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Un-Warren-Ted: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Transgressive Fandom

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Abstract

Joss Whedon’s work is nothing if not attuned to other instances of popular culture. This recognition of media defines Whedon’s patois, transcending reference into popular culture as a language of its own. Whedon’s voracious appetite for popular culture not only informed his dialogue, but it affected his plotting as well. Twists and turns subvert the cliché in Whedon’s work. Not only does this influence Whedon’s work, but the way we feel about his work. Recognition of dialogue and reference become a uniting principle for the fandom. This unity comes with a price for Whedon, though, as fandom communities grow so powerful that they assume control over the narrative.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Despite notable names and critical success, Spielberg’s Amazing Stories, lasted only two seasons. Lucas’s attempts to parlay the popularity of Star Wars into television success are the stuff of bad TV movie lore. Cameron’s Dark Angel, starring popular actress Jessica Alba, lasted only 42 episodes before its cancellation by Fox.

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  3. 3.

    Walt Hickey, “Comic Books Are Still Made by Men, for Men and About Men,” FiveThirtyEight, last modified October 13, 2014, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/women-in-comic-books/.

  4. 4.

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  6. 6.

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  7. 7.

    Cornell Sandvoss, Fans: The Mirror of Consumption (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005).

  8. 8.

    Mark Levy and Sven Windahl, “The Concept of Audience Activity,” in Media Gratifications Research: Current Perspectives, ed. Karl Erik Rosengren, Lawrence A. Wenner, and Philip Palmgreen (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1985), 109–122.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., 110.

  10. 10.

    Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Vintage, 1992), 9.

  11. 11.

    The battle between Sony’s Betamax and JVC’s Video Home System (VHS) became known as the “Video Format Wars.” VHS overtook Sony by 1980, dominating 60% of the market. Betamax became a “zombie format” before being extinguished for good in 2015.

  12. 12.

    “Home recording of copyrighted works: hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, on H.R. 4783,” 1982.

  13. 13.

    Commercial-skipping was at the heart of Valenti’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in 1982. The Supreme Court would later hear challenges based on copyright infringement in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal Studios, Inc. which would affirm the individual VCR owner’s right to record programming, paving the way for the VCR’s dominance for nearly a decade and a half.

  14. 14.

    Fangoria and Gorezone magazines became famous for their classified ads featuring bootleg versions of Doctor Who vs. the Daleks as well as direct-mail offerings for directors like J. R. Bookwalter and Tim Ritter. Scream queen Debbie Rochon became a favorite of genre tape-traders in the mid-1990s. Rochon would parlay this into a turn in the highly anticipated (and poorly received) remaster of Night of the Living Dead.

  15. 15.

    Josh Johnson, Rewind This!, dir. by Josh Johnson (New York City, NY: FilmBuff, 2013).

  16. 16.

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  18. 18.

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    In Peter Bracke’s Crystal Lake Memories, the late Danny Steinmann, director of Friday the 13th , Part V: A New Beginning, describes the Friday producers’ firm edict that there be at least one “jump scare” or kill every eight or nine minutes. Peter Bracke, Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (London: Titan Books, 2005).

  20. 20.

    Wes Craven, Scream , dir. by Wes Craven (New York City, NY: Dimension Home Video, 1998), Film.

  21. 21.

    Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Welcome to the Hellmouth, Part One,” 1. DVD Commentary, dir. by Charles Martin Smith (The WB), March 10, 1997.

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

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  24. 24.

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  27. 27.

    Sarah Kendzior, “Who Owns Fandom?,” December 12, 2000, https://www.salon.com/2000/12/13/fandom/.

  28. 28.

    Ibid.

  29. 29.

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  30. 30.

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  35. 35.

    Filk’s influence expanded with the subgenre Wizard Rock (“Wrock”), associated with the Harry Potter fandom. Interestingly, Wrock can be further divided between those artists who create songs about the Harry Potter universe (Yung Mavu) and those who create songs as if they existed within the canon (Lil Iffy).

  36. 36.

    Anita Busch, “‘Dorothy & Alice’ Acquired by Netflix for ‘I, Tonya’ Producer,” October 13, 2017, October 14, 2017, http://deadline.com/2017/10/dorothy-and-alice-netflix-i-tonya-producer-1202188150/.

  37. 37.

    Helen Green, “Helen Green Illustration,” Dorothy and Alice, last modified April 2013, http://helengreenillustration.com/Dorothy-and-Alice.

  38. 38.

    Prior to official releases of television seasons on home video and the syndication boom, where multiple viewings would reveal the practice, actor recasting was a routine practice, especially when a show was shot outside of Los Angeles. For example, character actress Deborah Voorhees played no fewer than five different bit characters on 80s soap Dallas.

  39. 39.

    Joss Whedon, “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 1, episode 1, dir. by Charles Martin Smith, aired March 10, 1997 (The WB).

  40. 40.

    Marti Noxon, “Surprise,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 2, episode 13, dir. by Michael Lange, aired January 19, 1998 (The WB).

  41. 41.

    David Fury, “Real Me,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5, episode 2, dir. by David Grossman, aired October 3, 2000 (The WB).

  42. 42.

    Jane Espenson, “Doublemeat Palace,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 12, dir. by Nick Marck, aired on January 29, 2002 (UPN).

  43. 43.

    Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Season Seven, DVD Commentary Track, dir. by David Fury, 2004.

  44. 44.

    Peter David, Spike: Old Times (San Diego: IDW Publishing, 2005); Diego Gutierrez, “Normal Again,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 17, dir. by Rick Rosenthal, aired March 12, 2002 (UPN); Jeffrey Bell, “Forgiving,” Angel, season 3, episode 17, dir. by Turi Meyer, aired April 15, 2002 (The WB).

  45. 45.

    Michael Adams, “Slayer Slang,” Verbatim: The Language Quarterly 24, no. 3 (1999), 1–4.

  46. 46.

    Susan A. Owen, “Vampires, Postmodernity, and Postfeminism: Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 27, no. 2 (1999), 24–31.

  47. 47.

    Rhonda V. Wilcox, “There Will Never Be a ‘Very Special Buffy’: Buffy and the Monsters of Teen Life,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 27, no. 2 (1999), 16–23.

  48. 48.

    As Whedon’s oeuvre expanded with Firefly , Dollhouse , and Fray (among others), Slayages expanded purview was reflected in the name. The journal became The Journal of the Whedon Studies Association in 2009 before finally settling on The Journal of Whedon Studies in 2015.

  49. 49.

    Pop Culture Detective, Buffy vs. Edward.

  50. 50.

    Henry Jenkins, “Remixing Gender Through Popular Media: An Interview with Jonathan McIntosh,” October 13, 2017, http://henryjenkins.org/.

  51. 51.

    Ibid.

  52. 52.

    Whedonstudies.tv, n.d., Mr. Pointy Awards/2010 For Works Published in 2009, accessed October 14, 2017, http://www.whedonstudies.tv/2010.html.

  53. 53.

    Karen Walsh, “Buffy’s Legacy Does Not Belong to Joss Whedon,” August 25, 2017, https://geekdad.com/2017/08/buffys-legacy-joss-whedon/.

  54. 54.

    Sarah Kendzior, “Who Owns Fandom?”

  55. 55.

    Chris Kindred, “The Adventure Zone and the Limits of Fandom Ownership,” Paste Magazine, June 17, 2017, https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/06/the-adventure-zone-and-the-limits-of-fandom-owners.html.

  56. 56.

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  61. 61.

    Ben Silverio, “Joss Whedon Expresses Frustration Over Agent Coulson’s ‘Death,’” last modified April 20, 2015, http://sciencefiction.com/2015/04/20/joss-whedon-expresses-frustration-agent-coulsons-death/.

  62. 62.

    Roberta Pearson, “Participation or Totalization: Fans and Transmedia Storytelling,” Television and the Digital Public Sphere Conference, Paris, 2008, Presentation.

  63. 63.

    Suzanne Scott, “The Trouble with Transmediation: Fandom’s Negotiation of Transmedia Storytelling Systems,” Spectator 30, no. 1 (2010), 30–34.

  64. 64.

    Similar to the VCR’s impact on culture, the invention of streaming services seems to have changed fans’ consumption practices and producers’ narrative practices correspondingly. Netflix’s Stranger Things, Orange Is the New Black, and their Marvel canon seem written more to be gorged than binged. If a fan hasn’t watched in the first weekend, they are out of the loop. Hulu, for its part, has adopted a “replacement for TV” approach, releasing episodes of its major shows The Handmaid’s Tale and Runaways weekly. The result is less buzz and more sustained slow burn for Hulu shows.

  65. 65.

    Suzanne Scott, “The Trouble with Transmediation,” 30–34.

  66. 66.

    Tom Bacon, “How Joss Whedon’s History with Female Superheroes Makes Him the Perfect Fit for Batgirl,” April 5, 2017, https://moviepilot.com/p/batgirl-solo-film-director-joss-whedon-feminism-dceu/4236964.

  67. 67.

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    josswhedonisnotafeminist, “If Your Feminism Isn’t Intersectional It’s Bullshit,” Tumblr.com (blog), n.d., accessed January 4, 2018, http://josswhedonisnotafeminist.tumblr.com/.

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  70. 70.

    Kai Cole, “Joss Whedon Is a ‘Hypocrite Preaching Feminist Ideals,’ Ex-Wife Kai Cole Says (Guest Blog),” last modified August 20, 2017, https://www.thewrap.com/joss-whedon-feminist-hypocrite-infidelity-affairs-ex-wife-kai-cole-says/.

  71. 71.

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  72. 72.

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Dunaway, D. (2019). Un-Warren-Ted: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Transgressive Fandom. In: Kitchens, J., Hawk, J. (eds) Transmediating the Whedonverse(s). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24616-7_2

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