As Matt Hills (2004) said, "Cult TV can be analysed through a series of fan practices, and depends on fan activities." This is most definitely the case with Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where thanks to sites like fanfiction.net have evolved beyond just the television show to an entire universe or Buffyverse if you like.
In my opinion, Buffy the Vampire Slayer offers the viewer a world so vastly different and more exciting than their own that they want to become involved in it. This is how the sense of cult fiction has been created. Buffy fans become so enthralled in what they are seeing that they seek to carry on the adventure by creating fan fiction and similar fan created art.This poses the questions of how and why the fans do this, and how the writers have enabled them to do so.
Fanfiction began in the times between television series, when the viewers wanted more while they waited for the next series to be written, filmed and finally released. They developed their own plots sometimes sticking to the canon and other times completely disregarding it. By ending television series with cliffhangers, writers are allowing the imaginations of their viewers to run wild. They can dream up, brain storm and write plots of their own in the form of fanfiction, poems, ships and several other types of fan art. They share them with other fans and the story can develop the stories and continue to build on them.
Fanfiction authors are usually female. Although in saying that, fanfiction is not usually by one single author, it is based on collective ideas produced by member of the fandom and then collated in the piece of fanfiction which may go on to influence and inspire other pieces.
Fanfiction is important to both the producers of the television shows as well as the authors of the fanfics because it keeps the world of the texts alive through the fandom so that the viewer will continue to want more.
thoughtful comment, Megan, although Hill covers a lot more ground than you mention. I wonder why fanfic authors are largely female. How do you know this is true, and what do you think it signifies in cultural sense?
ReplyDeleteYea agree with Mike, why exactly do females write more fan fiction? I also wonder if they write more on female centric shows like Buffy or they are compelled by other less obvious female figures. Be interesting to know..
ReplyDeleteI found in internet that this phenomenon has been subjected to academic analysis by MIT's Henry Jenkins. Jenkins (1992) suggests in 'Textual Poachers' that fanfiction is a reaction on the part of a female audience trying to find their own pleasures in media that caters mostly to males.
ReplyDeleteHi there, I probably should have referenced this a bit better, I found the information in an book called Fan fiction and fan communities in the ages of the internet : New essays editted by By Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse (2006) retrieved from http://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UgZsi_DOKoQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=Fan+fiction&ots=DCZy0gUoZ4&sig=unCjRtZVu_81QpToeQ0i6tc8IPs#v=onepage&q=Fan%20fiction&f=false
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