the performance of anti-fandom
January 13th, 2010 • posts i've written
Over at The Extratextuals, Jonathan Gray deconstructs why people go see Avatar when they know they’ll hate it.
We can at times foolishly suppose that people always go to see movies that they want to like, whereas we should be honest that there is at times a pleasure in disliking. Such viewers may offer a catalogue of things they disliked about the movie after they’ve watched it, but they watch because it’s enjoyable to create that catalogue. A bad acting performance, a silly bit of dialogue, and offensive character – these all become pleasurable. I’m not talking about camp – though that is of course another way that one might enjoy the film – or about relishing badness; I’m talking about the pleasures of knowing that one can distinguish good from bad.
Certainly, just as fandom can have a pronounced performative element to it, so too is anti-fandom often heavily performative. The pleasures of fandom can often come from the communal discussions that follow, not simply from the experience of watching alone, and many fans would quickly disavow a beloved text if they weren’t allowed a community around it. So too with anti-fandom, where many of these people hating Avatar are only too keen to pronounce their hatred, and to engage in discussions with others about how crappy it is. In doing so, they aim to perform a level of sophistication, to themselves and to others, but they are also making a pitch to community – they know that there are communities that will dislike Avatar, and the anti-fandom provides the password into said communities.
Exploring anti-fandom best exposes the core of fandom itself – we use our affinities, love or hate, to construct our identities, and we verse ourselves in the text/film/game/brand to collect those passwords into fan communities.
Walking out of Avatar, I searched my brain for the absolute best arrangement of words to describe my disgust (and showcase my verbal prowess) to Twitter.
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