The above article talks about how Dr. Who, a British Sci-fi/Fantasy show is becoming more and more
popular here in the U.S. I first
realized this about two years ago when I attended a large multi-media
convention in Atlanta. It was the weekend of the Dr. Who U.S. Season Premiere and there was a much anticipated new Doctor
character being introduced for the first time. Representatives of BBC America attended the convention
and held a pre-screening of the episode for convention attendees. My friend wanted
to go to the screening and I went with her. I was stunned when the line for the
event was wrapped around the block several times! As I sat in that huge hotel
ballroom with people from all over the country, watching a British TV show, I was struck by what a global world it really is!
I love to talk about fandoms, because one fandom in
particular has had an incredibly positive impact on my life. That is the 1980’s
TV show Beauty & the Beast. When
I first got involved in this fandom, Fandom Studies itself was only in its
infancy. Over the last 20 years, Fandom
Studies has become an acceptable area of communication research. This has been such a wonderful discovery for
me!
It all began with the publication of the book, Textual Poachers: Television fans and
participatory culture, by Henry Jenkins.
It was published in 1992 just as Beauty
&t he Beast was being canceled with a major uproar from the fans - who
were angry at not only CBS executives, but also at each other. Jenkins devoted
a whole chapter in his book to the Beauty
& the Beast situation and some of his insights are very enlightening,
even all these years later.
In the article that I did my case facilitation on, Plant,
Reysen, Roberts and Gerbasi (2014) take a very positive view of fandoms and
show how they can be a force for
Globalization and prosocial values.
I see this in my own life. Being from a very traditional
Italian-American family, I had a very narrow view of the world growing up. This view might have continued into adulthood
if not for me falling in love with Beauty
& the Beast. Slowly, through attending Beauty & the Beast conventions, I was able to meet and become
friends with a wide variety of people. These conventions are mostly held in the U.S.,
but people from all over the world attend them. I have what I consider to be
very good friends who live in Italy, France, and Australia. Not to mention acquaintances
from many more countries.
When the terror attacks in Paris happened months ago, my
first thought was about the fans that I know in France, one of whom lives near
Paris. Years ago, I might have heard
about something like the Paris attacks and thought it just a news story, a horrible
one for sure, but still one that was very far away from me.
The values of Beauty
and the Beast are about seeing beneath the surface of a person and respecting
them for who they are, not what they look like, or how much money they have.
The world of the Tunnels beneath New York City (where the Beast lives with a
group of societal outcasts) was presented as the utopian society that we would
all like to see in our world. Beauty & the Beast fans try to uphold these
values as much as we can. Like the Furry Fandom mentioned in the article, we
also raise money for charity at our yearly convention. We are a small group
too, but we often raise thousands of dollars for a charity that we select each year
based on how it relates to the shows values. For me, I think the give and take of values associated
with the show is definitely bidirectional. That is, I think I always had some
of these latent values in me, but being around people who also have them has
definitely helped to shape those values even more and given me an outlet to put
them into action.
One thing I love about the Plant, et al study is that they see a practical use for the link between
fandoms and prosocial values. They say there
might be the potential to find alternate ways to correct or prevent negative,
anti-social behavior. This would surely be a major breakthrough. Personally, I would
love for more people to experience the transformative power that fandoms have
had on me, and I hope that fandoms will prove to have an even greater positive impact
globally in the future.
Plante, C. N., Reysen, S., Roberts, S. E., Gerbasi, K. C.
(2014). “One of Us”: Engagement with
fandoms and global citizenship
identification. Psychology of Popular
Media Culture. 3/1, 49-64.
