Cult Television Notes - Jancovinch and Hunt
The Mainstream, Distinction, and Cult TV
Cult TV is defined by how specific groups appropriate shows, not by inherent features.
Cult texts are positioned against the mainstream, a classification as fluid as the cult itself.
Conceptions of cult TV stem from "subcultural ideologies."
This essay examines how these categories are constructed within cult TV fandom.
Subcultural Ideologies and Power Dynamics
Cult subcultures present themselves as oppositional to the mainstream.
Their reading strategies reflect privilege and authority within the cultural field.
Cult fandom rejects the middlebrow and favors form over function, mirroring bourgeois taste.
Fans ridicule the "naïve" pleasures of ordinary people, reinforcing bourgeois authority.
Internal struggles within fandom are common, fueled by the need to distinguish authentic insiders from inauthentic outsiders.
Community membership is valued for its exclusivity, which is threatened by widening popularity.
Fans often perceive the media as trying to incorporate and commercialize their subculture.
The fear of "selling out" leads to policing of subculture boundaries.
Exclusivity is maintained through constant identification and rejection of cultural interlopers.
As a cult text gains appreciation, fans seek new forms of exclusive appreciation or abandon the text.
Examples:
The X-Files' move from BBC2 to BBC1 led fans to shift allegiance.
The Six Million Dollar Man gained a cult following after its mainstream popularity waned.
Policing Boundaries and Defending Exclusivity
Cult TV fandom opposes both the media and the academy.
These institutions provide communication systems that foster a sense of community.
Similarities between fan discourses and academic writing arise from shared middle-class backgrounds and interconnected intellectual development.
Mediating Exclusivity: Communication and Fandom
The media facilitates fandom by providing communication systems that unite fans and create an imagined community.
Cult television publications offer guidance to navigate the exclusive world of fandom.
They provide background details and news to help fans make distinctions and appreciate cult texts.
However, media dissemination also threatens fandom by undermining the sense of exclusivity.
Fan media face the challenge of maintaining exclusivity while disseminating knowledge.
One solution is to present themselves as part of fandom, not as external media entities.
Example: SFX magazine positioned its editors as fans with knowledge, not journalists.
Attacks on readers' letters and hypothetical inauthentic fans reinforce the magazine's exclusivity.
These magazines address the "genuine" insider, distancing themselves from media incorporation.
Constructing Cultural Distinctions
Cult TV fans often criticize the industry, viewing it as the inauthentic other.
Executives are seen as prioritizing commercial success over show quality.
The industry is perceived as lacking originality and ruining established shows for mainstream appeal.
Fans value quality shows for their rarity and exclusivity.
Censorship can increase a text's value; unreleased footage holds particular appeal.
Examples:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes banned after the Columbine shootings gained value.
Edited content in certain countries gives importance to the complete original versions.
The PAL system's extra lines are viewed as a sign of exclusivity.
Magazines authenticate versions of programs and warn against others.
Channel Four's censored screening of Angel led to fan hostility and a subsequent unedited rescreening.
Opposition to the Mainstream Extends to Other Fans
Fans distance themselves from the stereotype of "the anorak," who is seen as nerdy, asexual, and obsessive.
Fans resist being seen as overly serious by ridiculing other fans' behavior.
Criticism is directed at fans of Doctor Who and Star Trek, central to the external image of fandom.
The "Generic Letter" satirizes emotionally stunted fans who don't truly "get it."
Fandom defines itself in opposition to both the mainstream and the mainstream's construction of fandom.
Gendered oppositions exist, with the mainstream often attacked as feminized.
Women within fandom are often attacked or dismissed.
Example: SFX insulted a female fan for her views on The X-Files, associating her tastes with Take That fans.
Magazines ridicule other fans' competences and reading strategies.
Derision is directed at those who "fancy" cast members, suggesting that sexual attraction should not be the primary basis for evaluation.
Assigning Value
Debates exist within fan cultures regarding the merits of film versus television. Horror: TV Horror is considered inherently inauthentic. Examples stars from Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and shows Buffy.. Stars came from TV.
Horror fans value subversion and political resistance, viewing horror as dealing with taboo material.
Science fiction fans tend to prefer television over film.
They believe television's constraints emphasize ideas over special effects.
Star Trek fans are ambivalent about the film versions, preferring character-driven stories over special effects.
While special effects are appreciated, ideas, characters, and arc storylines are prioritized.
Television adaptations can improve franchises by forcing creativity and idea-driven content.
Publications like Cult Time and TV Zone focus on character and arc story lines.
They provide summaries of characters and arcs, highlighting key episodes.
This focus opposes the emphasis on canons and directors within horror film fandom.
TV series value writers and stories over directors, who often change.
The focus on arc and character emphasizes literary values.
Cult movie fandom seeks legitimacy through avant-garde aesthetics, while cult TV fandom draws on literary values.
Emphasis on scripts, character development, and storytelling techniques reflects literary values.
Tracing literary references and origins is central to cult television fandom.
Examples: Parallels between Frank Herbert's Dune novels and the Star Wars series.
Star Wars is favored because it is a series.
The Hugo awards confer legitimacy on TV shows, typically bestowed on science fiction literature.
The focus on literary values extends to characters and actors, with attention to performance quality.
Cult TV fandom evaluates shows based on the quality of performances.
Production Values
Cult TV fans generally welcome big budgets, despite associations with prioritizing special effects.
Poor production values can contribute to cult television's low esteem and the nerdish image of its fans.
Example: The SFX letter editor criticized Neverwhere's cheap video tape production.
The Media, the Academy, and the Development of Cult TV Fandom
Similarities in tastes between mainstream and legitimate culture are not surprising.
Cult fandom is intertwined with the media and the academy, not separate from them.
Cult audiences initially emerged in relation to film, connected to the economics of cultural industries and intellectual developments.
Art cinema and repertory theater movements of the postwar period catered to a small, educated audience.
These cinemas classified and reclassified films, shaping the development of the cult movie.
Art and repertory cinemas developed out of economic motivations, legitimizing cinema as an art form.
Developments were linked to intellectual movements, such as Dwight Macdonald's critique of mass culture.
Repertory cinemas recontextualized old movies, claiming them as previously undiscovered gems.
Cult TV emerged later than cult movies, driven by changing audience demographics.
The proliferation of video, cable, and satellite in the 1980s threatened network television audiences.
Tendencies Created:
Video distributors and cable channels sought cheap content, turning to old television shows.
Old shows were recontextualized and reappraised, becoming the center of new fan cultures.
Industries developed relationships with cult audiences, actively courting and servicing them.
Channels promoted the development of new fan cultures around previously neglected shows.
Like repertory cinemas, they classified and reclassified old shows through schedules and advertising.
Terrestrial television stations and networks adopted new strategies to secure audiences.
Networks focused on "must see TV" to attract specific audiences, using shows as anchors.
These "quality" television shows targeted educated, middle-class audiences with spending power.
Cult audiences became increasingly important to the industry.
Sky built itself through established U.S. cult shows.
Fox used shows designed to appeal to cult audiences to generate dedicated followings.
Cult TV has become a market category, with the BBC directly addressing cult audiences.
Shifting Academic Attitudes
Developments relate to changing academic attitudes towards television.
Film studies focused on aesthetic analysis, while television studies had a long tradition in the social sciences.
Aesthetic reevaluation introduced previously despised texts into the canon.
Scholars presented themselves as oppositional, demonstrating cultural authority through their mastery of the pure gaze.
They converted cultural competences into cultural capital, conferring aesthetic value onto objects.
The development of semiotic and structuralist analysis facilitated the analysis of cult forms.
Critics studied science fiction and crime thrillers on television.
Early work at the Open University analyzed Doctor Who, with John Tulloch's expertise stemming from his fandom.
Popular television fiction was defined as "quality."
Critics re-evaluated old favorites and recognized new "quality" shows, particularly those produced by MTM.
Structuralism allowed for symptomatic readings, revealing contradictions and tensions within dominant ideology.
Critics maintained the idea of a dominant mainstream culture against which subcultural forms offered resistance.
Inconsistent and contradictory views of the mainstream led to varying levels of value assigned to opposing texts.
Trash texts like Leave it to Beaver were praised for their ineptness and contradictory ideological positions.
Opposition Between Industry and Subcultural Fan
This was evident in critics like John Fiske, who drew on the work of de Certeau.
The industry was seen as a force of domination, against which consumers struggled.
Consumers subverted industry texts for their own purposes, resisting media control.
Henry Jenkins used these ideas to discuss fandom, viewing fans as "textual poachers."
Jenkins justified the academic study of Star Trek and argued that fans and academics share similar reading strategies.
He used the fan to criticize the academy, calling for greater engagement with the popular.
If fandom provided new ways of reading to the academy, the academy offered fandom ways of legitimating itself.
Fans appropriated the language of postmodernism in their celebration of shows like Twin Peaks.
The show had a diverse following, building on David Lynch's cult following and academic acclaim.
New fans learned to legitimate their taste through postmodern terminology.
The history of aesthetic television study is bound up with fan cultures.
Fandom and the academy are interconnected, as fans seek legitimacy and academics establish themselves through aesthetic transgression.
Conclusion
The idea that cult TV fandom is not the product of opposition to cultural industries or the academy is highlighted.
The economic and intellectual developments that have produced niche television markets is explained.
Cult TV fandom's claim of being outside economics mirrors bourgeois aesthetics.
The tastes associated with cult TV fandom are socially defined and linked to structural inequality.
These tastes stem from economic investments and positions of social and economic privilege.
Fans use these tastes to justify their distinction and superiority over those who prefer the mainstream.