Buffy/Cult
Hills (2004) suggests that the fans of cult TV have a large role to play in how a television show attains the status of "cult TV".
Hills (2004) says that; "cult TV (is) a 'grassroots' phenomenon, assuming that it is created by fans and not media producers." By this he means that it becomes cult TV because of the fans not that it is literally created by them. This argument suggests a few things. The first thing is that media producers have no control over the creation of cult TV; "cult TV can be neither made or promoted as such by media producers." (Hills, 2004). This in turn suggests that cult TV is a seemingly random phenomenon as it cannot be predicted by media producers. There are obviously a few issues with this. It is common to find writers, Joss Whedon the writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for instance, who are capable of producing multiple cult TV shows. This suggests that there is a formula or perhaps a style which most lends itself to cult TV that these writers somehow tap into. So by this logic cult TV is not at all random and does in fact come from the media producers.
Hills (2004) also discusses the merits of new media in cult TV fan bases; "Most of these fan activities are carried out both online and in real life" and "Fans also produce commentaries, fan fictions (and) episode guides". With the increasing prevalence of the internet fans can communicate in ever increasing numbers with ease. Whereas before, when exposure to a cult TV following required some physical interaction, people can quite easily come into contact with a fan following and join in, no matter their geographical location. This means that cult TV can really grow, and indeed we do see that cult TV has grown with the internet. Fans also produce their own reactions to cult TV, most interestingly with fan fiction. Fan fiction is the practice of producing fiction set in or using characters from a world of the fan's choosing. This can be see, for example, with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fan fiction is a relatively new media phenomenon and to this date is the most active way to engage with a text.
Fan fiction also raises another question, one not so heavily explored in Hills' (2004) article, that being what is cult TV in the modern day? If one was to travel to any fan fiction site or media based forum they would discover that there is a 'cult-like' followings for practically every text, not just the ones that we consider to be cult TV. Cult TV is increasingly a less relevant genre due to the increasing popularity of all television shows and the ease at which fans of said show can respond to those texts, much like the cult TV fans did in years past. Cult TV has become lost in a wave of varied shows with equally fanatical followings.
Hills, M. (2004). Defining Cult TV; Texts, Inter-texts and Fan Audiences, The Television Studies Reader, in R. C. Allen & A. Hill. London and New York: Routledge.
Whedon, J. (Director/Writer). (1999, December 14). Hush [Television series episode]. In Whedon, J., Berman, G., Gallin, S., Kuzui, F., & Kuzui, K. (Executive Producers), Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros.
Thanks Rowan, great. This begs the question of whether Hills'definitions are still valid (ten years after publication). I agree with you that the landscape has changed on so many levels.
ReplyDelete