The Television Fan

French scholar Michel de Certeau asserts that audiences are not passive consumers but instead active interpreters of media texts. This follows Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model of communication first developed in 1973 in which he proposed that individuals create their own meaning from the same text, depending on their personal situation and unique background. Hall emphasized the idea of audiences being empowered as they play an active role in decoding messages disseminated to them by relying on their own social contexts such as cultural background, economic status, and personal experiences.

De Certeau likens audience members to poachers as “they move across lands belonging to someone else, like nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write, despoiling the wealth of Egypt to enjoy it for themselves.”[1] The Practise of Everyday Life discusses how people personalize mass culture by interpreting texts beyond its initial purpose and intended meaning.

Henry Jenkins developed de Certeau’s textual poaching theory further in relation to fan cultures in an attempt to remove the stereotyped popular representation of the fan by the media as “cultural dupes, social misfits, or mindless consumers.” Jenkins describes fandom as “a vehicle for marginalized subcultural groups to pry open space for their cultural concerns within dominant representations,”[2] as they remake programs in their own image and interpret them in accordance with their own interests. For example, True-Blood.net, ‘The original fansite for True Blood on HBO,” hosts not only photos, news and spoilers, but podcasts discussing the show.

Brian suggested we think about fandom and how it is perceived nowadays. I think it has become much more mainstream and acceptable to talk about and engage passionately with TV shows. Those who participate in ‘fannish modes engagement’ (within reason) are no longer belittled as Jenkin’s suggested they were.

I think about what has now become known as “The Red Wedding Episode” in Series Three of Game of Thrones. Fans began to post their reactions to the episode after a series of viral YouTube clips. As the community for fan interaction continues to grow as a result of the affordances of the Internet, I think that more and more people are joining in the discussion and feel more comfortable to do so. Fans (and friends of fans) are proud to show how attached they are to the characters that inhabit the fictitious worlds of their favorite TV shows.

I think it has even done complete shift to the point where you are self-conscious if you are not a fan of a popular show. As I haven’t seen the series, I felt so out of touch and isolated after Patrick’s shocking and heartbreaking death in Australia’s Offspring as fans discussed extensively and grieved together on social media, on public transport, in cafes and even on other TV programs like The Project.

Preceding globalization, traditional forms of community based on where you live, class, religion, ethnicity began to be supplemented or surpassed by what we choose to consume, including food, fashion, music and other lifestyle choices that form our identity. Today, our taste gives clues to who we are, providing a cultural discrimination and opportunity to form a unique identity.

I hadn’t seen True Blood before the screening and came with an open mind because I love HBO productions like Game of Thrones and Girls. I thought like most HBO series, there were a lot of characters and multiple plots being explored simultaneously and most of the unfolding drama was lost on me due to lack of familiarity. That aside, I could see the vampire ‘world’ or ‘culture’ that has been created. For example, there were several scenes where vampire characters cried blood as well as textbook traits like pale skin and intolerance to sunlight exposure. I think in a genre blend of ‘horror, fantasy, romance & southern gothic,’ it is the details in the story world and the rules and comments provided that fans fetishize and not just the characters themselves.

[1]  De Certeau, M, 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. The United States of America: University of California Press. Pg 174

[2] Jenkins, H, 1998. Star Trek Rerun. Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching. Great Britain: Routledge. Pg 472