Abstract
Early work in fan studies examined fan activities as forms of resistance, enabling fans to reclaim ownership of popular culture. Jonathan Gray (2003) and Cornel Sandvoss (2005), however, argue that to fully understand what it means to interact with texts we must also examine anti-fans. This article builds on Gray and Sandvoss’s work by expanding on Francesca Haig’s (2013) discussion of ‘snark’ fandom. We suggest that the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy (2012) has generated an ironic, even guilty fandom, in which readers and viewers bemoan the series’ flaws, while enjoying (sometimes furtively) the texts. We structure this as an analysis of the anti-fandom’s denigration of Fifty Shades as ‘bad literature’ and ‘bad eroticism’ to be consumed by an imagined female reader. We argue that this cultural disavowal of Fifty Shades is based upon cultural distinctions of taste (Bourdieu, 1984) and suggest that the BDSM community’s rejection of the books’ sexual politics is founded upon its own distinction of taste.
Introduction
The recent explosion of EL James’s Fifty Shades (2012a, 2012b, 2012c) trilogy into the best-seller lists has drawn a vastly negative, critical reception. Media discourse around Fifty Shades has focused predominantly on two areas: the trilogy’s genesis as fan fiction (Boog, 2012; Deahl, 2012; Knobloch, 2012; Razer, 2012) and its erotic content (Bennett-Smith, 2012; Davis, 2012; Goudreau, 2012; Pelling, 2012), with the press decrying the former and seemingly perplexed that women read the latter. We suggest that Fifty Shades has, in a similar way to Twilight (the literary and cinematic series which inspired author EL James’s trilogy), generated an ironic, even guilty, fandom in which readers and viewers bemoan the series’ flaws, while enjoying (sometimes furtively) the texts. This article, through an overview of audience and anti-fandom studies, posits that Fifty Shades’ status as the current hated text par excellence offers a critical case study for analysing the ways in which anti-fans respond to a text. We suggest that the propensity for contemporary fan studies to focus only on fans of a text fails to engage with a significant number of readers, and thus does not allow for a wide variety of understandings of that text.
We structure this as an analysis of the anti-fandom’s denigration of Fifty Shades as ‘bad literature’, and furthermore ‘bad eroticism’ to be consumed by an imagined female reader. We suggest that anti-fans position themselves not only against and in opposition to the novels but also as superior to fans, drawing on distinctions of taste as defined by Bourdieu (1984), and utilizing forms of subcultural capital (Thornton, 1995). We undertake an analysis of Fifty Shades anti-fandom as evidenced on Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and LiveJournal 2 to demonstrate that engagement with the trilogy happens not just through a rejection of the text, but in fact through a close reading of and critical engagement with it, which is performed and then shared over differing media and modes. We further contend that in doing so Fifty Shades anti-fans position themselves as gatekeepers, thus reinforcing their subcultural capital which in turn enforces specific taste cultures. 3
In writing this article we have also been aware of our own positions as fans and academics. Much as Jenkins positions himself as an ‘acafan’ (Hills, 2002) in his 1992 work on Star Trek fandom, we too consider ourselves acafans. While not Twilight or Fifty Shades fans, we have written about the fandoms and are members of various fan communities as well as scholars. We have therefore attempted to achieve a balance between these positions of mutual knowledge and critical distance (Tulloch and Jenkins, 1995). Recent work on fan studies has focused predominantly on fan cultural production, situating fans as resistant to mainstream commercial culture. As Anne Gilbert points out, this shift in theorizing the fan appears largely to be a result of acafan
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analysis deliberately moving away from earlier, negative understandings of fannish behaviour: Perhaps because a good deal of fan scholarship has been produced by individuals who also participate in fandom (see, for instance, Jenkins, Poachers; Hills, Cultures; Baym, Tune In), this scholarship frequently has a decidedly positive slant, focusing on the potential for agency and self-enrichment inherent in audience activity. (Gilbert, 2012: 166)
Central to this analysis then, is the notion of taste, and its interrelation with the hierarchical structure of cultural consumption. Cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu asserts in his study of distinctions of taste that [t]aste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or betrayed. (Bourdieu, 1984: 6) The denial of lower, coarse, vulgar, venal, servile – in a word, natural – enjoyment, which constitutes the sacred sphere of culture, implies an affirmation of the superiority of those who can be satisfied with the sublimated, refined, disinterested, gratuitous, distinguished pleasures forever closed to the profane. That is why art and cultural consumption are predisposed, consciously and deliberately or not, to fulfil a social function of legitimating social differences. (Bourdieu, 1984: 7)
Situating audience studies
Work on fandom over the last two decades has proved instrumental in moving the field away from early notions of the fan as dysfunctional (Fiske, 1989; Hills, 2002; Jenkins, 1992) and is revealing ‘a more complex relationship between fans as agents and the structural confines of popular culture in which they operate, a relationship which cannot be reduced to one being simply a consequence of the other’ (Sandvoss, 2005: 3). An examination of what it means to be a fan in this recent discourse has focused primarily on the participatory, resistive elements of fan culture: Abercrombie and Longhurst developed a sliding scale of fans, cultists and enthusiasts, defining fans on one end as ‘those people who become particularly attached to certain programmes or stars within the context of relatively heavy mass media use’ while enthusiasts on the other end are likely to have specialized media use which ‘may be based around a specialist literature, produced by enthusiasts for enthusiasts, even though the producing company may be part of a conglomerate’ (Abercrombie and Longhurst, 1998: 138–139). Grossberg (1992) suggests that fandom can be associated with a particular form of emotional intensity or ‘affect’, and Jenkins argues that ‘fans enthusiastically embrace favoured texts’ (Jenkins, 1992: 18). Indeed, Jenkins later argues that fan responses to texts do not simply involve fascination or adoration, but also encompass frustration and antagonism, and the combination of these responses motivates fan engagement with the media: ‘If the original work did not fascinate fans, they would not continue to engage with it. If it did not frustrate them on some level, they would feel no need to write new stories’ (Jenkins, 2006). Work on fandom has also moved into the second and third waves of fan studies (Gray et al., 2007), which moves away from the ‘incorporation/resistance’ paradigm favoured by Abercrombie and Longhurst towards an analysis of the social and cultural hierarchies within fandom, and the role that various kinds of capital play in fan consumption. Under these newer waves of fan studies, fans, particularly those involved in fan cultural production, have often been discussed as interpretive communities (Costello and Moore, 2007; Felschow, 2010; Hills, 2006). As Deborah Kaplan suggests: ‘(t)o be a member of fandom is to be a member of this interpretive community, because regardless of whether or not an individual fan produces or consumes analysis, the environment of fandom is richly interpretive’ (Kaplan, 2006: 137).
Within this community is the potential for the negotiation of the meanings of texts, as Parrish (2007) contends. Meanings are negotiated within fandom in a variety of ways. Categories in fan fiction such as ‘gen’ (in which a sexual relationship between characters is not the primary focus), ‘het’ (whereby the characters’ heterosexual relationship forms the basis of the story) and ‘slash’ (which posits a homoerotic relationship between two characters) allow writers to ‘(carve) out alternative pathways through texts’ (Gray, 2010: 143), while meta, or fan-written analysis, provides further opportunity for fans to discuss and renegotiate meaning.
This negotiation is not limited to textual analysis, however. Coppa argues that fan-made videos ‘reappropriate objects and turn them into sites of pleasure and surplus’ (2009: 110), while Jenkins (2006) observes that fanvids ‘are often presented as visual evidence in support of a slash hypothesis about the series.’ Fan mixes (a compilation of songs inspired by a fannish source) offer a reflective analysis of a show or film by adopting songs which are neither officially sanctioned or fan-created to provide other fans with new ways of engaging with and understanding the text (Jones, 2012). Macros (an image superimposed with a caption which subverts the meaning of the picture) also allow fans to engage with, negotiate and at times subvert the meaning of a text by bringing them into conversation with other topics or providing a humorous commentary (Klink, 2008).
Framing anti-fans
If fans and fan activity can tell us something about a series, as the scholars referred to thus far have demonstrated, does it therefore follow that we can also learn something about a text from the ways in which non-fans and anti-fans read it? Jonathan Gray raises an important critique of reception studies, arguing that by focusing so intently on the fan it distorts our ‘understanding of the text, the consumer and the interaction between them … To fully understand what it means to interact with the media and their texts, though, we must look at anti-fans and nonfans too’ (Gray, 2003: 68). Gray argues that the attitudes of non-fans to a text should lead scholars to assess the impact this has on the study of texts for the very nature and physicality of the text changes when watched by the non-fan, becoming an entirely different entity … non-fan engagement with the televisual text denies us the existence of the solitary, agreed-on text with which to anchor such discussions. (Gray, 2003: 75)
In his analysis of The Simpsons fans, anti-fans and non-fans, Gray suggests that although fandom and anti-fandom could be positioned on opposite ends of the spectrum they perhaps more accurately exist on a Möbius strip with ‘many fans and anti-fan behaviours and performances resembling, if not replicating, each other’ (Gray, 2005: 845). Haig suggests that the critical fandom generated by Twilight fits this description ‘in both its regularity and its emotional involvement: critical fans both devour each new book and film, and engage in sustained, passionate debates about the series and its flaws’ (Haig, 2013). For Haig, however, ironic anti-fandom (or snark) is neither uncritically affectionate, or unaffectionately critical, rather, it recognizes Twilight as ‘junk food’ for the brain: When one enjoys junk food, one doesn’t engage in a critical analysis of it. You know it’s bad for you and take pleasure in it, but engaging in a detailed analysis of its dietary shortcomings isn’t part of the pleasure. This is what seems to me to be distinctive about Twilight snark: the criticisms aren’t incidental to the pleasure taken in the texts; they appear, in large part, to constitute that pleasure. This form of critical fandom does not simply recognise Twilight as rubbish and enjoy it in spite of that recognition; the recognition itself and the analysis, discussion and parody that it permits, provide much of the fans’ pleasure. (Haig, 2013)
Fifty Shades anti-fandom: Fighting the evil of horrific erotica so you don’t have to
While studies thus far have tended to focus on internet forums and message boards (cf. Edwards-Behi, forthcoming; Gray, 2005; Strong, 2009) as the prime locales for both the performance and observation of anti-fandom, discursive rejection of Fifty Shades of Grey has been enacted in differing online realms. From micro-blogging sites such as Twitter or Tumblr, to the communities of Facebook and Livejournal and the videoblogging of YouTube, Fifty Shades anti-fandom is performed to be viewed but also, more importantly, shared.
On YouTube this is most apparent in the ‘ … reads’ series, in which video bloggers recite favourite loathed passages of James’s text, such as American actor and comedian Gilbert Gottfried’s recital 5 which, as of the time of writing had exceeded two-and-a-half million views (JestComedy, 2012). 6 However, as the anonymous author of ‘The Joys of Live-Reading the Hated Book’ has recently observed, this YouTube craze is not limited to the supposed authority of celebrities, such as Gottfried or indeed Twilight actress Kristen Stewart, but also extends to the viewing public overall (Anon, 2012) as well as academics, if such a division can even be considered unproblematically. Such videos verge on parodic performance, reinforcing what is seen to be the aforementioned inherent ‘bad quality’ of the author’s prose, and enacting a carnivalesque inversion of the private ‘shame’ reading into public hate reading.
Madeline Klink (2008) discusses anti-fans’ use of humour in her analysis of the LiveJournal Twilight fan (and anti-fan) community, Twatlight, noting that – not unlike Tumblr users – ‘Twats’ (as community members refer to themselves) gather media clips from around the internet, from their own cameras and mobile phones, and from physical texts, posting them to the site along with their own commentary. Macros and other explicitly humorous productions form a major part of the site, with ‘lolfans’ (the term Klink uses for people who read the books solely for the purpose of snarking on them) contributing many of the texts. Furthermore, Twatlight is interesting not only for the way in which it positions Twilight fans, but because it gave rise to the Fifty Shades of Grey anti-fan community, 50shadesofWTF. The community description makes no bones about positioning the community as a site of anti-fandom: Three books. THREE. Three movies. THREE. The Twilight/New Moon/Eclipse/Breaking “Wrong, bitches!” – E.L. James There’s tons of Twilight fanfiction all over the Internet, but there’s this particular piece that inexplicably stood out from the rest: Fifty Shades of Grey. Apparently, editorials still have no problem in publishing bad literature, and people still have no problem in making it popular. I do. We do. And we get to make fun of it with a vengeance. (say2, 2012)
It has been marketed as ‘erotic’, which invariably meant it would be as genuinely erotic as a soggy plaster … The only ostensible difference between this book and those heavy-breathing Mills and Boon type paperbacks you can get for £3.99 in WH Smith is that you can read this on a Kindle, so when you’re on the bus nobody can tell you’re looking at filth. (Reynolds, 2012)Down [sic] Dawn madness has fucking ended already [sic] is slowly coming to an end (THANK YOU, LORD OF MORMONISM). The last film came out on November 2012 [sic] and that’s it, right? Right?!
We would suggest that these distinctions are also evident in @50shadesofROFL and @myoutergoddess’ decision in July 2012 to continue live tweeting the books to raise money for and awareness of the Spanner Trust (50ShadesOf ROFL, 2012). The Trust ‘defend[s] the rights of sadomasochists of all sexual orientations and work[s] specifically to reverse the UK court ruling which made certain SM activities illegal even though all parties consent’ (Spanner Trust, n.d.). The decision by @50shadesofROFL and @myoutergoddess to continue hate-reading the books in order to raise money for this charity clearly positions them in solidarity with the BDSM community and, as with Gehayi and Ket Makura on LiveJournal, in possession of more cultural capital than Fifty Shades fans whose understanding, it is supposed, of BDSM is minimal. Indeed, an analysis of the users’ Twitter feeds demonstrates an awareness that the BDSM as portrayed in the books is not the same BDSM as members of the community understand it, demonstrated in the following tweets: ‘the physical pain you inflicted wasn’t as bad as the pain of losing you’ Yes! That’s why we do it! We put up with being hit to keep our men … OH NO WAIT! THATS [sic] NOT BDSM, THAT’S *ABUSE* Oops! Easy mistake though, eh? #RAGERAGERAGE. (@50shadesofROFL, 2012a) Note the stereotyping: old Dommes are ‘impossibly glamorous’. Old subs are pathetic and broken. (@myoutergoddess, 2012b)
@50shadesofROFL and @myoutergoddess also comment on the trilogy’s genesis as Twilight fan fiction, drawing on popular critiques of the genre as well as raising the issue of slash fiction. They tweet: ‘Prediction 3: we continue to compare & contrast with Twilight. Only not so much if [sic] the contrast. #fiftyshadesofFanFic’ (@myoutergoddess, 2012c). However, they again frame this in opposition to popular discourse, tweeting: ‘Srsly [sic]. I read fanfic, *actual fanfic*, for free on teh [sic] interwebz [sic] and I’d’ve stopped reading this by now. This dialogue … just … *gobsmacked*’ (@50shadesofROFL, 2012b) It is also worth noting that much of the Fifty Shades anti-fandom within Twilight fandom too is a result of the ideological conception of publishing fanfiction as an original work as being ethically wrong, as well as EL James’s perceived contempt of the fandom. For many fans, as Sarah Wanenchak notes, given that fannish works are driven primarily by collective love for a particular media property, there is a sense among most members of fandom as a whole that the seeking of monetary gain from fannish works is not only legally questionable but sullies the respect that fans ideally have for the object of their fandom. (Wanenchak, 2012)
Conclusion – anti-fans and the distinctions of (dis)taste
While Strong (2009) argues that Twilight anti-fandom enacts ‘a form of symbolic violence, in that the underlying point of the discussion is not about Twilight at all, but about constructing teenage girls as a group not worth taking seriously’ (Strong, 2009: 2) we would argue that the oppositional reception of Fifty Shades of Grey says more about anti-fans than it does about those actually ‘enjoying’ the trilogy, who are largely silent in mainstream discourses. In fact, one wonders whether this constructed Other of the ‘vanilla’ housewife, the undiscerning reader of ‘trash’, truly exists except as an imagined spectre, or whether, for the majority of readers, it is this ‘hate-reading’ (Anon, 2012) of a text with its constructed ‘perfect storm of conflicted, critical fandom’ (Haig, 2013), which offers the real readerly pleasures of performing and sharing distinctions of taste.
Such distinctions, as we have suggested, are enacted through a literary vanguard who deride the series, asserting that it is ‘bad literature’, ‘popular’, ‘drivel’, ‘as erotic as a soggy plaster’ and yet take on a role of extreme close reading and analysis so as to demonstrate their own cultural capital. This performance undoubtedly chimes with Haig’s assertion that this is for anti-fans precisely how pleasure is derived. Indeed, a similar explanation can be mounted for the BDSM community’s vocal rejection of James’s novels. The community indeed engages with the books and creates a range of texts that critique elements such as the portrayal of BDSM as abusive and dangerous, but they do so while reinforcing taste culture and building cultural capital. Furthermore, the knowledge many of these anti-fans have of BDSM contributes to their rejection of the trilogy as more than simply bad erotica or bad writing. It becomes, not only ‘doing erotica badly’ but furthermore, ‘doing (and representing) BDSM badly’ which allows for the anti-fan to demonstrate their own superior knowledge. But can we consider this as a simple demonstration of cultural capital? To do so would mean to accept a model that posits the community as the dominant – no pun intended – culture, which of course is a problematic term to attribute to a pathologized, prosecuted and at times vilified group. 9 It is in this respect that Sarah Thornton’s (1995) analysis of club cultures (and their opposition to the mainstream) may well shed some light.
In coining the term ‘subcultural capital’ Thornton argues that subcultural groups are in possession of a subtype of cultural capital that operates outside the spheres of class and economy, and instead relies on taste. Sub-cultural capital works in a similar way to cultural capital by allowing its holders to see themselves as distinguished (and distinguishable from those without that subcultural capital, namely the mainstream) and to be seen as such by relevant subcultural others (Jenson, 2006). Sub-cultural capital within the BDSM community is thus accumulated through an engagement with the scene, a knowledge of the nuances of the community, and a distinction between BDSM and mainstream or ‘vanilla’ sexual practices. Are the BDSM community’s responses to Fifty Shades then a demonstration of sub-cultural capital? Milly Williamson argues that Thornton’s approach is a misinterpretation of Bourdieu, asserting instead that: while fans may be accruing a form of cultural capital through their fandom, it is neither subordinate or subcultural. It is not possible to possess ‘sub’cultural capital in Bourdieu’s schema … Subcultural capital is simply the cultural capital that is jockeying for position with more traditional and established forms of cultural capital (Williamson, 2005: 105, emphasis in original). as we have said multiple times, the fans are NOT bad people for liking this series. We’re saying that they aren’t CAREFUL readers. The fans aren’t reading the same way that we do … We worry about those messages [the novels send] and the possibility of someone picking up on them – consciously or subconsciously – and getting hurt. If even one person gets hurt because of those books, that’s too many. And we worry about misogynistic messages being unintentionally passed on for another generation or two. That worry is largely why we’re doing this in the first place. I don’t know how many people we’re reaching, but we have to say something. *But we do not pass judgment on the readers.* [sic] If they decide to get into BDSM, we want them to be fully informed. If they decide to consent to participate in a BDSM scene, we want them to understand what they’re consenting to. But if they decide to get into something extremely kinky? More power to them, and we hope they enjoy themselves. (Gehayi, 2013)
