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A review by onceandfuturelaura
Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins
3.0
I should have read this book 20ish years ago, back when I was slightly defensive (based on the mockery and cultural condemnation) about being a science fiction fan. Back in the day, it would have been revelatory and affirming. A professor, taking fandom seriously! Taking fans seriously! Who went to cons and listened to filk and read fan fiction! And talks about fandom in terms of Bakhtin, Barthes, and Benjamin!
There’s still a lot of good in the text. Great exploration of how different fan communities operate; how different groups are characterized by different modes of reading and appropriation; of the evolution of slash; and of filk. I didn’t realize until I read this book that A Very Scary Solstice is part of a rich tradition that sometimes involved all night sing-alongs in moving cargo elevators.
Some things haven’t aged so well. The discussion of slash was suffused by a gender essentialism that got my hackles up. But he gets mad points for hinting that Wesley Crusher might grow on us (95).
There’s still a lot of good in the text. Great exploration of how different fan communities operate; how different groups are characterized by different modes of reading and appropriation; of the evolution of slash; and of filk. I didn’t realize until I read this book that A Very Scary Solstice is part of a rich tradition that sometimes involved all night sing-alongs in moving cargo elevators.
Some things haven’t aged so well. The discussion of slash was suffused by a gender essentialism that got my hackles up. But he gets mad points for hinting that Wesley Crusher might grow on us (95).