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133 pages

English

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Description

Few could have predicted the enduring affection inspired by Joss Whedon’s television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With its origins in a script Whedon wrote for a 1992 feature film of the same name, the series far outpaced its source material, gathering a devoted audience that remains loyal to the show more than a decade after it left the airwaves. Heralded for its use of smart, funny and emotionally resonant narrative; subversive and feminist characterizations; and unique approaches to television as an art form, the show quickly developed its own unique fan community, who built on existing narratives through fan fiction, media manipulation and performance.

Fan Phenomena: Buffy the Vampire Slayer explores how this continued devotion is internalized, celebrated and critiqued. Featuring interviews with culture makers, academics and creators of participatory fandom, the essays here are a window into the more personal and communal aspects of the fan experience. Essays from critical thinkers and scholars address how Buffy inspires the creation of, among other enduring artifacts of fandom, fan fiction, crafting, performance, cosplay and sing-alongs.

As an accessible yet vigorous examination of a beloved character and her world, Fan Phenomena: Buffy the Vampire Slayer provokes a larger conversation about the relationship between cult properties and fandom, and how their interplay permeates the cultural consciousness, in effect contributing to culture through new narrative, academia, language and political activism.

Introduction – Jennifer K. Stuller

The Best, Worst, Known, and Not-So-Known, Pop Culture Influences on the Buffyverse – Jennifer K. Stuller

'Let's Watch a Girl': Whedon, Buffy, and Fans in Action – Tanya R. Cochran

Ficcers and Shippers: A Love Story – Mary Kirby-Diaz

Interview – Nicki Stafford: Organising The Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011

Buffyspeak: The Internal and External Impact of Slayer Slang – Liz Medendorp

'Welcome to the Hellmouth': Harnessing the Power of Fandom in the Classroom – Amy Peloff and David Boarder Giles

Interview – Rhonda Wilcox: The 'Mother' of Buffy Studies

Buffy, Dark Romance and Female Horror Fans – Lorna Jowett

Seeing Green: Willow and Tara Forever – Kristen Julia Anderson

The Art of Buffy Crafts – Nikki Faith Fuller

Interview – Clinton McClung: Founder of the touring 'Once More With Feeling' interactive event

Buffyverse Fandom as Religion – Anthony R. Mills

Interview – Scott Allie: Writer, and Senior Managing Editor at Dark Horse Comics

Unlimited Potentials – David Bushman and Arthur Smith

Sujets

Social Science

Popular Culture

Sociologie, société et politique

General officer

Cultural studies

Television

History of film

General

Radio

Film

Informations

Publié par	Intellect Books
Date de parution	01 janvier 2013
Nombre de lectures	3
EAN13	9781299718654
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0992€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

EDITED BY
JENNIFER K. STULLER
Credits
First Published in the UK in 2013 by Intellect Books,
The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First Published in the USA in 2013 by Intellect Books,
The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2013 Intellect Ltd
Editor: Jennifer K. Stuller
Series Editor and Art Direction: Gabriel Solomons
Design support: Chris Brown
Copy Editor: Emma Rhys
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written consent.
A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Fan Phenomena Series
ISSN: 2051-4468
eISSN: 2051-4476
Fan Phenomena: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
ISBN: 978-1-78320-019-1
ePUB ISBN: 978-1-78320-096-2
ePDF ISBN: 978-1-78320-095-5
Printed and bound by
Bell & Bain Limited, Glasgow
Contents
Introduction
JENNIFER K . STULLER
The Best, Worst, Known, and Not-So-Known, Pop Culture Influences on the Buffy verse
JENNIFER K. STULLER
‘Let’s Watch a Girl’: Whedon, Buffy, and Fans in Action
TANYA R. COCHRAN
Ficcers and ‘Shippers: A Love Story
MARY KIRBY-DIAZ

Interview
Nikki Stafford: Organizing The Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011
Buffyspeak: The Internal and External Impact of Slayer Slang
LIZ MEDENDORP
‘Welcome to the Hellmouth’: Harnessing the Power of Fandom in the Classroom
AMY PELOFF AND DAVID BOARDER GILES

Interview
Rhonda Wilcox: The ‘Mother’ of Buffy Studies
Buffy , Dark Romance and Female Horror Fans
LORNA JOWETT
Seeing Green: Willow and Tara Forever
KRISTEN JULIA ANDERSON
The Art of Buffy Crafts
NIKKI FAITH FULLER

Interview
Clinton McClung: Founder of the touring ‘Once More With Feeling’ interactive event
Buffy verse Fandom as Religion
ANTHONY R. MILLS

Interview
Scott Allie: Writer, and Senior Managing Editor at Dark Horse Comics
Unlimited Potentials
DAVID BUSHMAN AND ARTHUR SMITH
Contributor Biographies
Image Credits
Acknowledgements
I was late to the Buffy party. Having ignored enthusiastic praise from friends, as well as recommendations from family, it wasn’t until I read Tim Goodman’s review of the seminal sixth season musical episode, ‘Once More With Feeling’, in the San Francisco Chronicle that I decided to give it a chance.
In that one episode I fell in love – and recognized what I’d been missing; a funny, intelligent, emotionally resonant, creative, layered, and subversive serial that I should have been paying attention to all along.
Since that night of singing and dancing from Scoobies, demons, and residents of Sunnydale, California, I’ve been a fan. More than that, my fandom has been expressed in ways I’d never before considered, thus connecting me to friends and colleagues – many of whom were directly critical to the making of this book.
First I’d like to commend the contributors to this anthology for their flexibility and their creativity, as well as for their presentations of smart accessible research, and their unique, often personal, meditations on fandom.
My gratitude extends to the Buffy as Archetype: Rethinking Human Nature in the Buffyverse course co-creators and participants from Winter 2004 at the University of Washington. Along with those thinkers, and those in the Whedon Studies Association, I was able to see that both Buffy and scholarship have many points of entry – and that the show itself is a connective force.
I want to especially thank Dr. Amy Peloff. Like, Buffy Summers, you share the power. (Plus you are very smart, and very pretty.)
I’d mentioned my fandom for the series has been expressed in unexpected and extraordinary ways, so on that note I’d like to thank, Jessica Obrist, for helping me express my fandom for Buffy in a way I’d never imagined – performing as Joyce Summers in 2012’s Whedonesque Burlesque. Thanks also go to the cast and crew for helping me conquer Fear Itself like a Slayer, and to my husband, Ryan Wilkerson, who responded to my request for a transportable six-foot tall, Monolith-like replica of the MILKBAR from the season three episode, 'Band Candy,' for my first-ever burlesque act with a 'Can do!' – and sat in the audience all five nights of the show run smiling and cheering for every act, every night.
A woman needs Scoobies, and I’m ever-grateful to have them in spades.
I’d like to thank photographers Jules Doyle, Inti St. Claire, and Sayed Alamy for sharing their work in this text, as well as the subjects for agreeing to use of their image. Al Lykya and Allexa Lee Laycock deserve a shout-out for recreating the epic Spike and Buffy liplock at GeekGirlCon ‘12’s ‘Once More With Feeling’ sing-along. Thank you also to Clinton McClung, Seattle’s own Sweet, for bring his event to the convention and for agreeing to be interviewed for this anthology.
Thank you also to Nikki Stafford, Rhonda Wilcox, and Scott Allie for their interviews. Many thanks to Aub Driver at Dark Horse for providing images from the canonical Buffy comics.
I’m grateful to Katrina Hill and Clare Kramer for inviting me to participate in the 2012 Comic-Con panel on 'Comics and the Whedonverse' – as well as to Travis Langley, Alex Langley, Brian Keathley, and Geek Nation for their support.
Suzanne Scott was my go-to reference source on fan studies, and I am grateful for her scholarship. I’d also like to thank the organizers of the Comics Arts Conference, the Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses, and The Whedon Studies Association for their continued support.
A special mention of Ensley Guffey is in order for thinking the Fan Phenomena series was a project I might be interested in – and for sending the call for editors my way.
Nancy Holder and Belle Holder have also offered friendship and support during this project. And I’d like to thank Jane Espenson for being an all-around awesome woman.
This book would not have happened without Fan Phenomena series editor Gabriel Solomons. I’m proud to have my name on such a beautifully designed book. So thank you for making our words look so good.
Finally, my love to Giles & Wesley, the two best four-footed Watchers a Slayer could hope for.
Introduction
Jennifer K. Stuller, Editor
No one can predict what might become a cult phenomenon – something loved and quoted long after its debut, or its finale. A flop at the cinema might be a sensation on DVD, a comic-book superhero might still be a franchise icon decades after two kids in Cleveland created him, a humanistic series set in outer space might teach about acceptance, hope, and possibility – inspiring real-life accomplishments, and a cheerleader in a dark alley might forever influence the ways we think about what constitutes a hero.
Except, that cheerleader was created to be a figure of identification and devotion. As Joss Whedon famously told the A.V. Club in 2001:
I designed Buffy to be an icon, to be an emotional experience, to be loved in a way that other shows can’t be loved. […] I wanted her to be a cultural phenomenon. I wanted there to be dolls, Barbie with kung-fu grip. I wanted people to embrace it in a way that exists beyond, ‘Oh, that was a wonderful show about lawyers, let’s have dinner’. I wanted people to internalize it, and make up fantasies where they were in the story, to take it home with them, for it to exist beyond the TV show. And we’ve done exactly that. […] she has become an icon, and that’s what I wanted. What more could anybody ask?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer first appeared in an eponymous 1992 film written by Joss Whedon. While that project didn’t quite turn out how he wanted it to, once noting that upon the film’s premiere he sat in the theatre crying, thinking he would never work again, he got another chance at fulfilling his vision of a feminist icon five years later in 1997 with a Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series. Four years after the TV series ended in 2003, it rose again, like Buffy from the grave, to continue in comic book form with a serialized, canonical narrative published by Dark Horse Comics with Whedon serving as Executive Producer.
Why, when Buffy bowed over ten years ago, is it still so important to fans? And what are the ways in which they express their continued devotion to, and deep relationship with, the Buffy verse? The chapters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Fan Phenomena provide answers to these questions, specifically exploring ways fans internalize, celebrate, critique, and are inspired by this landmark series, and hopefully, simultaneously provoking a larger conversation about the relationship between cult properties and fandom – particularly in regards to fan creation.
Fan phenomena can manifest in personal expression, including identification through cosplay, crafts and performance. Phenomena also has the power to be political or otherwise provide critical or social commentary on cultural expectations or more, as fans reappropriate and recontextualize their source material.
Fan phenomena is also critical to the formation of community – achieved through the writing and sharing of fanfiction, discussion boards, meet-ups, charity screenings, and other public events and gatherings including singalongs, fan conventions, academic conferences, nerdy burlesque performances, marathon screenings in living rooms, a great online global rewatch of the entire series, and discussion in the classroom.
Fandom for Buffy must also be considered in the production of entertainment media, particularly any involving a young, female, heroic protagonist. Because the series was extraordinarily groundbreaking, subsequent entertainment media must necessarily note the influence from a marketing standpoint. But, we’ve also seen that producers and writers of television shows featuring female action leads were fans of Buffy themselves – provin