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O Mighty Flist (and beyond), I seek your assistance!
As you may or may not know, I’m currently working on my MA in Critical Media and Cultural Studies at University of London, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies). For my thesis, I’m delving into the question of how culture, one’s own, as well as that of the source material one is fanning on, affects how fans identify and interact with said media and the fandoms surrounding them.
I am very aware that academic scrutiny of fandom has at times been…less than pleasant, shall we say. With that in mind, I’d like to make clear that it is not my intent to place fen or fandom under the microscope, but rather to use them as one concrete example in the broader investigation of culture’s impact on the field of media studies.
The following questions I’ve split into two sections, one focused on the media itself, the other on fandom as a whole. These are just a jumping-off point; feel free to answer as many/as few of the questions as you’d like, in as much/little detail as you feel comfortable. If you’d prefer to comment anonymously or email me directly at gnine AT livejournal DOT com, that’s fine, too.
Media Questions:
How much of what you fan on is produced by your own culture/country?
How much of what you fan on is originally produced in your native language(s)?
Have either of the above changed over the course of your time in fandom?
If/When consuming material not originally produced in a language you are fluent in, how do you access it? (e.g., dubs, scanlations, muddle through the raws and just enjoy the pretty people/art/voices, etc.)
Are there any culture’s materials you particularly avoid or seek out? (e.g. you avoid anything Japanese, be it anime, manga, video games, etc.; you love anything British, TV, books, etc.)If so, why?
The first time you watched/read/listened to something produced by a culture whose material you had not previously fanned on, were there details you had to adjust to (e.g. narrative styles, character depictions, pacing, cultural references, etc.) ?
Are there any particular tropes/stereotypes/character traits/plot devices you particularly associate with a certain culture’s material?
Fandom Questions:
At a guess, are the majority of the people you regularly fan with your nationality?
Do you think this changes depending on what fandom you’re in?
If you go to live fan events/conventions/meet-ups, have you attended different fan events for media of different cultures? (E.g. have you gone to both conventions for an English-language series (such as Supernatural) and anime conventions?)If so, have you noticed any differences between such conventions?
Have you ever attended fan events/conventions/meet-ups in more than one country? If so, did you notice any differences?
Has fanning with people from various countries ever caused surprise/confusion/misunderstandings?
Do your expectations for the fandom and its fanwork change depending on the source culture?
Additionally, there are a few details that’d be helpful for everyone to include, if they could:
Nationality:
Native language(s):
Language(s) you most often fan in (e.g. write/read/discuss in):
Gender (that you're most comfortable identify yourself as):
Is it all right for me to reference you directly in the final paper:
If yes, how would you prefer to be called (e.g. LJ handle/name/nickname/anonymously, etc):
If needed, would it be alright for me to contact you for more questions/details via email/skype, etc.?
Beyond that, if there are any other details, personal experiences, general trends you’ve observed, feel free to expound. Further discussion/questions in the comments is also very welcome.
If anyone's willing to link this in their journals, I’d be grateful, as the more responses the more expansive the research.
Thanks for your help!
I am very aware that academic scrutiny of fandom has at times been…less than pleasant, shall we say. With that in mind, I’d like to make clear that it is not my intent to place fen or fandom under the microscope, but rather to use them as one concrete example in the broader investigation of culture’s impact on the field of media studies.
The following questions I’ve split into two sections, one focused on the media itself, the other on fandom as a whole. These are just a jumping-off point; feel free to answer as many/as few of the questions as you’d like, in as much/little detail as you feel comfortable. If you’d prefer to comment anonymously or email me directly at gnine AT livejournal DOT com, that’s fine, too.
Media Questions:
How much of what you fan on is produced by your own culture/country?
How much of what you fan on is originally produced in your native language(s)?
Have either of the above changed over the course of your time in fandom?
If/When consuming material not originally produced in a language you are fluent in, how do you access it? (e.g., dubs, scanlations, muddle through the raws and just enjoy the pretty people/art/voices, etc.)
Are there any culture’s materials you particularly avoid or seek out? (e.g. you avoid anything Japanese, be it anime, manga, video games, etc.; you love anything British, TV, books, etc.)If so, why?
The first time you watched/read/listened to something produced by a culture whose material you had not previously fanned on, were there details you had to adjust to (e.g. narrative styles, character depictions, pacing, cultural references, etc.) ?
Are there any particular tropes/stereotypes/character traits/plot devices you particularly associate with a certain culture’s material?
Fandom Questions:
At a guess, are the majority of the people you regularly fan with your nationality?
Do you think this changes depending on what fandom you’re in?
If you go to live fan events/conventions/meet-ups, have you attended different fan events for media of different cultures? (E.g. have you gone to both conventions for an English-language series (such as Supernatural) and anime conventions?)If so, have you noticed any differences between such conventions?
Have you ever attended fan events/conventions/meet-ups in more than one country? If so, did you notice any differences?
Has fanning with people from various countries ever caused surprise/confusion/misunderstandings?
Do your expectations for the fandom and its fanwork change depending on the source culture?
Additionally, there are a few details that’d be helpful for everyone to include, if they could:
Nationality:
Native language(s):
Language(s) you most often fan in (e.g. write/read/discuss in):
Gender (that you're most comfortable identify yourself as):
Is it all right for me to reference you directly in the final paper:
If yes, how would you prefer to be called (e.g. LJ handle/name/nickname/anonymously, etc):
If needed, would it be alright for me to contact you for more questions/details via email/skype, etc.?
Beyond that, if there are any other details, personal experiences, general trends you’ve observed, feel free to expound. Further discussion/questions in the comments is also very welcome.
If anyone's willing to link this in their journals, I’d be grateful, as the more responses the more expansive the research.
Thanks for your help!
Part 2 (which took a while, because my internet is strange)
I either get the dubs, if it’s “official” material and I don’t have the choice, or the subs/scanlations, which I much prefer. I have tried watching Japanese things without subs on occasion, but I really didn’t enjoy it. The only exception to this is the anime “El Hazard” and the British arts&crafts show for kids I used to watch on the Turkish broadcasting station in Germany (which was dubbed in Turkish, obviously), when I was a child.
Are there any culture’s materials you particularly avoid or seek out? (e.g. you avoid anything Japanese, be it anime, manga, video games, etc.; you love anything British, TV, books, etc.)If so, why?
There aren’t many cultures I actively avoid or try to seek out. When there are things from a certain culture that I enjoy (like anime/manga, or British humour, or largely American-influenced fantasy/science fiction novels), I tend to look for other stuff I might enjoy in that culture, of course (i.e. finding one anime and looking for other anime with similar themes), but this hasn’t got much to do with the culture itself and more with the fact that, when I hear about something, usually it’s a rather well-established thing in its culture already (like the “yaoi” culture), which means that looking in that specific culture, I’m far more likely to find something else to enjoy, than anywhere else.
The only cultures that I actively avoid are those that deal with pain and humiliation, like the S/M and bondage culture, or certain war-glorification cultures.
It gets a little bit more complicated when the question pertains to a certain country’s material, because obviously, some of the cultures I like couldn’t have developed in any country but the one they come from (like the Otaku culture, for example, or the Gyaaru culture), which means that in the end I am actively seeking out this country’s material; but I wouldn’t seek out something because it’s “from Japan” or from any one country, so I don’t think this really counts either.
The first time you watched/read/listened to something produced by a culture whose material you had not previously fanned on, were there details you had to adjust to (e.g. narrative styles, character depictions, pacing, cultural references, etc.) ?
Yes, definitely! Since most of the movies shown in Germany are either Hollywood movies or German movies that closely follow Hollywood narration, it was quite a cultural shock for me when I first watched a Japanese movie and realized that the whole “DRAMATIC CLIMAX RIGHT BEFORE END” thing was not the only way to make a movie that, in fact, a movie could completely lack any kind of big dramatic moments and still be a very good movie.
A lot of anime has cultural connotations, as well, which can’t be understood without a deeper knowledge of the Japanese (mainstream) culture. This is something especially noticeable in fansubs, but also in some of the officially printed manga in Germany, which both have little footnotes in the margins (or at the top of the screens), explaining certain cultural references that the viewer/reader wouldn’t understand otherwise.
The first times I came across a Japanese game / variety show, I had a very hard time adjusting to the sense of humour in it. To be quite honest, this hasn’t changed completely: I still don’t quite understand Japanese humour, not the way other people do.
Part 3
1.) The Japanese manga / anime / drama stereotype of “good girls” being quiet, shy and fragile, while “funny girls” are loud, brash and open, with the “funny girl” not often being a serious love interest unless it’s a comedic manga / anime / drama. (And even then, there often seem to be scenes showing her being quite shy and withdrawn around her love interest.)
2.) The American (i.e. United States) stereotype of a hero / expert being exceptionally good at his/her chosen field. This is especially noticeable when compared with a lot of European books / TV shows: A lot of the detectives in British or Skandinavian books / TV shows are good, but not really exceptional at their job (unless they’re James Bond or possible The Doctor, though he seems really bad at doing some of his people’s stuff too, like repairing the TARDIS…), while a lot of the detectives in American books are often explicitely shown/described as The Expert or exceptionally brilliant in their field. (Like the books and the TV series about forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, for example, or the books by Dan Brown.)
Fandom Questions:
At a guess, are the majority of the people you regularly fan with your nationality?
No, not since I made the progression from the (smaller) German-language forums to the English-language forums. There’re quite a few other Germans around in the J-Pop, anime/manga and TV shows fandoms, but the majority are either Asian (in the J-pop fandoms), American (in the TV shows fandoms), or both.
Do you think this changes depending on what fandom you’re in?
This really, really depends, I think. I would generally say yes, simply because of exposure of the source materials – J-pop is far more known in other Asian countries than in Europe or the United States, which of course means that the majority of people come from the countries (or cultures) with more exposure. Since these fans are not Japanese, however, they’re more likely to organize themselves in an “international” fandom, resulting in an international, English-speaking fandom which has majority of people from Asian countries. And if it’s a fandom that is organized not in English, but in the language the original material is in (like German-language bands, for example), chances are high that the majority of people there are also native speakers.
On the other hand, though, there are certain fandoms, like “Top Gear”, “Gorillaz” and (the new) “Doctor Who”, in which there seem to be a lot more people (in the organized online fandom) from other countries (especially the United States) than people from the country that the original materials comes from. It might have something to do with the source material’s original language… but I’m not sure about that.
If you go to live fan events/conventions/meet-ups, have you attended different fan events for media of different cultures? (E.g. have you gone to both conventions for an English-language series (such as Supernatural) and anime conventions?)If so, have you noticed any differences between such conventions?
No, sorry, I’ve never really been to a convention.
Have you ever attended fan events/conventions/meet-ups in more than one country? If so, did you notice any differences?
Again, I’ve never done that.
EDIT: Sorry, accidentally copied some stuff twice! ^^"
Part 4
Yes, in a few cases, though most of the instances were not actually fandom related. (I.e. I had discussions with people from other cultures that I had met through fandom, but not about fandom.) The discussions usually were about cultural misunderstandings / different cultural views, though. (Like, in one instance, the question of whether European / American sports commenters shouldn’t even attempt to pronounce Chinese names, because they always got them wrong anyway.)
Do your expectations for the fandom and its fanwork change depending on the source culture?
Yes, very definitely! For example, when I’m in a Japanese based fandom (especially a Japanese mainstream culture based fandom, like “Johnny’s And Associates” (J-pop boybands), I’m willing to accept views and actions that are, to my Western eyes, chauvinistic and “anti-feministic” far more readily than I ever would in (Northern) European and American based fandoms, because I know that feminism in Japan is very different from feminism in Northern Europe and the United States or Canada.
Additionally, there are a few details that’d be helpful for everyone to include, if they could:
Nationality: German
Native language(s): Mainly German (raised with an English-speaking father, but the most-spoken language at home was still German)
Language(s) you most often fan in (e.g. write/read/discuss in): English (nearly exclusively)
Is it all right for me to reference you directly in the final paper: Yes!
If yes, how would you prefer to be called (e.g. LJ handle/name/nickname/anonymously, etc): Kegom (a nickname that I occasionally use in RL as well)
If needed, would it be alright for me to contact you for more questions/details via email/skype, etc.? Yes, of course! (Just PM me if you need more information.)
Good luck!
Re: Part 4
Also, as I mentioned to someone else above, so very much NOT tl;dr; this is just what I'm looking for and all these details help greatly! Thank you thank you! Expect to hear from me in a week or so with more questions/discussion as a sort through all this data. Again, THANK YOU! ^__^
...Also, I LOVE your icon, years later and my sister and I still randomly quote that line!^__^
Re: Part 4
In what ways (if any), for you personally, do your fannish practices change depending on the source culture of the material you're fanning on? (e.g. do you watch more music vids for anime, do you read/write particular kinds of fic for western shows, do you seek out cons for only certain types of fandoms, etc.) The more specific the examples, the better.
Semi-related to the above question, in what ways, if any, has your fannish practices changed over your time in fandom? (both in general over the years you've been in fandom and in specific fandoms. ) And have these changes at all coincided with differences in source culture? (eg for western fandoms, you've always just watched/read fic w/out much change over time but with Japanese fandom, you started watching anime then moved on to music vids then progressed to
helping scanlate manga because you went on to learn Japanese, etc.)
And one or two questions on one topic I might be exploring in a bit more detail, so:
Are you interested in/have any experience with/in slash/Boys Love/yaoi/ m/m etc.? If yes, do you notice a difference in how it is approached/explored depending on the source culture of the material? Examples/details appreciated.
Do you personally approach it differently/have different expectations for how it's depicted in fan works depending on the culture? If so, in what ways?
Oh, also, if I don't already know it (ie know you in person) and you're comfortable sharing it, what gender do you identify yourself as?
Again, thanks for your time, any details you have already or can additionally provide are a big big help! ^_____^
Don't mind me, just starting a mini-discussion in the comments..
I should have put your bit about Japanese game shows in my response too! Humor is such a tricky thing, because it's generally so culturally based and doesn't translate well. Japanese humor still generally goes over my head too, though I have a great fondness for the tsukkomi/boke stuff (well, really only when Arashi do it) because the snarky comeback reminds me of the straight man/ridiculous man humor that you see sometimes in US and UK humor. Snark and wit works across cultures for me.
Answering here, because it's ...about culture? At least somewhat!
Btw, I read your stuff too, and it was SO interesting to see how differently we viewed some of the stuff, or just how different a focus we put on things! You'd thought of things that I hadn't even considered. (The awesome female characters in Japanese anime/manga/drama, for example - I'd totally forgotten them! Possibly because I haven't really watched/read any of those three in ages and I used to read/watch shonen shows more than shojo, but still, that's really somewhat embarrassing. ^^")
And I'm completely with you on the (Arashi-based) tsukkomi/boke stuff! "Snark and wit works across cultures for me", indeed: I just recently started watching the British motor show "Top Gear" and really, the first thing I thought when I saw the three presenters interacting was "OMG THESE THREE MIDDLE-AGED BRITISH GUYS ACT LIKE ARASHI! O_O", because they have exactly the same kind of "showing their friendship through snarking, being horrible to each other and then turning around and being somewhat sweet towards each other" that Arashi have. (Seriously, in one of the vids I watched they were in Africa and one of them fell in love with the car - and old Opel Kadett - he was driving. Cue endless mocking from the other, culminating in them playing sad love songs through their ipods at him when his car broke down. I honestly sat there and thought "...this is exactly what the Arashi members would do...")
I wonder which this has more to do with: Similar concepts of humour, or similar concepts of friendship?
Re: Answering here, because it's ...about culture? At least somewhat!
Ooh, now *that's* an interesting question. I'd actually be more inclined to lean towards the latter, rather than the former. I, too, have found humor to be one of the hardest things to translate between cultures and, at least in the situations your describing, though it *is* definitely funny, there's also an element of these guys joking around and just being *them* and we happen to find it funny or cute and adorable (or slashy *cough* ^_-)
What d'ya think?
Friendship- Team!
One Piece manga/anime has a similar idea, of nakama, which I think roughly translates to crewmates. People who are together through thick and thin, support each other and have fun (and fight evil). Nakamaship, where you're closer than family. I've seen this with a variety of sentai/group superhero manga, like Sailor Moon!
Did you ever read, hmm, I think say-it-again translated it, some articles in Japanese media that tried to delve into why Arashi's popularity as a boyband was rising across all different demographics? I remember a big reason was because Arashi as a group was really close, that as someone outside the group, you could feel their closeness and friendship and felt drawn to them because of that.
you know, for all that fanfic and fanworks tend to focus on the romances, I...hmm, don't really have a point, but I'm wondering how much friendship and other bonds are a draw in getting people into a source/canon?
I'm sorry, I am in need of sleep, I'll probably look back on this in the morning and think, what on earth did I write. |D;;; Oh well. ^^;;;