Reading Henry Jenkin’s piece on Star Trek fandom got me thinking a lot about modern fandom in the age of the internet. My experience with fandom was heavily informed by my high school presence on Tumblr during the golden years of fandom (for me it was 2012-2016). Nowhere is Michel de Certeau’s notion of the reader as a “poacher” more true than it was in the environment of Tumblr during the 2010’s. A piece of media was seen largely as a jumping off point, a blueprint that would be taken by the fandom and expanded in thousands of different directions that Jenkins could have never predicted in 1988. Jenkins reflects on the Kirk/ Spock fandom as one of the most subversive elements of the Star Trek community, with many fans finding it too far a digression from the source material. This same impulse was a major element of 2010s Tumblr fandom. Starved for representation, the LGBTQ community was able to use fandom to “poach” representation from their favorite forms of media, even if the creators never intended that kind of interpretation. It was impossible to be on Tumblr during the 2010s without encountering fandoms for the television shows Supernatural and Sherlock. Both of these fandoms heavily focused on gay ships: Dean and Castiel in Supernatural, Sherlock and Watson in Sherlock. The problem was that, despite the urging of fans, neither one of the relationships was ever confirmed, and in both cases, the creators of the shows actively disliked this fan interpretation. This mirrors the relationship between women and Star Trek analyzed in the article — when a group that is dismissed by society and not given the representation they crave, fandom serves as a place where these groups can create that representation on their own, ignoring the parameters dictated by the creators.
A more modern fandom that this got me thinking about is the Succession fandom. What I find interesting about the Succession fandom is the discrepancy between how the show presents itself and the audience that it seems to effect the most. Succession, on the surface, is all about sneaky business deals, backstabbing, wealth, and power. And yet, it is a running joke that the core of the fandom is young, mentally ill women. Go on Tik Tok and you’ll find countless edits of sad Roy siblings set to sad Mitski music. Kendall Roy, the main character of the show, is often referred to in the fandom as “babygirl,” with countless young women claiming that this forty year old billionaire business man is “just like me.” This discrepancy follows the difference between male and female viewers, highlighted in Jenkin’s article. Male viewers are more interested in “physical action leading to physical resolution.” Will Waystar Royco acquire the rival company? Will Kendall succeed in ousting his father as CEO? Meanwhile, the female viewers are far more interested in “psychological action leading to psychological resolution.” Will Shiv ever allow someone to love her? Will Kendall ever heal from his trauma and escape the legacy of his father? Female viewers are so invested in Succession because, despite its seemingly masculine content, it deals with many of the psychological issues they face in their daily life as women— the need to be loved, the inability to escape one’s family, the ugly ways unresolved trauma manifests itself. This highlights the power of fandom to draw out elements of a piece of media that may have gone ignored in the more mainstream, masculine interpretation.
Your insight about fandoms on Tumblr and the LGBTQ community really got me thinking about some of the present day fandoms I have witnessed emerge, thrive, and eventually be totally dismissed by present-day production companies. While reading your post, I couldn't help but think about the "Jemily" fandom from Criminal Minds. Fans who for years were convinced that long-time characters and badass FBI agents Jennifer Jareau and Emily Prentiss were secretly in love with each other. It was a fandom that began during the years when Tumblr was all the rage, but found an even stronger community when Tik Tok was on the rise. I have seen countless "Jemily" edits with fans trying to show the potential of their love story using clips that go all the way back to season 1 of the 15 season show. In fact, the fandom grew so loud that at one point even both actresses caught on to the idea and pitched it to CBS. And although CBS said no, I've seen interviews where actresses AJ Cook and Paget Brewster talk about how much they love the idea of Jemily, and that they used to purposely brush shoulders and hold hands under the table when the cameras were rolling, just to give the fans little nuggets of romance. So not only were the fans using their fandom as a place to create their own representation, even the actors were participating too.
ReplyDeleteWhen the show wrapped in 2020 there was an even bigger surge in support of the Jemily fandom, and many new fan fiction stories arose creating alternate endings where Emily and JJ ended up together. So of course when Paramount Plus rebooted it in the fall, there was hope that perhaps the fan fiction would be true, maybe we would get our happy Jemily ending. But of course (no surprises here unfortunately) Paramount did the opposite of what fans were hoping for. The reboot has no Jemily in sight, in fact, they barely cross paths in settings that don't involve the entire team. So what happened during those interim years, what happened to the spark between JJ and Emily?
I guess maybe the better question is, why were CBS and Paramount so against a relationship that fans and even the actors were pulling so hard for?
I'm really interested in the proposed male/female dichotomy of viewer engagement that Jenkins proposes and that you discuss here with regards to both the Succession and Supernatural fandoms. I think there's definitely something to applying more traditionally feminine story structures to what might be considered an otherwise "masculine" narrative, but I also felt like that's painting with a broad brush. However, I do think it's interesting the discrepancy between who the network thinks (perhaps correctly, perhaps not) their primary/target viewer is, and who the loudest fans tend to be. In both cases, the shows appeared to be aimed towards a male audience, but the majority of the fandom spaces are made up by young, largely queer and/or mentally ill women.
ReplyDeleteI also think it's interesting that these fandoms choose these kinds of shows, as well. I think that, too, goes back to what Jenkins was discussing—why Star Trek? Why Succession or Supernatural? I disagree that it's because more traditionally "female-geared" content like soap operas require less retrofitting and modification in order for women to invest themselves in it or identify with it. I think it comes down to a few things: 1) these shows invite engagement just by their very natures—genre, promotion, etc etc; 2) these shows provide a large "sandbox" to play around in with regards to the worldbuilding; 3) characters with the potential for/implied deep, rich, complex emotional interiorities (not that we have to actually explore those interiorities in the show).