Week Nine - Filip

Hills (2004) lists a number of defining characteristics of cult TV that contain similarities to the defining characteristics of pop genres (e.g. fantasy, science fiction) discussed earlier in the Pop Genres paper. Can you identify these and discuss why you think that these characteristics are repeatedly viewed as underpinning popular genres.


Hills (2004, pp. 509 – 510) briefs three common characteristics attributed to Cult TV:
-Cult-as-Text – Often sci-fi, fantasy and horror.
-Cult-as-Inter-Text – Fan magazines with critical and journalistic analysis of the show.
-Cult-as-Audience – Show achieves ‘cult status’ as a result of fan support. ‘This type of argument positions cult TV as a ‘grassroots’ phenomenon, assuming that it is created by fans rather than by media producers.’

The narrative style is then described as having a ‘hyperdiegesis’ component ‘(adapting the term ‘diegesis’, which means the represented narrative world), suggesting that cult texts can be distinguished by their extended, expansive narrative worlds’ (Hills 2002, p. 137)
This infers a distinctive mark of a cult show is the typical narrative ‘world’ being expanded to a narrative universe, wherein fanciful fantasy elements are treated as commonplace, exemplified by Hill (2004, p 511) via the ‘Buffyverse’ of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Hill goes on to describe how while the continuity with this universe is generally preserved, the show maintains interest through subversion and reestablishment of the status quo. All the while episodes utilize fan investment to build story, in-jokes and character relations. Hills identifies this as an aspect of Cult TV which distinguishes it from soap operas and dramas. (Hills 2004, p. 512)

I believe the characteristics recurring throughout popular genres appeal to an audience’s sense of wonder. Leading questions are scarcely resolved, serving more to ascertain a context for an ‘endlessly deferred narrative’ with a focus a few protagonists. (Hills 2002 pp. 134 – 135)



What role does Hills (2004) suggest the fans play in the construction of cult TV? How is new media central to this?

Hills (2004, pp. 518 – 519) suggests fans operate through various methods:

-Fans organize TV programmes into an ‘intertextual network’ sharing enthusiasm across multiple -media platforms. (Books, films, comics)
-Fans actively prescribing the title of ‘cult’ to a series
-Fans assemble ‘Appreciation Societies’; ‘Fans also produce commentaries, fan fiction, episode guides and production histories that all work to sustain the distinctiveness of fandom as a community that reads the ‘intertextual network’ of cult TV shows in a characteristic way.’
-Fans create a market for memorabilia, merchandise and props related to their favourite shows.


‘Most of these fan activities are carried out both online and in real life: fans can gather together in virtual spaces as well as in hotel function rooms... by making it easier for fans to contct other like-minded devotees, the web increases the possibility of small-scale organized fandoms emerging around a wider variety of TV shows.’ (Hills, 2004, p. 519)
New media enables advanced communicative capabilities between fans, which of course helps the fandom to grow, and also gives more exposure, as Hills cites Kristen Pullen ‘the Internet may have begun to mainstream fandom’. (2000, p. 60)




References:
Hills, Matt. (2002) Fan Cultures, Routledge: London and New York.
Hills, Matt. (2004), Defining Cult TV; Texts, Inter-texts and Fan Audiences, The Television Studies Reader, R. C. Allen & A. Hill. London and New York: Routledge.
Pullen, Kirsten. (2000) ‘I-love-Xena.com: Creating Online Fan Communities’ in David Gauntlett (ed.) web studies, Arnold, London, pp. 52-61.