Jimmie Higgins
12th August 2013, 13:18
http://jacobinmag.com/2013/08/on-geek-culture/
I thought this was an interesting start at looking at geek culture in a political way. I'm not sure at all about the "simulated ethnicity" or Geek "identity politics" argument, but I had seen the movie "Big Fan" referenced at the opening and had similar thoughts about having a larger understanding of "fandom" (one which would include sports fans, genres which attract female fandom, music fans, etc - rather than the typical idea of white D&D teenagers in the suburbs being the whole of "fan culture").
I also think the article (though nuanced and from a self-professed "geek") was still a little too one-sided and deterministic. In looking at film production/film-as-commodity I think it totally makes sense to look at these cultural products like we would any other commodity - however I think that doesn't show the whole picture; I don't think people relate to this kind of consumption in the same way that people consume a Coke or Pepsi. People don't write fan-fiction about a new formula for coke or mixing coke and pepsi in new sexual relationships.
I think there's more room for a battle over commoditifcation of our hopes and dreams and escapes. Sports fans can be rabid and reactionary, but some of the anxiety and anger of sports fans (the same with snarky comic-book fans talking about how X filmmaker bastardized some comic - or Trek mythology) is connected to anxiety of property and ownership. That the things we love are owned by some corporation which only loves them as commodities and will sell them out when it suits them irregardless of home-team love or love of a character has (maybe not really centrally important) political ramifications. Who owns what we love and wish for or admire. Can a sports francize just sell a loved player - move on a dime to get better subsidies from some other city willing to throw money at the owners? Yes, they do and most of the time fans resent this.
On a more direct and practical level, there are things like companies getting subsidies to build privite Ballparks (major privitization scams) or expectations over how much advertising we have to be subjected to or how cultural creators (the sports players, the authors, the comic artists, the film makers) are ripped off and used.
These stories and characters, modern music genres, sports teams, etc are unquestionably products by and for the market. They've already commodified most of the folk culture, the fairy tales and stories made by pre-capitalist cultures, and so of course any culture today is going to be entangled with that. But to be a "Star Wars" rather than a "John Carter" they also have to connect on a level beyond just the market and speak to something deeper. I think a lot of fan "snobbery" is tied into that - a protectiveness over something that people connected to and they don't want other forces (however they interpret that - hollywood execs, or "mass popular tastes") to monopolize and unilaterally control.
I thought this was an interesting start at looking at geek culture in a political way. I'm not sure at all about the "simulated ethnicity" or Geek "identity politics" argument, but I had seen the movie "Big Fan" referenced at the opening and had similar thoughts about having a larger understanding of "fandom" (one which would include sports fans, genres which attract female fandom, music fans, etc - rather than the typical idea of white D&D teenagers in the suburbs being the whole of "fan culture").
I also think the article (though nuanced and from a self-professed "geek") was still a little too one-sided and deterministic. In looking at film production/film-as-commodity I think it totally makes sense to look at these cultural products like we would any other commodity - however I think that doesn't show the whole picture; I don't think people relate to this kind of consumption in the same way that people consume a Coke or Pepsi. People don't write fan-fiction about a new formula for coke or mixing coke and pepsi in new sexual relationships.
I think there's more room for a battle over commoditifcation of our hopes and dreams and escapes. Sports fans can be rabid and reactionary, but some of the anxiety and anger of sports fans (the same with snarky comic-book fans talking about how X filmmaker bastardized some comic - or Trek mythology) is connected to anxiety of property and ownership. That the things we love are owned by some corporation which only loves them as commodities and will sell them out when it suits them irregardless of home-team love or love of a character has (maybe not really centrally important) political ramifications. Who owns what we love and wish for or admire. Can a sports francize just sell a loved player - move on a dime to get better subsidies from some other city willing to throw money at the owners? Yes, they do and most of the time fans resent this.
On a more direct and practical level, there are things like companies getting subsidies to build privite Ballparks (major privitization scams) or expectations over how much advertising we have to be subjected to or how cultural creators (the sports players, the authors, the comic artists, the film makers) are ripped off and used.
These stories and characters, modern music genres, sports teams, etc are unquestionably products by and for the market. They've already commodified most of the folk culture, the fairy tales and stories made by pre-capitalist cultures, and so of course any culture today is going to be entangled with that. But to be a "Star Wars" rather than a "John Carter" they also have to connect on a level beyond just the market and speak to something deeper. I think a lot of fan "snobbery" is tied into that - a protectiveness over something that people connected to and they don't want other forces (however they interpret that - hollywood execs, or "mass popular tastes") to monopolize and unilaterally control.