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

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

Cult TV can be thought of as a group of texts, often hailing from the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Also, through secondary texts that activate the meanings and associations of cult for audiences. Cult status arises through an audience’s passion for a TV show. So, ‘fan activities’ are very important fact in cult TV. Hills (2004) suggest that three ways in which fans play in the construction of cult TV.

Firstly, it is the transformation of TV programs into cults by fans. He says that while some fans are committed to just a single TV show or actor&actress, the other majority use individual series to relate pr connect to a fan community. His second suggestion is that fans self-consciously use the term ‘cult’ to describe these networks of texts as distinctive. Furthermore, he points out that fans organize themselves social groups and societies. Fans gather for conventions where they share interests which create a sense of communal fan distinctiveness. These fan groups are formed after the TV programs first airing and can be lead to becoming a cult. Cult fans are eager to analyse and support their own consumption of cult TV in the Medias. They share their interests and try to keep fan culture alive because it is important to their daily life and individualities Therefore the internet has located very importantly on fan clubs. New media has important function of promotion of cult TV. Especially, Internet effect new generation deeply. Hill (2004) state “most of fan activities are carried out both online and in real life” (pp. 519) Online has allowed fans share their favorite TV programs and fan fiction, episode guides, etc. Furthermore, they can use internet communicate with other fans. In short, Internet offers a platform for them to do these things.

In what way is Buffy influenced by the romantic gothic tradition?

“Buffy adopts and adapts many romantic gothic conventions”, In Rose (2002), there is a conclusion of that. First, “Buffy employs romantic ideology in contemporary contexts and terms and suggests alternatives within that framework.” Buffy story’s ideology is closed to our time because Buffy’s story is happened in our date. With the framework, the story becomes a good story with the sense of time. Furthermore, “the characters, story line, and outcome both acknowledge the issues rise in Shelley’s novel and suggest anti-patriarchal and postfeminist solutions to the problems Shelley saw in romantic ideology”. In Shelley’s novel, the anti-patriarchal and postfeminist is the important point. And in Buffy, it huge raises the main point of Shelley’s novel. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy put all the things more close into life. It offers a representation that potentially subverts current ideologies of love and sexuality (Wilcox& Laver, 2002).

 

References

Rose, A. (2002). of creatures and creators: Buffy does Frankenstein, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds) Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

Hills, M. (2004). Defining cult TV; Texts, inter-texts and fan audiences, The Television Studies Reader, in R. C. Allen & A. Hill. London and New York: Routledge.

Wilcox, R. & Lavery, D. (2002). Introduction, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds) Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.