book sales have been a huge part and a type of limited self-publishing have been my thing in a larger way and I feel like a lot of my contemporaries.

Well, the big shift to me is that death of the independent Internet thing. The fact that people don't tend to leave social media platforms. I think a lot of people only a little bit younger than me don't have any memory of an Internet that's a little more made by individuals, and so it doesn't even occur to them they can put a thing on a platform that's their own.

I’ve been re-serializing Vattu on Webtoon, the big Korean webcomics. I don't have to explain that to you. I look at the numbers on there, the millions and millions of people reading some of that stuff and that those numbers are so big that that is what the medium is for them. There is a huge number of people just on that platform making and reading that I just wasn't aware of until a little while ago.

So, I feel like that's kind of what webcomics is now. And what does that mean? That means that people making comics for that platform and tending to not put them anywhere else are tending to not have their own place and their own audience and brand building project outside of Webtoon. That just leads everybody into the same rut that YouTube creators or whoever is on where they're just trying to appeal to the inscrutable audience dynamics and algorithms of that platform and they're trying to not get their content banned because they mentioned or deal with any particular narrative content. And then they try to make a living just off the back of that platform, which is apparently feasible, and people do it. I have like 7000 followers on there and as a result, I was not aware of this, I get 100 or 200 bucks a month in ad sharing. That's great but you need an insane amount of readership there if you're going to make a living off of their ad revenue. Or you need to be contracted to do their Webtoons originals or whatever. It's just not self-publishing. It's great that platform is there and that there's so many people there. And people are doing great work on it, but it's compromised. It could shut down at any minute. They could kick you off at any minute.

The amount of money that you could make doing your work it just pales in comparison to what you could do, in theory, if you could bring that audience somewhere else, and just sell 1% of them a book or a t-shirt or whatever. I don't know, I'm kind of rambling but that's the shape of the shift as I see it. It sounds like I'm being judgmental of people operating in that scene as it is now, but I don't mean to be because it's kind of like that's what it is. There's so many people there that how could you not? We're so divorced from the idea of artists having their own Internet spaces that why would it not seem self-evident to you that the only thing to do is just build up as much of an audience on Webtoon as possible and hope for the best? It just puts people in a really, really delicate precarious position and it's kind of self-publishing but it removes a lot of the benefits of self-publishing as I have seen them.

James Lee: Yeah it's been an interesting shift to observe when we think back to the earlier with the Wild West days of the Internet there was this old idea proposed by Scott Mccloud, comic theorist, about the infinite campus basically that with this great new tool, the Internet, that we would be liberated from the constraints of the physical and there would be this golden age of people experimenting in weird and interesting ways. But I think we've seen over the years there are constraints that people consider. If you want to print for book, for example, if you want what you made to be available in book form, then you have to consider print dimensions, resolution size. And now with Webtoons you have this long vertical scrolling format designed for the mobile experience. So it's another kind of set of constraints and maybe more limiting and not necessarily let's say as liberating as other paths that could have been taken.

Evan Dahm: The thing is I'm kind of an apologist for that. I think that he was basically right. The infinite canvas thing got used in a few like gimmicky token ways throughout the years. I made Rice Boy in 2006-2008. It's formatted as a book. It does not take advantage of the infinite canvas Internet thing at all. But structurally that book could not exist if not for the Internet. You can't just publish a 500-page comic book anywhere but the Internet. There was no publisher would have done that. That is a kind of infinite canvas type thing as comics have always been limited by not only the physical size of the pages but the means of their production and distribution. I think it's important to keep in mind that maybe comics on the Internet haven't taken advantage of that physical trim size limitation being lifted, but certainly they have profoundly taken advantage of a huge opening up of the limitations by means of production.

James Lee: Even with Webtoons we can think of the infinite scroll as being kind of an application of this.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, and there's sorts of stories all the time being produced now that could not have existed were they subject to all of the constraints that existed in form before the Internet.

James Lee: Yeah, it's interesting because there are a lot of key issues going on now, but also people can make the argument that now is the best time to get into this stuff. You can just make anything you want and post it on any number of platforms. Burying some of these issues of censorship and other factors.

Evan Dahm: As long as you're as long as people have in mind that you can put it everywhere. I see kids - that's rude of me – I've seen a lot of people agonizing over “I'm making this comic, should I put it on Webtoons or whatever?” You should put it fucking everywhere. Why not? You're trying to get it out there. These are these are platforms that you can use. There's no there's nothing wrong with it. Just don't think that any one of them is going to make it all happen for you.

James Lee: Yeah, I think also related to this is that the field is open to everyone. So, in essence people feel they have a lot of competition with people with more developed skills. You have professionals, aspiring art students making webcomics as well. Big departure from the early days when this very small kind of amateurish works that existed back then compared to now. Could you talk more about this idea of polish which you've spoken about previously?

Evan Dahm: Oh yeah, I was just talking on Twitter about that. A lot of it is that everybody's on the Internet now and everybody who's making art is putting it there and there's just so much of it that it kind of pushes everybody in a different way than it used to. But also, I think that we, I don't know, I feel like audiences are expecting a certain level and type of polish in a way that they weren't before. And I don't know if that's good. I feel like audiences are expecting a high budget movie type of polish from a piece of art made by an individual and I don't like that. I have this sort of loose and indefensible theory that we're, at least in America and maybe at least in the Anglosphere, we're kind of atrophying our understanding or we're losing our understanding of drawings as such. We're not really understanding what goes into them what decisions are being made what they are. So, as a result of that maybe we expect drawings to have an extreme level of polish or kind of internalized embarrassment of the fact that they're drawings or something.

I think about American animation and how animation for kids is allowed to be really visually inventive and rich and visually smart, to fully lean into drawings as a beautiful thing to be explored in their own right. Animation for adults in America is stuff in the Family Guy mold where there's nothing there. It's just making a joke of the fact that it's a drawing – like “isn't this show funny? Isn't it funny that it's a drawing?” – and it's kind of embarrassed to even explore the possibilities of drawing. It is made of drawings and that's enough. It was a very loose kind of idea…

James Lee: I think definitely there is something there. You look at these animations for adults, things like Family Guy and others in that genre, and it feels terrible in a way that you don't see with cartoons aimed at kids.

Evan Dahm: Right so there's the sense that emerges out of that, I think that drawings are for kids or finding beauty and interest in drawings is something that adults should not do. Adults are supposed to look at realistic highly developed images.

James Lee: Yeah, it's a very specific way of thinking of polish that closeness to reality is the metric of, say, artistic skill or quality.

Evan Dahm : Exactly, closer to the optical even. I find that deadening because you're never going to, I don't know, we don't live in reality. We live in our little poetic socially constructed image of reality. This is connected to that objectivity and worldbuilding thing I was talking about. How are you going to objectively represent something that everybody has their own perspective on? There's optical reality, there's the reality that the camera shows us, but I think we do a disservice to our visual engagement with the world if we treat that as the one thing that every representation has to go for.

James Lee: Why do the job of the camera when the camera already exists?

Evan Dahm: Yeah, and we don't live in that reality. We have optical input from the world but there's a lot more to our visual experience of the world than that, I think, and there should be in our production of images too, I think.

James Lee: Okay, so building on this, over the years we've been seeing more encroachment from outside players who have been more interested in profitability in the spaces and tools used by independent creators like yourself. We have cases such as Amazon I think back in 2018 at Small Press Expo showcasing their original print-on-demand service. We have Kickstarter’s foray onto the crypto roller coaster. And, more recently, we had the Toronto Comic Art Festival (TCAF) giving space to NFT art and being met with backlash this past year. So, what are your thoughts on this trend, especially in relation to independent art?

Evan Dahm: Generally, it feels kind of bleak. The NFT thing particularly just feels like a really apocalyptic cashing in thing. It's so nakedly wasteful and all of the sort of futurist arguments for its miraculous capabilities, I think I am smart enough to be able to tell if there's something there or not and I just don't see it. So it just feels totally just like nihilistic cash grab type people. The Pink Cat, the NFT person who was invited to TCAF and then disinvited has just I think cut and run like she just vanished from all for social media platforms. So, what is that a rug pull? Is that what people -

James Lee: Yes, that's the term. A lot of these scam terms are becoming very popular these days.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, and that’s related but I guess that's a separate thing from Amazon buying all this stuff. That’s related to what I'm talking about with the Internet being locked up, and all these platforms. It's exciting to see people pushing against that and it's exciting to sometimes have this sense that there's this broad backlash against it, that people remember that they can do things outside of these platforms, that self-publishing is a thing in various ways. I don't know what to make of it really. I am encouraged that there seemed to be a lot of people who understand that it's happening, and that you can operate in spaces outside of it to at least some extent. I try not to get too doom and gloom about it with myself, I guess.

James Lee: Yeah it feels very easy to fall into this negative cycle, especially when it feels like it's inescapable. As much as you try to ignore terms like NFT and crypto they just keep coming up.

Evan Dahm: Yeah it's inescapable, but I feel like for me a lot of a part of why I'm able to not get sucked into it, maybe just my disposition, but also it feels good to be making something consistently that is out there in its own little space and that is entirely mine and that I'm not dependent on any of these – I mean I am dependent on platforms – but I doing this thing separate from Amazon and all this stuff. People are reading it and I feel like I'm doing something that helps me.

James Lee: So, compromise is a recurring theme that you mentioned, at times, specifically the kinds of compromises, you have to make to keep doing what you want to do, and to survive. At times, this might mean buying into corporate structures, whether that be working with them or engaging with others on their terms, on the terms set by those structures, such as the walled gardens that you mentioned before. So, while we may be critical of these, there can also be no functional alternatives, especially when it comes down to a matter of survival. Can you speak more about this kind of ambivalence and how you navigate it?

Evan Dahm: I'm doing this as a career so there's an aspect of me that is just a totally cynical striver about it. I can try to navigate it with principles or whatever, but there is no way of having a career doing it where I stick to all of them or where I don't engage with any part of the culture or the Internet that I don't like. I think it's been kind of easier for me to wrap my head around that because I've been working in comics and that medium has always been thought of and I've always thought of it as pretty compromised from the jump. It's a commercial medium. It's a commercial illustration turned into entertainment storytelling. There's so many different aspects of what I'm doing that proceed from these rich traditions of compromise and commodification. I don't know how else to look at it really. When I was in college, my minor was in studio art and at that time the school I was at the arts department was entirely aimed at the fine art world which has always been kind of just frustrating or uninteresting to me. I learned an awful lot like technical drawing and stuff doing that, but the idea that there's any pure art free from compromise or engagement with the material world is just silly and frustrating to me. And it was it was kind of funny I guess to be working on Rice Boy, this very tacky pop-y illustrative thing, at the same time as I was taking classes in this program that just had no interest or understanding of illustration or comics or anything that debased. I had one more thought, give me one second.

James Lee: Okay sure.

Evan Dahm: Oh yeah and I've been thinking about what it takes for a thing to materially exist. We're making this work within capitalism. Either I'm compromising in all sorts of ways and trying to make it something that will make me a living, or I'm independently wealthy, or it doesn't get done. I want it to be read. This is how I engage with the world in large part. This is how I understand the world and how I talk to far more people than I will ever talk to as an individual so how do I fit that into the world? I have to make it pop cultural, make it intelligible, and sort of compromise to that extent. And then I have to make a living doing it however, I can. That's the only way that it can exist. Because if I don't think about it like that, then I'm just privileging work made by people who already have the money, basically. I'm not a rich kid. That's not the position I've ever been in. This is my job.

James Lee: Yeah, that's an excellent point that even the works that try to be abstract and removed are made in a context which enable that, and maybe that means coming from a family of wealth which we are not all necessarily privy to.

Evan Dahm: I guess I'm lucky that the sort of thing that interests me is kind of pulpy and a mass audience type thing.

James Lee: Well, we got to work within the system we're born into. Even if you want to change it, we won't change it overnight.

Evan Dahm: Mm hmm.

Closing Thoughts

James Lee: Okay, so home stretch. There are just a couple questions to wrap up. What are you into these days? It could be anything. You mentioned some of the manga you're reading earlier.

Evan Dahm: Oh yeah, I've been thinking a lot about Dragon Ball. I read all of Dragon Ball a little while ago and I can't stop thinking about it. I've been reading a lot about self-publishing. Different, earlier, obsolete areas in comics self-publishing. I've been reading a lot of interviews with Jeff Smith, who made Bone. I've been reading Dave Sim’s big weird argumentative self-publishing diatribe with the caveat that I do find that guy pretty unhinged and despicable, but he occupied a very particular space in self-publishing like periodical self-publishing when the direct market was a new thing for comics. I've been very interested in that.

I'm thinking of maybe doing some sort of limited podcast where I interview people about their approaches to self-publishing in different eras because I know people who have engaged with that at different times and it's interesting to see. I'm really trying to wrap my head around, at least in a big, vague, vibe-oriented way, wrap my head around how working independently works in different circumstances. The sort of thing that I'm doing is very different and it's always been very different from a self-publisher like a Jeff Smith, but a lot of the dynamics are the same on some level, like the culture around the art.

What else have I been into, I've just finished Future Boy Conan, Miyazaki’s early series from 1979 which I just loved it so much.

James Lee: What do you like about it?

Evan Dahm: It's very focused and the pacing is incredible. It's telling one big story basically nonstop continuously and each episode mostly is focused around a simple challenge to be undertaken. It doesn't hugely overreach. It's not trying to do something big and complicated and particularly because it's Miyazaki. I'm used to see his stuff in very expensive opulent motion picture animation. It looks very cheap and limited, but it does it all so confidently and beautifully. I just loved it. You rarely see serialized storytelling that fits together that well, in my opinion. I recommend it.

James Lee: All right, I'll add it to the list. The next question is: what would be your dream project if you had unlimited time and resources? It could be webcomics, it could be anything else. It could be something you're currently working on, or something you want to see down the line, big or small.

Evan Dahm: Unlimited time and resources… If it's literally unlimited, I guess it would be – I don't know – just the same sort of thing I'm doing, but just taking more pop cultural space. I would make a big traditionally animated movie and just make it available in every possible place. Or I would start an animation studio. No, I don't know. In reality, my dream project is probably the thing I'm starting after Vattu, which is a… Well, the reason I'm thinking so much about the material conditions for art and how a thing can't exist unless it can materially exist is because I'm trying to at least understand how I'm going to make it happen in a self-publishing way. And I’m trying to approach the story and the means by which I published the story in a smart and eyes open sort of way. I want to continue to self-publish these big expansive long-term projects in a way that can work and they can continue to exist in the Internet as it is. But that project is a lot of what I am thinking about and I feel like I can approach it in a way, where I am mobilizing a lot of what I’ve learned about serial storytelling and sort of starting over but still building on a lot of the stuff. I’m very excited about it. I've written a lot of a lot of it.

James Lee: And I'll be looking forward to seeing it.

Evan Dahm: I appreciate that.

James Lee: So any words, in closing, you want to convey to let's say people who want to express themselves through our but feel intimidated or overwhelmed in terms of figuring out where to even start.

Evan Dahm: It feels like the most important thing is that you know what you want to make. It might be kind of difficult to figure out what that thing is in the most personal and honest way but hold to that and don't worry too much about what people will say about it, or how it'll fit into the world or whatever. The main thing, the engine, that all makes it happen is just doing the thing that they intensely want to do and not really giving a shit about how feasible it is, or if people like it or whatever, to an extent. And that to me is the value of working in comics, in particular, because you can do it with one person or a very small team for no money and it's a visual medium. You can do fucking anything.

James Lee: So basically, to make comics you got to make comics.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, and everybody has their thing. Everybody has their own angle. I guess that's it.

James Lee: Okay, so that's all the questions I have. Let me stop the recording here.

Evan Dahm: Cool, thank you for having me.

Celebrating Rice Boy and Vattu: An Interview with Web Comic Creator Eric Dahm (Part Two)

Fans and Community

James Lee: Let me shift gears a little bit. The following questions fall under this umbrella of “finding your own people,” about community and audiences. So, to start off, is there an audience in mind when you were in which you tell your approach towards with your work?

Evan Dahm: I try to be extremely clear, and I try to make the storytelling engaging and have a “pull you forward” sort of way. I like working with extremely dense big ideas but part of what is appealing to me about storytelling is that I want to do that in a way that basically anybody can understand and that pulls you through it in an exciting sort of way. I'm trying to make it as entertainment effectively so that is kind of a way of having an audience in mind, but I don't have a particular audience in mind.

With The Island Book trilogy that I did for First Second Books, those are ostensibly for a middle grade audience, which is, I think, from 10 to 14. I guess I kept it kind of intentionally superficially simple, but I didn't think about that terribly much, and I don't really know how to think about that terribly much.

My sort of tastes don't tend to go in the direction of intense gore or violence or sexuality in terms of storytelling. So, though there's not a lot, I haven't had to think about it very much. And with most of the stuff that I want to do, part of the creative challenge to me is taking the big, complicated ideas I want to work with and making them work in a pop cultural register. That's as much as I think about it.

James Lee: I think those are good considerations, because when you start crafting towards your audience, then perhaps that changes how you think about the story and maybe compromises your own vision for it. With that in mind, though, there's this idea in business and media about the long tail.

In comics it often came up a while back as “1000 true fans” – that you only needed a thousand people who really support you to have you be able to do to work you want. How do you feel that kind of idea holds up especially after all these years with crowdfunding platforms and other shifts in the field?

Evan Dahm: I imagine that the numbers on that have changed somewhat, but that was exactly the sort of thing that made sense around when I was starting before Web 2.0. I have this experience a lot now over the past several years going to comic conventions and stuff where an awful lot of people tell me that they came to my work around 2010 or before 2010 which is great to see that people have been interested in what I'm doing for so long.

But the fact that it's a big percentage has a feeling of inertia or decreased momentum or something as if I got in with a certain type of world and now nobody else finds me so I've been trying to keep that in mind. But I want a big pop cultural footprint. I want people to read this stuff.

James Lee: I was one of those 2010 people.

Evan Dahm: Hey exactly. Did you go to a convention that I signed that or a show?

James Lee: I think it was maybe Comic-Con.

Evan Dahm: Cool.

James Lee: I don't know I lost track over all these years.

Evan Dahm: That's a very long time. Yeah the solution for independent people doing lo-fi art like comics is I think it's always going to be a small number of people who are very invested, especially if you're really doing your particular thing in the way that comics allow you to do more than other more expensive media, then your dream should be that you connect with the probably pretty small number of people who are totally on board with what you're doing now. Maybe that's not enough in every circumstance to support a career but that seems honest.

James Lee: Yeah, I'm starting to think maybe there's about X amount of people that supports the work which makes it sustainable and then maybe there's a smaller amount of people who really support it in a way that makes you feel motivated to keep doing it, let's say as like a community.

So, with that said, maybe to build on that, so something you raised in your documentary was that the actual work of making comics is quite depressive. You stare at a screen or paper all day alone oftentimes kind of get something out of your head. We can joke about this, about how long it actually takes to make comics and all the different skill sets you kind of need to do them as well. So, the question would be then what keeps someone going in comics work? Especially doing it independently. Why comics over something else like let's say the novel?

Evan Dahm: Working in a novel is appealing to me sometimes because it's so much more efficient. But for me the answer to that question for me is different from somebody starting out or whatever because what keeps me going is that first of all I've been doing it for so long that it feels like a native language in a way. But also, I know that I'm talking to an audience and that I'll hear something from somebody, and that people will read it. That's a big part of what keeps me going.

But also there's this trick you have to do where you become clear enough on what you want to make and have a sort of internal motivation to do it in exactly the way that you want to do, and then you have to sort of fool yourself into having faith in it and thinking that it's possible and thinking that you'll do it well, even if you're disappointed in every single step of it or whatever. There is a part of my brain constantly doing this sort of imposter syndrome, or down talking, or that sort of stuff. There's always a million ways to talk yourself out of doing something. But well first of all it's my career so I have to but also, I just sort of built the way that I think of this stuff around just not giving that any oxygen, I guess. And just sort of trying to look at it objectively like obviously you could talk yourself out of doing it. Obviously, all the things that I see wrong with a page that I've drawn in a certain light, those are objective faults, but I'm fucking doing it. This is the way it's going to get done, with these faults. I'm making a 1300-page comic book. It is what it is.

Would you mind if I disappear for one second?

James Lee: Okay sure.

Evan Dahm: We're back. Alright hello.

James Lee: Okay welcome back. Thank you, if this is running long just let me know and we can wrap things up.

Evan Dahm: I'm good.

James Lee: Okay, all right because I still got a bunch of questions here. So, I want to say that there are definitely people who support your work, so I think imposter syndrome will always be rearing its head, even if it's not warranted.

Evan Dahm: Yeah and it's the sort of thing where what is the circumstance in which it's warranted? I understand it as it's just a sort of narrativization that my brain does to talk about an anxiety thing. There is no reality that it could point towards so why give it any attention?

James Lee: Okay, so building on some of these themes, are there any communities you feel that you're a part of? Groups of friends not necessarily let's say webcomics like a webcomics community, though you can point to one if you feel like you are part of one, but in general as well.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, I don't know, I have a couple of a couple of good little sort of crowds that I'm a part of in my social world outside of being a comics person. I'm not extremely social. I'm becoming more comfortable at that fact as being at the age that I am or whatever. Within comics world I do feel very close to the sort of cohort of people that I met through webcomics who were all kind of around my age and started all around the time I did. Basically, we just sort of would see each other all the time and it became a little scene. It's funny how locked in time that is because people aren't doing the same thing now and the way that I was publishing then and the way that I met those people just doesn't really exist anymore.

James Lee: Yeah, how do you even meet people, especially at conventions now? It's all very chaotic and strange these days.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, I’m not good, I don't think I’ve ever been really good at that. I need like an intro, or I need like an angle to approach or something. I can be like a charming professional person, but I don't think I'm extremely social.

James Lee: Yes, all kinds of troubles we have to deal with as introverts. So, here's a question. You run a stream, The Ambiguity Program, in which you regularly curate and show different kinds of animated cartoons, mainly strange and off the beaten path things. So, what was the motivation for doing this?

Evan Dahm: I’ve always been sort of interested in that stuff, but I hadn't learned terribly much about it, or found very much of it. It was kind of a premise to do that, and it was fun to build a little space and do the trade dress and just have a show. I don't know. I started it shortly after the pandemic just as having a thing to do that was sort of abstractly social. And it's been exciting to learn more about the cartoons and stuff and it's been cool to talk to people and meet a lot of people by means of the Twitch chat or whatever, meet a lot of meet a lot of people there. That was fun. It's been fun. I feel like it's been good for my passive visual education, just to see so many different ways that drawings can look. That's good for me.

James Lee: Yeah, some of that clay animation stuff – I remember dropping into a few of them - it's really bizarre but interesting.

Evan Dahm: It feels good for you, doesn't it?

James Lee: Yeah, it's like “oh people did all sorts of crazy things and maybe I can be a little inspired by that too.”

Evan Dahm: I love that feeling.

James Lee: How is Twitch, by the way? When we think about different platforms. Do you feel it's new and strange? How has that experience been running a Twitch channel and engaging with people there?

Evan Dahm: There's a lot of it that I just haven't learned how it works. I feel like there's a whole culture of Twitch that I don't understand. There's all these different things that people can do with their streams that I haven't learned, but as a very straightforward way of just “I'm putting a thing on the stream and there's people in the chat that I can keep up with and talk to them,” that works great. I run the sound through a physical soundboard so I’ve tried to make as much of it as possible physical and outside of the computer just so I can wrap my head around it a little better, I guess. It's been pretty cool, I guess. Years and years ago I used to livestream drawing. I would have the webcam on my laptop aimed at the paper on some precursor streaming service to Twitch but that sort of thing has been just easy to do for 14 years or something.

James Lee: Yeah, it's like one of those things I feel a lot of artists kind of do, I guess to add some more variety to let's say their social media presence.

Evan Dahm: I haven't done streaming drawing in a while. It’s kind of stressful.

James Lee: Yeah, you got the live audience component, and you have to perform in a way.

Evan Dahm: Even if you're not performing, you're still kind of performing.

Celebrating Rice Boy and Vattu: An Interview with Web Comic Creator Evan Dahm (Part One)

Evan Dahm is an independent artist and longtime webcomic creator. In 2006 he began Rice Boy, a surreal fantasy webcomic and has since self-published several fantasy epics set in the same universe. His body of work also includes published works such as the Island Book series, a high seas adventure, with First Second and The Harrowing of Hell, a retelling of the time between Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, with Iron Circus Comics. In 2010, Dahm began Vattu, a story about a young girl’s conflict with an expanding empire. 12 years and nearly 1,300 pages later, he completed Vattu on September 12, 2022. As a longtime webcomic creator, Dahm has been on the frontlines of the changes in independent webcomic production. From the early days of small, personal websites to the rise and concentration of large-scale social media and aggregator platforms such as Webtoons, Dahm continues to create his own unique work. Even as he adapts, Dahm retains his personal voice in his art. In this interview, Dahm discusses some insights into his approach to storytelling, his experiences with making webcomics, and the current state of and issues in the field with fellow comics artist James Lee. Dahm’s next project, 3rd Voice, begins in December 2022.

 Here’s the audio version of the interview. Passcode: &AYyWw7*

James Lee: I thought to start off maybe we could start at the very beginning with Rice Boy, your first webcomic. Something you mentioned in previous talks and videos you've done is that you mentioned how your start in webcomics had an element of luck involved. What kind of factors do you think made that time when you self-published rice boy the right moment?

Evan Dahm: I can only really determine this in a kind of a loose retrospective way, but the big transition that I’ve lived through in my adulthood, the big transitions in my life, have been the Internet emerging and becoming more and more accessible and then the really strikingly rapid boxing out of everything into corporate social media platforms, the Web 2.0 shift.

In retrospect, it feels like there was this window of, I don't know, probably under two decades when there were enough people on the Internet, and there were enough people aware that they could sort of take charge and just make a place of their own on the Internet, that it was a sustainable thing to self-publish your idiosyncratic little thing in that particular model.

But then, as the Internet has gotten more of a thing that everybody is on, what the Internet is to everybody is just Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or whatever. It's just funny that it doesn't even seem to occur to people that you can have control of any space there, that anything can exist outside of these corporate platforms.

James Lee: It's definitely been interesting to observe.

Evan Dahm: How old are you? Do you mind if I ask?

James Lee: I'm 34 right now.

Evan Dahm: Exact same.

James Lee: I’ve observed the same kind of shift from the hopes and dreams of the early Internet to where we're at now.

Evan Dahm: Yeah.

James Lee: I want to continue that line of questioning soon in a bit so hold that thought. Before we get there, though let me ask you a little bit about your process. You primarily use a brush in your work, which has a great expressive quality to it, and it really reflects the human hand behind the work itself. In your documentary, Making Vattu, you spoke about the improvisatory quality of the brush. Can you talk a little bit more about that, and maybe perhaps how it informs your own values and approach to art?

Evan Dahm: I try to sort of be reasonably pragmatic about it. I'm very aware that it's easy to slip into being a little bit precious or superstitious about technology and stuff. The way that people unfairly valorize work in physical media over digital illustration, I just don't think that's the right way of looking at it. But I do have a strong sort of automatic revulsion towards a lot of technology. It takes me a while to acclimate to it.

I like traditional drawing skills, feeling in touch with tools and aesthetics of drawing that have been in places like commercial illustration for 100 years. I like feeling in touch with that. I like learning skills where I can sort of understand the history of them. And just on the granular level I figure any physical tool is going to just produce more randomness and imperfection in a way that I like. It takes an enormous amount of muscle control to use any kind of brush in a way. It's a very particular type of skill and I don't want to lose it.

While I'm working on a tablet or whatever there's pressure sensitivity, there's a lot of subtlety and range that can be done with those lines, but I haven't really learned how to do that. I can draw competently on a tablet because I can draw but it's dry. With a brush at such an intensely high resolution and degree of muscle control, you can do literally an infinite number of lines. It's important to me to maintain practice in that.

James Lee: At some points it's as if it's a little too liberating and a little bit of constraints can sometimes help define your work.

Evan Dahm: I think so because if you're constrained in some sort of way, then you can more fully understand the huge range of possibility within that constraint, I think.

World Building and Storytelling

James Lee: This might be a good opportunity to talk more about world building and storytelling. So, to start off, you have a wide range of works now, from Order of Tales, The Island Book series, things like The Harrowing of Hell, and the illustration series you did for Moby Dick and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Can you talk a little bit about the motivations for these different kinds of works you've pursued?

Evan Dahm: Yes, do you mind if I turn my camera off because I think my computer gets overloaded.

James Lee: Okay that's fine no worries.

Evan Dahm: Basically, I just latch onto something and get obsessed with it. A lot of those projects, I did concurrent with Vattu which I've been working on since 2010 so a lot of it is trying to judge how much I can do it once. I feel like I've gotten a little better at understanding the sort of work, the sort of interest, that I have in a project that will actually propel me through it in a way that is not too grueling.

There's the money thing, like if a publisher is interested in working with me and I have something that I can make work with them. Then at certain points I'm kind of obliged to go through that but I'll just latch on to some idea and sometimes it'll stick in my head for a couple years until it can materially happen.

The Harrowing of Hell book with Iron Circus was an idea that I had probably two or three years before I actually started working and actually signed the contract on it. It seemed like an interesting way to work through Christian anarchism. And it occurred to me years and years ago that with books that are in the public domain, you can just do whatever you want with them so I had this rolling idea in my head of “Oh, I should think about what old book I like that'll be fun to draw.”

James Lee: I got my copy right here.

Evan Dahm: Oh yeah.

James Lee: That's interesting. The public domain stuff. Those are good points you raised in terms of having the freedom to explore with these things that are in the public domain. With that line of thought, what do you think about Disney's dominance of in this field of copyright?

Evan Dahm: I think Disney is the enemy basically. I'm very interested in old animation, and this is the thing I just learned. Back when full color film printing was being developed there was this window of a few years where it was not technologically possible to do full color film animation, but Disney had the exclusive rights to use that technology for five years or something in the 30s. So, there's this window of time where the only color cartoons coming out in America were from Disney. I don't know, it's just a horrible anti-art thing to do to close off this technology from the whole rest of the world, what was this obviously booming and exciting new medium.

But yeah, they've always been doing that. Their main project is to, in the way that capitalism delineates and commodifies all physical space available to it, the project of I guess any corporation like Disney is going to be to expand and commodify all the intellectual property space. Bleed dry the theoretical fictional universes of Star Wars or whatever and just extend copyrights so that they can maintain control of their stupid little mouse cartoon that nobody who worked on it is even alive.

James Lee: Recently I saw that Winnie the Pooh finally entered public domain. That was a bit of big news at the moment.

Evan Dahm: The book at least. It's the same deal with The Wizard of Oz where derivative works can refer to the book but not to the adaptation because the adaptation is still under copyright.

James Lee: Little nuances in that which can complicate the picture.

Evan Dahm: Pretty cool though. I love the public domain.

James Lee: There's lots of great ideas there and why not explore some of these things in a different way as well.

James Lee: I want to get back to the corporate stuff because I think it'll tie into the current issues and trends but let me ask a little bit more about your approach to world building and storytelling.

You started Rice Boy with improvisation with those first few pages, which had a dreamy quality to them, and by the end of it there was this very big sprawling history of a world in which you set subsequent stories, such as Order of Tales and Vattu. So with that said, how do you manage this tension between planning things out and letting things flow more freely, specifically the big picture stuff and the small steps need to take to get there?

Evan Dahm: I’m trying to think about that lately, because I have approached that in different ways for everything. I can identify in retrospect that that my working solution to that problem was to have a big clear template for the story that I could always refer to, and I could improvise, but it was always in connection to that template. Rice Boy in particular was very, not totally, pretty significantly improv but it's such a clear and straightforward riff or parody on the normal epic quest, the hero's journey thing, that I had that to hold on to as I was meandering around. Order of Tales was planned very, very tightly so that's a different question, I think.

Vattu has ended up having a lot of sort of improv space within it, and it hasn't been modeled on a clear template story. But what has ended up happening is that I've just had a very clear sense of like a few guiding principles for Vattu like the thematic arguments of it, the trajectories of the central characters, and the physical space of the story takes place in. That being like extremely consistent is a helpful thing, I think, to keep it all sort of tied together.

James Lee: Yeah.

Evan Dahm: Go ahead sorry.

James Lee: I was going to mention how, in your documentary you had gone through some of this in terms of how you actually used modeling software to craft the location and use that as a frame of reference, which I thought was a very interesting and detailed approach to world building.

Evan Dahm: Thank you, it was very fun obsessive little project. And the main thing is that it yields something that feels pretty consistent throughout the book, which is I imagine generally pretty difficult to do in something that takes that long to make.

But I am really trying to think about this improvisation versus planning thing lately because I'm reading a lot of manga and comics that are a little more comfortable wearing on their sleeve the fact that they've been originally serialized and sort of improvised. I love that and it feels so true to the nature of how comics are generally made unpublished. There's some disservice being done to the medium I think when we when we impose the standards of a perfectly planned out and self-contained novel on it so I'm trying to think about that in regards to how I'm approaching the next stuff I'm doing.

James Lee: Maybe we can think of the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe interconnected world approach here. I want to get to a point you raised about world building as well in your documentary. Basically, the argument you made was that, at the end of the day, the setting, the world that you craft, all these things must work in service to the story. And building on that, you also note that the characters in these worlds don't have their whole cosmology defined, let alone understood. Could you speak a little more about what informed this approach and maybe challenges with this, especially when you navigate these tensions between improv and structure?

Evan Dahm: I don't mean it to be as dogmatic as it probably sounds in that this is just my approach and I'm prioritizing certain things. It is important to keep in mind that you're not making an objective thing and that a lot of the premises of world building in the secondary world fantasy traditions that I’m into are on the premise that you're observing a story objectively – you're observing a world objectively and being described totally objectively to you. I don't think such a thing is possible in the same way that pure objective journalism is a kind of politically regressive impossible idea, I think.

You're always making some sort of statement, so I think it's important to keep in mind that it can be a productive tool to build in this sense of a consistent world, but you can really get sort of stuck, I think, because the thing will never be detailed or objective seeming enough. And you can go in the direction of nailing down all those little details but for what? I'm doing this stuff because I like stories and I like drawing basically. If the literary tool of an invented setting, which is a tool that I love and I like how it works, if that tool is not conducive to the story, then I'm just going to break it. Why not?

I've been interested in the world building thing and part of why I'm interested in it is because that's been consistently the biggest single thing that people want to talk to me about in my work. It always comes up in relation to my work, I guess, because my stuff is so visually, at least, totally invented-seeming.

I'm interested in it and I'm interested in how it's talked about. I look at a lot of media about how to do it, how to world build, and it just doesn't… This idea that you can objectively build a real believable world, that you can like have a strong feeling of escapism into it, just feels like a dead end to me and it feels ideologically and creatively limiting. Yeah, I got a little abstract there but that's basically what I think.

James Lee: I think it really ties into the corporate approach to world building. You have the Star Wars films and then they make a reference to a planet which is their theme park in one of their cities which you can go to experience another facet of this, which you know goes on and on. Basically, it’s a very ruthlessly cynical way of approaching world building perhaps.

Evan Dahm: Absolutely but it's interesting too. It's fun and interesting to see all the detail worked out or whatever. But I think that's exactly the comparison, I think Star Wars is the best possible example to talk about with that stuff I was thinking about. There's a useful parable for this – you have all these weird random background characters in the first Star Wars movie in 1977 that were mostly reused costumes from other movies, or whatever they had on hand in that cantina scene. But then, after the movie came out and George Lucas was leveraging, trying to do this really unprecedented thing with merchandising and making little action figures every single character, all those characters have to be named because now they're action figures. That's the exact same logic by which every single detail that serves a story begins to seem to demand expansion into further elaborated media product. I haven't watched any of the new Disney stuff, but it seems like filling in all the little gaps or whatever. Maybe the shows are good, but the approach is just so as cynical, as you say yes.

James Lee: Yeah, I don't want to downplay the love and effort that goes into these productions, and also the people who enjoy them and then subsequently are inspired by them. But you can't help but feel a little bit of ambivalence towards them as well.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, and you don't want to be rude to people for liking a thing that's utterly dominant in pop culture, but it is utterly dominant so there's no foul in giving the product shit, I don't think.

James Lee: Yes, we can think of it as some healthy critique.

Evan Dahm: Sure, yes.

James Lee: I think Star Wars is a good example to talk about this next question here. So, in recent times, or actually maybe it's been going on much longer, there seems to be a tendency among audiences to rigidly equate media consumption with political activism and morality. That what you watch on screen will inform their moral compass. And likewise, they feel that these works and the people who make them must reflect righteous view of the world or what have you. Could you give your impressions on this idea that stories can be used as a way to inform or explore real world issues and maybe some of the twists and turns that has taken?

Evan Dahm: Yeah man that's a huge part of the discourse I think that's been a pretty striking increase over my adulthood over the course of my being aware of it and it's coincided with a general increase in political literacy, which in myself and in you know other people of my generation, or whatever, which is good. But it's an interesting problem because I think that culturally – generally – we're better equipped to, as creators and readers, think about what work is saying politically. But we're doing that within a world where we are increasingly politically disempowered lately. I feel like we default towards a really legislative or punitive way of looking at this stuff. So, we can look at and we can pick apart the initially invisible political premises of a certain work. But if our conclusion is to say that this work is bad and if you like anything about it then you're bad that's against the spirit of the critical apparatus that brought us there in the first place, I think.

And it's silly. I don't engage with a lot of it publicly, but it is silly watching all this culture war stuff where people are trying to make supporting this or that media a political act when it's all just Disney stuff. They don't care about you. There is probably some good happening when works of fiction make a liberatory argument or represent people and ways of life that aren't habitually represented. But it just feels like we're just otherwise disempowered so we're fixating on what's happening in pop culture.

James Lee: To be honest, this was my pet theory too. That people feel they lack control in real world politics and situations so these fantasy worlds that they find comfort in become their way of asserting control and also thinking through these issues.

Evan Dahm: Yeah. All this talking around the abortion thing this last day, the ways that the mainstream of the culture has to think about political agency are very, very limited. People will talk about “you have to vote.” And I voted. We voted. Democrats have an enormous amount of power. So, what else? I feel like we don't have a lot of political imagination and we can't even really understand the world, or at least the mainstream of the culture in America can’t really understand what political power is or how to exert pressure or something. I'm part of that. I'm a defeatist about all this stuff too a lot but… I imagine I made that connection a little better.

James Lee: It's complicated to navigate these issues and be working in let's say crafting stories, making fiction, and comics, media, entertainment.

There is an interesting case to get at some of these complexities – the Harry Potter series.

Famously there was youthful activism around the series, the Harry Potter Alliance from a while ago and the premise of this organization was put into action the kind of spirit of the characters in the real world.

Evan Dahm: I'm familiar with this.

James Lee: Yes, so you probably know that they made some headway on some issues like Fair Trade chocolate things like this, other social issues, but as most of us are familiar with the author of the series, J.K. Rowling, has expressed a lot of negative views about certain communities, which has resulted in tensions in terms of how do you draw inspiration from a work made by someone who does not necessarily share the viewpoints or support of the audience. And the organization rebranded a couple years afterwards, kind of to distance themselves. But I think it's a good case to think about how fiction can be used as a vehicle to motivate people but also it is wrapped around in these issues of does it reflect on the author? Can the audience just run with it in their own way?

Evan Dahm: Yeah, that's interesting. I like stories that are by one person. There was part of it that was exciting to me to see Rowling wrote these books herself and they're her thing. I was exactly the age to be into them when they were coming out. It's just wild to see something that is all about one person's project become this huge global media thing, and it wasn't some created-by-committee intellectual property. What are you going to do? She's so just out there and despicable but I don't know how to engage with any of that.

James Lee: She's not making it easy to keep liking the books.

Evan Dahm: Yeah.

James Lee: But people try to separate the two.

Evan Dahm: Since I read those as a kid I've gotten deeper into the sorts of fantasy writing that I feel like those books are a pale imitation of. So there's that too, but even if the books were could be great and she would still be who she is. Yeah, I don't know, what's the question there exactly?

James Lee: I think the original question was about using stories as a way to inform real world issues. Oh, and something else that I've read is that oftentimes people they don't necessarily just consume media in one direction. Sometimes the media itself is a vehicle for them to express certain things which means that what the author is saying matters less than what they want to express through however they critique or consume it.

Evan Dahm: You mean in a fandom sort of sense?

James Lee: Yes, in a fandom sort of sense, where they see something and interpret it or use it for their own purposes.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, that generally seems cool to me. I've never been in that sort of world and I've never really understood the impulse. But generally, I like seeing people take ownership of this stuff that’s so aggressively owned by somebody else.

James Lee: Yeah, I mean I think there's kind of a thread here in terms of also copyright and ownership to in terms of when we think about fan output, like fanfiction or other kind of fan productions in terms of what are the fans free to do with this work. Can they do something more interesting or something more valuable for themselves with it? But the law lays its heavy hand at times and shuts down somebody’s fan production.

Evan Dahm: Yeah and then in some circumstances, the creator is incentivized to shut it down so that they can be shown to be defending their ownership of a thing or something. It has not really come up as a thing for me to think very much about, I guess.

James Lee: Yeah well, I suppose maybe if we can make the Overside extended universe a thing perhaps this will come up.

Evan Dahm: I don't see why they wouldn't be fine and cool with me.

James Lee: Yeah, I guess there are some legal issues, especially with fanfiction if companies choose to pursue them. I think most people just fly under the radar which I think is fine.

James Lee is a graduate of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. He likes comics, art, and popular culture related topics.

A Blast from the Past: David Halperin Writes About Slash

Three decades ago, at the start of my career, I was a professor in the Literature section at MIT and more or less across the hall from me was my colleague, David Halperin, who was one of the founding figures in Gay and Lesbian Studies. Halperin was an important influence on my early work. He and Ruth Perry ran an informal workshop on the study of gender and sexuality which introduced me to a wide array of new authors and ideas as queer approaches to culture were becoming more wide-spread in academia and as the AIDS crisis was pushing queer activism into the streets, not to mention the museums (debates around Robert Maplethorpe’s work were boiling over). Halperin was a patient and sometimes petulant guide through this material, which would become a core foundation for the ways I wrote about fan fiction especially in Textual Poachers. And in return, fan fiction became a topic which we collectively considered.

I could not have been more flattered when Halperin, a considerably more senior scholar, began to incorporate some of my work into his writing as part of his larger project of “queering” classical studies. He spoke on more than one occasion of what could be learned by juxtaposing slash fiction with other works of fiction. But he never published this writing and through the years, I have found myself reaching for it since it feels like a lost chapter in the history of fan and fandom studies. When he retired recently, he stumbled upon the manuscript of one of those talks and shared it with me. He explained, “I never finished that essay, and I gave up hope of publishing it long ago. I think the whole project of “queering” canonical texts got very old very quickly — which is not to say it has run out of steam. On the contrary, there is a new vogue for queering Greek tragedy — but since tragedy is about what happens when things go wrong, to say that it is queer does not really tell us anything we didn’t already know. Anyway, I rather liked that old paper, fully thirty years old now, when I reread it, but I don’t write that way any more.…”

I asked if I might share it with my blog readers, nevertheless, and he consented. So here for the first time in print is his essay on slash fan fiction.

Enjoy.

The article lives here.

Back to School Special: Participatory Politics and the Civic ImaginationM

My other class this term is one which I have taught before but I find I need to do significant updating each time it is offered, because the political world has been evolving so rapidly. I am teaching the class this time with Sangita Shrestova, my former student and oft-time writing and research collaborator. In many ways, this class is Civic Paths, the class. Civic Paths is the research group, consisting of 15 or so PhD students who work on various activities associated with the MacArthur-Foundation funded Civic Imagination Protect. We are vert busy at the moment with a strong focus on “plant-based democracy,” political de-polarization, and debates around monuments and memorials.

We are reading core texts which are foundational to our research and interpretive paradigm, going back to the work of the Youth and Participatory Politics project, including our book, By Any Media Necessary. Much of what we read from there comes from former students and collaborators who have continued to do important work on these topics. We are going to be drawing on the activities described in Sangita’s book, Practicing Futures, as well as discussions to shape the pedagogical approach to the class, and help students put these ideas into practice. We believe that the class offers a rich fusion of political communication and cultural studies — a political approach to culture and a cultural approach to politics — which helps us make sense of our current moment and its relationship to the larger media environment. Hope you enjoy seeing what we are teaching this term.

COMM 576: Civic Media, Participatory Politics and the Civic Imagination

4.0 Units

Fall 2022, Tuesdays 12:30-3:20pm

Section: 20854D

Location: ASC 240

Henry Jenkins and Sangita Shresthova

Contact Information:

Henry Jenkins

Office: ASC 101C

Office hours by appointment. Please send all inquires regarding office hour appointments to Amanda Ford (amandafo@usc.edu) and questions regarding the course to Professor Jenkins at hjenkins@usc.edu.

Sangita Shresthova

Office hours by appointment. Please contact at shrestho@usc.edu

Course Description: 

Civic Media: “Any use of any technology for the purposes of increasing civic engagement and public participation, enabling the exchange of meaningful information, fostering social connectivity, constructing critical perspectives, insuring transparency and accountability, or strengthening citizen agency.” (Jenkins)

Participatory Politics: “Interactive, peer-based acts through which individuals and groups seek to exert both voice and influence on issues of public concern. Importantly, these acts are not guided by deference to elites or formal institutions. Examples of participatory political acts include starting a new political group online, writing and disseminating a blog post about a political issue, forwarding a funny political video to one’s social network, or participating in a poetry slam.” (Joe Kahne and Cathy Cohen)

Civic Imagination: The capacity to imagine social change, including the ability to envision a better world, the process of change which might achieve it, the shared interests of an imagined/imagining community, one’s own civic agency, the perspectives of others, and for the most oppressed, opportunities for freedom and equality that have not yet been experienced.

What can approaches rooted in cultural and media studies contribute to our understanding of civic practices, organizations and movements? How might a closer consideration of democratic citizenship contribute to our understanding of core concepts, such as the relationship between publics and audiences, civics and politics, the nature of participation, imagination and action, the power of storytelling, or the implications of remix practices? Over the past few years, political movements, such as Occupy Wall Street, March for Our Lives, #blacklivesmatter, the Women’s March, and the Arab Spring movements, to cite a few examples over the past years, have explored new strategies that rely heavily on networked communication to build community, mobilize their base and increase public awareness. At the same time, new work in political science and communication studies seeks to understand the ways these movements have tapped into the expanded communication capacities of everyday people and the ways that cultural participation might spill over into engagement with civic and political issues. In this class, we will be looking at how scholars and practitioners have responded to these new movements and the ways that their work is reframing our understanding of the nature of democracy.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Often, we think about civic engagement as grounded in a rationalist discourse and shaped by structures of information, but democratic deliberation also has strong cultural roots and is shaped by what Raymond Williams would call “a structure of feeling.” We may ask in the first instance what citizens need to know in order to make wise decisions and, in the second, what it feels like to be an empowered citizen capable of making a difference, navigating difference, and sharing common interests with others . Across the trajectory of the course, we will explore a range of other institutions and practices that have similarly contributed to the public awareness, civic engagement, and social connectivity required for a functioning democracy. By the end of the semester, we will have collectively engaged, re-imagined, and experienced the multi-faceted relationships between civic media, participatory politics, and civic imagination in a changing media landscape.

Course Requirements

Required Readings and Supplementary Materials

Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis (Eds.) (2022). Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Gabriel Peters-Lazaro and Sangita Shresthova (2020). Practicing Futures: A Civic Imagination Handbook. New York, New York: Peter Lang Verlag.

All other readings can be found on Blackboard.

Description and Assessment of Assignments

• Contributions to Class Forum on Blackboard (10 Percent)

Students will contribute questions and comments to the class forum on Blackboard.

• Attendance and Participation in Class Discussion (10 Percent)
  

• Short Paper  (20 Percent)

Students will either develop a five-page case study report on a civic or cultural organization or network they feel is making innovative use of civic media, or students will develop a five-page report which traces the political impact of a particular story (from popular culture, folklore, history, religion, etc.) as it becomes a resource or battleground for the civic imagination. 

• Media Prototype (20 percent)

Students will work collaboratively to prototype a media action informed by case studies introduced in class, guests and personal knowledge / experience. The action can include text, short videos, podcasts, slideshows, photo-essays, or anything else approved by the instructors. The prototypes will be shared in short pitch-like presentations.  

• Final Paper (40 percent)

Students will develop a final project or paper that applies the broad ideas of the course. Students should discuss their project with the instructor early in the semester so we can set an appropriate scale for this project. Students will be ready to give a 10-15 minute presentation on their project in the final weeks of the class. Final paper will be due on final exam date for the class: Tuesday, December 13, 2022. 

Add/Drop Dates for Session 001 (15 weeks: 8/22/22 – 12/2/22)

Link: https://classes.usc.edu/term-20223/calendar/

Friday, September 9: Last day to register and add classes for Session 001

Friday, September 9: Last day to drop a class without a mark of “W,” except for Monday-only classes, and receive a refund for Session 001

Friday, September 9: Last day to change enrollment option to audit for Session 001

Friday, September 9: Last day to change a Pass/No Pass to a letter grade for Session 001

Friday, September 9: Last day to purchase or waive tuition refund insurance for fall

Tuesday, September 13: Last day to add or drop a Monday-only class without a mark of “W” and receive a refund or change to Pass/No Pass or Audit for Session 001

Friday, October 7: Last day to drop a course without a mark of “W” on the transcript for Session 001. Mark of “W” will still appear on student record and STARS report and tuition charges still apply. [Please drop any course by the end of week three (or the 20 percent mark of the session) to avoid tuition charges.]

Friday, November 11: Last day to drop a class with a mark of “W” for Session 001

Statement on Academic Conduct and Support Systems

Academic Conduct:

Plagiarism – presenting someone else’s ideas as your own, either verbatim or recast in your own words – is a serious academic offense with serious consequences. Please familiarize yourself with the discussion of plagiarism in SCampus in Part B, Section 11, “Behavior Violating University Standards” policy.usc.edu/scampus-part-b. Other forms of academic dishonesty are equally unacceptable. See additional information in SCampus and university policies on scientific misconduct, http://policy.usc.edu/scientific-misconduct.

Support Systems:

Student Counseling Services (SCS) – (213) 740-7711 – 24/7 on call

Free and confidential mental health treatment for students, including short-term psychotherapy, group counseling, stress fitness workshops, and crisis intervention. engemannshc.usc.edu/counseling

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1 (800) 273-8255

Provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Services (RSVP) – (213) 740-4900 – 24/7 on call

Free and confidential therapy services, workshops, and training for situations related to gender- based harm. engemannshc.usc.edu/rsvp

Sexual Assault Resource Center

For more information about how to get help or help a survivor, rights, reporting options, and additional resources, visit the website: sarc.usc.edu

Office of Equity and Diversity (OED)/Title IX Compliance – (213) 740-5086

Works with faculty, staff, visitors, applicants, and students around issues of protected class.

equity.usc.edu

Bias Assessment Response and Support

Incidents of bias, hate crimes and microaggressions need to be reported allowing for appropriate investigation and response. studentaffairs.usc.edu/bias-assessment-response-support

The Office of Disability Services and Programs

Provides certification for students with disabilities and helps arrange relevant accommodations.

dsp.usc.edu

Student Support and Advocacy – (213) 821-4710

Assists students and families in resolving complex issues adversely affecting their success as a student EX: personal, financial, and academic. studentaffairs.usc.edu/ssa

Diversity at USC

Information on events, programs and training, the Diversity Task Force (including representatives for each school), chronology, participation, and various resources for students. diversity.usc.edu

USC Emergency Information

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USC Department of Public Safety – UPC: (213) 740-4321 – HSC: (323) 442-1000 – 24-hour emergency or to report a crime.

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WEEKLY BREAKDOWN 

WEEKLY BREAKDOWN

Day 1 (August 24): What Do We Mean by Civic Media?

DAY 2 (August 30):  Participatory Politics

DAY 3 (September 6): Rethinking the Civic

Day 4 (September 13): The Work of the Imagination

First Paper Due

DAY 5 (September 20): Utopia and Dystopia

DAY 6 (September 27): Publics/Audiences and Participation

DAY 7 (October 4)  Why Media Matters

*Media Prototype Due

In Class Activity: Students share case studies

DAY 8 (October 11): Monuments

DAY 9 (October 18): Performance, Ritual, and the Body

DAY 10 (October 25): Pedagogies

DAY 11 (November 1): Polarization

DAY 12 (November 8): Green Imagination

DAY 13 (November 15): Feeding Civic Imagination

Day 14  (November 24): Thanksgiving week (workshopping final projects)

Day 15 (November 29): Final Presentations

*Final Paper Due

Day 1 (August 24): What Do We Mean by Civic Media?

• Eric Gordon & Paul Mihailidis (Eds.), “Introduction,” in Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 1–26), (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016).

• Ethan Zuckerman, “Effective Civics,” in E. Gordon & P. Mihailidis (Eds.), Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 49–75), (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016).

• Beth Simone Noveck, “Re-Imagining Government Through Civic Media,” in E. Gordon & P. Mihailidis (Eds.), Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 149–164), (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016).

• Aymar Jean Christian, Faithe Day, Mark Díaz & Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin (2020). “Platforming Intersectionality: Networked Solidarity and the Limits of Corporate Social Media.” Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120933301

• Sasha Costanza-Chock, “Design Sites: Hackerspaces, Fablabs, Hackathons, and DiscoTechs,” in Design Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2020).

Optional

• Andrew Schrock, “Introduction,” in Civic Tech: Making Technology Work For People (pp. 1–21), (Long Beach: Rogue Academic Press, 2018).

• Jonny Sun, “Media-Consciousness as Part of Resistance,” in Maureen Johnson (Ed.), How I Resist (pp. 141–152), (New York: Wednesday Books, 2018).

• Kevin Driscoll, “Cultivating Community,” in The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media (pp. 132 – 167), (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022).

In class workshop: Origin Stories

DAY 2 (August 30):  Participatory Politics 

• Joseph Kahne, Ellen Middaugh and Danielle Allen, “Youth, New Media, and Participatory Politics,” in Danielle Allen, From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age (pp. 35–58) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).

• Henry Jenkins, “Youth Voice, Media, and Political Engagement: Introducing the Core Concepts,” in By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism (New York: New York University Press, 2016). Available online.

• Henry Jenkins and Rogelio Lopez (2018), “On Emma Gonzalez’s Jacket and Other Media: The Participatory Politics of the #Neveragain Movement.” Brown Journal of World Affairs, https://bjwa.brown.edu/25-1/on-emma-gonzalezs-jacket-and-other-media-the-participatory-politics-of-the-neveragain-movement/

Optional 

• Nick Couldry, “Rethinking the Politics of Voice,” in Why Voice Matters:  Culture and Politics After Neoliberalism (London: Sage, 2010)

• Elisabeth Soep, “Youth Agency in Public Spheres: Emerging Tactics, Literacies, and Risks,” in Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis (Eds.) Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 393–420) (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017).

• James Paul Gee and Henry Jenkins, “Do We Still Believe that Networked Youth Can Change the World?,” in Connected Learning Alliance (November 19, 2018). http://psicologia.udg.edu/PTCEDH/admin/publicacions/14.pdf

• Nancy, “Emma Gonzales Wants You to Vote,” (November 5, 2018) (26:47): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/nancy/episodes/emma-gonzalez-march-for-our-lives-vote 

DAY 3 (September 6): Rethinking the Civic

• Ethan Zuckerman, “Cute Cats” in Danielle Allen (Ed.) From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age (pp. 131–154) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).

• Peter Dahlgren, “Civic Cultures: An Analytic Frame," in Media and Political Engagement: Citizens, Communication, and Democracy (pp. 102–123) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

• Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, “‘Decreasing World Suck’: Harnessing Popular Culture for Fan Activism” in By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism (New York: New York University Press, 2016). Available online

• adrienne maree brown, “Introduction,” in Emergent Strategies: Sharing Change, Changing Worlds (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017)

• Eve Ewing, “The Quality of the Light: Evidence, Truths, and the Odd Practice of the Poet-Sociologist,” in Perlow, O., Wheeler, D., Bethea, S., Scott, B. (Eds.) Black Women's Liberatory Pedagogies (pp. 195–209). (London: Palgrave Macmillan) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65789-9_11

Optional

• Henry Jenkins, “From Culture Jamming to Cultural Acupuncture,” in Marilyn DeLaure and Moritz Fink (Ed.) Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance (New York: New York University Press, 2017).

• Caesar McDowell and Melissa Yvonne Chinchilla, “Partnering with Communities and Institutions” in Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis (Eds.) Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 461–480) (Cambridge: MIT Press).

Day 4 (September 13): The Work of the Imagination

• Alex Khasnabish and Max Haiven, “Lessons from Social Movements: Six Notes on the Radical Imagination,” in Truthout (August 9, 2014) http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25411-lessons-from-social- movements-six-notes-on-the-radical-imagination

• Robin D. G. Kelley, “When History Sleeps” and “Dreams of the New Land,” inFreedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (pp. 1–12; 13–35) (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002).

• Gianpaolo Baiocchi et al., “The Civic Imagination,” in The Civic Imagination: Making a Difference in American Political Life (pp. 52–76) (New York: Routledge, 2014).

• Drucila Cornell and Stephen D. Seely, “What Has Happened to the Public Imagination and Why?” Global-e, 10(19). https://globalejournal.org/global-e/march-2017/what-has-happened-public-imagination-and-why

• Henry Jenkins, Gabriel Peters-Lazaro and Sangita Shresthova “Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Foundations” in Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (pp. 1–30) (New York: New York University Press, 2020).

• Gabriel Peters-Lazaro and Sangita Shresthova. “Introduction” in Practicing Futures: A Civic Imagination Action Handbook (pp. 3–21) (New York, New York: Peter Lang Verlag).

Optional

• Geoff Muligan, The Imaginary Crisis (and How We Might Quicken Social and Public Imagination (London: UCL STEaPP and Demos Helsinki, 2020)

• Bridgit Antoinette Evans, “From Stories to Systems: Using A Narrative Systems Approach to Inform Narrative Change Strategy,” in Pop Culture Collaborative (2022)

• Maya Rupert, “I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman,” in Maureen Johnson (Ed.) How I Resist: Activism and Hope for a New Generation (New York: Wednesday Press, 2018).

• How Do You Like It So Far?: Warren Hedges on the Fantasy Roots of the Capital Insurrection https://www.howdoyoulikeitsofar.org/episode-81-warren-hedges-on-the-fantasy-roots-of-the-capital-insurrection/

First Paper Due

DAY 5 (September 20): Utopia and Dystopia

• Steven Duncombe (2012). “Utopia is No Place: An Interview with Stephen Duncombe,” in Walker Art Center. https://walkerart.org/magazine/stephen-duncombe-utopia-open-field

• Curtis Marez, “Farm Worker Futurisms in Speculative Culture,” in Farm Worker Futurism: Speculative Technologies of Resistance (pp. 119–153) (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016).

• William Lempert, “Navajos on Mars: Native Sci-Fi Film Futures,” in Medium (2015, September 21) https://medium.com/space-anthropology/navajos-on-mars-4c336175d945

• Isabel Delano, Mehitabel Glenhaber, Do Own (Donna) Kim, Paulina Lanz, Ioana Mischie, Tyler Quick, Khaliah Peterson-Reed, Christopher J. Persaud, Becky Pham, Rahul Reddy, Javier Rivera, Essence L. Wilson, Henry Jenkins & Sangita Shresthova (2022) “Flying cars and bigots: projecting post-COVID-19 worlds through the atlas of the civic imagination as refuge for hope”, Continuum, 36:2, 169-183, DOI: 10.1080/10304312.2021.2003303

• Ezra Klein Podcast, “An Inspiring Conversation About Democracy with Danielle Allen,” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/podcasts/the-daily/proud-boys-jan-6.html

In Class Activity: Atlas of the Civic Imagination

DAY 6 (September 27): Publics/Audiences and Participation

• Sonia Livingstone, “On the Relationship Between Audiences and Publics,” in Sonia Livingstone (Ed.) Audiences and Publics: When Cultural Engagement Matters for the Public Sphere (pp. 17–41) (London: Intellect, 2005).

• Zeynep Tufekci, “Censorship and Attention,” in Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest (pp. 28–48) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

• Patrisse Marie Cullors-Brignac, “We Didn’t Start a Movement. We Started a Network” (2016, February 22). (https://medium.com/@patrissemariecullorsbrignac/we-didn-t-start-a-movement-we- started-a-network-90f9b5717668#.4q060svov)

• Zizi Papacherssi, “Affective Publics,” in Affective publics: Sentiment, Technologies, and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)

• Victoria Bernal, “Infopolitics and Sacrificial Citizenship: Sovereignty in the Spaces Beyond the Nation,” in Nation as Network: Diaspora, Cyberspace and Citizenship (pp. 29–54) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

Optional

• Manuel Castells, “Networking Minds, Creating Meanings, Contesting Power,” in Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age (pp. 1–19) (New York: Polity, 2012)

• Pierre Rosanvallon and Arthur Goldhammer, “Introduction,” in Counter-democracy: Politics in the Age of Mistrust (pp.1–27) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)

• Michael Warner, (2002). Publics and Counterpublics. Public Culture, 14(1), 49–90. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-14-1-49

• Christopher Kelty, “From Participation to Power,” in Aaron Delwiche and Jennifer Henderson (Eds.) The Participatory Cultures Handbook (pp. 22–31) (New York/London: Routledge, 2013).

DAY 7 (October 4)  Why Media Matters

• John Fiske, “Los Angeles: A Tale of Three Videos” and “Technostruggles,” Media Matters: Race and Gender in U.S. Politics (pp. 125–190; 217–254) (New York: Routledge, 1996).

• Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1970), “Constituents of a Theory of the Media,” New Left Review, 64, (pp. 13–36).

• An Xiao Mina, “All About the Feels,” in Memes to Movements (pp.28–48) (Boston: Beacon Press, 2019) (available online, not downloadable)

• Himal Sanchar (2022), “Understanding Balan Shah’s Potential Victory as Mayor of Kathmandu in 5 Points.

• Asmita Belbase. “Things you perhaps did not know about Kathmandu’s new Mayor Balen Shah,” in My República (May 27, 2022).

• Balenda Shah (2020, January 10) Balidan - Lyrics in English https://geetkolyrics.com/balidan-lyrics-balen/

• Prometheus Radio Project (2013, June 26). “Get on Air! Community Radio for Social Justice with Prometheus Radio Project & Ramon Ramirez Prometheus Radio” [Video file] (1:00:45) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehcIjYbSsqo

Optional

• Bertolt Brecht, “The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication,” from Jon Willett (Trans. & Ed.) Brecht on Theatre (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964). [«Der Rundfunk als Kommunikationsapparat» in Blätter des Hessischen Landestheaters, Darmstadt, No. 16, July 1932] http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/source-text/8/

• IllumiNative On-Air, “We Have Medicine for Each Other” (54:54): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-have-medicine-for-each-other/id1509597197?i=1000486696860  

• Sasha Constanza-Chock, “Walkout Warriors: Transmedia Organizing,” in Out of the Shadows and Into the Streets!: Transmedia Organizing and the Immigrant Rights Movement (pp. 47–68) (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014). Available online

*Media Prototype Due

In Class Activity: Students share case studies

DAY 8 (October 11): Monuments

• James W. Carey, “A Cultural Approach to Communication,” in Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society (pp. 11–28) (New York: Routledge, 1992).

• Svetlana Boym, “Restorative Nostalgia” and “Reflexive Nostalgia,” The Future of Nostalgia (pp. 41–48; pp. 49–55)  (Boston: Basic Books, 2002). 

• Karen L. Cox, “Introduction” and “Charleston, Charlottesville and Continued Challenges to Removal,” in No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice (pp. 1–11; pp. 149–167) (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021)

• American History TV C-SPAN (2020, July 22), “Debating and Removing Monuments" [Video file] (https://youtu.be/NhtyJs_xUxE)

• Alexandra Schwartz, “The Historian Scrutinizing Our Idea of Monuments,” in The New Yorker, March 3, 2022. (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/the-historian-scrutinizing-our-idea-of-monuments)

• Brian S. Hood. “What Goes Wrong in Debates over Public Monuments,” in Social Science Quarterly, Vol.102 (3), p.1074-1083.

In Class Activity: Monuments from the Future Workshop

DAY 9 (October 18): Performance, Ritual, and the Body

• Victor Turner (1974), "Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology." Rice Institute Pamphlet - Rice University Studies, 60, no. 3 https://hdl.handle.net/1911/63159.

• José Esteban Muñoz, “Queers, Punks, and the Utopian Performative,” in 

• Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (p. 97–114) (New York: New York University Press, 2009)

• Sangita Shresthova, “Embodiment, Space & Empathy,” in Paul Mihailidis, Sangita Shresthova & Megan Fromm (Eds.), Transformative Media Pedagogies (pp. 33–37) (New York: Routledge, 2021), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003031246

• Aswin Punathambekar (2009), “Television, Participatory Culture, and Politics: The Case of Indian Idol,” Flow, 10(5). http://www.flowjournal.org/2009/08/television- participatory-culture-and-politics-the-case-of-indian-idol-aswin-punathambekar-the- university-of-michigan/

• Sangita Shresthova, “Dance It, Film It, Share It: Exploring Participatory Dance and Civic Potential” in David Elliott, Marissa Silverman & Wayne Bowman (Eds.), Artistic Citizenship: Artistry, Social Responsibility, and Ethical Praxis (pp.146–162) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).

Optional

• Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (New York: Holt, 2007).

• Benjamin Shepard, "Notes Towards an Introduction" in Play, Creativity and Social Movements: If I Can't Dance, It's Not My Revolution (pp. 1–23) (New York: Routledge, 2011).

DAY 10 (October 25): Pedagogies

• Paulo Freire, excerpt from Pedagogy of the Oppressed (M. Bergman Ramos, Trans.) (New York/London: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005) (Original work published in 1970).

• Paulo Freire, excerpt from Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage (P. Clarke, Trans.) (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998).

• bell hooks, ”Paulo Freire,” Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (pp. 45–58) (New York: Routledge, 1994).

• Paul Mihailidis, Sangita Shresthova & Meg Fromm, “The Values of Transformative Media Pedagogies,” in Transformative Media Pedagogies (pp. 14–28) (New York: Routledge, 2021), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003031246

• Roman Gerodimos, “Authentic Encounters,” in Paul Mihailidis, Sangita Shresthova & Megan Fromm (Eds.), Transformative Media Pedagogies (pp. 38–49) (New York: Routledge, 2021), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003031246

DAY 11 (November 1): Polarization

• Honestly with Bari Weiss (2021), “Condoleezza Rice on Race, Russia, Freedom and Why America’s Best Days Are Still Ahead,” [Audio file] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/condoleezza-rice-on-race-russia-freedom-and-why/id1570872415?i=1000551866282

• Braver Angels Podcast, “A Conservative Perspective on January 6th & the 2020 Election | Peter Wood with Ciaran O'Connor,” (2022, January 20) [Audio file].

https://braverangels.org/a-conservative-perspective-on-january-6th-the-2020-election-peter-wood-with-ciaran-oconnor/

• Braver Angels Podcast, “Depolarization in the Age of Misinformation | Jonathan Rauch with David Blankenhorn & Ciaran O’Connor,” (2022, February 19) [Audio file].

https://braverangels.org/depolarization-in-the-age-of-misinformation/

• Monica Guzman, “Introduction” and (one other chapter), in I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times (Dallas: BenBella Books, 2022).

• Whitney Phillips and Ryan M . Milner, “The Gathering Storm,” in You are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories and Our Polluted Media Landscape (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2021).

• Sarah Banet Weiser, “Introduction,” in Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019).

• The Daily (2022, June 9), “Proud Boys’ Path to Jan. 6” [Audio file and transcription] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/podcasts/the-daily/proud-boys-jan-6.html

Optional

• W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg, “The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics,” in E. Gordon & P. Mihailidis (Eds.), Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 77–105), (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016).

• danah boyd, “Learning All the Wrong Things”, in  DML 2017 Keynote [Video file], https://youtu.be/WWrD9wSsn3c

DAY 12 (November 8): Green Imagination

• Sarah Mcfarland Taylor, “Introduction,” in Ecopiety: Green Media and the Dilemma of Environmental Virtue (New York: New York University Press, 2019).

• Candis Callison, “The Inuit Gift,” in How Climate Change Comes to Matter: The Communal Life of Facts (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014).

• Veronica Hollinger (2021, February 17). “Plants and Other Science Fictions.” in Public Books. https://www.publicbooks.org/plants-and-other-science-fictions/

• Imaginary Worlds, “Episode 144: SolarPunk – the Future” [Audio file] https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/solarpunk-the-future

Optional

• Joost Raessens, “Collapsus, or How to Make Players Become Environmental Citizens” and Jennifer Gabrys, “Sensing the Air and Experimenting with Environmental Citizenship,” in S. Lammes, J. Raessens, M. de Lange, R. Glas, & I. de Vries (Eds.), The Playful Citizen: Civic Engagement in a Mediatized Culture (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022).

DAY 13 (November 15): Feeding Civic Imagination

• Donna Kim, Paulina Lanz and Sangita Shresthova. “Introduction”, in Feeding Civic Imagination Forum, Lateral (forthcoming).

• JS, Passing Down and Following up: Jewish Cuisine’s Umbrella Potential, Feeding Civic Imagination Forum, Lateral (forthcoming).

• BE, They Broke Bread with Sincere Hearts: Imagining New Gymnastics Cultures. Feeding Civic Imagination Forum, Lateral (forthcoming).

• Iñaki Martínez de Albeniz, “Sweet Disturbances: Candy as Speculative Imagination for a Socially Grounded Memory” in Beth Forrest and Greg de St. Maurice (Eds.) Food in Memory and Imagination: Space, Place, and Taste (Massachusetts: Bloomsbury, 2022).

• Gravy Podcast (2021, September 15), Migration: Making Meals and Homes in Alabama [Audio file] https://www.southernfoodways.org/gravy/migration-making-meals-and-homes-in-alabama/

Day 14  (November 24): Thanksgiving week (workshopping final projects)

Day 15 (November 29): Final Presentations

*Final Paper Due

Back to School Special: Imaginary Worlds

This semester. I am teaching a large lecture class for the USC Cinema School focused on imaginary worlds and the craft of world-making. My core propositions are that there has been a shift across the entertainment industry towards more detailed, more fully elaborated worlds and towards undertanding franchising in terms of “worlds” and “universes.” As this happens, certain crafts, such as production design and costume design, take on new importante as they add so much information about the world, some of which is integrated into the narrative, some of which hints at other potential stories that pave the way for extensions. And certain contemporary filmmakers are more interested in their worlds than their stories, which does not totally break with the classical Hollywood system but does raise the possibility of other aesthetics and ways of watching, especially when coupled with greater control over the image flow and greater access to paratextual and metatextual information online.

The class starts with the prehistory of the cinema — with George Melies and the other magicians who saw film as an extension of their performances, with earlier immersive technologies including wax museums, panoramas and cycloramas, and magic lanterns, with the focus on travel across early films whether actualities or fantasies. From there, we will consider Thief of Bagdad as an immersive entertainment experience, thinking about it in the context of the age of movie palaces, theater orchestras, and live stage productions before movies. We will consider the tension between decorative and narrative use of setting in these early films. Across the term, I am interested in a comparative media approach, including the graphic Aerts, architecture, and various media. And we will be taking advantage of our LA location by bringing in all kinds of media professionals — especially art directors and costume designers, but also writers, game designers, activists and fans, etc. who will bring new perspectives to our appreciation of the worlds on screen.

There are more and more world building classes being taught, especially in the wake of Mark J. P. Wolf’s remarkable anthologies on sub creation and world-building. And I am making use of podcasts as secondary readings, especially episodes of Imaginary Worlds, a great podcast to which my course title pays tribute. So below you will see my syllabus which may give you some ideas about how to approach this topic.

The highlight of the course — other than my own stunning lectures, of course — are the guest speakers from our local industry — production designers, costume designers, game designers, writers, fans, and activists, etc. I am going to learn so much through these conversations. I had a great pre-interview last weekend with Rick Carter, who has done iconic work with Spielberg, Zemeckis, Abrams, and Cameron, among others and has two Oscars. I would love to hear from others teaching in this space. Write me at hjenkins@usc.edu.

CTCS 469: Imaginary Worlds

Prof. Henry Jenkins

Weds. 6-10pm

While the Cinema School rightfully stresses the importance of story in the Hollywood tradition, there has been an increasing recognition that worlds (and world-building) have always played important roles in shaping cinema and an aesthetic focused on rich world-building is central to understanding contemporary cinema movements around the world. In this class, we will be focusing primarily on forms of fantasy and speculative fiction to which world-building plays a central role, but we are also expanding outward to include historical fiction. We want to explore how the nature of world-building has changed through the years, how world building fits into the larger transmedia logics of the contemporary film industry, how media ranging from the architecture of movie palaces to contemporary games design has changed Hollywood’s world-building practices, why a focus on world-building helps us to better understand the creative contributions made by production designers and art directors, and why certain filmmakers are better received as world-builders rather than storytellers. Our class sessions will include frequent guest speakers, including production designers, art directors, costume designers, special effects artists, animators, and others. Screenings range from silent epics, such as Thief of Bagdad, to more contemporary works including Snowpiercer, Black Panther and Dune.

Henry Jenkins

ASC 101

Office Hours: By Appointment

For content questions: hjenkins@us .edu

For appointments: Amandafo@usc.edu (Amanda Ford)

Assignments:

Blackboard Forum: Each week students will write 2-3 paragraphs on the Blackboard Discussion Forum. These posts should reflect on points of comparison between the two films assigned for that week and should draw where appropriate on one or more assigned readings. Due Weds. afternoons by 3pm. (20 points)

Papers:

You can complete these assignments in any order but one should be due on each due date (Oct. 5, Oct. 20, Nov. 30) and all three topics should be addressed by the end of the term:

1. Take one production design detail or costume and explain what it contributes to the film as a whole. (20 points)

1. Visit one of the following exhibitions and share your thoughts on how it illuminates key issues from the class. Draw on course materials to provide some conceptual vocabulary for the assignment: (20 points)

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum

• Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum

• Rick Carter, “Time,” El Segundo Museum of Art

1. Write a close reading of the world-building practices deployed by one film from the class. Assess the world based on criteria from Mark J.P. Wolf’s “Worlds Within the World”. Discuss specific elements from the film to illustrate your ideas. (20 Points)

Take Home Final Exam: Due on the exam date for the class. (20 points)

Assigned Books:

Deborah Landis, Film Craft: Costume Design

Week 1 (Aug. 24) Attraction, Illusion and Immersion in Early and Silent Cinema

Before Class:

• Hugo (2010, Martin Scorsese, 126 min, Dante Ferretti, Sandy Powell)

• How did Magicians Shape the History of Cinema? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvPG3o-pFW0

• La Voyage Dans La Lune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNAHcMMOHE8

• Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYQeCqKSebU

Reading:

• Leah Lehmbeck, Britt Salveson, and Vanessa R. Schwartz, City of Cinema: Paris 1850-1907

• Mark J. P. Wolf, “World Design,” Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds

Guest: Vanessa R. Schwartz

Screening: Thief of Bagdad (1924, Raoul Walsh, 140 min, William Cameron Menzies, Mitchell Leisen)

Week 2 (Aug. 31) The Work of Production Design

Before Class: Thief of Bagdad (1940, Michael Powell et al, 106 min, Vincent Korda, John Armstrong et al)

Reading:

• Lily Alexander, “Mythology,” in The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds

• Lucy Fisher, “The Silent Screen,” Art Direction and Production Design

• Charles Affron, “Set as Artifice,” Sets in Motion: Art Direction and Film Narrative

Recommended Resources:

• Imaginary Worlds: “The Golem and The Jinni” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-golem-and-the-jinni

• Orphans vs. Empires https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQYvliWUfng

• How Do You Like It So Far? “Jeff Gomez on the Collective Journey of The Last Jedi” http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2018/2/18/how-do-you-like-it-so-far-podcast-episode-2-jeff-gomez-on-the-collective-journey-of-the-last-jedi

• C. S. Tashiro, “What Is Production Design?” and “Circles of Feeling,” Pretty Pictures: Production Design and the History Film 

Guests: Rick Carter

Screening: Bride of Frankenstein (1935, James Whale, 75 min, Charles D. Hall, Vera West)

Week 3 (Sept. 7) The Work of Costume Design

Before Class:

• Faust (1926, F.W, Murnau, 106 min, Robert Herlth)

• Universal Monsters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dc07nSb5p4

Reading: Deborah Landis, Film Craft: Costume Design

Guests: Deborah Landis

Screening: Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming, 101 min, Cederic Gibbons, Adrian)

Week 4 (Sept. 14) The Wonderful Worlds of Oz

Before Class:

• Return to Oz (1985, Walter Murch, 113 min, Norman Reynolds, Raymond Hughes)

• Lost in Oz (2016, Craig George, 30 min)

Reading:

• Henry Jenkins, “‘All Over the Map’: Building (and Rebuilding) Oz,” Revisiting Imaginary Worlds

• Henry Jenkins, “Matter, Antimatter, Doesn’t Matter,” World-Builders on World-Building

• Gerard Hynes, “Locations and Borders” and “Geography and Maps,” Jennifer Harwood-Smith, “Portals,” Companion to Imaginary Worlds

Recommended Resources: 

• Imaginary Worlds, “Denslow of Oz” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/king-denslow-of-oz

Guests: Mark Warshaw

Screening:

• Belle et Bete (1942, Jean Cocteau, 93 min, Christian Bérard, Antonio Castillo)

• Salome (1923, Charles Bryant and Alla Nazimova 74 min, Natacha Rambova)

Week 5 (Sept. 21) Modernism, Surrealism, and Imagination

Before Class: 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953, Roy Rowland, 114 min, Rudolph Sternad, Cary Odell)

Reading:

• Jessica Aldred, “Authorship,” Companion to Imaginary Worlds

• Lily Alexander, “Fictional World Building as Ritual, Drama and Medium,” Revisiting Imaginary Worlds

Recommended Resources: Henry Jenkins, “A Person’s a Person, No Matter How Small,” Where the Wild Ones Were

Guests: Junot Diaz, Patrick Tatopoulos

Screening: Jason and the Argonauts (1963, Don Chaffey, 104 min, Jack Maxsted, Toni Starzi-Braga)

Week 6 (Sept. 29) Imagining and Re-Imagining the Adventure Genre

Before Class: 2000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954, Richard Fleischer, 127 min, Harper Goff, Emile Kuri)

Reading:

• David Bordwell, from Film Art: An Introduction (on functions)

• Seth Barry Watter, “On the Concept of Setting: A Study of V.F. Perkins,” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies

Recommended Resources:

• J. P. Tellote, “Science Fiction as ‘True Life Adventure’, Film and History

• C. S. Tashiro, “A Few Words About a Hat,” Pretty Pictures: Production Design and The History Film

• Imaginary Worlds, “Reimagining the Gods” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/reimagining-the-gods

Guests: Howard Rodman, Michael Green

Screening: The Masque of the Red Death (1964, Roger Corman, 90 min, Daniel Haller, Laura Nightingale)

Week 7 (Oct. 5) Camp, Pop and Excess in Film and Television

Before Class:

• Batman (1966, Leslie Martinson, 104 min, Serge Krizman and Jack Martin Smith, Pat Barto)

• Barbarella (1968, Roger Vadim, 98 min, Mario Garbuglia, Jacques Fonteray)

Reading:

• William Urrichio and Roberta Pearson, “I’m Not Fooled By that Cheap Disguise,” Many More Lives of The Batman

• Angelos Koutsourakis, “A Modest Proposal For Re-Thinking Cinematic Excess,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video

Recommended Resources:

• Robin Blaetz, “The Auteur Renaissance,” Costume, Make-up and Hair

• Henry Jenkins and Lynn Spigel, “Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel, The Many Lives of the Batman

Guests: Francois Audouy, Giovanna Melton, Marina Toybina

Screening: The Empire Strikes Back (1980, Irven Kirshner, 124 min, Norman Reynolds, John Mollo)

Week 8 (Oct. 12) World-Building in Spielberg and Lucas

Before Class: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Steven Spielberg, 115 min, Leslie Dilley and Joe Jackson, Deborah Nadoolman)

Reading: 

• Imaginary Worlds, “1977” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/1977

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Empire vs. Rebels” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/empire-vs-rebels

Recommended Resources:

• J.D. Connor, “The New Hollywood” Art Direction and Production Design

• Tamar Jeffries McDonald, “The New Hollywood” Costume, Make-Up and Hair

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Expanded Universe” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-expanded-universe

Guests: Richard LeMarchand, James Bissell 

Screening: Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott, 117 min, Lawrence Paull, Michael Kaplan and Charles Knode )

Week 9 (Oct. 20) Speculative Fiction and the Art of World-Building

Before Class: Minority Report (2002, Steven Spielberg, 145 min, Alex McDowell, Deborah Lynn Scott)

Read:

• Ann Jillian-Pindleton, “World Building,” Design Unbound

• How Do You Like It So Far?, Alex McDowell https://www.howdoyoulikeitsofar.org/alex-mcdowell-on-world-building-production-design-and-ready-player-one/

Recommended Resources:

• Bob Rahak, “That Which Survives,” More Than Meets the Eye

• Imaginary Worlds, Futures Without Asians https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/asian-futures-without-asians

• Imaginary Worlds, The Visions of Phillip K. Deck https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/visions-of-philip-k-dick

Guests: Alex McDowell

Screening: The Fellowship of the Rings (2001, Peter Jackson, 178 min, Grant Major, Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor)

Week 10 (Nov. 2) Establishing, Expanding, and Sharing Worlds

Before Class: Pirates of the Caribbean: At The World’s Edge (2007, Gore Verbinski, 167 min, Rick Heinricks, Cheryl Carasik)

Reading: 

• Mark J. P. Wolf, “Invented Cultures,” Benjamin H. Robinson, “History and Timelines,” and “World Completeness,” Companion of Imaginary Worlds

• Dan Hassler-Forest,  “World Building and Convergence Culture,” Science Fiction, Fantasy and Politics

• James Castonguay, “The Modern Entertainment Marketplace, 2000-Present,” Costume, Make-up and Hair

Recommended Resources:

• Mark J. P. Wolf, “Concerning the ‘Sub’ in Subcreation,” World-Builders on World-Building

• Imaginary Worlds, “Making Up Creatures” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/making-up-creatures-special-edition

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Hobbits and the Hippies” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-hobbits-and-the-hippies

• Imaginary Worlds, “Fantasy Maps” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/fantasy-maps

Guests: Wynn Thomas; Bo Welch

Screening: Gangs of New York (2002, Martin Scorsese, 167 min, Dante Ferretti, Sandy Powell)

Week 11 (Nov. 9) World Building in Historical Fiction and Action Cinema

Before Class: John Wick (2014, Chad Stahiski, 101 min, Dan Leigh, Susan Bode)

Reading:

• John Wick: A Masterpiece of world building https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PgIFNsOErA

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Canon” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-canon

Screening: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011, Rupert Wyatt, 105 min, Claude Parre, Renee April)

Week 12 (Nov. 14) Solarpunk and Fictional Environments

Before Class: Spirited Away (2001, Hayao Miyazaki, 125 min, Norobu Yoshida)

Reading:  

• Lauren Baumaroun,  “Hybridized Identities in Animation Production”

• Imaginary Worlds, “Solar Punk – the Future” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/solarpunk-the-future

Guests: Lauren Baumaroun, Stefan Dechant

Screening: Black Panther (2018, Ryan Coogler, 134 min, Hannah Bechler, Ruth E. Carter)

Nov. 23: Thanksgiving Holiday

Week 13 (Nov. 30) Afrofuturism, Fan Activism and Global Culture

Before Class: Snowpiercer

Reading: 

• Kara Kennedy, “The Softer Side of Dune,” Exploring Imaginary Worlds

• Scott Bukatman, “The Wakandan Dream,” Black Panther

Recommended Resources:

• Stephen Prince, “The Digital Backlot,” Art Direction and Production Design

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Ecology of Dune” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-ecology-of-dune

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Book of Dune” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-book-of-dune

Guests: Panel of contemporary film costume designers (Deborah Landis), Terry Marshall

Screening: Dune (2021, Denis Villeneuve, 156 min, Patrice Vermette, Bob Morgan and Jacqueline West)

The Trans* Fantasy in Harry Langdon’s The Chaser

In the fall, I taught a seminar on American film Comedy with a particular focus on comic performance and slapstick. I included a range of lesser known figures but I also wanted to represent the big Four silent comedians — Keaton Lloyd, Chaplin, and Langdon. Langdon is often an afterthought these day since modern audiences often find it difficult to appreciate his slow-reaction style alongside the fast rough and tumble of his contemporaries. I ended up selecting The Chaser, one of the films where Langdon directed himself, pushing past the slander that Frank Capra fostered in The Name Above the Title that Langdon lost his way once he rejected Capra’s shaping role. This turned out to be one of the more popular films from the class with students intrigued by its difference from other silent comedy and especially its bold play with gender identity, which has to be seen to be believed. One MA student, Sabrina Sonner wrote an essay on the film as a Trans fantasy which suggests why Langdon may be especially meaningful to the generation coming of age right now.

The Trans* Fantasy in Harry Langdon’s The Chaser

by Sabrina Sonner

Introduction

Watching Harry Langdon in The Chaser, I am transfixed by his hat. Throughout the film, he appears as a philanderer in a night club, a guilty husband in court, a wife in the kitchen, a illicit fugitive, a uniformed captain, and a ghost-like apparition. He falls off a cliff in a runaway vehicle, lays eggs, kisses the iceman, and is nearly driven to suicide. And, throughout it all, the hat remains. 

This consistent signifier of his identity stays with him throughout the film, which takes the basic premise of The Husband (played by Harry Langdon) accused of infidelity and court ordered to “take his wife’s place in the kitchen, or serve six months in jail.”[1] He dons a dress and performs his wife’s role, while The Wife (played by Gladys McConnell) takes on her husband’s role. Left at home, Langdon must deal with unwanted advances from the iceman and bill collector. As a result, he tries and fails to kill himself, writing a note that states he is leaving because “no woman knows what it is to go without pants.”[2] At the golf club with his hyper-masculine friend, he rediscovers a masculine uniform, and through a series of mishaps returns home covered in white flour. Though his mother-in-law flees, his wife returns to his arms, and the same intertitle that opened the film closes it, proclaiming “In the beginning, God created man in his own image and likeness. A little later on, he created woman.”[3]

While it may be one of Langdon’s less discussed films, I believe The Chaser opens up unique spaces surrounding gender and identity through interweaving Langdon’s innocent star persona with the potential of comedy to disrupt societal expectations. Within the history of clowns and silent comedians, there exists a power to break away from normative societal values.[4] We see this idea in Langdon’s disruption of gender in the film, as his comedic identity remains consistent while his gender presentation wildly fluctuates. Additionally, the slapstick nature of the film opens up ideas around the body and what it is allowed to do. Though made to dress a certain way, Langdon is still able to freely use his body in the world in a way enviable to a trans* body. In the way Langdon is clothed and in his undamageable slapstick body, a trans* fantasy emerges. What if I could wear a dress and be seen as a woman? Or wear a suit and be seen as a man? The film highlights the absurdity of the world responding to a single gendered indicator so strongly, but also opens up a freeing daydream that asks, “What would happen if we could be seen this way?” Langdon’s body never bruises, breaks, or tears – it behaves how he wants it to. With mine, I consider thousands of dollars of surgery to get it to behave as I wish. In this conflux of gender non-conformity, traditionally gendered clothing, Langdon’s consistent star persona, and a freely controlled slapstick body, The Chaser creates a fantastical trans* space. 

In my journey through discovering my identity, I have understood it as the way one sees oneself internally, the way this is reflected to the world externally, and most importantly the way one searches to find a happy combination of the two. To that extent, this essay is structured in those three parts, pulling on theorists such as Jack Halberstam, Teresa de Lauretis, Louise Peacock, James Agee, and Muriel Andrin to connect ideas between comedy and queerness. 

Langdon’s Consistent Star Persona and the Queerness of Childhood

Throughout The Chaser, Langdon is depicted with an unwavering consistency through his identifiable comedic persona, including his blank face, childlike innocence, and, of course, that hat. Regardless of his attire in the film, the way in which he comedically responds to situations and the recognizability of his star persona shines through. This sense of his baby-faced naivete is detailed by James Agee is his essay on silent film comedy: 

“Like Chaplin, Langdon wore a coat which buttoned on his wishbone and swung out wide below, but the effect was very different: he seemed like an outsized baby who had begun to outgrow his clothes. The crown of his hat was rounded and the brim was turned up all around, like a little boy’s hat, and he looked as if he wore diapers under his pants. His walk was that of a child which has just gotten sure on its feet, and his body and hands fitted that age. His face was kept pale to show off, with the simplicity of a nursery-school drawing, the bright, ignorant, gentle eyes and the little twirling mouth…. He was a virtuoso of hesitations and of delicately indecisive motions, and he was particularly fine in a high wind, rounding a corner with a kind of skittering toddle, both hands nursing his hatbrim.”[5]

In The Chaser, we see this childlikeness in the consistency of his reactions, where he responds with a great deal of perplexity to the absurdity of the situations that he finds himself in, especially gendered rituals. Throughout the film, he seems unable to fully grasp any gendered roles assigned to him, both feminine and masculine. For instance, the charge he faces during the film is that of being an unfaithful or unruly husband. However, looking at the film’s depiction of this behavior, Langdon hardly seems the type. He goes to this club to eat peanuts and watch. Though slightly voyeuristic, this depiction is relatively tame in comparison to the way a philandering womanizer could appear. When he finishes in the club, he then dons a masculine uniform, which fails him in his goals of appearing the idealized husband. He fairs no better when he performs the wife’s role. In his dress, he seems uncomprehending of feminine ideas, such as the cooking behaviors he is asked to take on as well as understanding of reproduction, albeit that of chickens and eggs. When he returns to his masculine attire, he counters the hyper-masculinity of his friend while golfing. Within these scenarios, which are rife with gendered expectations, Langdon always fails to measure up, or even understand exactly what he’s being measured up to. 

Langdon’s child-like lack of understanding of gendered norms creates a parallel with Jack Halberstam’s writings on the queerness of childhood. When writing of childhood and its depictions in cinema, Halberstam writes: 

“There is nothing natural in the end about gender as it emerges from childhood; the hetero scripts that are forced on children have nothing to do with nature and everything to do with violent enforcements of hetero-reproductive domesticity. These enforcements, even when they can accommodate some degree of bodily difference, direct children toward regular understandings of the body in time and space. But the weird set of experiences that we call childhood stands outside adult logics of time and space. The time of the child, then, like the time of the queer, is always already over and still to come.[“6]

Though Langdon is not a literal child, his childlike nature evokes this queerness. He acts as a receptacle that the world places meaning on. As he attempts to sort through it, he appears as if he’s a child completely unaware of what is expected of him and encountering gendered expectations for the first time. In both his masculinized uniform and feminized wife’s attire, he seems out of place, like a child playing dress-up. Langdon’s character operates in a different logic from the rest of the world and, due to his specific star persona, encapsulates this childlike logic and queer aspect of the time of childhood. 

To illustrate the innocence and consistency of Langdon’s comedic persona in a specific example, throughout The Chaser, Langdon has this consistent deadpan reaction, where he faces the camera and blinks a couple times, uncomprehending the absurdity of the comedic bit that just happened. We see this throughout the film as a constant presence, whether he is reacting to a woman falling into his arms when he wears his masculine uniform, the iceman kissing him when he dons a dress, or when he lays an egg. Alongside his ever-constant hat is a solidified comedic identity that refuses to adapt to ever-changing gendered expectations. In Langdon’s confusion regarding the gendered expectations, and the consistency of his identity beneath it all, there is space within the film to question alongside Langdon exactly how valuable these societal expectations are. 

Additionally, I would argue that there’s a queerness to Langdon’s body as a slapstick body. His star persona adheres to ideas that Muriel Andrin considers writing of an unbreakable slapstick form:

“These are “bodies without organs,” immune to fragmentation or, when they do suffer fragmentation, insensitive to trauma. They remain whole no matter what the threat, displaying not a permanent moral integrity like melodramatic characters, but a lasting physical integrity… The slapstick world is a perfect place for instant healing.”[7]

There are many ways in this world that the trans* body can find itself under threat or in need of healing, whether it is due to growing rates of violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming people,[8] or trans* bodies themselves being voluntarily surgically modified to better fit one’s gender expression. The idea of the resilient slapstick body appears in The Chaser in a sequence near the end of the film, where Langdon hides in the trunk of a car that topples off a cliff and crashes through multiple billboards into his kitchen without troubling Langdon one bit. In a more serious and subtle way, the scene in which he fails to kill himself in several ways can be read as the trans*, slapstick body resisting its own demise and providing a protection that the individual needs despite their momentary wants. 

Altogether, the confused, youthful quality of Langdon’s star persona connects his performance to a queer period of childhood, and the slapstick nature of this comedic body opens spaces for a specifically trans* imagination of the carefree, freedom of physical expression. The internal reflection of identity within Langdon’s star role in this film establishes a consistency and queerness to his self that clashes with the way society views him throughout the film. 

Society, Gender, and The Clown Outside It All

While Langdon’s identity remains constant in the visibility of his comedic star persona to the audience, society takes gendered cues from his clothing and behavior and focuses on them to an absurd degree. Additionally, his role as a clown in the film places Langdon as a figure outside of societal boundaries to whom failure is central.  Louise Peacock writes of the clown as “an outsider and a truthteller” who can comment on the societies in which they live.[9] Peacock additionally writes of the way failure is a part of clowning: 

“Failure or ‘incompetence’ is a staple ingredient of clown performance… Clowns demonstrate their inability to complete whatever exploit they have begun. In doing so they speak to the inner vulnerability of the audience whose members are often bound by societal conventions which value success over failure.”[10]

The failures of Langdon within the film largely relate to his inability to adhere to gendered roles, such as his initial failings at masculinity that bring about the film’s inciting incident and his subsequent failures to perform his wife’s duties in the kitchen. In doing so, he highlights the constructed nature of the assignment of these duties based on gender. He places himself outside of the gendered expectations of society in a literal way in the opening scene, where he appears a dance club just to watch the activities. And in the comedic bits of the film, his inability to perform either masculinity or femininity allows the audience to consider the facades of those structures. In watching him actively try to learn and fail at these activities he’s been given based on his gender assignment, there is a trans* understanding of the failure to perform at the roles of the gender one is assigned at birth, as well as the complexity of learning the rituals of one’s own gender. 

The failings of the clown echo Jack Halberstam’s considerations of failure and queerness, solidifying Langdon’s placement in the film as a queer, comedic outsider. In Halberstam’s writings on queerness and failure, Halberstam writes: 

“The Queer Art of Failure dismantles the logics of successes and failure with which we currently live. Under certain circumstances failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world. Failing is something queers do and have always done exceptionally well; for queers failure can be a style, to cite Quentin Crisp, or a way of life, to cite Foucault, and it can stand in contrast to the grim scenarios of success that depend on “trying and trying again.”[11]

In applying Halberstam’s ideas around failure to the film, we can find joyous resistance in the way that Langdon fails at the tasks placed before him in the film. His placid reactions to his failures allow us to safely fantasize about the possibilities that open up before us if we too embrace this logic of failure. 

            Further considering the way the world interacts with Langdon by way of his encounters with the bill collector and iceman, we can apply ideas surrounding the technologies of gender from Teresa de Lauretis to the film. Within her essay “The Technology of Gender,” de Lauretis establishes gender as a construction that is inseparably connects gender, work, class, and race, writing, “social representation of gender affects its subjective construction and that, vice versa, the subjective representation of gender – or self-representation – affects its social construction.”[12] Given the complexity with which de Lauretis breaks down the social construction of gender, there is an absurdity to the simplicity to the way gender operates within the film when it comes to passing as a gender within the film. As soon as Langdon changes his clothes, the outside world chooses to see him as a woman. By changing one factor of his appearance, Langdon completely alters the way the world views his gender. In contrast, however, we still see Langdon as himself due to his aforementioned star persona, challenging the notion that gender operates this discretely. While the behavior of the men towards Langdon is largely disrespectful, leering at and nonconsensually kissing him, there is also a small space within these interactions to read an absurd form of respect. They see someone placing a feminine indicator on themself, and despite the obviously visible Harry Langdon beneath it, they choose to treat the individual as the presentation he puts forth into the world. Returning to de Lauretis’ theories, the film itself also operates as a technology that can expand and challenge notions of gender and, through this representation, hope to affect its societal construction. 

            The simplicity of the direct correlation between Langdon’s changing outfits and the way the world genders him opens up a fantasy that, while absurd, evokes a trans* desire to live within a world that could operate in the way that the world of The Chaser does. In Scott Balzerack’s writing on queered masculinity in Hollywood comedians, he brings up the way that “as a gendered subject, the male comedian rearranges (or, at times, rejects) heteronormative protocols.”[13]Viewing Langdon as a gendered subject within the film, he distorts and evades masculinity and femininity as much as he can, playing within a space that allows him to transform in an almost enviable way. 

Unifying Gendered Identity Through a Familiar Spectator

Between the tensions of Langdon’s constant identity to the audience and his shifting gender presentation to the world, one might wonder if the film offers a point of resolution of these external and internal identities. By its closing shot, the film leaves us with an image of Langdon remaining in his dress and hat and reuniting with his wife, who has returned to her more traditionally feminine clothes. Looking back at the role played by Gladys McConnell as The Wife in the film provides the answers and resolution we seek. 

At the start of the film, McConnell is seen talking nonstop over the phone at her silent husband, and it is her desire to divorce him that brings about the gender-swapping court order. While nothing in this order explicitly mentions her, in the following scenes we see her partially switch roles with her husband – she wears a blazer and tie with a skirt as an incomplete transference into his role. In this outfit, there are suggestions at her failures at femininity when she finds her husband’s suicide note and, believing him dead, sobs until her make-up runs to a heightened extent. While Langdon’s arc throughout the film depicts him failing at femininity in a skirt, McConnell fails at the same ideas of gender while dressed oppositely. In addition, despite the change in roles, she still sees him as her husband, referring to him as such with her friends later in the film. This contrasts with the starkly shifted view of Langdon’s gender by the iceman and bill collector. The film gives her the power to see his identity through the façade of his clothing. When Langdon returns to the house covered in flour, his mother-in-law runs out in fear of a ghost while McConnell, after a temporary fright, recognizes and embraces her husband. 

Within this ending moment, some of the more nuanced ideas of gender within the film come together. After having both the husband and wife change their gendered attires, reuniting them when the wife has changed back but the husband remains the same gives a sense of ambiguity around the return to gendered roles within the film. While there is a normative reading of this ending that reunites the heterosexual couple with each person in their place, the actual execution of it has two femininely clothed individuals reuniting. With McConnell recognizing her husband beneath it all, there is an acknowledgement of his identity separate from his presentation. In the space with his wife, Langdon can be seen for who he is, regardless of how he presents. The film closes on a final shot of Langdon with his usual puzzled reaction to his wife returning to him, albeit with a couple of smiles tossed in. Coupled with the closing title reminding us of God creating man in his image and creating woman later on, there is a hint at the queer, homosocial world predating woman, as well as a challenge to the audience in if these binary viewpoints still hold up after watching a film that so comedically unpacks the artificiality of their construction. 

Conclusion

By applying a trans* perspective to The Chaser, we can see the way that the film negotiates ideas gender, considering where it is performative, intrinsic, and a part of one’s identity. While there are complex structures around gender in society, there is something delightfully freeing about the space created by the film. In the comedic failures and childlike incomprehension of Langdon, there emerges a queerness in the film that is only heightened by its preoccupation with gender. There isn’t one specific trans* identity explored within the film, but a variety of resonances that makes an umbrella term more appropriate than a specific notion. For instance, in viewing a fantasy of wearing a dress and being seen as a woman, there’s a trans-feminine fantasy. In the idea that he remains a man beneath his clothing regardless of how everyone views him, we see the opposite in the way of a trans-masculine fantasy. And in his positioning throughout the film that remains as neither successfully the uniformed studly husband nor the submissive wife, but finding peace in his final image of a ghost-like version of himself, there’s a non-binary desire of finding a space separate from any of these rituals. Altogether, the film provides evokes a sense of trans* desire through the absurdity with which its gendered rituals exist, the connection between queerness and comedic failure, and the queerness that Langdon’s childlike persona. 

 Sabrina Sonner is a recent graduate of the University of Southern California’s Cinema and Media Studies Masters program. Their work focuses on queer studies, interactive media, and media that supports live communal forms of play. They have previously been featured at USC’s First Forum conference in 2021, where they examined late stage capitalism through a playfully destructive reimagining of the board game Monopoly. Outside of academia, Sabrina works professionally in new play development for theatre. 

Works Cited

Agee, James. “Comedy’s Greatest Era.” Life, 1949. https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2019/11/17/comedys-greatest-era-james-agee/

Andrin, Muriel. “Back to the ‘Slap’: Slapstick’s Hyperbolic Gesture and The Rhetoric of Violence,” Slapstick Comedy (AFI Film Readers). Routledge, 2009.

Balzerack, Scott. “Someone Like Me for a Member.” Buffoon Men: Classic Hollywood Comedians and Queered Masculinity. Detroit: Wayne State University, 2013.

The Chaser. Harry Langdon. Harry Langdon Corporation. First National Pictures. 1928. 

De Lauretis, Teresa. 1987. “The Technology of Gender.” Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1-30. 

“Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2021.” Human Rights Campaign. 2021. https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2021

Halberstam, Jack. “Becoming Trans*.” Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability. Oakland: University of California Press, 45-62. 2017.

Halberstam, Jack. The Queer Art of Failure. Duke University Press Books. 2011. 

Peacock, Louise, “Clowns and Clown Play,” in Peta Tait and Katie Lavers (eds.), The Routledge Circus Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2016. 

[1] The Chaser. Harry Langdon. Harry Langdon Corporation. First National Pictures. 1928.

[2] The Chaser

[3] The Chaser

[4] Peacock, Louise, “Clowns and Clown Play,” in Peta Tait and Katie Lavers (eds.), The Routledge Circus Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2016. 90.

[5] Agee, James. “Comedy’s Greatest Era.” Life, 1949.

[6] Halberstam, Jack. “Becoming Trans*.” Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability. Oakland: University of California Press, 61. 2017.

[7] Andrin, Muriel. “Back to the ‘Slap’: Slapstick’s Hyperbolic Gesture and The Rhetoric of Violence,” Slapstick Comedy (AFI Film Readers). Routledge, 2009. 232

[8] “Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2021.” Human Rights Campaign. 2021. https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2021

[9] Peacock, 88.

[10] Peacock, 86.

[11] Halberstam, Jack. The Queer Art of Failure. Duke University Press Books. 2011. 2-3.

[12] De Lauretis, Teresa. 1987. “The Technology of Gender.” Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 8-9. 

[13] Balzerack, Scott. “Someone Like Me for a Member.” Buffoon Men: Classic Hollywood Comedians and Queered Masculinity. Detroit: Wayne State University, 2013. 4

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Hyo Jen Lee (South Korea) and Kirsten Pike (Qatar) (Part Two)

illustrator/SF writer Park Moon Young.

Response to Kirsten Pike's response

(by Hyo Jin Kim)

Dear Kirsten and everyone,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response.

You raised several interesting issues: Korean feminist SF (what the government's scientific discourse is in terms of reaching the public, especially women and girls; how Korean feminist SF expresses Korean sentiment and experiences; what common themes/characteristics of Korean feminist SF are; similarities vs. differences of Korean feminist SF and Western SF; male participants in feminist book clubs), Doctor Who fandom and comparisons with the Scully effect, and the response for the 13th Doctor, Jodie Whittaker.

First, I want to start with some good news and changes in terms of the science culture in South Korea. Since my dissertation, the Korean government and science communicators and experts have reached out to the public for science culture. ‘The Science & Culture Consultative Group’ was established last month, April 2022. This group will work mainly on several missions, such as spreading scientific and cultural activities, designing scientific projects, installing collaborative platforms for developing scientific culture, providing research/suggestions for scientific culture and its policies, filming and producing scientific images and broadcastings, holding academic conferences and seminars, and completing other voluntary scientific and cultural activities. As this group supports and encourages voluntary scientific and cultural activities, it may include some SF fandom activities. I am excited about the group and looking forward to their actions. This group will be the bridge between the public (hopefully include SF fans) and the government in terms of science culture. The government’s efforts in science culture have been accomplished through KOFAC and WISET. The Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity (KOFAC) leads science culture and develops policies as a quasi-governmental and non-profit organization under the Ministry of Science and ICT. In addition, the Korea Foundation for Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology (WISET) is a public institution funded by the government to encourage girls and women in the STEAM (A stands for Art) fields. According to WISET, the gender gap in natural science and engineering has decreased by 1.0% and 10.2%.

Korean SF and especially Korean feminist SF may step ahead of the government's science discourse. Korean feminist SF encourages readers to experience the future and even the current status quo, such as sexist oppression, discrimination, climate change and facing and living with non-human species, including aliens, AI, etc. Korean feminist SF has become more popular with the public since the 2010s. Statistics from the online bookstore ‘Aladin’ show the growth of female readers in their 20s to 40s, as I mentioned in my opening statement. With the reboot of feminism, new young female SF writers such as Cho-Yeop Kim and Se-Rang Chung and their work have become popular with the public. Cho-Yeop Kim won the 43rd Korea Artist Prize with her If We Cannot Move at the Speed of Light (Hubble, 2019) and the 11th Young Writer's Award with her following works. Se-Rang Chung's work School Nurse Ahn Eunyoung (Minumsa, 2015) aired on Netflix's original series in 2020. Media industries also showed interest and started making cinematic dramas such as 'SF8', eight directors with eight original Korean SFs in AI, AR, robot, game, fantasy, horror, supernatural, etc. Now Korean readers and audiences have more chances to meet Korean SF through books and media. The entrance barrier of SF has become lower and easier than before for the public.

As I mentioned in the opening statement, book club participants strongly tied with Korean feminist SF compared to Western SF. One reason might be the Korean storytelling. Participants and the public readers read Korean names, places, and even world views in Korean. They are used to reading characters' Western words and Western world views, making them feel distant from the genre. However, young SF Korean writers' works depict Korean characters (even many Korean female characters, single, married, young, and old) with Korean names, places, and cultures, allowing readers to feel comfortable with Korean SF. Korean feminist SF is mainly concerned with society's various issues and presents many diverse voices of Korean culture. For example, South Korea's constitutional court ordered the law banning abortion must be revised by the end of 2020. It's been 66 years since abortion became illegal. At the end of 2020, several SF writers joined the #abolition of abortion campaign by writing and sharing short SF stories. Korean SF writers openly associate their work with social issues. Korean feminist SF reflects current social issues and lets readers consider what-if situations. Therefore, Korean feminist SF book club participants engage strongly with Korean feminist SF.

Kirsten asked about Korean feminist SF's common themes or characteristics, and I'm working on analyzing and researching as same theme of a book project this year. Fandom research and the sub-genre of feminist SF are rare and getting to start in South Korea. So far, I've seen in Korean feminist SF themes of disability, gender issues, various types of violence toward women and others, stereotypes of women and others, prejudice against women and others, posthuman, patriarchy etc. Analyzing common themes and characteristics of Korean feminist SF is in progress. As a Korean feminist SF reader, I’ve got the impression that every single voice seems to matter to Korean SF writers. Korean feminist SF and Western feminist SF have in common that feminist issues meet the SF genre. Feminist SF writers are actively involved with social issues and let readers find solutions through their imaginations. The difference between Korean feminist SF and Western SF is how feminist issues reflect Korean society. As famous Western feminist SF books have been translated into Korean, readers feel Western feminist SF to be learned rather than empathetic. Every culture deals with different feministic issues. This is why Korean readers get more comfortable and engage tightly with Korean feminist SF. Kirsten wondered if there were male participants in the feminist SF book club. There were no male participants in the "Meet without meeting; 500 days' journey of reading feminist sf" club, but there were some male participants in other feminist SF book clubs I participated. Those male participants had entirely different attitudes toward feministic issues. They joined the book club because they wanted to learn more and understand feministic issues through the book and discussion.

Kirsten asked the Doctor Who fandom about the Scully effect, however, I could not find any academic research in South Korea. SF fandom studies in South Korea are few. In the part of my dissertation, some Whovians learn and understand complicated physics terms through Doctor Who. In my dissertation, I suggested SF fandom as a part of science communication. Scully effect on The X-File seems to follow a similar path, approaching SF fandom as the part of science communication in popular culture. Therefore, finding Scully effect of The X-Files or any other SF in South Korea will be fascinating and could be a good research project for WISET. I was able to find a news article about the fandom of The X-Files. How I remembered The X-Files is unique and different from these days’ SF fandom because of the dubbed version. Kirsten mentioned watching the dubbed version of The X-Files, and there was a massive fanbase surrounding dubbing actors in the '90s PC era in South Korea. There were several fan communities for the dubbing actors and main characters, Mulder and Scully. Still, many fans remember Mulder and Scully as the dubbed version of the voices. One news article shows that The X-Files returned in 2016, and the dubbing actors as Mulder and Scully got the information from the fans and celebrated together. The dubbing actors were as famous and vital as the original actors of Korean The X-Files’ fans. In the '90s in South Korea, I and Korean people were familiar with dubbed versions of television programs such asMacGyver, The X-Files, and other foreign films and television programs. The dubbed actors were top-rated as well. I remember MacGyver's Korean dubbing actor's voice. I was shocked when I heard the actual voice of MacGyver (Richard Dean Anderson). It didn't sound right to me. I am sure this kind of experience is common for people who grew up in the '90s. The popularity and fandom of dubbed versions of films and television programs may differ. Focusing on the differences may present how international fans deal with original characters' voices vs. dubbing actors' voices in a different context. At the same time, the '90s PC era is significant to SF fandom studies in South Korea. That period began with SF fandom, translating Western SFs, and creating Korean SFs. Some current famous SF writers/critics have been actively involved with the '90s PC era since. Several Korean SF scholars consider the '90s PC era a significant time for Korean SF fandom, and research is in progress.

As Kirsten asked about the response of the 13th Doctor, the Jodie Whittaker of Korean Whovians, I would say this might be another good start for the future Doctor Who fandom studies. I was pretty excited about Jodie Whittaker being the 13th Doctor because The Doctor's gender has never been revealed on the show. Though I had to dig deeper for the research, glancing over several Doctor Who online fan communities' comments seem negative responses. As some fans welcomed the female Doctor, they were disappointed with her performance and storytelling. I don't think this is about Jodie Whittaker's performance but fans' frustrations with accepting the female Doctor. The program has run for more than 60 years. Old and even new Whovians are already too familiar with male Doctors. It might take some time to adjust to new perspectives, such as gender or race issues, on the Doctor.

It was an excellent opportunity to learn about Qatar girls’ Disney princess fandom and discuss dubbed versions of films and television programs. It’s been fun to be part of this Global fandom Jamboree Conversation. Always exciting to meet a friendly but inspiring colleague. Thanks again to Kirsten for the thoughtful feedbacks, and hope everyone also enjoyed our conversations.

Part 2: Second Response to Hyo Jin Kim

(by Kirsten Pike)

Thanks so much for your thoughtful reflections, HJ! You’ve raised a lot of excellent points and questions for me to think about. I offer below a few initial thoughts.

With regard to Arab girls creating their own princess-themed media and cultural productions … I, too, was intrigued by this discovery.  It immediately brought to mind Henry Jenkins’s pioneering research on female fans of Star Trek, who—in writing new stories about beloved characters—remade popular texts “in their own image, forcing them to respond to their needs and to gratify their desires.”[1] Broadly speaking, the participants in my study tended to create princess-themed narratives that opened up possibilities of greater freedom and independence for girls. And their creations spanned a variety of forms, including songs, videos, games, short stories, photos, and theatrical plays. In a story written as part of a fourth-grade school project, for instance, one participant reimagined Belle from Beauty and the Beast (1991) as a beast, thereby defying customary ideas about how a Disney princess should look and act. Another participant wrote, produced, and starred in a princess-themed play at her high school, which she described as “an Arab version of Cinderella.” However, unlike Disney’s Cinderella (1950), her story challenged gendered conventions in that the heroine—despite being pursued by a prince—opted not to marry so that she could live a more independent existence.[2]

While it’s difficult to pinpoint the precise combination of factors that fostered the girls’ creative (and in some cases, feminist) sensibilities, it’s clear that some participants were encouraged to explore their gendered interests in school-related assignments and activities prior to college. And given that all the girls I interviewed were former students at Northwestern University in Qatar—an American university with staff, faculty, and students from around the world—I think it’s safe to say that they were already interested in and receptive to diverse viewpoints, with childhood influences also surely coming from their family and friends as well as media and other educational/cultural institutions. Indeed, many of the girls I interviewed cited Sheikha Moza, the chairperson of Qatar Foundation (and mother of the current Emir), as a major role model, especially given that her educational initiatives helped international universities come to Qatar, thus paving the way for more young women to earn college degrees here.[3]

The question of how dubbing informs reception within specific cultural contexts is an interesting one, especially when audiences grow up consuming an eclectic mix of local and global media. In the case of the girls I interviewed, all were fluent in English and Arabic, and they moved easily between Western and Middle Eastern media. Regarding language preferences in Disney media, a few patterns emerged in my findings. First, watching Disney films in English was the preferred mode for girls in my initial study, with ten out of 14 (71%) stating that the original films were their favorite. Some noted that Disney’s English-language releases were the most “authentic” and therefore adored, while others commented that because meaning can be lost in translation, they preferred watching the originals. Four girls in the study (29%) said that they favored the Egyptian-dubbed versions of Disney films because the dialogue, jokes, and/or cultural references were funnier.[4] Interestingly, when eight of the original 14 participants later answered questions about Jeem TV’s local adaptations of Disney films and TV shows (which, beginning in 2013, were dubbed into classical Arabic and edited to be more culturally appropriate for Arab youth), none reported a fondness for these versions. Even though the girls appreciated some of Jeem’s gender-productive editing strategies, including its tendency to eliminate derogatory comments about women and to replace comments about a female character’s looks with remarks about her intelligence, they felt that classical Arabic sounded “too formal” and/or “too serious,” which made them feel distanced from these texts. Ultimately, this discovery highlights the challenges faced by indigenous media producers who strive to create culturally relevant content for local audiences, while also navigating children’s desires for popular global fare.[5]

It was interesting to read your comments about the circulation of Disney content in Korea, including how most parents and young people prefer subtitled rather than Korean-dubbed Disney films because they can help viewers learn English. A few of the girls in my initial study reported that they learned to speak English by watching Disney films and TV shows too. Still, I agree that locally dubbed versions of popular media can have important benefits. One participant in my second study seemed to feel similarly when she suggested that watching Disney programming in classical Arabic on Jeem TV might sharpen Arabic language proficiency among local youth, which some adults fear is in decline because of the country’s rapid globalization over the past fifteen years. However, given the distancing effect described above, perhaps local youth (especially those from the Arab Gulf) would be more receptive to Jeem’s adaptations if they were dubbed in the local khaliji dialect as opposed classical Arabic.

Although my research on Disney fandom in Qatar has so far focused on Arab girls, I agree that it would be fascinating to explore the views of Disney fans living here who come from various racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds. While my chapter “Princess Culture in Qatar” (2015) included an analysis of girls’ responses to portrayals of Middle Eastern characters in Aladdin (1992), it would be interesting for a future study to examine girls’ ideas about representations of race and ethnicity (and their intersections with other markers of identity) across a broader body of Disney princess films, including some of the more recent releases, such as Frozen (2013), Moana (2016), and Frozen II (2019). When I conducted my initial interviews with Arab girls in 2013, a couple of participants talked about how much they admired the more unconventional Disney princesses, including Mulan from Mulan (1998) and Merida from Brave (2012). I would love to find out if, how, and to what extent this interest in non-traditional princesses has evolved with some of Disney’s contemporary releases. And I’d love to learn more about the reception of Disney princess media in South Korea too. 

I’m so glad to have had this opportunity to discuss examples of youthful female fandom in Korea and Qatar with you, HJ, as well as to participate in this broader Global Fandom Jamboree. I look forward to seeing how the insights shared via these cross-cultural exchanges over the past few months will continue to evolve and inform our scholarship (and fandom) as time moves forward!

Notes

[1] Jenkins (III), Henry. “Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 5.2 (1988): 103.

[2] Pike, Kirsten. “Princess Culture in Qatar: Exploring Princess Media Narratives in the Lives of Arab Female Youth.” In Princess Cultures: Mediating Girls’ Imaginations and Identities, eds. Miriam Forman-Brunell and Rebecca C. Hains, 139-160. New York: Peter Lang, 2015: 154-155.

[3] Arab girls who grow up in Qatar are often encouraged by their families to stay close to home after graduating from high school; Arab males, however, often attend university abroad.

[4] Pike, “Princess Culture in Qatar,” 146.

[5] Pike, Kirsten. “Disney in Doha: Arab Girls Negotiate Global and Local Versions of Disney Media.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 11 (2018): 72-90.

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Hyo Jin Kim (South Korea) and Kristen Pike (Qatar) (Part One)

"Disney Live! Mickey's Music Festival" in Doha, Qatar in 2014

Dear Kirsten and everyone,                                                                                  

I am very happy to be part of this Global fandom project, discussing Disney princesses and their fandom. I was delighted to read Kirsten's opening statement especially Arab females' reaction to these princesses was fascinating. The study results did not report previous media or feminist critics' adverse effects on gender roles, body image, and love interests. Instead, the unexpected and captivating results captured Arab girls' participatory Disney princess culture. Thus, I wonder about Arab female youths and their culture—what makes them create their own princess story, and what is in it? Per Kirsten's study, girls enjoy and consume Disney princess media and products and use the content to create another cultural product incorporating "their gendered interests and concerns." This makes me wonder about Arab girls' gendered interests and concerns. It would be interesting to compare Disney princess fandom in different countries/cultures if possible. Each culture may consume these princesses differently. I want to know these differences and their makeup. 

What strikes me is that the girls' storytelling is riveting. This is the part where participatory fan culture steps in. A couple of questions pop up. First, how did these girls know or notice their gendered interests and concerns relative to Disney princesses? What are these gendered interests and concerns? Second, what made these participants very creative and active in telling their stories? These questions may reveal the possible factor for these young female participants' creativity and feministic activity. Did specific social changes or the school system encourage them? What of generational influence (for example, their parents' feministic awareness compared to the previous generation)? Third, why did Arab girls create stories? Were there any common themes? Or any specific topics related to their culture? How did they differ compared to Disney's original princess story? I was just excited Arab girls actively recreate their story through Disney princesses. They are not just consuming Disney but also creating their own culture. Understanding Arab girls' Disney fandom can lead to another perspective on Disney princesses. In addition, Qatar's population drives another research idea, comparing other female youth (different cultural-based) of similar age, consuming Disney film/television, such as Asian girls who live in Qatar vs. Arab girls in Qatar. I am interested in how ethnicity or different cultures may affect media consumption. 

Another exciting result of the initial study was the top appealing Disney princesses are Cinderella and Belle, and most girls liked a white princess. Although Kirsten's study did not address any influences on body images, growing up with colored skin, and watching and liking white princesses might give different experiences. When I grew up, I remember there was a 'skin color' crayon—the color of white princesses' skin color in Disney films and television, a bright pink—that has disappeared and does not exist anymore in South Korea. I know it is shocking that there was a specific skin color crayon. Although the racist crayon is gone, whitening beauty products are prevalent in most Asian countries. It could be part of imperial Whiteness in Asia. In some way, Disney is still responsible for girls' body image/skin color. I know Kirsten's participants like Cinderella and Belle because of their characters, not their skin color; however, I'd like to know how Arab girls consume the skin colors of Disney princesses. 

Disney princesses have changed in three different periods. The first era is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950), and Sleeping Beauty (1959). Thirty years later, the second era included characters from The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas (1995), and Mulan (1998). The last era's princesses appear in The Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Brave (2012), and Frozen (2013) (England et al., 2011)[1]. Kirsten's initial study falls in the second era. Since the global popularity of Frozen, I wonder if there are any Disney princess trend changes with girls. Alternatively, did previous participants see Frozen or Disney princesses from the same era differently? How do audiences/fans respond to Disney's changes with princesses? 

As Kirsten mentioned, organizations such as the Doha Film Institute (DFI) and The Short Film Lab try to make local productions, but they do not do enough to produce local contents. Are there any government support or policies to encourage local media production? I am also curious about how media audiences respond to local productions and the popularity of local media content compared to foreign/imported productions. This curiosity leads me to think that the more foreign/imported media production gets popular, the less chance there will be for local/indigenous media products to be produced based on the media industry perspective. Therefore, I'd like to know the dynamics of the media industry in Qatar, how the government relates to supporting or encouraging local media productions, and how audiences react.

Another part of Kirsten's research topic on dubbing may apply to some countries importing Disney films and television programs, including South Korea. Arab girls' positive responses to "cultural surgeries" are interesting. In the description of participants, they are comfortable with English. As they do not have any language issues and prefer dubbed versions of Disney films and television, it makes me wonder again, what social circumstances support these young female participants? In South Korea, Disney films and television are an excellent way to learn English, relating to higher education fever, especially in English. Parents, kids, and young adults prefer a subtitled version of Disney rather than a dubbed version. However, the value of a dubbed version is crucial, in my opinion. Nowadays, media critics criticize the globalization phenomenon in media wiping out local and indigenous cultures. The translator of Lost in South Korea mentioned the value of dubbing, which is another way to create the show from a Korean perspective. He said dubbing is not just a direct translation of language but also links two different cultures to make sure audiences understand the contents based on their cultural experiences. I agree with him on the value of dubbing; however, the audiences seem to think differently in South Korea. Therefore, some networks air foreign films and television shows in a subtitled version instead of airing a dubbed version. I wonder how general audiences reflect on dubbing and classical Arabic editing. 

Dear HJ (and everyone ),

Thanks so much for sharing your opening statement; I’m delighted to have the opportunity to discuss it with you as part of this Global Fandom Jamboree! You raise several interesting points about fans of science fiction (SF) in South Korea as well as government efforts to spark public interest in science culture more broadly. It’s disappointing to learn that the government’s science culture events so far have not included the texts or practices of SF fandom. But you make a great point about how government initiatives might benefit by doing so. To that end, I wondered if you could say more about how you see feminist SF, specifically, in relation to the government’s efforts. For example, to what extent does Korean feminist science fiction work for or against the government’s science discourses? How might Korean feminist SF be utilized to improve the government’s outreach to the public about science, especially women and girls? I’m not sure if any of the science culture events that you mentioned (e.g., the Korean Science Fair) are circulating gender-specific discourses that encourage women and girls to pursue STEM fields; but, either way, it’s exciting to ponder how Korean feminist SF might be harnessed to further promote (or jumpstart) those efforts. 

Reading your comments about Dr. Who brought back a memory of when I lived and worked in South Korea for a year in the mid-1990s. At that time, The X-Files was all the rage, and the family I lived with watched a Korean-dubbed version of it. I’m not sure if any of the fans that you engaged with during your research discussed this show, but it’s interesting to think about how and why certain SF TV shows have resonated with Korean viewers at particular historical moments, and why certain SF shows inspire young viewers to go into STEM fields (i.e., the “Scully Effect”).[1] Was there a similar effect on female viewers of The X-Files in Korea? And do we see that effect with Dr. Who? Given your interesting insights about “Whovians,” I was curious how the casting of Jodie Whittaker (the first female to play “The Doctor” title role) on Dr. Who has been received by Korean fans. I would imagine that female fans might have seen this as an exciting update to the long-running series, especially against the backdrop of the gender-related social movements (e.g., #MeToo) that you mention as having contributed to the recent growth of feminist SF in Korea.

I enjoyed learning about your research projects on the two different feminist SF book clubs in Korea. In particular, I was intrigued by the fact that in both clubs, participants felt emotionally distanced from translations of Western SF texts but had a strong affinity for Korean feminist SF texts. To that end, you noted that the expression of specifically Korean sentiments and experiences seemed to resonate more strongly with book club members. I was wondering if you might be able to say a bit more about what those sentiments and/or experiences are, as well as how some Korean feminist SF authors are tapping into them. For instance, are there certain themes and/or characteristics of Korean feminist SF texts that appeal to Korean fans? How are feminist elements in Korean SF similar to and/or different from feminist sensibilities in some of the Western texts that the Korean book club participants engaged with? In addition to the diverse topics that were discussed in the “500 Days’ Journey of Reading Feminist SF” club, it was heartening to learn about how the club functioned more broadly as a safe space for female participants to share their everyday experiences. Out of curiosity, did either book club include male participants? My sense from what you wrote is that these were female-oriented spaces, but if males were participating, I would love to hear more about their interest in and/or views about feminist SF.

In thinking about how feminist SF fandom in South Korea relates to Disney fandom amongst girls in Qatar, what really jumps out at me is how language and cultural specificity seem to be working in each context. While feminist narratives produced by Korean authors appealed more strongly to the members of the two book clubs than translations of Western texts, the girls in my study tended to report the opposite of this pattern when they discussed the original English-language versions of Disney films and TV shows and the versions that were dubbed into classical Arabic (and edited to be more culturally appropriate for Arab youth) by staff at the youth-oriented channel, Jeem TV, in Qatar. While the girls that I interviewed understood that Jeem’s adaptations of Disney content were designed, in part, to help preserve and affirm the country’s Arabic language and cultural traditions, they also felt incredibly distanced from these media texts. This was largely related to the fact that, like most Arabic speakers, they use classical Arabic to write but not generally to speak (using, instead, the khaliji dialect of the Arab Gulf). Thus, Jeem TV’s attempt at “localizing” Disney’s content for the benefit of Arab youth in Qatar (and the broader MENA region) actually created a kind of cultural dissonance, with girls reporting that the dialogue sounded much too formal to be enjoyable. As such, the participants voiced a preference for either the original English-language versions of Disney films and TV shows (which some perceived as the most “authentic”) or the Egyptian-dubbed versions that they encountered on TV or in movie theaters in the early 2000s. Interestingly, a couple of the Qatari girls in my study told me that they preferred the Egyptian-dubbed versions of Disney films and TV shows because the jokes and comedic dialogue were funnier in that dialect than they were in English. Although I’m not exactly sure where this takes us, perhaps language and cultural specificity are topics to consider more fully as we continue discussing fandom across different media texts, cultural contexts, and feminist sensibilities in Korea and Qatar.

Notes

[1] For useful information and statistics about the “Scully Effect” in the U.S., see: “The Scully Effect: I Want to Believe in STEM.” Featuring research by 21st Century Fox, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence (2018). Accessible at: https://seejane.org/research-informs-empowers/the-scully-effect-i-want-to-believe-in-stem/

[1] England, Dawn E., Descartes, Lara, & Collier-Meek, Melissa A. (2011). Gender role portrayal

and the Disney princesses. Sex Roles, 64(1), 555-567. 

Global Fandom Jamboree: Kirsten Pike (Qatar)

"Disney Live! Mickey's Music Festival" in Doha, Qatar in 2014

Hello! My name is Kirsten Pike, and I’m an assistant professor in the Communication Program at Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q), where I teach and conduct research in the areas of girls’ and children’s media culture, film and television studies, and feminist media history. Some of my research explores representations of feminism and femininity in U.S. girls’ media (especially teen media of the late 1960s and 1970s) as well as girls’ responses to those depictions. Another area of my research examines Arab girls’ engagements with both Western and non-Western media, including Disney TV shows and independent films made by youth in Qatar.

My initial interest in Arab girls’ interactions with Disney and other princess-themed media stemmed from my experience teaching a Girls’ Media Culture class at NU-Q in 2012. This is where I first learned of my students’ passion for all things Disney, and conversations I was having in the classroom inspired me to learn more. So, in 2013 I gained IRB-approval to conduct in-depth interviews with 14 Arab female college students who grew up in the Middle East on their experiences with and opinions about princess-themed media, including Disney films and TV shows. One of the findings of this initial study was that while the girls enjoyed and avidly consumed Disney princess media and products during their youth, they also used this content as a springboard to create new cultural productions more in line with their gendered interests and concerns. Through creative stories, plays, games, videos, and photography, the girls actively challenged dominant themes in Disney princess media, especially the emphasis on heterosexual romance and marriage as well as unrealistic ideals of female beauty.[1]

My research has expanded over the years to include various methodological approaches and lines of inquiry. One of my recent studies, for instance, explores how Jeem TV (formerly Al Jazeera Children’s Channel)—a network that targets 7 to 12-year-olds across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—is adapting Disney content to make it more culturally appropriate for Arab youth. Specifically, it explores how Jeem TV is dubbing content into classical Arabic and rewriting and re-editing it to eliminate themes and images perceived to be unsuitable for Arab children, such as sorcery, violence, and romance. Because the network’s “cultural surgeries” are dramatically changing the gendered meanings and messages of Disney’s original content, another prong of this research explores Arab girls’ responses to Jeem’s adaptations. Ultimately, while many participants in the study disagreed with attempts to strictly censor romantic themes in Disney media (such as by cutting romance completely from a film), most supported minor edits to visual images and dialogue. This was especially true if such changes appeared to improve representations of women and girls, such as when a comment about a character’s physical beauty was replaced with a comment about her intelligence. Still, a couple of girls were adamantly against Jeem’s alterations, perceiving them as corruptions of the original texts.[2]

As this snapshot of some of my research with Arab girls likely suggests, fan studies and fandom in Qatar are both shaped by globalization and transnational media flows. Although organizations such as the Doha Film Institute (DFI) and Short Film Lab are doing vital work to cultivate local filmmaking talent, there is still not a lot of original film and television content being made in Qatar. As a result, local TV channels, such as Jeem TV (for preteens) and Baraem TV (for preschoolers), rely heavily on foreign films and TV shows to fill their schedules. This, combined with the rapid rise of satellite technologies and internet access/use in Arab Gulf countries over the past two decades, means that most young people who grow up here engage with transnational media as a matter of course. Some of the most popular media among Arab female college students in Qatar today include Turkish television shows, Korean serials, K-pop, Japanese anime, and Disney films and TV shows. Interestingly, the reliance on foreign media content by local and regional TV networks has sometimes resulted in Qatari youth being surprised to learn that some series they watched as kids, such as Arabic-dubbed Japanese anime programs that aired on Dubai’s Spacetoon TV channel in the early 2000s, originated in Japan—not the United Arab Emirates. Of course, the global and transnational nature of fandom and fan studies in Qatar is also shaped by the makeup of the population. Although Qatar is now home to some 2.9 million people, Qatari nationals account for less than 15% of the total population with expatriate workers, students, and residents from countries all over the world comprising the rest of the populace. While my own research has focused largely on Arab female fans of Disney media in Doha, other recent scholarship about fandom in Qatar has explored female fans of K-pop, male and female fans of Turkish television shows, and male and female sports fans.[3]

Although fandom in Qatar is shaped by transnational and global forces, it is also informed by local customs and practices. For instance, when I asked Arab girls which Disney princess films appealed to them the most and why, many made connections between a heroine’s virtues and values advocated in their Arab upbringing, such as working hard (Cinderella) or pursuing an education (Belle). Another interesting finding of my first study was that 12 of the 14 participants (86%) identified a white princess as their favorite, with Belle and Cinderella receiving the most votes and none choosing Jasmine, even though she’s supposedly from the Middle East. Although this finding raises concerns about Disney’s role in promoting whiteness as an ideal, it’s useful to consider it within a broader cultural context. That is, many girls in the study—all but one of whom were Muslim—reported being turned off by Disney’s tendency to sexualize and exoticize princesses of color, including Jasmine. Given how Muslim female youth from Qatar and other Arab Gulf countries typically practice modesty by wearing an abaya (i.e., robe) over their clothes and shayla (i.e., scarf) over their hair, we can better understand the girls’ apparent preference for more chaste Disney princesses, who are white.

Perhaps it’s worth mentioning that financial security also shapes fandom among young people in Qatar. As one of the ten wealthiest countries in the world, many Arab girls who grew up here—especially Qatari nationals—come from privileged economic backgrounds; as a result, some enjoy affirming their fandom through a range of consumer practices. While a couple of the girls I interviewed spoke of recording onto VHS tapes Egyptian-dubbed Disney films that aired on TV as a way to watch their favorite films over and over again when they were young, many others described their vast collections of commercially released Disney films and TV shows, some of which they bought on vacations to Europe and/or the U.S. Many girls also discussed visiting Disney theme parks (some, multiple times), with one reporting that she spent an entire summer at a villa in Disneyland Paris. Traveling outside of Qatar to engage in Disney fan practices is also a part of male youth culture; for instance, one former male student shared with me the details of a trip he made to California to attend events and tours that were offered to members of D23—Disney’s official fan club. While it would be interesting for a future study to compare Disney fandom among male and female youth in Qatar, it would also be worth considering more fully how economic forces are shaping fan practices.

If we look at fandom simultaneously through local and global lenses, we find interesting patterns, such as the importance of economic status and custom in shaping expressions of fandom, which might combine acceptance (e.g., of U.S. consumer culture) and negotiation and/or disavowal (e.g., of U.S. social mores and prejudices) into a single act of fan participation. In addition, Qatar’s place as a site of transnational media flows without its own native production pipeline means that the average local fan has a broad range of tastes for global media products. Such a profile begs for further investigation into how fans’ interactions with different media artifacts may affect their individual and/or collective expressions of fan allegiance. Ultimately, as we see from this Global Fandom Jamboree, examining fandom as a complex intersection of the global and local gives fan culture a rich and dense texture and raises many new lines of inquiry.

Notes

[1] For additional details, see: Pike, Kirsten. “Princess Culture in Qatar: Exploring Princess Media Narratives in the Lives of Arab Female Youth.” In Princess Cultures: Mediating Girls’ Imaginations and Identities, eds. Miriam Forman-Brunell and Rebecca C. Hains, 139-160. New York: Peter Lang, 2015.

[2] For additional details, see: Pike, Kirsten. “Disney in Doha: Arab Girls Negotiate Global and Local Versions of Disney Media.”Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 11 (2018): 72-90.

[3] See, for example: Malik, Saadia Izzeldin. “The Korean Wave (Hallyu) and Its Cultural Translation by Fans in Qatar.” International Journal of Communication 13 (2019): 5734-5751; Berg, Miriam. “The Importance of Cultural Proximity in the Success of Turkish Dramas in Qatar.” International Journal of Communication 11 (2017): 3415-3430; and Theodorakis, Nicholas D. and Daniel Wann, Ahmed Al-Emadi, Yannis Lianopoulos, and Alexandra Foudouki. “An Examination of Levels of Fandom, Team Identification, Socialization Processes, and Fan Behaviors in Qatar.” Journal of Sport Behavior 40.1 (2017): 87-107.

Kirsten Pike is an assistant professor in residence in the Communication Program at Northwestern University in Qatar. Her teaching and research interests include girls’ and children’s media culture, feminist media studies, and critical history/theory of television and film. Her research has appeared in Feminist Media Histories, Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Girlhood Studies, Mediated Girlhoods, and Reality Gendervision, among other venues. She is currently working on a manuscript called Girls’ Media in the Women’s Liberation Era: Girls Act and Talk Back (Routledge).

Global Fandom Jamboree: Hyo Jin Kim (South Korea)

illustrator/SF writer Park Moon Young.

My name is Hyo Jin Kim, an independent researcher in South Korea. My research interests center around two different topics. One is the science fiction (SF) fandom in South Korea—in particular, the fandom of the feminist SF subgenre. The other is representation in film and television that is subject to cultural bias (such as disability, race, and gender), especially that of Korean and Korean American females. 

Because of my dissertation, I've gained more interest in the SF fandom in South Korea. My dissertation originated from questioning the relationship between Korean science culture and policies and the Korean SF fandom. Since the year 2000, the Korean government has encouraged the growth of science culture through events and activities such as the Korean Science Festival and the Korea Science and Technology Fair (https://kofac.re.kr/eng/contents/whatwedo1-2.do). The primary purpose of science culture is to raise public interest by "building consensus and to share new forms of culture with the public" (https://kofac.re.kr/eng/contents/whatwedo1-2.do). According to the Korean government, "science culture" refers to being educated by the government rather than searching for and learning from the public's grassroots knowledge. From the beginning, the SF fandom was not included by the government, even though the SF fandom itself could be a part of science culture. Korean Doctor Who fans have shown that they learned some scientific information from the show. Fans of the TV show want to know more about it, including any relevant science. These fans learned and understood science by watching and loving Doctor Who. When you love and become a fan of the show, you know everything about it. The noticeable finding is that even information involving physics or other challenging scientific concepts becomes just another piece of information for fans to obtain. These Doctor Who fan activities illustrate the process of science communication and the development of science culture. The government did not recognize the SF fandom as a participant in science communication; however, Korean SF fans have already initiated science communication and culture through their fandom. Therefore, the government should pay more attention to the SF fandom. In collaboration with the grassroots SF fandom, the government could make public-friendly science policies or develop science culture. 

One remarkable discovery in my research is that participants see themselves as Doctor Who fans or Whovians but not SF fans. In South Korea, you are an enthusiast if you want to call yourself an SF fan (Sandvoss, 2005). Specific fans (e.g., Doctor Who's) and sf reading group members indicate themselves as sf fans with additional explanation. For example, one participant said s/he is a fan if you can call the person who likes to read and watch sf genre, but not that general impression of sf fan-an enthusiast. S/he felt s/he is not enough to be called an SF fan because some people still take SF fan as an SF expert. This case is unique compared to the US SF fandom. The definition of a fan may differ. The history of Korean SF might provide an insight into it. In 1907, the first SF was the translation of Jules Verne's Vingt Mille Lieues Sous Les Mers (1818) in Taegukhakbo, a journal for Korean students studying in Japan. In Japan, Korean students had introduced and translated the imported SF to enlighten the public and help the understanding of science. Since then, the SF genre in South Korea has expanded to offer not just entertainment but also another way to understand/learn science. In the 1970s and 1980s, SF writers wrote for kids and teens. (https://www.kbook-eng.or.kr/sub/trend.php?ptype=view&idx=462&page=&code=trend&total_searchkey=%EC%9D%B4%EC%A7%80%EC%9A%A9). The impression of SF among the Korean public is that it is for educating kids, teens, and professionals dealing with complex scientific knowledge. This perception of the genre persists. Therefore, SF fandom in South Korea has to deal with different layers of fan taxonomy. 

The growth of SF and feminist SF subgenre has accompanied South Korea. With the emergence of social issues such as Me Too (2006) and the Gangnam Station murder case (2016), another SF genre has been booming in South Korea: the subgenre of feminist SF. At the same time, the global climate crisis, along with the Covid-19 pandemic, has made people interested in SF. Nowadays, people feel they are living in the SF world. With this trend, SF-film, tv shows, books-is growing dramatically in South Korea. The characteristic of Korean SF indicates Korean sentiments and experiences without borrowing any Western-style worldview. Readers are familiar with Korean names, places, and social issues in Korean SF. Korean SF fans in South Korea no longer rely on translated Western SF works. 

According to Aladin (the Korean internet bookstore), young female readers have read sf frequently in twenty years; female SF readers in their 20s increased from 1.4% (1999–2009) to 12.6% (2010–2019) and those in their 30s from 11.1% to 18.2%. The reboot of feminism might have young female readers paying more attention to Korean feminist SF works. Young female readers are reading female writers' female narratives of feminist SF. Interestingly, in South Korea, most active writers are females, and they are young: 20s to 40s. As they grew up with feminism, it was part of their lives. Feminism is not a political/academic term to learn but a fight daily, a part of everyday life. Lefanu (1988) claimed, "Feminism questions a given order in political terms, while science fiction questions it in imaginative terms" (p. 100). Feminism is a hot social issue within different genders and generations in South Korea. Some critics analyze the popularity of SF from the growth of people/readers who want to change the world. People can find some different world in SF or imagine the answer to the 'what if' question of reality. 

In 2019 and 2022, I was part of two funded projects-gender equality living research project, "feminism discourses on feminist SF book club" (2019) and Covid-19, recorded with art, "Meet without meeting; 500 days' journey of reading feminist SF" (2022). These projects present how SF readers/fans read and reflect feminist SF in their lives. Each project demonstrates two different feminist SF book clubs with feminist SF reading lists. The first project, "feminism discourses on feminist SF book club," has the provided book list from another previous feminist SF book club. A current SF writer, translator, and Korean Science Fiction Association member made the book lists, including well-known feminist SF writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, James Tiptree Jr., Connie Willis, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ann Leckie, and Joanna Russ. Several Korean SF writers include Bo-young Kim, Duna, Bora Chung, Yun I-hyeong, and Yoon yeokyung. Feminist SF book club members met once a week; they shared and discussed their reflections. Members also discussed various feminist issues, from past to present, and concerns of their everyday lives. This feminist SF book club continued for about two years. After finishing the given book list, members wanted to explore Korean feminist SF and chose to continue meeting each week to discuss recent Korean SF books. 

Another project, Covid 19, recorded with art, "Meet without meeting; 500 days' journey of reading feminist sf" (2022), was organized by sf x f (a feminism and SF project group). This project conducted surveys and focus groups through online meetings. sf x f organized the feminist SF book club and provided book lists focused on Korean feminist SF and feminist theory books. The difference from the first feminist SF book club is that sf x f chose specifically on Korean feminist SF. Once a month, members met online on the messaging platform Kakaotalk. The reflection themes were minorities, identity, human rights, disabilities, gender issues, sexual discrimination, sexual violence, subversive feminism, and eco-feminism. Members shared their reflections on feminist SF and experiences of daily life. Book club members shared their feelings during the meeting, laughed, cried, showed anger, felt sympathy, etc. Most members pointed out that in social situations in South Korea, there are very few places for females to speak up. They mentioned that this feminist SF book club provided an open, safe place for them to share their feelings and experiences. In addition, reading feminist SF made them experience different viewpoints of the world. After participating in the feminist SF book club, each member said they had more broad and diverse perspectives.

The reports from these two feminist SF book clubs show how SF readers/fans react to feminist SF. After finishing the book lists, book club members updated the list with Korean feminist sf. Members wanted to read and follow up with current Korean feminist SF books. Participants said they could read and understand Western feminist SF; however, they didn't get into it and felt emotionally distanced from translated feminist SF. Each book club member was closely and effortlessly engaging with Korean feminist SF. This reflection highlights the characteristics of Korean SF. Lee points out that the main feature of Korean SF is how it is "based on Korean sentiment and experiences separate from the Western-centered world view" (https://www.kbook-eng.or.kr/sub/trend.php?ptype=view&idx=462&page=&code=trend&total_searchkey=%EC%9D%B4%EC%A7%80%EC%9A%A9). This indicates the reaction of Korean readers/fans of SF and their lives and culture. Korean SF is establishing its fandom. Now is the time for in-depth research on the Korean SF fandom, especially in feminist SF, not Western studies. 

Sandvoss, C. (2005). Fans: The mirror of consumption. Malden, MA: Polity.

Lefanu, S. (1988). Feminism and Science Fiction. Bloonington, IN: Indiana University Press. 

Hyo Jin Kim is an independent researcher in South Korea. Research interests are in two different topics. One is the fandom of Science Fiction(SF) in South Korea, especially in the subgenre of feminist SF. The other is the representation of Korean/ Korean American female actors, disabled, race/gender, or any culturally biased issues on film and television. Hyo Jin Kim has been a juror of the Korean SF Award since 2019. The book,  #SF #Feminism #Herstory-Yoda genre critique series 02, and Critical reading of Bladerunner (with nine other co-authors) published in 2021. Hyo Jin Kim is currently working with Textreet(Genre critique group) and sf x f (sf and feminism project group). 

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Katty Alhayek (Syria), Julie Escurignan (France) and Irma Hirsjärvi (Finland) (Part Two)

Julie Escurignan

Katty’s research sample is one I had never thought about before: the Syrian fans of Game of Thrones, a population faced with war and displacement. Katty writes: “when we think about the Syrian war and subsequent refugee crisis, currently the largest displacement crisis in the world (UNHCR, 2021), we don’t tend to imagine these displaced populations as fans and active audiences of entertainment”. She raises here a very interesting, and, in my opinion, important point. We tend to think about fans as people living in an environment ‘allowing’ them to have the time and resources to be fans. But what about fans who end up in war situations? Do they stop being fans? Do they keep being fans? Katty underlines how these populations, despite facing difficulties, do not give up on their fandoms, and on the contrary, rely on them in dire times. To me, this echoes what is currently going on in Ukraine on more than one level. Similarly to Syria, there are of course in Ukraine fan populations facing war and displacement. But there is another layer added to it from our point of view as Fan Studies researchers: the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is himself a figure from the entertainment world. Zelensky was an actor who played the role of an Ukrainian president on a television series, and one of his current advisors is one of this show’s screenwriters: the fiction has here fully entered the political realm, and fans of the actor and the show are now facing this almost dystopian situation of being fans of both a former actor and a current political leader in times of war. Katty’s piece had me thinking about the links between fandom, politics and war, from Syria to Ukraine (with their own specificities of course; I do not mean that both situations are the same and questions of culture, religion and links toward Western countries are obviously different). I believe there is a fascinating research topic going on with the Ukrainian war and its political leader. How are fans of Zelensky-the actor reacting to Zelensky-the war leader? And how is Zelensky’s image as a ‘war hero’, as Western media name him, impacting his actor’s image and his fandom? In France, the German-French channel Arte is currently broadcasting the series Servant of the People (Слуга народу) starring Volodymyr Zelensky, with a raising interest from French audiences (1.8 million viewers for the show on March 7th according to the media Le Parisien). Zelensky’s image as a war leader facing on the Russian forces is attracting audiences toward its previous work as an actor. Will this genre transfer lead up to the creation of new fan communities? Will these fans be fans of Zelensky-the actor, Zelensky-the political leader, or any mix of both? And will European or international fans of Zelensky be similar or different from Ukrainian fans of Zelensky, fans who actually experience his political leadership and the current war? Only a deep dive into this project and time to see how the war will evolve could bring us answers, but there are issues of fandom, war and politics at stake in Ukraine as there were in Syria. In that regard, I think Katty Alhayek’s work is leading the way toward new research on the relationship between fan communities, political expression and war situations.

The original Game of Thrones poster layout has been used by international politics."

Donald Trump used Game of Thrones layout in his political message “Winter is coming.” to Commander in chief Qasem Suleimani of Iraq, who published his response by using the same font of letters: “I will stand against you”

Irma Hirsjärvi

Is fandom about building a future?

I come home, exhausted, my heart broken. I cannot cry. The memories of my friends - young somalian kids fleeing the civil war, and again new refugees in 2015, the fall of Afghanistan just months ago, all the memories wake. The pressure, the agony.

And now Ukraine. 

Volunteers organise again, overnight, all over my country to welcome new people. Three weeks have already gone, and the Russian attack on Ukraine keeps pushing millions from their homes, over borders around the globe.  Finland prepares for 10 000, 40 000, 100 000 refugees. Money is not a problem. Not equipment, not food, not medicine. We have plenty. The problem is to follow all this brutality, the destruction of lives, dreams and the future of children.

I just sit there. I cannot speak. My husband who works at home glances at me over his home office. He does not say anything. After a brief moment he puts his laptop aside and opens the TV, selecting the programme. He is a gentle man, but now he speaks more softly than ever: “You think it would be the time to see this?”

On the screen is a text: “Servant of the people”. It is a Hungarian tv-series, broadcasting now also in Finnish National TV, starring the well known present-day president, the war hero and already a legend, previous comedian and actor Volodymyr Zelensky. I know the series, but watching it just now feels totally impossible.

“ I do not know if I can watch him.”

He does not reply, but presses the button, and soon we see the view of Kiev, and  the “three witches”, the oligarchs of Ukraine giving the opening lines for the series. I sigh, and cry a bit.  

Finally we end up watching the first seven 40 minute periods in a row. It is a sharp, dark comedy. Almost five hours of TV-marathon skillful political satire about a deeply corrupted nation and its strong Russian ties. As we watch, we walk in the streets of Ukraine and into homes and palaces of a beautiful country, where a humble and honest history teacher is elected, accidentally, as a president. I realise that even if I cannot tie any emotional strings to ‘Zelensky the president’, for this war and all death and suffering are real, I can love ‘Zelensky the actor’, and admire his quite obvious political plan. In a strange way it helps. It makes me stronger.

---

When I read Julie Escurignans response, where he pondered about the reception and fandom of the entertainer Volodymyr Zelensky in different parts of the world, it immediately took me back to that evening of only two weeks ago, where I learned to know ‘Zelensky the actor’. The TV-series is not only entertainment, but a cross-section of Ukraine, a mighty lesson of its political corruption, democracy and overall state economy. Furthermore, the “Servant of the people” is a political programme that teaches Ukranians about the different kinds of reality, utopia, even. 

The TV-series and movie, along the other active career of his as an entertainer, created a media fandom of Zelensky. In Servant of the people Zelensky was seen as a righteously, independent, witty and lovable character. That fandom, created by the TV-series broadcast the first time in  2015 and its sequel movie next year allowed him to win a presidential election of Ukraine in real life, three years later. That was a surprise, but not an accident. The TV-series and a movie created a political utopia, and the words for it to come true.

Fandom has been noted in a political realm to be useful in many ways. As Tanja Välisalo (Välisalo & Hirsjärvi 2022) notes, the iconic fantasy memes and themes have been harnessed to political tools, even in top level international politics. The president of the USA (2009-2017), Barack Obama used in his campaigns popular culture and in the office references to the popular texts to create connection to people, and to sound cool. With success. Donald Trump tried the same method, when he sent a tweet with his picture and a text “Sanctions are coming” written in Game of Thrones font (printed in New Yorker 2.11.2018). The text referred to the sanctions of the USA against Iran, but the visual appearance and words came from the Game of Thrones slogan “Winter is coming.” This was answered by general and Commander in chief Qasem Suleimani, who published his response by using the same font of letters: “I will stand against you” 3.11.2018. (Välisalo & Hirsjärvi 2022, 326-329)

After the first phase of fandom research (fandom as a pathological psychic and/or social disorder; Jenson 1992), the second phase (understanding the meaning making process and resistance nature of fandom; Jenkins 1992, Bacon-Smith 1992) and the third phase (becoming a legitimate research field; Fiske 1992, McGuigan 1992/2003) one can claim that we have moved into fourth phase of fandom research, a time of political fandom research. Fandom is even more than identity issues or meaning making process as such. It is also the form of global talk, creating free zones over cultural borders and language barriers. Furthermore, fandom has also become meta-language: and as such it is part of cosmopolitical power negotiations in the global mediasphere, suggests Tanja Välisalo. Along with other media, there is also a true need to explore deeply global on-line games from this perspective (Koistinen, Koskimaa & Välisalo, 2021), as fantasy is an international language, it is deeply political, and its fandom is aware of meaning making processes.

And meaning making is at the core of politics. There are continuous powerful movements and demonstrations for Ukrainian people and against Russian warmongering without weapons, only by using symbolic expressions and pictures in colours and lights of blue and yellow around the globe, demonstrations, memes and constant flow of pictures of Zeletny in all social media.The refer constantly to popular culture phenomena, that are globally common and dear to us. For me it’s as if in the centre of all this there is a small figure of Zelensky, a common person, everyman, a nice teacher from a TV-series, reminding me little Frodo Hobbit from the Lord of the Rings of J.R.R. Tolkien, with his impossible task ahead.

For this reason I see Katty Alhayek’s study as extremely important. Syria has suffered massive destruction. Building the future starts from imagination, having an utopia, giving names to things we do not have now, creating a joint language to talk about the shared meanings and tasks.

—-

Bacon-Smith, Camille (1992) Enterprising women. Television fandom and the creation of popular myth. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvanian Press.

Fiske, John (1987) Reading the popular. LOndon: Routledge.

Hirsjärvi, Iirma & Välisalo, Tanja (2022) Fantastinen fanius. In Jyrki KOrpua, Irma Hirsjärvi, Urpo Kovala, Tanja Välisalo (eds.) Fantasia. Lajit, ilmi ja yhteiskunta. Jyväskylä: Research Centre for Contemporary Culture. 313 - 329.

Jenkins, Henry (1992) Textual poachers. Television fans and participatory culture. London: Routledge.  

McGuigan, JIm (1992/2003) Cultural Populism. London: Taylor & Francis  e-Library.

Koistinen, A.-K., Koskimaa, R., & Välisalo, T. (2021). Constructing a Transmedia Universe : The Case of Battlestar Galactica. WiderScreen, Early online. http://widerscreen.fi/numerot/ajankohtaista/constructing-a-transmedia-universe-the-case-of-battlestar-galactica/

Katty Alhayek

By comparing gender dynamics in both Julie’s sample and my sample, I wonder if the difference is a result of sample luck or venue of fandom. Scholars, like Hassler-Forest (2014), who studied HBO strategy of producing “quality TV” shows like Game of Throne argue that HBO aims to attract “a desirable global elite audience” promising its audience, regardless of their actual gender, to change their relationship to television “from ‘passive,’ ‘feminine’ spectatorship to that of an ‘active,’ and therefore ‘masculine,’ connoisseur” (p. 166). In Arabic online spaces, I found most fans identified as male. Similarly, in English online spaces, around 82% of the English-speaking fans are male according to demographic survey results by The ASOAIF Crypts in 2017. However, in my personal experiences with fans in Western Massachusetts, the place where I lived during the show run, I noticed the popularity of the show among men, women, and LGBTQI+. So I wonder if the visibility of male voices in the English and Arabic speaking fan pages of Game of Thrones I observe relate to the issue of traditional male voices’ dominance online in non feminist fan and gaming spaces.

I agree with Irma’s statement that a phase of political fandom research is unfolding with TV stars like Volodymyr Zelensky (and Trump before him) building political careers by capitalizing on the support of their TV fan base. As Julie noted there are similarities to be explored between Syria and Ukraine in relation to fandom and politics. The brand of Prestige TV—like Game of Thrones and the upcoming prequel, House of the Dragon—is based on the promise of providing audiences with the opportunity to explore intellectual questions of struggle over political, social, and personal power. I am interested in observing emerging comparisons between the heartbreaking real-world political events of war and displacement in Ukraine and fantasy drama TV shows. How such comparisons relate to fans’ perceptions and interpretations. I think this will be an interesting area of research to explore questions of fandom, race, and solidarity.

References

Hassler-Forest, D. (2014). Game of Thrones: Quality television and the cultural logic of gentrification. TV/Series, (6), 160‒170.

The ASOAIF Crypts. (2017, January 10). The ASOIAF/GoT demographic survey results [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://atimecapsuleoficeandfire.wordpress.com/2017/01/10/the-asoiafgot- survey-results/

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Katty Alhayek (Syria), Julie Escurignan (France) and Irma Hirsjärvi (Finland) (Part One)

Julie Escurignan

Syria, Finland and France: three countries, three languages and three perspectives on fandom. Our three statements provide different outputs on Fan Studies, but they also share some themes and one common object: Game of Thrones. We took different roads, but they all lead us to the study of the HBO TV series’ fandom. So, what do we share? Where do we diverge? What has this journey into GOT fandom brought us?

Katty’s sample of Game of Thrones fans is interestingly both similar and different from mine. The English, Spanish and French-speaking fans I reached were far from being all highly-educated, affluent and male. They were from middle to high socio-economic status, and blue collars were a minority, but they could not all be deemed affluent. What’s more, the fandom was not male-dominated everywhere. While the French-speaking sample was male-dominated (61%), the English and Spanish-speaking groups were female-dominated (respectively, 60% and 52,9%). Similarly, practice subgroups such as cosplayers were vastly female-dominated. Therefore, we are here met with a difference that would be interesting to investigate: can the socio-economic characteristics encountered by Katty be explained by the quality TV status of the show, by the people it reached within Arabic countries or by the taste of Arab fans? Is this observation the result of sampling luck, or the consequence of deeper cultural differences between fan groups? There probably is more research to be done here to explain this phenomenon. What is similar though is the reaction of Arab fans to the whiteness of the show with the one of other non-European fans. Katty Alhayek noticed “how Arab fans responded to the whiteness and Eurocentrism of GoT and their sense of racial difference by producing hybrid posts and memes that reflect their local contexts and lived experiences”. This is something that I also saw amongst, for instance, Indian fans of the series on social media. Indian fans created posts and memes showing how Game of Thrones would look like if it had been an Indian production, highlighting the cultural differences between the Indian and American creative industries. There is therefore again something to be investigated in the reaction of non-European, non-white, non-Western fans toward this show which blatantly lacked diversity despite taking place in a vast fictional world.

Like Katty, my eyes are now turned toward HBO’s new series House of the Dragon, and particularly toward fans’ reaction to the show. I have found Game of Thrones fandom quieter since the end of the series and am starting to look at how HBO is trying to revive it before the broadcasting of the prequel. HBO has been trying to hype the show to its audience through social media posts but its communication strategy is not linear and there has been no post on the “House of the Dragon” official Twitter account since October 2021. Fan communities are the ones doing the heavy lifting through backstage pictures and questions about the upcoming series, while HBO is showing (again) lacks in its communication and marketing strategies. While the opening of the Game of Thrones Studio Tour in Ireland took place in the Spring of 2022 and is thus keeping Game of Thrones in the conversation (especially toward the summer and fans’ vacation plans), there are reasons to wonder if House of the Dragon will find the audience Game of Thrones did, and especially if Game of Thrones fans will be back for another serving of the HBO-Martin’s universe.

Lastly, Irma provides a very interesting account of fandom in Finland and more particularly in her city of Jyväskylä. What stroked me most is the point she raises about fandom and the local/global nexus. Whether about Game of Thrones or her local fan community, she justly underlines how fandom has become both local and global. Fandom is still local insofar as local, “physical” communities are present but these communities are simultaneously international and even transnational, as fans are part of bigger fan groups online, especially through social media. Technology has made it easier for onsite communities to exchange with other local groups around the world “as if they were present”, but I believe that there is one essential condition to the creation of these local/global fan groups: language. What I have discovered with my research is that language, albeit not seen as a barrier by fans themselves, is de facto what links (or not) fans between them. French or Spanish (or Finnish)-speaking fans who do not master English would not be able to stay in touch with fan groups from other European and non-European countries. Similarly, I think questions of class, culture and economic means come into play: one must be in a place where it is possible, technologically, culturally, economically, to get and stay in touch with communities residing in other countries to take part in these practices. This is why Katty’s study of Syrian fans, who as populations living a war and being displaced had limited resources (technological and financial), is so interesting and important, but I will come back to it in the next conversation.

Katty Alhayek

I enjoyed learning from Julie Escurignan's and Irma Hirsjärvi's opening statements about the worlds of fandom in Finland and France. While my research on fandom is restricted to the online sphere, I am fascinated by Irma’s and Julie’s rich research and experiences with offline forms of fandom like Irma’s involvement with the FINFAR fan community and her research on feminist fandom and the need for utopian spaces.

Similar to Julie, I look at Game of Thrones fandom by language rather than the fans’ country of residence or actual nationality. Julie’s sample of fans is larger and more diverse than mine. It includes ethnography, visual and textual analysis, interviews with 103 fans and survey with1954 participants who speak English, Spanish or French. I only used textual analysis and interviews with fans who speak Arabic and are active on Facebook Arab fan pages. Because I lived in the United States for 10 years and was a loyal follower of Facebook English-speaking fan pages like Game Of Laughs, which has over 2,626,441 followers, I tried to do a comparative analysis between English and Arabic speaking Facebook fan pages. However, at the beginning I couldn’t recruit participants from the English pages easily, so I put that aspect of my research on hold. Nevertheless, I maintained my participation and online observation of English-speaking fan spaces like Game Of Laughs where fans, like their Arabic speaking counterparts, wait impatiently for the upcoming prequel, House of the Dragon (Figure 1).

Figure 1 English speaking fans on Facebook are excited about HBO announcement of the premier date of House of the Dragon on August 21, 2022 and organize a subsequent conversation on Discord a voice, video and text communication platform on March 30, 2022.

Additional similarity that English-speaking fans share with Arabic-speaking fans is their unhappiness with how Game of Thrones ended. This is evident in activities such as keeping the petition to remake Game of Thrones Season 8 alive three years after the show’s ending (figure 2).

Figure 2 A post from Game Of Laughs Facebook page on March 31, 2022 that includes a link to the petition to remake Game of Thrones Season 8.

This conversation on fandom, accessibility, and language, reminds me that earlier in my graduate studies, I collaborated with my colleague E J Nielsen on an exploratory study titled "All Men Must Die: Audience Receptions of Violence in Game of Thrones." In that study, E J and I used an online questionnaire to survey English-speaking fans’ perceptions of Game of Thrones. We received 214 responses showing that persons who have experienced violence (either firsthand or someone close to them) would be more likely to perceive Game of Thrones’ portrayal of violence as realistic. However, this quantitative exploratory study convinced me that qualitative methods are more appropriate to explore the complex lived experiences of fans and their real-world beliefs and practices. Still, I see possibilities to rethink my methodological approaches to examine larger sample of fans around the world. As House of the Dragon is scheduled to air in August 2022, I am excited at the prospect of collaboration in the future with Julie and Irma to combine our quantitative and qualitative methodological expertise by expanding our samples and working with global fans who speak English, Arabic, Finnish, Swedish, Spanish or French.

Global Fandom Jamboree: Irma Hirsjärvi (Finland)

"75th Worldcon World Science fiction Convention, in Helsinki in 2017 was the first Worldcon in Nordic countries. It was also the second largest Worldcon ever, since its beginning in 1937. Chairman Jukka Halme smiles with two Hugo statues in his hands."

Irma Hirsjärvi

The origins of fandom in Finland go back longer in history than one could guess. The country’s long history as an autonomous part of Russia from 1809 until 1917, and the strong Nationalist movement of the late 19th century in Europe created the golden age of the arts also in our province. That gave special significance to the artists, musicians and writers of the era, and many gained devoted admirers and followers, even cults, within the small language area that was finally called Finland after year 1917. 

Later, in the 1940s and 1950s, the fans of stars of especially Hollywood cinema, TV series and rock’n roll followed international media through newspapers, cinema, magazines, radio and TV as soon as the news were printed or aired. Fandom in Finland was not so a much pejorative expression in the media, but connected rather neutrally to popular culture mainly. 

When finishing my Master’s thesis on feminist science fiction in 1992, I was already member of a local Jyväskylä sf society. The early topic of my Ph. D. thesis - reception of science fiction - tell about the still so suspicious nature of fandom studies in our universities around the turn of the century. Still, things had started to change: I finally got the funding for the thesis, boldly about science fiction fandom in Finland, in 2004. 

The next year, 2005 Harri Heinonen, from the Faculty of sport and health sciences, University of Jyväskylä, defended his thesis on Everton football fans and Kaarina Nikunen, media reseacher from the University of Tampere hers on TV fans in Finland. Fandom studies had emerged from behind media and reception studies. During the following years, we arranged Fandom conferences and seminars in co-operation. 

For me and the other forthcoming fandom researchers the expertise of the Research Centre for Contemporary Culture became essential. In collaboration with Urpo Kovala from the Centre, we have edited books and written articles  on fantasy, science fiction, reception, and fandom. 

In the early years of this century, fandom research in Finland spread fast to cover literature, poetry, games, sf, fantasy media figures, comics, anime, manga, cosplay etc. I myself published in 2009 my thesis “The mediations of fandom – the networks of the Finnish sf fandom”. In it, I analysed both the activities and the organisation of the fandom, as well as the personal experiences involved in the fandom, in larger cultural contexts such as cultural economy and the publishing branch, or the international dissemination of influences. I looked at the field of values and attitudes connected for instance with debates over gender, religion and politics – as well as debates over science fiction between the fandom and the literary field (one severe debate in the 1950s and another in the 1990s). I used multi sited ethnography (George E. Marcus); different corpuses included such as focused interviews, fan publications, media texts, discussions on the internet and fandom histories. This synchronic approach was supplemented and contextualised by means of a historical account of the arrival and spread of the sf-genre and later its fandom in Finland. I followed the circulation of international influences, also in the organizational practices and the productivity of the fans, as well as the birth and evolution of the utopian spaces in the fandom, which especially was found to be a crucially important motive for this overall feminist fandom in general.

Simply put, I was set to look at the readers and reception of the sf genre but finding places like Aca-fan, I plunged into media and cultural theory. So I ended up following the cultural movement that I was living in myself, too: I looked at the people of small local sf-clubs, then a national network, and finally internationally networking and the emergence of publishers, experts and arrangers of the largest sf event of Europe. The fandom was also a writer’s guild: we wrote ourselves and kept writers’ classes, gave feedback to each other and published, affecting even the established literary critique of Finland. We created the Finnish sf and fantasy researchers’ association FINFAR with its successful international journal FAFNIR. International Finland-based sf writers like Leena Krohn, Johanna Sinisalo, Hannu Rajamäki, Emmi Itäranta were introduced to international fandom through the network. Our fandom went from local to international in 30 years. Now, every fandom seems to be globally networked through new media from its birth.

As part of my doctoral project, I participated the Finnish-Hungarian research project Cult, Community, Identity, funded by the Academy of Finland (in 2006-2008). It connected anthropological cult studies with fandom studies, e.g. Hungarian literary cult phenomena of reburying (yes!) of cultural figures as a means of enhancing one’s political authority, with more cultural studies oriented fandom research. I also collected the Finnish data for the project Youth reading fantasy”, in which researchers from five Baltic countries took part. We had the kids read Ursula K. LeGuins’ Kerastion. I found out, for instance, that only sf-fans found the text ”easy”, instead of ”harsh”, revolting” or ”impossible”.  Particip@tions Vol. 3 (2) Article - Irma Hirsjärvi (participations.org)

In Sirkku Kotilainen’s international research project Youth Media Participation I was able to slip in some questions about fandom. However, the most important fandom research experience was my research group getting national funding for the Finnish part of the global World of Hobbit project under the title  ”Uses of fantasy”. Our wonderful young postgraduate students also joined the later Game of thrones project. The results were very interesting. This generation of young researchers in different fields and universities continue the previous fandom seminars with their seminars and research on the ”Nerd” phenomenon.

Global or local? Game of Thrones series was aired globally simultaneously, because the fandom wanted to talk about the series, simultaneously, around the world without others being able to make spoilers. That tells us where we are now. Fandom is local, but simultaneously strongly part of global processes. Through new media, it affects global networking the ways we should look at carefully, as Game of Thrones and other global media projects show.

I personally reject the interpretation of deeply religious fandom experience. It really tells very little except the meaningful ties of fandom. Relations between fandom, cultural production, markets and the arts as well as social aspects are more relevant and open fruitful questions. Fandom is filled with serious, even holy experiences, but always in progress, moving and under discussion. In science fiction fandom one constantly meets the idea of utopia said out loud - not in its classical, but in a feminist meaning, and as the ability to be as you are. The core of science fiction literature, for instance, is in sociology, political studies and feminism, even if it is sometimes seen as ”dystopic technology set in the stars”. The biggest change during the last decade is the shift of fantasy towards political or sociological themes. This has become a strong element in media texts like Hungergames and Game of Thrones. 

Watching this evening the less than ten people of Jyväskylä science fiction club 42 (of course 42!) I see our local society has not changed very much during these 30 years, even though most of the people have given space to new ones since its beginning. This evening we talked about books, TV series, cartoons, cinema, and planned our little Octoberfest with a modest sf programme to be held in our library. Very local. Still, we also talked about our friends and their doings in Oslo, Denmark, USA as if they were present every day, as if they were part of our community. So our “local” group has turned to be also simultaneously international.

We would have stayed only local, had it not been for the Helsinki fans who in the 1980s arranged Finncon, one of the largest sf-events in Europe, by means of their influences and contacts to England and Sweden. We in my city Jyväskylä had not the economical assets to do so, until Jyväskylä Arts festivals heard from us, the ”futuristic sf people” (sitting in a pub once in a month and arranging Star Trek events) and offered us money to arrange sf/fantasy/horror-seminars. That helped us to arrange seminars and finally get Finncon to be held also in our city. Then, that helped us to apply funding from the Ministry of Education by starting the Finncon society together with other societies, and after that we were able to invite more international guests, arrange bigger events, start a research programme, support publishing and give a start to the huge Finnish anime fandom, consisting of small local societies like ours. Furthermore, fine local funding of culture, the national respect of literary culture, excellent education, and actually also the safe social network of our welfare state were all in the background of these organizational practices. 

However, behind the personal meaning making processes was the joy of reading and discussion of the texts, like this evening in a local pub, where we still meet once a month. Most of the people I interviewed for my Ph. D. thesis learned to read at a very early age, often starting at the age of four. The love towards literature and fantastic texts seems to be a desire - including the joy of sharing. This has been the driving force for our members when they were asked about their motives for spending so much time working for others, in our city, at the National Finncon or in other countries, other conventions, with strangers.

Global Fandom: Julie Escurignan (France)

Game of Thrones Cosplayers, London Comic Con, October 2016

The “Game of Thrones Fans Project”: A transnational study 

My research focuses on the transmedia experience of Game of Thrones transnational fans. More specifically, it analyses the specificities of transnational fans’ material practices of fandom through the case study of the HBO television series Game of Thrones (2011-2019). In this study, I strive to examine a more holistic understanding of fandom and fan experience by looking at transnational fans and weaving together fans’ online and offline presence as part of their material practices. To do so, I rely on a mixed methodology combining qualitative and quantitative methods. I used the three main research methodologies employed in fan studies: ethnography, interviews and online questionnaires. I have also undertaken an online ethnography which has been used as secondary methodology, as well as a semiotic analysis of online platforms and merchandise. These methodologies have led to a rich and complex set of data composed of ethnographic fieldnotes, visual and textual analysis, 1954 surveys answered by fans (995 in English, 482 in French and 477 in Spanish) and 103 interviews of fans and industry professionals (93 in English and 10 in French). 

This work is transnational but, contrary to most transnational research which is centred on countries or geographic areas, here I focus on language. This ties in with the theoretical-methodological point made by Beck (2005) that in a globalized world it may be more appropriate to discard methodological nationalism. Hence, I look at Game of Thronesfandom by language rather than nationality and/or country of residence. I included in this project fans who speak English, Spanish or French. These three languages represent some of the most spoken languages in the world, thus guaranteeing that there would be a number of Game of Thrones fans speaking them and allowing me to consider fandom in a more global context. Theoretically, fans from all over the world could be reached, as long as they spoke one of the three languages. In practice, I did not reach worldwide fans, as Asian fans were mainly absent from my sample. Nonetheless, this methodological choice led to surprising discoveries. The use of Spanish enabled me to discover strong Game of Thrones fan communities in the Philippines and in Chile. Even if my online questionnaire did not reach the Filipino fans, it did reach the Chilean community who massively answered the Spanish survey, hence skewing its results toward a portion of Latin-American and Spanish-speaking fans while still representing an often under-represented fan population. Speaking French gave me access to rural French fans who do not speak any other language and are therefore left out of English-centred international research. Opening the research to non-native English speakers and fans who do not originate from Anglo-Saxon countries also allowed me to discover that Game of Thrones is a national phenomenon in Serbia: “I believe it’s one of the biggest fandoms in popular culture here. Everybody is watching it” (Serbian cosplayer).  

ame of Thrones cosplayers at HeroFestival Marseille 2016

Global practices and Local issues

I have observed striking similarities in the activities all fans engage in: most fans talk about the series with people (94-98% of them), are present online (46 to 52%) and own merchandise (17 to 21%). On the other end of the spectrum, material practices such as creative activities, cosplay, conventions and film tourism only engage between 1 and 6% of fans. These are very marginal yet visible activities in the fan community. They are also engaging activities. It therefore appears that the more engaging the fan practice, the more marginal it is amongst the fan community. No matter their origin, situation or language spoken, the activities Game of Thrones fans engage in and the proportions to which they do so are surprisingly homogenous. I believe there is a “differentiated simultaneity of experience” (Athique, 2016: 151) in Game of Thrones fans’ experience: wherever they are located, whoever they are, fans experience a similarity of experiences in relation to their universe of fandom. In terms of creativity and commodification, I have uncovered that fans reuse the visual identity created by HBO to make objects that often fill a gap in the official merchandising offer, whether it is regarding design, price or product itself. For example, the official HBO shop does not offer cosplay artefacts whereas on the peer-to-peer e-platform Etsy, fan-creators have reproduced many costumes and pieces of jewellery from the series and sell them to fellow cosplayers. Therefore, while fans value as a priority what comes from HBO, they will create the media and material absent from the official offer.

At the beginning of this study, I identified two elements that I thought would constitute barriers in fans’ full enjoyment of the franchise: language and geographical location. Several questions in the surveys were meant to put these hypotheses to the test and allowed me to discover that fans do not cite language as an obstacle to their enjoyment of the franchise. Geographical location, however, appears to be a barrier in fans’ experience: according to where they are, fans do not have the same access to the franchise, particularly in terms of access to merchandise, conventions, fan-dedicated events as well as community. According to fans’ accounts, places like Latin America or Israel do not host many fan events and conventions, and the official HBO shop does not ship products to Latin America and Europe anymore, making the purchase of official Game of Thrones merchandise more difficult. Some respondents underline the lack of fan community where they reside: an English-speaking fan mentioned that he would like to play more board games related to Game of Thrones “but don’t have others to play with locally”. Similarly, rural French cosplayers highlight their feeling of isolation and loneliness, stating that they do not have fellow cosplayers in close proximity and are relying on online groups and regional conventions to have a sense of community. 

Game of Thrones, access and “trivialité”

Hence, the results from this study confirm the idea of fandom as part of a globalisation process. Fan practices related to Game of Thrones are similar in most places. In addition, the online circulation of new practices (such as the live viewing of the series in bars) inform fans’ desires all over the world. Fans also expand the universe created by HBO through their creative and material practices (merchandise creation, cosplay). What truly differentiates fans’ experiences is access: financial, geographical and cultural. Indeed, not only do fans lack equal access depending on the place they reside, my research has showed that Game of Thrones core fandom is made of students and young professionals with middle to high socio-economic status originating from the United States, Australia, Europe and Latin-America. Game of Thrones is thus a successful drama but it cannot really be called a ‘popular’ one[1] in the sense that it does not appeal to all social strata, mainly leaving blue-collar workers out of its audience. Furthermore, the social acceptability of fandom greatly varies depending on culture and location: while popular culture is an accepted phenomenon in North America and the UK, even countries like France are still puzzled and judgemental about it. Beyond economic means and cultural acceptability, questions of geographical location appear central in whether or not fans will have access to a complete experience of fandom or only to partial elements of it. Despite being a globalised phenomenon, fandom doesn’t erase physical, cultural and economic borders.

 Lastly, my research has asserted, if needed be, the international popularity of Game of Thrones. This lead me to rethink the concepts of ‘mainstream’, ‘popular’ and ‘cult’ to no longer define them through a Western or national perspective: Game of Thrones is indeed ‘mainstream’ in North America, but it does not appear so in other parts of the world or from a global point of view. As such, I would like to bring forward the concept of “trivialité” developed by French Communication Studies scholar Yves Jeanneret. “Trivialité” predicates the creative circulation within society of objects, representations and practices which become “cultural beings” because of this circulation. If we consider Game of Thrones and its fandom a “trivialité” phenomenon, it allows us to account for all the changes that happen during the worldwide circulation of said phenomenon. The Game of Thrones universe takes on new meanings, gains value, develops renewed representations while circulating around the world and among fans. This can be seen in phenomena such as the use of the show’s expressions in everyday life (“You know nothing, Jon Snow!” for instance), or the appropriation of the franchise’s identity by fans through their creations (fanart, merchandise…). The idea of “trivialité” enables us to account for the circulation of this popular culture object and the changes inherent to this circulation without being bound by questions of localisation, geographical or cultural borders.

Biography:

Julie Escurignan is a Lecturer in Communication Studies at Sorbonne Paris Nord University and a Doctoral Researcher in Film and Television Studies at the University of Roehampton, London. She holds a MA in Communication Studies from the Sorbonne University, has conducted research at doctoral level at the University of Texas at Austin and at the University of Nordland, Norway, and has worked for NBC Universal International. She researches television series’ fandoms, and particularly transnational fans as well as material practices of fandom. Her thesis looks at the material experience of Game of Thrones transnational fans. She is the author of several book chapters on television hits such as Game of Thrones and Black Mirror.

Contact Details: escurigj@roehampton.ac.uk

[1] Popular is here understood as “for or involving ordinary people rather experts or very educated people” (Cambridge Dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/popular)

Global Fandom Jamboree: Katty Alhayek (Syria)

I encountered the field of fan studies for the first time in 2015, at a difficult political moment in my life as a displaced woman scholar from Syria in the United States. That moment coincided with the rise of Trump and worsening conditions of war and displacement in Syria. I was starting my PhD training at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and felt that I had finally found, through cultural studies, theoretical tools with which I could describe my politically charged experiences as a fan of television and the experiences of other Arabic-speaking fans that I was witnessing in online communities, mainly on Facebook. I began exploring questions of how fans’ cultural participation can contribute to our understating of non-traditional political participation.

Since then, I have studied two groups of fans: the Arab fans of Game of Thrones; and displaced fans of Syrian TV drama serials. Fandom in the Arab world is an understudied aspect of media globalization, generally studied only indirectly. For instance, scholars have previously taken up questions of nationalism and modernity by studying the popularity of Arabic popular television series such the Syrian show Bab Al-Hara i.e.: The Gate to the Neighborhood (Al-Ghazzi, 2013) and the Egyptian show Al-Helmiya Nights i.e.: The Nights of Hilmiyya Neighborhood (Abu-Lughod, 2005). Others have explored the appeal of Arabic-dubbed Mexican and Turkish television serials as providing Arab audiences with counter-hegemonic alternatives to the American domination of TV programming internationally (Kraidy and Al-Ghazzi, 2013; Kraidy,1999). By contrast, my work focuses on fans of local and international television as an interpretive community (Radway, 1984; Jenkins, 1992), exploring the dialogic, affective, and collaborative articulations of fans’ cultural and political formations through media and popular culture. My projects are based on online interviews with fans as well as textual analyses of their posts.

Figure 1 Katty Alhayek arrived at Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience featuring composer Ramin Djawadi at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States (September 29, 2018).

My first research project on fandom engaged with transnational fan objects and practices around Game of Thrones (GoT) in the Arab world (Alhayek, 2017). I have been a fan of GoT since 2012, the year I arrived at the United States from Syria and started a Master’s program at Ohio University. I found myself attached to the world of GoT and using its characters' motives, journeys, and agendas to explain to my American colleagues the real-world trajectory and complexity of the Syrian conflict. I got attached to the Stark family’s experiences of displacement, Daenerys' longing for a homeland, and Tyrion’s struggle with his ambiguous position of marginality and privilege. I was drawn to the American world of GoT fandom and obsessed with fans' speculative fiction. However, my ethnicity as a Syrian and native speaker of Arabic made me yearn to find an Arabic-speaking fan community of GoT. In 2014, I found just such a community, and a massive one, on Facebook. As I interacted with the “Game of Thrones–Official Arabic Page” (GoT-OAP), I became interested in the cultural production through which these Arab fans shared their experience of cultural consumption. As of 2016, the page had over 240,000 Arab followers, and was the largest and oldest of its kind among competing similar pages.

In this project, I noticed that the Arab fans of this show are different from the above-mentioned audiences of the popular Arabic, Mexican, and Turkish serials. I argue that GoT Arab audiences are part of the global fandom of quality television or what is referred to as “Prestige TV.” This type of TV, mainly, targets global elite audiences who are highly educated, affluent, and male (Hassler-Forest, 2014). The characteristics of the Arab fans of GoT I worked with reflect this observation. In fact, 80% of the GoT-OAP followers were men; many of whom were educated, highly skilled, and tech-savvy professionals. As a woman fan, I recognize that quality television shows like GoT still cater to women viewers by presenting diverse, strong women characters like Arya, Brienne, Cersei, Daenerys, Sansa, and Olenna Tyrell. Of course, in a predominantly Western series all these women are white. Thus in this project, I showed how Arab fans responded to the whiteness and Eurocentrism of GoT and their sense of racial difference by producing hybrid posts and memes that reflect their local contexts and lived experiences. For example, one of GoT-OAP administrators’ favorite characters is Arya Stark. In figure 2, the fans imagine a conversation between George RR Martin and his wife by choosing three sequential moments from an Egyptian show. An Egyptian actress and actor are imagined as Martin and his wife in an argument over the destiny of Arya in which the wife is threatening Martin to not kill off Arya unless he wants to sleep on the couch. This meme was inspired by a true anecdote of Martin’s wife fondness for Arya and the consequences of killing Arya off on the couple’s marriage (Harvey-Jenner, 2015).

Figure 2 An imagined argument between George RR Martin and his wife.

Other posts, such as figure 3, use the show’s imagery for political satire, in this case ridiculing Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s current president. In the post below, el-Sisi is compared to Daenerys, represented as a “savior" while being in fact a ruthless dictator.

Figure 3 a hybrid post that compares el-Sisi with Daenerys.

GoT fandom in the Arab World continues through Facebook communities like “House of the Dragon Arab Fans” which has over 158.3K members (Figure 4).

Figure 4 A screenshot of “House of the Dragon Arab Fans” group on Facebook as of Sept 14, 2021.

While waiting for the upcoming prequel, House of the Dragon, which is scheduled to air in August 2022, Arab fans in this Facebook community express their nostalgic feelings to the time when GoT was airing, their unhappiness with how GoT ended (Figure 5), and their excitement and high expectations of the upcoming prequel.

Figure 5 In this meme, Arab fans use Egyptian comedian and actor Adel Imam to channel their unpleasant feelings about the GoT ending. The meme conveys that it’s a perfect and great series, but its ending was substandard.

My second project on fandom is about how displaced Syrian audiences challenge the harsh conditions they live in to use social media to participate in conversations with creators of TV drama that resemble their lived experiences of war and displacement (Alhayek, 2020). When we think about the Syrian war and subsequent refugee crisis, currently the largest displacement crisis in the world (UNHCR, 2021), we don’t tend to imagine these displaced populations as fans and active audiences of entertainment. However, since 2013 I have observed the interactive trend on Facebook, of befriending, specifically during Ramadan, writers of acclaimed Syrian TV drama serials such as the 2013 Manbar Al Mota (Platform of the dead); the 2014 series Qalam Humra (Lipstick); and the 2015 Ghadan Naltaqi (We’ll Meet Tomorrow).

Figure 6 A fan praise of Ghadan Naltaqi on the Facebook page of the show’s creator Iyad Abou Chamat on November, 15, 2015.

From the early 1990s until the war, the Syrian drama industry flourished and was known for the high quality of its content and production (Kraidy, 2006). Many of the Syrian drama creators became known for their commitment to social and political transformation, exposing structural inequalities and the corruption of the ruling class in Arab societies (Salamandra, 2011). However, after the 2011-Syrian Uprising and subsequent war, the quantity and quality of TV drama declined significantly. Nevertheless, some high-quality shows continued to be produced, for instance, Ghadan Naltaqi. In my research on fan engagement with that show, I explore questions like how such post-2011 top-quality shows (albeit rare) symbolize for the fans the continuity of the respected tradition of Syrian drama’s critiques of power structures. It also provides fans with cultural references that invoke their sense of dignity and pride and alleviate their feelings of loss and humiliation (Zeno, 2017). I demonstrate that the interactive, emotional relationship between fans and drama creators serve as political interventions to cope with a highly polarizing conflict and create healing spaces at a critical remove from violent media discourses.

Going forward, I hope to expand my research on fandom of quality television, race and class. I want to think more about the definition of quality television in the local context of Syria. I want to explore how fandom of local quality television like Ghadan Naltaqi is different or similar to fandom of global quality television like Game of Thrones. I intend to analyze the expansion of streaming media like Netflix and HBO Go to attract audiences in the Arab world, and what that suggests about relations of class, race, education, gender, sexuality, and nation in fans’ online engagement with Western streaming media.

Biography

Katty Alhayek is an Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Ryerson University (renaming in process) in Canada. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a graduate certificate in Advanced Feminist Studies, and Master's degrees in International Affairs and Media Studies from Ohio University in the United States. Her scholarship centers around themes of marginality, gender, intersectionality, displacement, media audiences and fandom in a transnational context. Her publications include articles in the International Journal of Communication; Feminist Media Studies; Gender, Technology and Development; andParticipations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies.

References

Abu-Lughod, L. (2005). Dramas of nationhood: The politics of television in Egypt. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Al-Ghazzi, O. (2013). Nation as neighborhood: How Bab al-Hara dramatized Syrian identity. Media, Culture & Society, 35(5), 586‒601.

Alhayek, K. (2020). Watching television while forcibly displaced: Syrian refugees as participant audiences. Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 17(1), 8-28.

Alhayek, K. (2017). ‘Emotional Realism, Affective Labor, and Politics in the Arab Fandom of Game of Thrones.’ International Journal of Communication, 11: 1-24.

Harvey-Jenner, C. (2015, July 15). The big reason Arya Stark won’t get killed off Game of Thrones any time soon. Cosmopolitan. Retrieved from https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/interviews/a37208/arya-stark-maisie-williams-killed-off-game-thrones/

Hassler-Forest, D. (2014). Game of Thrones: Quality television and the cultural logic of gentrification. TV/Series,(6), 160‒170.

Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual poachers: Television fans and participatory culture. New York, NY: Routledge.

Kraidy, M. M. (1999). The global, the local, and the hybrid: A native ethnography of glocalization. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 16(4), 456‒476.

Kraidy, M. M., & Al-Ghazzi, O. (2013). Neo-Ottoman cool: Turkish popular culture in the Arab public sphere. Popular Communication, 11(1), 17‒29.

Kraidy, M. M. (2006.) ‘Syria: Media Reform and Its Limitations.’ Arab Reform Bulletin 4, no. 4.http://carnegieendowment.org/files/kraidy_may06.pdf

Radway, J. (1984). Reading the romance: Women, patriarchy, and popular culture. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

Salamandra, C. (2011.) ‘Arab Television Drama Production in the Satellite Era.’ In Soap Operas and Telenovelas in the Digital Age, edited by Diana Isabel Arredondo Ríos and Mari Castañeda, 275-290. New York: Peter Lang.

UNHCR. (February 5, 2021). Syria Refugee Crisis Explained. UNHCR. Retrieved fromhttps://www.unrefugees.org/news/syria-refugee-crisis-explained/ 

Zeno, B. (2017.) ‘Dignity and Humiliation: Identity Formation among Syrian Refugees.’ Middle East Law and Governance 9, no. 3: 282-297.

Global Fandom Conversation Series Elizaveta Kasilova (Russia) and Antonella Mascio (Italy) (Part Two)

Cosplay “My sister as a student from Slytherin”. The author Tanya Koltunova. Photo from Russian fan group Typical Potterhead.

Elizaveta Kasilova (Russia). Costumes, cosplay, daily-life, nostalgia

Reading your article, Antonella, I started to think about the connection between costumes, cosplay, daily-life, and nostalgia. And I decided to focus in my text on the ways in which the characters’ clothes are interpreted and reproduced by Russian fans.

(I can primarily say that unfortunately I’m not a great expert on cosplay which, of course, is very important for such a topic. Thus, the part of the text connected with cosplay should be considered as preliminary ideas and observations).

As the scientists say, nostalgia – the very important concept for your investigation – leads fans to create clothes, artifacts which relate to their favorite book or film. Such artifacts and costumes can reflect fans’ ideas of the historical and cultural period which is described in this book\film. Trying to be closer to the world created by the author, fans choose things that are similar in style to the historical period. By the analysis of the clothes fans try to interpret the character more deeply – and therefore the character’ costume sometimes is understood as an encoded message with symbolic elements. Constructing the character’s clothes of describing it in fan text, fan can express three aspects: 1) how he\she imagines the historical period; is historical accuracy important for him\her; 2) how fan interprets the character; 3) how fan changes the character’ clothes for everyday life, for another historical period or for another genre.

1)    Cosplay “Harry Potter as a girl”. Photo from Russian fan group Typical Potterhead 

Speaking about historical accuracy in fan works, I would venture to suggest that it isn’t so important for the Russian fanfics and cosplay which I have analyzed. The Harry Potter circle touches on the 1970s, 1980s, and a little bit 1990s (and, if we speak also about Fantastic Beasts – on 1920s-1930s), but fans don’t pay much attention to the historical and cultural characteristics of this period – probably because the main plot goes in magic world which isn’t so connected with muggles’ world and muggles culture. In such a case it is more important to create a magic atmosphere rather than to reflect the historical period.

1)    Cosplay “Luna Lovegood”. The author MaddyHaru (https://vk.com/maddyharu). Photo from Russian fan group Typical Potterhead 

Cosplay “Ron, Luna and Harry”. The authors Wizard, Артур Овчинников (Arthur Ovchinnikov), Haruhi, Black Jack. Photo from Russian fan group Typical Potterhead

For example, cosplay photos from one of the most popular Russian HP fans groups Typical Potterhead[1] show that for good cosplay you need a witch robe, a magic wand and – this is very popular detail of a magic cosplay look – a special striped tie or scarf with the colors of some Hogwarts’ faculty. It is worth mentioning that striped ties and scarfs were invented by the creators of the HP films, but the fans obviously take it as a “canonical” detail by Rowling.

Cosplay “Ginny: When you missed the Hogwarts Express”. The author Алина Плетнёва (Alina Pletneva)

As the photos show, the fan can often simplify and adjust such magic look into outfits for everyday life. To become a Hogwarts student, you need a white shirt, a tie, round glasses – and some old book in hand. I think the reason for this adjustment is in the fact that the Hogwarts students, despite being wizards, are also ordinary students with many ordinary school things – homework, tests, exams and so on.

The Russian fanfics also show that the fans can easily change the character's costume if it is needed for the plot and idea. Thus, Harry Potter and his friends can wear T-shirts and jeans (even at Hogwarts!), and prof. Snape can wear a polo-neck sweater or jacket. But there is a rule for all fans: every costume should demonstrate the character traits and some aspects from the HP book. For example, the prof. Snape’s polo-neck sweater should be black because he wears only black robe in the book, and this color is connected with his withdrawn, dark, unhandsome manner. As another example I can mention Hermione Granger who can wear dresses, sweaters, and other “muggle” clothes, but it should not be very sexy - because Hermione in book is some kind of a “bookworm” who doesn’t think about clothes a lot. 

As a conclusion I want to point out that investigating clothes seems to me a very productive way to see how fans interpret the characters, how they feel the book and how they try to use some details from everyday life in fan works. Speaking about nostalgia, I can only say that nostalgia in Russian HP fandom probably doesn’t connect with some historical period and clothes associated with some epoch – maybe because of the HP world specifics. The HP world is placed by Rowling in a concrete period but – at the same time – it is a story which could be installed in many decorations. These decorations should be old – probably that is the only condition for good fan work.

Fan art to the fan fic “The light in the opposite window”. The author of fan art Климентина (Clementine). This image describes Hermione and prof.Snape in “muggle” clothes – for this part of the article: “The Russian fanfics also show that the fans can easily change the character's costume if it is needed for the plot and idea. Thus, Harry Potter and his friends can wear T-shirts and jeans (even at Hogwarts!), and prof.Snape can wear a polo-neck sweater or jacket. But there is a rule for all fans: every costume should demonstrate the character traits and some aspects from the HP book”.

Global Fandom Conversation Series: Elizaveta Kasilova (Russia) and Antonella Mascio (Italy) 

Second Round

(Part Two)

The Handmaid's Tale – Italy - Court of Milan

Antonella Mascio (Italy). Nostalgia, Costumes, Protest

Thank you, Elizaveta for your remarks. In this final round I’ll come to the conclusion by focusing on two points linked to your presentation:

-       Nostalgia and fandom

-       Costumes and protest actions

Nostalgia and fandom

Nostalgia in TV series is a complex issue that several scholars have been working on for a few years (Holdsworth, 2011; Lizardi, 2015; Niemeyer, 2014). The “nostalgia effect” appears in the discussions of fans both during the period between seasons and at the end of a TV series. Italian fans of The Americans, for example, have used the forums to express their missing of the series. 

There are cases in which fans also express nostalgia in response to certain narrative devices. It happens, especially when design products, objects or soundtrack pieces recalling a near past appear on screen, with the effect of producing a wide range of reactions, depending on the age of the audience. Certainly, the setting of dramas in a different era than the present day, whether near or far in time, is nothing new, especially for melodramas, thrillers, costume stories and spy stories. It is usually not the case of teen dramas that traditionally target a young model audience and present stories that develop in today's world. 

When the time setting is in the past, the TV series raises awareness and attracts wider audiences than those usually associated with the teen genre. This play between different temporal regimes is renewing the universe of teen dramas, so much so that sometimes, even when the story develops in the contemporary world, the sets include products that, although easily recognizable, are no longer part of ordinary everyday life (I'm thinking about the audiotapes in 13 Reasons Why, for example). It is precisely these objects, together with music pieces, or technological instruments from a few decades ago (e.g. the Walkman), that attract the attention of the older fandom, functioning as a “different” key to reading the text, thus producing a nostalgic effect. This is especially evident in online forums, where discussions are more articulated and in-depth, and where the average age of users is usually higher than in social media. 

If we take Stranger Things as an example, younger fans identify the historical period in which the series is set and are fascinated by it, but are unable to grasp the set of intertextual references that the text proposes. Older fans, on the other hand, are more easily involved in a double reading of the TV series: On the one hand, they enjoy the story and follow the adventures of Eleven, Mike and the Demogorgon; while on the other hand they recognize the references to E.T., Stand by Me, or the musical pieces of the period that function as dejà vu and allow them to go back to their own adolescence. It is therefore a kind of “focused nostalgia” directed at certain audiences: this is what emerges from a series of interviews conducted for a recent research study (Mascio, 2021).

I believe that the use of narrative formats belonging to the teen drama genre including “vintage” elements (such as vinyl records in Sex Education) defines new opportunities for fandom and points us to possibilities for further studying. 

Costumes and protest actions 

The Handmaid's Tale – Italy

I would like to conclude our exchange, Elizaveta, by returning to the theme of costumes in TV series, taking up some of your precious suggestions. The way in which fans bring back items of clothing in their everyday life, and use them, is indeed interesting because it opens many investigative paths: are they forms of appropriation of the TV series? Do they show attachment to a single character? What possible functions can they refer to?

La Casa de Papel - Italy - Banca d'Italia, Milan

- La Casa de Papel - Italy – University La Sapienza

It is difficult to find answers to these questions in just a few lines, and the points that you Elizaveta have highlighted are very important: the wardrobes of the characters are in fact connected more generally to the interpretation that fans of the TV series conceive. Of course, as we said in our first round, the aesthetic appeal of certain outfits can be relevant for many fans, but for others it is not the only reason of interest. Now, I would like to consider some cases in which the connection between outfits on screen and the world of fashion is not important. Instead, what is relevant is that certain outfits incorporate specific meanings and represent fundamental references in the narrative. These are mainly outfits that function as uniforms and, in some cases, become actual icons. When fans use them, the goal is to appropriate those specific symbols and meanings. 

Let’s take the case of The Handmaid’s Tale. The costume consisting of a red tunic and a headdress with white flaps is configured in the story as a uniform. And as such, it refers to specific meanings: it defines the Handmaids, distinguishing them from the other women in Gilead's society. In the first instance, this garment became part of the Internet’s participatory culture, due to the many memes created by fans immediately after the release of the first season. The meme is an important communication product that fans generally make extensive use of. It invites the viewer to make an interpretion effort, creating a sort of short-circuit between different contexts (Shifman 2014). It is perhaps for this reason that the meme is also an important engine for creating a sense of community among fans, as a reaction to the fragmentation of the digital environment. Those who are able to recognize the source text, and are at the same time able to understand the additional message and enjoy the irony that usually accompanies it, share cultural knowledge and values with a community - partly manifest, partly imagined (cf. Anderson 1983). 

Together with the memes, images of women, dressed in a similar way to the Handmaids, have appeared on various media, gathered in cities in different countries, including Italy, to protest against gender discrimination policies, linked in particular to abortion laws. This has started a process of incorporation of meanings focused precisely on the uniform, which soon became an icon capable of being recognized as the symbol of defence of women's rights. These rallies wink at fandom, but are not necessarily organized by fans. However, the fandom of the TV series has a fundamental role in determining a semantic shift leading to the use of the uniform of The Handmaid's Tale in the streets: by amplifying the success of the series and the issues it deals with, it has in fact strengthened the circulation of its images. All this shows how fandom significantly participates in the negotiation of meanings that emerge from TV series, thus creating a strong relationship between the fictional world and the real one. According to this reading, uniforms have been transformed over time from uniforms into entities that can be defined as “cultural armour”.

La Casa de Papel and Squid Game function in a similar way. The Squid Game's uniform, for example, was used by environmentalists to protest during Cop 26, in Glasgow, in the fall of 2021. In the case of La Casa de Papel, on the other hand, the red uniforms and Guy Fawkes masks have become a political symbol and have been worn in protests in different parts of the world, including Italy. In October 2020 a flash mob with the uniforms of La casa de Papel was organized in front of the Bank of Italy’s headquarters in Milan, to ask for economic support in a moment of crisis related to the Covid 19 pandemic. University students in Naples also used the same uniform to protest against the increase in university fees, singing in chorus “Bella Ciao”. The uniform was immediately interpreted according to the symbolic meanings it incorporates, and the media had no doubt in recognizing the themes of La Casa de Papel in the flash mob organized by the group of young people. In turn, the fans have taken up and re-articulated the newspaper articles about the protests in the online discussion pages, using them as further forms of valorisation of the TV series, and creating a short-circuit between fiction, offline reality and the online world.

It seems to me that these modes of appropriation of fictional content are leading us towards a further reinterpretation of the role of TV series, at a social and cultural level. The uniforms in these cases represent an obvious reference to television productions: They are easily recognizable and reproducible. They become, for the wearer, a declaration of participation in the community-audience connected with the original text. Moreover, their use by several groups of people as symbols of protest, in different areas of the globe, confirms the existence of forms of negotiation between “real” and “fictional” on the public scene. 

I would also like to have your opinion, Elizaveta, on the relationship between TV series, costumes and forms of protest, but we will keep it for the next occasion.

So, thank you again for this rich exchange of ideas, and thank you for your participation at this very difficult time. Our research on fandom has given us the opportunity to exchange opinions and ideas about what is happening, and I hope we will soon have the chance to talk a lot more about fiction and reality, in more serene circumstances. 

La Casa de Papel - Italy - University of Naples

References

Anderson, B. (2006), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London - New York.

Holdsworth, A. (2011), Television, Memory and Nostalgia, Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies, USA – UK.

Lizardi, R. (2015), Mediated Nostalgia: Individual Memory and Contemporary Mass Media, Lexington Books, Lanham, Maryland.

Mascio, A. (2021), “Sponsored Things: Audiences and the Commodification of the Past in Stranger Things”, in T. Mollet, L. Scott (eds.), Investigating Stranger Things Upside Down in the World of Mainstream Cult Entertainment, Palgrave Macmillan – Springer, London – Cham.

Niemeyer, K. (2014), Media and Nostalgia: Yearning for the Past, Present and Future, Palgrave Macmillan, 
Basingstoke - New York.

Shifman, L. (2014), Memes in Digital Culture, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

[1] URL: https://vk.com/isolemnlyswearthatiamuptonogood