Global Fandom: Stelios Stylanou Responds

Reply to Dora Valkanova and Nyasha Mboti

Stelios Stylianou

Cyprus University of Technology

Thank you, dear Dora and dear Nyasha, for your comments.  I am addressing your points below, trying to synthesize as much as possible.  I am organizing the text thematically to include replies to your comments together rather than following the order in which the comments were presented. 

Antagonism and protagonists

The concept of antagonism, as used in my analysis, is not related to an underlying power structure or hierarchy, as in drama genres and elsewhere.  The opposing fans are analyzed as equal, they are both antagonists, in the same sense that two teams are equal at the beginning of the game.  Superiority and dominance are sought, not given, and if/when they are attained, they must be constantly reaffirmed and defended.  To use a parallel example from UEFA Champion's League, when we say that e.g., Real Madrid will try to "defend her crown" we do not imply that Real Madrid has a given structural advantage on the playing field.

Antagonistic fans' discourse refers to language and other symbols used by each side against a theoretically equal opponent.  Yet, Nyasha's observations about how power differences are important in sustaining the opposition and, more so, making it worthwhile, hold.  In Limassol, the second-largest city in Cyprus, AEL and Apollon are the top-tier teams and they often compete with good chances to win the League or the Cup or enter the European championships.  The games between them are the most intense, both in the field and on the terraces.  Aris, the other Limassolian team, is much weaker on the field and on the terraces, and games between Aris and AEL or Aris and Apollon are less intense.  Nevertheless, the discursive landscape that unfolds during or around games involving Aris is still the same research object: fans' antagonistic discourse.  (Interestingly, this season, Aris is the "pleasant surprise" in the First Division League, ranked 4th and entering the Europa Conference League qualification stage).

Nyasha further observes that if "one rival is not doing well over a long period, and ceases to be a threat, the nature of the antagonistic discourse [...] is less sharp."  This is mostly true; but, note that a "long period" must be quite long.  Sports journalists refer to well-established clubs as "historical clubs", "great teams," and "eternal enemies," even if such clubs do not do well for a while, say a few years, but even more.  Consider Liverpool FC, for example, which was the "Queen of Europe" in the 1970s and 1980s and has only recently returned to the top ranks.  When the club was not doing well for quite a while, it was still a "great team."  In Cyprus, the recent example is Omonoia, who won her last title before 2020 in 2010.  It has now returned to "where she belongs" but even when she was doing badly, for about a decade, while her "eternal enemy" APOEL was winning the championship every single season from 2012-13 to 2018-19, the game between them was always named a "derby."

Returning to the fans, a club's performance does stimulate specific discursive themes, depending on which team is doing well on the field (and in the bank!).  During the aforementioned period, APOEL was being constantly accused by fans of most other top-tier clubs for being a "client" of the system, i.e., favored by the Football Federation authorities.  At the same time, APOEL fans were trolling Omonoia for its failure to enter the European championships.  So, there is a specialized discourse, yes, but the overall mode is the same: use any discursive means available to attack the opponent.

Nyasha points out that "winning over the opponent" may be contradictory in the sense that if you win over someone, the game is over, so "what next?" Perhaps the expression "winning over" is confusing.  The way I use it, "winning over the opponent" means prevailing on the terraces during each game (operationally speaking, being louder, more visible, and more offensive).  The goal is to prevail during the game and elsewhere and fans constantly attack their opponents sustaining the opposition, rather than resolving it.  Envy is also part of the motivation.  We talk about antipalon deos, in the sense that you need a worthwhile opponent, one that is a real threat, one that inspires awe, one that you can take seriously (Theodoropoulou, 2007).  One interview participant told us that in the last few years, when Omonoia was not doing well, APOEL fans started feeling lonely! 

Finally, can "antagonistic discourse be expanded to include beneficial acts as well, rather than just the negative and harmful?"  In free-market economies, "antagonismos" indeed means competition, a struggle to be better than others and therefore more successful in selling your product or service, and it can be beneficial, assuming that the object of antagonism is a well-valued one, like healthier food, safer cars, faster computers, etc.  In football, as a game, to struggle for victory or the league is in a sense beneficial, as the quality of the games is elevated, coaching techniques are developed, etc.  There are good things that can come out of fans' activity as well, such as the development of the social and esthetic aspect of antagonism.  There are instances where wonderful things happen, such as a beautiful coreo, a nicely performed non-insulting chant, social events around victories, etc.  In our data, such positive elements are found under the category "praising the in-group" but they are much less prevalent, compared to those that I have focused on in the present exchange.

The prevalence of racist discourses

The question about the prevalence of any kind of content in football fans' antagonistic discourse is hard to answer at the European level.  UEFA records and occasionally sanctions players, clubs, and national teams and this is evidence of the existence of the problem.  In the last few years, various entities have been punished, e.g., Slavia Prague, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovakia.  Locally too, there are incidences of racist behavior by players or fans which are occasionally sanctioned.  

Yet, the frequency of these publicized incidences is a poor estimator of the prevalence of racist and supremacist discourses in football games in Europe or elsewhere.  One reason for not including a quantitative discussion on this matter is that I have not studied the epidemiology of these discourses systematically.  What I have mentioned is that, in the last few years, non-racial politics and sex are noticeably more prevalent in football fans' antagonistic discourse in Cyprus, compared to racism.  This is the case in the physical field during football games, where my data come from.  I can also mention a bachelor's thesis that I have recently supervised, in which very little content was found on race, ethnicity, or religion on football-related Facebook pages in Cyprus (Nikolaou, 2020).  So, racism is not among the prevalent themes of the opposition discourse.  

Nevertheless, the current discussion is not about prevalence; our concern about racism in football is always academically and socially legitimate and it is further fueled by the general presence of racism on the internet.  Occasional events, spikes in social media, or reports by www.kickitout.org are enough to remind us that we are nowhere near the end of exclusion discourses and practices.  We can refer to numerous examples, as Dora has already done in her comments.  I would highlight one from the top level of European football, the recent social media racist abuse of England players Saka, Rashford, and Sancho, who missed penalties in the Euro 2020 final (July 2021).  Studying racist, sexist, homophobic, and all other discriminatory and exclusion discourses in football is and will continue to be a big and challenging project.  In my present work, I study these discourses in qualitative terms, within the theoretical framework that I call the cultural hypothesis.  Dora's comments are mostly supportive of this idea and this is very encouraging.

The "seriousness" of football fans' antagonistic discourse

Nyasha's comment that my presentation "seems to regard antagonistic discourse as non-serious in that it merely seeks to annoy and irritate the other side, rather than to reflect or entrench a long-lived national schism" offers an opportunity to present a more elaborate explanation.  

This discourse is always "serious," in two ways.  The first lies in the historical dimension, where history and politics are enacted and reiterated as ends in themselves.  This dimension, which is emphasized in my analysis, reflects the history of political conflicts.  When fans orally or otherwise use political—in the narrow sense, e.g., related to political parties—slogans in football games, the soundscape is indeed political, sometimes reminding pre-election gatherings.  Alternatively, when fans denounce political figures, such as the President of the Republic or Members of the Parliament, for their political actions, they are making political statements that are quite serious as well.  All this concerns the surface structure of the content of football fans' antagonistic discourse.

The second way lies in the game dimension, where history and politics are used as means to pique the opponent, not enacted as ends in themselves.  This communicative practice is serious too, precisely because, even though it is not explicitly focused on politics, it still is profoundly political. In Stylianou and Theodoropoulou (2019), we put it this way: 

Our game dimension should not be interpreted as an ahistorical explanation or one that defies culture.  By using historically and culturally specific elements as weapons in the symbols war, fans, without necessarily having an intention and without necessarily realizing that they do so, contribute to the sustaining of binary divisions and to the drawing of difference marking boundaries and inclusion-exclusion discourses. (p. 1986)

Extending this discussion to racism, to address Dora's question, let me first confirm that fans do use racist slurs to attack black players of opposing teams, when in fact there are black players in their own team as well.  It is "bizarre" in a sense, as Nyasha notes; but, not so in my game dimension analysis.  In this case, race becomes a selectively convenient attack weapon (like gender, sexuality, politics, and history) or, to quote Dora, "racist abuse becomes an instrument in the larger toolkit for abuse of players of the opposite team."  Thus, the point here, which I try to address by investigating the deep structure of the content of this discourse, is that the instrumentalization of race is a manifestation of the racism that exists in wider society and, as such, it is very serious and it bears critical (i.e., political, in the broader sense) analysis.  To quote Dora again "these 'instruments' have unintended consequences as well, namely—the very real dehumanization of nonwhite players."  I also agree with Kassimeris (2021, p. 33) that "not every fan using racist language is a racist," adding that fans using racist language still represent and promote racism.

To return to politics and history, let me present one more example where reducing history to a game involves contempt for pain, victimihood, and suffering.  The instance is a nostalgic chant about Anorthosis' home city, Famagusta, which is under Turkish occupation since 1974, sung by Anorthosis fans with love and devotion.  Omonoia fans occasionally sing a parody of this chant, in which they blame Famagusta residents as traitors and/or cowards because they abandoned their city when the invaders were approaching.  Blaming victims of war for cowardliness and/or accusing them of treason is certainly serious, morally, politically, and symbolically speaking, and it is as disturbing as the "say yes to racism" banner that Dora mentions.

Sex and politics in the game dimension

Is the sexual discourse a dimension of the political discourse? It certainly is, assuming that we refer to "political" in the broader sense, i.e., power structures and relations at all levels.  In my analysis, I also refer to politics in the narrow sense, i.e., macro-political processes around the distribution of power at the level of political institutions and authorities, i.e., government, parliament, legal system, political parties, etc.  This separation is analytical, not substantive.  

Let me extend this discussion to address Nyasha's comment that "the game dimension which makes history and politics irrelevant might also end up making the [sexual] normative underlying structures irrelevant."  Let me use two parallel real (from my data) examples of expression of binary opposition: (a) Displaying a banner with a picture of Che Guevara, to contrast the ingroup to the outgroup in terms of ideology, and (b) displaying a penis-shaped balloon, to contrast the ingroup to the outgroup in terms of masculinity.  The content of the first banner is "irrelevant" in the sense that the manifest purpose of using it is to irritate the opponent, not the promotion of Che's ideology.  But the display of the banner is not irrelevant as a political act: the instrumentalization of Che rests on the prerequisite that Che is a well-established figure of leftist ideology, one that you can conveniently use to compose your ideological superiority text.  The same explanation can be applied to the second example: the penis-shaped balloon is "irrelevant" in the sense that the manifest purpose of using it is to irritate the opponent, not to degrade women or gay men.  In this example too, the display of the balloon is not irrelevant as a political act: the instrumentalization of the penis rests on the prerequisite that it is a well-established symbol in the gender/sexuality discourse, again, one that you can conveniently use to compose your masculinist superiority text.  This is a point that I was making from the early stages of my study.  In Stylianou (2011), I stressed that we should not only study the surface structure of fans' antagonistic communication but the latent structure as well.  Attacking with homophobic tools is a homophobic act, regardless of whether your purpose is to attack homosexuals or to attack fans of the opposite side. 

Symbolic Contradictions

The observation about the use of swastikas (and other symbols of fascist, Nazi, or other extreme right ideologies) in the Bulgarian context confirms that this phenomenon is not unique to the Greek-Cypriot context.  Football has been a vehicle for the promotion of worldviews, ideologies, political parties, regimes, and historical narratives.  In Bulgaria, this has been the case with CSKA, a child and instrument of the Bulgarian Communist Party.  This made me think that the CSKA case presents a contradiction: the recent/current use of swastikas and similar symbols by its fans is dissonant to communist or left-wing discourses (although, in political analysis, communist and fascist/Nazi regimes have both been classified as forms of authoritarian/totalitarian projects).  This antithesis seems a prima facie negative case in my game dimension analysis.  

Let me discuss this further with an example: in Cyprus, it has happened that fans of Omonoia, a left-oriented team, connected to the former communist and currently major left-wing political party (AKEL), displayed the flag of China in games against APOEL and other right-oriented teams.  This has been a joking response to slogans directed against Omonoia fans, calling them "Chinese" (because they are "too many" and because they are "communists").  Displaying the flag of China sends the message that "yes, we are Chinese, as you want" which is annoying as it invalidates the original message but also because it makes any defeat by the "Chinese," for those who devalue the "Chinese," more painful.  This explanation does not seem to hold in the case of CSKA fans displaying swastikas.  If we consider CSKA's history, who are the fascists or Nazis?

But then, after receiving Dora's second set of comments, I am thinking that this negative case in my game dimension analysis, may be very useful.  Using analytic induction, I can conceptually expand the game dimension analysis to include this case as an instance where the communicative function of language and other symbols can develop around contradictions, which make original or literal meanings less important (vis-à-vis the desired outcome), irrelevant, and even opposite.  The example of CSKA fans displaying swastikas and that of the "racist pastry" that "upsets" the foreigners can be consistently interpreted as such within the game dimension analysis.  The display of a symbol that stands for racism to defy UEFA or American culture or American imperialism, is a communicative act the purpose of which, on a manifest level, is to upset whomever the opponent or the enemy is.  So, the answer to the question "who are the fascists or Nazis?" is that you do not need them, as long as their symbols are effectively irritating, when it comes to seeking ways to challenge the opponent.

Returning to the "seriousness" discussion, the very fact that such symbols are used as tools of opposition, even when their original meaning is irrelevant or opposite, is an indicator of a deeper culture of prejudice, disrespect, and contempt.  The same applies to sex- and gender-related symbols. 

Gates and Ultras

Gates and Ultras fans are central actors in football fans' antagonistic discourse.  They are engaged in pre-game activities, including preparing banners, gathering in Clubs, marching or driving to the game together, making their presence visible and loud, sometimes blocking traffic, etc.  During the game, they are typically clustered in the "horseshoe" stands (behind the goalkeepers) and they are significantly more active than the rest of the fans.  They are the "fanatics," those who are more likely to also engage in physical violence and vandalism.  They are the ones who will—to answer another question—throw objects and fireworks and set off smoke generators.  In my research, they are the richest data sources.  Still, football fans' antagonistic discourse is not limited to those fans.  Participation in communicative acts during the game is typically massive in almost all discursive practices, including curses, offensive slurs, and body language.  This massive involvement is one thing that impressed me from the beginning of the fieldwork and it is supportive of my cultural hypothesis.

Sex and violence

Finally, a word on the violence dimension of the sexual discourses.  Τhe element of violence is always present in the sex-related themes in football fans' antagonistic discourse.  The discursive "fucking" of the opponent, be it the opposite team, its agents, its fans, their family members, affiliated politicians, historical figures, etc. is always violent.  Physical sexual violence (rape scenarios) is effectively degrading because the other party's body is being forcefully violated.  Even when physical violence is not explicitly present (as in slogans and chants that imply that members of the opposite side are promiscuous or are enjoying sex) and not necessarily implied (as in the case of praising the ingroup members for being super-masculine in that they have consenting sex with many women), the penetrated party is always degraded and this is a form of symbolic violence.  There is no positive vibe and certainly no "love-making" in any sense in our sex-related data. 

References

Kassimeris, Christos. 2021. Discrimination in Football. Routledge

Nikolaou, Konstantinos. 2020. The Presence of Racist Language in Fandom Facebook in Cyprus and Greece. Bachelor's Thesis. Cyprus University of Technology. [in Greek].

Stylianou, Stelios. 2011. The Use of Political Symbols by Young People in the Public Sphere of Cypriot Society: Summary of Main Findings and Conclusions. Cyprus Center for European and International Affairs. Nicosia, Cyprus. [in Greek].

Stylianou, Stelios, and Vivi Theodoropoulou. 2019. Explaining the Presence of Political Content in Football Fans’ Antagonistic Communication in Cyprus. Sport in Society 22: 1975-1989.

Theodoropoulou, Vivi. 2007. The Anti-fan within the Fan: Awe and Envy in Sport Fandom. In Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, edited by Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington, 316–327. New York: New York University Press.

Responses to Politics and Sex in Football Fans' Antagonistic Discourse in Cyprus

Dora Valkanova's Comments to Stelios Stylianou's Opening Statement

PART I

The study you describe, Stelios, sounds really interesting and pulls focus on critical questions surrounding football (i.e. soccer) fandom. In response to your first question: “...to what extent this happens elsewhere too. Do football fans use historically and politically sensitive derogatory (perhaps anti-patriotic, extremist, vulgar, etc.) terms to pique their opponents in the course of a symbols game?” I would say that what you describe sounds very similar to aspects of soccer fandom I have observed in Bulgaria. 

Historically, Bulgarian soccer fandom has tended to concentrate around two main teams: CSKA & Levski, which are both based in the capital city Sofia. The rivalry between fans of both teams has tended to be intense and antagonistic. I had general knowledge of the use of swastikas in particular by Bulgarian soccer fans so as I was processing your opening statement, I did a brief search online on recent uses of swastikas and Nazi symbols by soccer fans in Bulgaria. As I anticipated, news and online media articles on the subject were readily available and they speak of a persistent and pervasive problem with the use of Nazi symbolism by soccer fans. Examples range from national games involving the two soccer clubs I mention above to European level (i.e. UEFA) games. CSKA was fined 37,500 Bulgarian levs ($22,373) in 2015 over the raising of a flag with an inscribed swastika during a game with another Bulgarian team (Lokomotif Sofia). In 2017 Levski was also fined 37,500 Bulgarian levs for a swastika banner and an additional 4,000 Bulgarian levs ($2,386) for thrown objects (including stones and small fire crackers), which reached the bench of the opposing team—CSKA. 

To cite a more recent and more virulent example, a 2019 Bulgaria-England game, played in Sofia was halted twice after British players were subjected to racist abuse by Bulgarian fans, which included Nazi salutes and monkey chanting. Pavel Klymenko—Eastern Europe’s coordinator of FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe)—has reportedly named Levski as “one of the worst clubs” in terms of “neo-Nazi infiltration.” According to the previously hyperlinked article, in 2014 Bulgarian fans made their racism even more explicit with a banner that read: “Say yes to racism”—a pointed response to UEFA’s “Say No To Racism” campaign. As Klymenko notes: “The scale of the problem is quite massive.” 

I also did a brief search in r/Bulgaria for threads on the use of swastikas in Bulgarian public space. I found two such threads, in which redditors generally express their disapproval of the trend. In the first thread (titled “We need this in Bulgaria”) one of the redditors expresses doubt that those paining swastikas on public property even “connect the swastikas with anything,” (i.e. specific ideology) and hypothesizes that to them it looks “funny and cool.” In the second thread a redditor under the alias Clowns_Sniffing_Glue comments (in Bulgarian): “Hahaha. If Hitler were alive, his moustache would curl up from laughter. What idiots in Bulgaria think that they are pure enough to be part of the Superior White Race, the Aryan Family? And we’re not even gonna get into whether these jerks are better than minorities and people of color… Shitpants.” 

I should re-emphasize here that I selectively cite examples from a brief online search—examples related to the two main soccer teams in Bulgaria (CSKA and Levski) as well as examples of reactions to the use of swastikas I found on Reddit, which exemplify different positions. Beyond the cited examples the instances of Bulgarian soccer fans’ use of swastikas and Nazi symbolism during games are too many to list here and they require detailed study and analysis. It is clear, however, especially from the 2019 game against England (and similar examples from UEFA level games from the last decade) that the use of these symbols goes beyond attempts to egg fans of the opposite team on, to provoke, to transgress, to engage in adversarial and antagonizing discourse. The antagonizing discourse that we might anticipate around games that encourage an us—vs—them mentality in Bulgaria is also intertwined with racism and the use of Nazi symbolism expresses that entanglement. 

Here it should be noted that racism in soccer fandom is not unique to Bulgaria or to Eastern Europe. Rather, it is endemic in European soccer. To cite another recent example, this past summer England’s black players were subjected to racist abuse after the Euro 2020 final, which England lost to Italy, 3-2. In that sense, I would anticipate the use of Nazi symbolism specifically (swastikas, the Nazi salute, etc.) by soccer fans to be entangled with that racism. Since Cyprus is part of UEFA, I would be curious how it relates to the larger issues of racism in European soccer and how the use of Nazi symbolism by Cypriot fans specifically relates (or does not relate) to that. 

In regard to your second question: if the hegemonic masculinity that gains articulation around soccer persists or is declining, I think that an interesting way of addressing that question indirectly might be to interview fans familiar with the tv show Ted Lasso (2020--). Ted Lasso is a comedy-drama that uses the tv serial form to strategically engage with the toxic aspects of hegemonic masculinity (i.e. heteronormativity, misogyny, racism, etc.) that are widely known to be characteristic of European soccer clubs. Studying the audience for that show--especially those who overlap with soccer fandom in Cyprus—could reveal interesting insights that together with other data provide a snapshot of how soccer fandom is changing. 

PART II

You make a number of excellent points, Stelios, and in this response I would like to address some of them and also echo some of the issues Nyasha raised in his thorough-going analysis above. 

As you point out, “we seek to make empirical generalizations only through rigorous data collection and analysis.” I am not deeply acquainted with the literature on racism in soccer specifically, however, while preparing my notes for this response I came across the UK organization Kick It Out (originally established as Let’s Kick Out Racism in Football in 1993 “in response to widespread calls from clubs, players and fans to tackle racist attitudes existing within the game,” (Kick It Out, About Us). One aspect of their work is collecting annual statistical data and conducting analysis about the status of racism in soccer, which are then used by FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe), UEFA, and FIFA. According to Kick It Out’s 2018/2019 report, “discrimination in both professional and grassroots football rose significantly in the 2018/2019 season with reports up by 32% percent” (Kick It Out, 2018/2019). Online racist abuse is also on the rise with “some social media platforms (including Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) experiencing an increase of 600-900%” (Kassimeris, 2021, p. 37). It is precisely the increased incidences of racism among soccer fans that prompted UEFA to create Guidelines for Match Officials that enable referees to suspend a game in instances of persistent racist incidents on the field. Those guidelines, known as the three-step protocol, were used in the England-Bulgaria game previously mentioned. 

Thus, while the prevalence and persistence of racism in Cypriot soccer may be declining as you suggest, it must be acknowledged that the trend across the wider European continent and globally is reversed. That in turn seems to lend support to the cultural hypothesis you mention above, namely—that soccer mediates broader socio-cultural structures and phenomena. As racist and discriminatory rhetoric increased in the wake of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election (according to data provided by the Brookings Institution, “support for the 2016 campaign was clearly driven by racism, sexism, and xenophobia” (Kassimeris, 2021, p. 44))—both in the U.S. and globally, the cultural hypothesis would suggest that soccer would mediate, or as you claim—make manifest—these broader social trends. 

If we thus accept that the cultural hypothesis is operative here, we would expect soccer to make manifest the broader rise in discriminatory, racist, and anti-immigrant rhetoric we’ve seen in recent years. This in turn begs the question of how does soccer mediate these broader trends? As part of my brief research for this response I flipped through Christos Kassimeris’ Discrimination in Football (2021). One aspect of discrimination that he discusses is racism, about which he claims:

 “[r]acism in footballs does reflect discrimination in society, yet it is more noticeable because the anonymity of the mass that is the supporters on the stands of any given football stadium allows any one fan to engage in concerted racist activities short of any sense of apprehension. Yet, not all football leagues experience the same degree of racial discrimination for much relates to their political, socio-historical, and cultural background.” (pp. 51-52)

Some of the points that Nyasha makes, specifically that there have been cases “where racist fans in the stands direct monkey chants at black players in the rival team EVEN though the racists’ own team has black players in it” echo Kassimeris’. The latter speaks of “the very likely possibility of ‘fans who racially abuse the black players who play for their opponents, yet cheer those who play for their own side,’ although ‘the ‘acceptance’ of black players and spectators by certain white fans can be contingent upon them demonstrating allegiance to the ‘right’ club or team’” (p. 33). In that sense, racist abuse becomes an instrument in the larger toolkit for abuse of players of the opposite team. Kassimeris further explains:

“[...] abusing players of the opposition is part and parcel of football culture. A black football player defending our club’s values is one of ‘us’ and is, therefore, celebrated for his performance and overall heroics. By contrast, the black footballer playing for our rivals is one of “them” and, if targeted would invite racist abuse to affect his performance” (pp. 33-34). 

I believe this goes to support your argument, Stelios, regarding soccer’s inherently antagonistic discourse, however, going back to Nyasha’s point, an analysis of power is critical in this case. While the ostensible objective of the deployment of racist discourse (chants, monkey noises, throwing of bananas, etc) might be to annoy, distract, and/or antagonize the players of the opposite team, it goes without saying that these “instruments” have unintended consequences as well, namely—the very real dehumanization of nonwhite players, which they carry with them off the playing field. 

That leads me to my next point about the framing/conceptualization of political symbols as an analytical category, which again aligns with Nyasha’s analysis above. Can the deployment of all political symbols be treated equally? Would the peace sign be considered a political symbol within the context of the study and, if so, can it be regarded on the same level as a swastika? Can it be said that as weaponized by fans to pique the opponent’s team and fan groups, these symbols stand apart from their broader cultural and historical meanings? I somewhat grappled with this question when thinking about Bulgarian fans’ use of explicitly racist language and imagery.

I suspect that to some extent Bulgarian fans’ use of such imagery and symbolism is intended as an act of defiance towards UEFA and their anti-racism campaign—an act of defiance performed in the spirit of soccer’s broader culture of antagonism that you describe in your opening statement. To briefly illustrate what I mean, I would point to this Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/bulgaria/comments/q8sz2k/lets_upset_the_foreigners/ titled “Let’s upset the foreigners,” which features a picture of a packaged Bulgarian chocolate pastry (I believe they have been produced and sold in Bulgaria for decades) that would roughly translate in English as the n-word. The discourse that emerges from the comments to the thread is the idea that Bulgarians have had this pastry for decades, its name stands apart from and is completely divorced from the U.S. context, within which the n-word came to stand for racist attitudes and meanings, therefore, “the foreigners” have no right to come here and tell us that the name of this pastry is racist; in doing so, they show that they are ignorant of Bulgarian culture and history, within which the n-word does not have the charge, meaning, and connotations it has in the English language. There is a rejection here of what is perceived as Western—and specifically U.S.—logics of race and racism being “forced” onto the Bulgarian context. In a way, anti-racism itself becomes part and parcel with or enfolded into the broader phenomenon of U.S. cultural imperialism and defied under that pretext (as another patronizing overreach of an interfering and edifying West). What this discourse ultimately does is provide a cover for legitimately existing racism in Bulgaria by claiming some sort of an exception from the U.S. context. I suspect that this discourse is also involved to some extent in the use of swastikas and racist imagery whereby fans believe that they are challenging a Western conceptualization of racism that does not apply to them so all they are doing is “upsetting the foreigners.” Thus, the East-West Cold War divide (which in turn overlays deeper historical and cultural bifurcations) becomes operative in the way symbols are invested with meaning. 

To return to my previous point, however, I wonder if all political symbols can be treated as equally problematic. This touches again on Nyasha’s point about the specific culture and history of Cyprus, which he so thoroughly laid out and how symbols interact with those. 

Lastly, I wanted to address your point about CSKA in Bulgaria, its communist roots and how that communist history of the club is inconsistent with the current right-wing attitudes demonstrated by its fans. This is a great question, which in itself touches on the peculiarities of the communist regime and its administration in Bulgaria. Succinctly, communist ideology, while strictly enforced by the state and its institutions was only superficially embraced by the broader population for the purposes of career advancement and avoiding brushes with the police state. Thus, beyond a minority of party operatives who were devout believers in the communist cause and subscribed to its philosophical principles, broad swaths of the population were skeptical of the communist regime and saw it as an imperial extension of the Soviet Union, which wanted to keep its satellite states as a buffer zone against the West. The superficial allegiance to communism quickly collapsed after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the communist regime in Bulgaria the following year. CSKA’s affiliation with communist ideology can thus be said to have been in name only, which is why we are not seeing a continued legacy of that ideology in the current administration of the club or the behavior of its fan base. For a more detailed discussion specifically about the status of communist ideology in Bulgaria between 1945-1989, I would recommend Holly Case’s interview with Bulgarian scholar and journalist Dimiter Kenarov for Cornell University’s Blog: “East-Central Europe Past and Present” (Case, 2014). 

References: 

Case, H. (Host). (2014, December 29). Interview with Dimiter Kenarov. [Audio Podcast Episode]. In East-Central Europe Past and Present. Cornell University. https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/39026

Kassimeris, C. (2021). Discrimination in football. New York, NY: Routledge. 

Kick It Out. (2022, January 15). About us. https://www.kickitout.org/about-us

Kick It Out. (2022, January 15). 2018/2019. https://www.kickitout.org/faqs/2018-19

Nyasha Mboti's Comments to Stelios Stylianou's Opening Statement

I am fascinated by your construct, Stelios, of football fans’ antagonistic discourse, particularly in the context of an island fractured by heritages of empire and colonialism, and historically divided by politics and opposing political ideologies, but also where football dominates conversation for most men. Antagonism is a common trope in such a context.  When I was making notes for this conversation, I read somewhere about the joke that if you want to know a Cypriot’s politics on the island, you just have to ask them which club they support. In my remarks, I am going to dwell on aspects of antagonistic discourse with illustration from the Nicosia derby between AC Omonia and APOEL FC (arguably the biggest event on Cyprus’s sporting calendar), but also Limassol’s three major football clubs (Apollon, AEL and Aris), as well as Anorthosis Famagusta, and so on. Please note that I have not proofread these notes, so expect some spelling and grammatical errors, and some uses of word choice that could be better. Also, I was writing as ideas came to me, so there is no unifying structure. The consistent thread is merely the theme of antagonistic discourse.

If I am correct that the Latin agonia means “a struggle for victory”, and agōn is a “contest”, where both sides are competing, therefore both sides are equally antagonistic towards each other. So, for instance, APOEL fans are antagonistic towards Omonia fans, and vice versa. There is a kind of equivalence and, even, tit for tat. Both are at odds. Both give as good as they get. That is, in as far as antagonism marks that which is mutually oppositional, antagonistic behaviour should be framed as flowing from both sides in a kind of tit-for-tat. In a sense, the mutually oppositional division of Cyprus into pro-Greek South and pro-Turkey North should perhaps be seen as expressing this ongoing, nested play of agonia and agōn.

But there seems to me to be a contradiction in the sense of two sides being mutually antagonistic if we consider the fact that, at least in writings on Greek drama, the agonist is a hero who is attacked in the play by an antagonist, meaning that antagonistic discourse opposes and disrupts normative discourse. “Anti” certainly means “against”. In this sense, you have usefully talked about the outgroup, which can be seen as embodying the “anti” or, even, the “Other”. So there has to be an outgroup and an in-group, those who belong and those who don’t. They cannot both equally belong or both be equally centred. One group is marked by alterity. One has to be disruptive of what is settled, and do so from the margins. 

If we consider that the Greek prōtagōnistēs refers to an actor who plays the chief or first part (protos = first) in a story or drama, then the anti + agōnistēs is the disruptive rival and competitor to the prōtagōnistēs or principal character. So, while it may be fairly easy to see the North and South of Cyprus as mutually antagonistic, it may be difficult to see both sets of rival fans in a football context as locked in relationship that is mutually antagonistic. There must, rather, be one side dishing out the antagonism, and another receiving it, and perhaps the receiving side turning the tables, and the giving side transformed into receivers of antagonism, but with the back-and-forth never settling into equivalence. Instead, it is an either/or. Either one is receiving or one is giving antagonistic discourse – because there has to be protagonist who is in the chief position, whom the rival seeks to antagonise, perhaps from a position of disadvantage and weakness. 

After all, it may be difficult to see how equally matched rival fan bases can be antagonistic. Where they are equally matched, then they would simply cancel each other out, and may opt for coopetition rather than competition (Coopetition is the act of cooperation between competing companies). For a “policy” of antagonism to be sustained, I think, there has to be something that the “other” side lacks, or is said to lack. In other words, I have a passing interest in finding out not only what it is exactly that antagonistic discourse targets, but also what provokes antagonism. Where antagonism is concerned, it seems to me that you can only antagonise the antagonisable or to antagonise that which is available to be antagonised. It seems that a sense of competition and rivalry is necessary for antagonistic discourse to take root. 

It is difficult, for instance, to imagine the kind of sustained antagonistic discourse from Aris, the least successful – though the oldest – of the three Limassol football clubs (it has no silverware). Only when Aris wins something (thus perhaps actively preventing others from winning it) can they become properly antagonizable – and antagonising. An also-ran, or a punching bag, offers little in the way of provoking contest. They are just a door mat, rather than a proper antagonist in an agonia and agōn. In Zimbabwe, the antagonistic discourse between the two biggest clubs, Dynamos and Highlanders, is driven by many factors, such as the clubs’ location in the two biggest cities (Harare and Bulawayo respectively), putative ethnic identification (“Shona” vs.  Ndebele), and the historical fractures occasioned by such ethnic identification. History is always important. However, such a list of causes and factors in themselves cannot sustain antagonistic discourse. Instead, antagonistic discourse seems to be at its sharpest and highest when both rival clubs are at their strongest, and pose significant challenges to the each other’s plans for domination. 

In other words, for antagonist discourse to remain sharp and usable, the rivals must be strong or make a show of being strong. When one rival is not doing well over a long period, and ceases to be a threat, the nature of the antagonistic discourse – at least in the Zimbabwean case – is less sharp. Success on the pitch, it seems, is the core factor that sharpens antagonistic discourse. As such, if we agree that antagonistic discourse constitutes a kind “provoked, provoking discourse” (it triggers and is triggered), it may mean that antagonistic discourse exists in a constant polarity with its normative opposite whose normativity provokes antagonism in the opposition. 

Can the one in power be as equally antagonistic towards the one without power as much as the one without power is antagonistic towards the one with power? Or antagonism lies more with the rival who is increasingly on the margins? So, the antagonist would be the one who, in Stelios’ account of the game dimension, uses historically and politically sensitive derogatory terms and anti-patriotic, extremist, vulgar terms to disrupt and unsettle the protagonist’s settled or normative discourse. That is, this disruption locates the antagonist in the “outgroup”. However, since antagonistic discourse itself seems to be rather unstable, each side may consider itself the patriotic side while assigning to its rivals the negative semantic prosody of “anti”. If the power is well matched, can we still call it antagonistic discourse? Interestingly, in an “us and them” classification, “us” is the protagonist and “them” are the antagonists – the ones who antagonise us for being what we are. As such, the identification of an antagonist remains unstable and arbitrary.

A further point is that antagonism also functions in terms of two poles, where one thing acts, and another counteracts. This suggests that antagonistic discourse is not itself negative. It can be a good or at least productive thing, particularly where it counteracts something that is harmful. In pharmaceutical discourse, for instance, antagonistic substances are those that counteract the effects of another drug or substance. For instance, an anticarcinogen is antagonistic to a carcinogen. In Stelios’ account, it seems that the emphasis is on antagonistic discourse being negative and harmful. Can the account of antagonistic discourse be expanded to include beneficial acts as well, rather than just the negative and harmful?

You put emphasis on “a second way in which football fans produce and take part in the antagonistic discourse”, which you state is the application of “the us vs. them model”. In the “us vs. them” model, you point out that what some fans are or what they claim to be or identify with is defined in binary opposition to what they are not, what they detest and what they condemn. I wish to point out that “what they are not” is not necessarily or always what you detest; it could also be what you envy, what you would like to be but cannot be in the current circumstances for a variety of reasons. 

One notable view popularised by Frantz Fanon in his seminal essay “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness” (In The Wretched of the Earth) is, for instance, that the opposition of some African nationalists to colonialism could have been because they wanted a seat on the table; as such they wanted to be like their colonisers. That is, they did not really detest colonialism. Rather, they just detested being kept away from the high table. Once they got into power, they immediately mimicked the oppressor and reproduced his ways. The oppositional positioning lapsed into disuse. 

I have seen, in football, cases where rival fans are antagonistic towards a player who is in one team but who would celebrate him if he signs for their team. The same fans may even loathe that same player again if he leaves their club and/or signs for a rival. While rare, an APOEL player can move to Omonia and vice versa. In such cases, it can be expected that fans will shift from antagonising a player to cheering him if the player moves to “our side”, and vice versa. As such, it seems that antagonistic discourse is not stable and cannot be stable. It is not clear, ultimately, what holds antagonistic discourse together. There have even been bizarre cases where racist fans in the stands direct monkey chants at black players in the rival team EVEN though the racists’ own team has black players in it (whom they cheer or at least do not abuse as they abuse the black players on the rival team). 

What role, if any, does envy play in antagonistic discourse? In Cyprus, with Omonia no longer the power it once was in the 1970s and 1980s, it’s power (interestingly, coincidentally) waning with the end of the Cold War, and APOEL now serial winners (regularly playing in Europe), with more money and linked to the ruling DISY, could it be that what Omonia fans detest in APOEL could be something which they could be glad to have if it were them in a position of power, financial success and ascendancy? Omonia last won the league title in 2010 (when the communist party was in power, and were supported by then president and Omonia fan Demetris Christofias). (In Limassol, also, AEL was successful before Apollon came on the scene).

Could the Omonia fans turn around and celebrate the very things that they now seem to detest and condemn in their rivals? Could it be a case of sour grapes driving some elements of antagonistic discourse? Would Omonia fans refuse to have the money or success that APOEL now have? It seems fair to speculate that Omonia fans would have been OK with creating history by becoming the first Cypriot team to reach the quarter-finals of the European Champion League (as APOEL did in 2012) and to be the only local team to reach the group stage three times. There is nothing (directly) antagonizable about (the success of) playing in Europe’s premier competitions. The fans would probably be OK with the money and the recognition as well. 

Recently, fans of Newcastle in England were celebrating the coming of “oil money” into their club from new Saudi owners, despite the fact that the influx of “oil money” has sometimes been seen as corrupting football in the sense of “buying” success. In response, some fans reason that, at least, football-corrupting money brings success on the pitch and so they can live with that kind of corrupted football instead of constant struggles on the pitch. They’d rather be corrupt and successful than be honest, broke and relegated. 

Anyway, a consideration of fans’ shifting discourses suggests that antagonistic discourse itself alters and shape-shifts, and does not have singular or monolithic, fixed motivations. If the city of Limassol is on the margins of Nicosia, and plays second fiddle in terms of titles and supporters, the outcome could be that the football dominance of the city of Nicosia causes the Limassol teams to direct their antagonistic discourse, in a retaliatory sense, towards the dominant capital city teams. The reality, however, is that supporters of teams such as AEL and Apollon, seem to target a common dominant enemy from Nicosia, APOEL, differently to the way they target Omonia.

Thus, supporters of AEL, which won the league in 2012 (the last team other than APOEL to do so), have engaged in ongoing antagonistic discourse against APOEL for different reasons to those motivating Omonia fans to be antagonistic towards APOEL. Hence, AEL supporters, like those of Apollon, coalesce around a “differentiating antagonistic discourse” against the two Nicosia “giants”, with the worst antagonism reserved for APOEL. That is, AEL have reserved intense antagonism for only one of the Nicosia teams – APOEL. During a title decider in 2014 with AEL, the match was controversially abandoned following the alleged use of a “pistol-fired missile” directed at the APOEL dugout. The match was replayed at an empty neutral venue, with APOEL victorious, although the Cyprus football authorities then cancelled the result and awarded APOEL a 3-0 win anyway. 

Fans of Apollon, who have won the Cypriot Cup three times in the last few years, have also found APOEL more antagonisable than other rivals. Thus, in 2016, an Apollon firework was fired across the running track behind the goal directly into a densely populated section of the APOEL support. Despite winning the match 2-0, Apollon were forced to play their next three matches in an empty stadium. The fact that the antagonistic discourse of Limassol supporters against the capital city teams actually targets APOEL almost exclusively suggests that the more dominant a club is (thus a constant feature in competitions for silverware), the more it becomes the target of antagonistic discourse. In England, I have seen Chelsea fans and Arsenal fans attacking each other (via song), and then “uniting” to attack Tottenham fans. However, Tottenham last won any silverware in 2008, and are the least successful of the three clubs, although their new stadium rivals Arsenal’s and is far better than Chelsea’s old Stamford bridge. Some fans claim to hate certain rival fans more than they hate other rival fans, suggesting that there are degrees of antagonistic discourse. Still, the point is that I do not think that we can definitively know all the reasons and all the motivations behind, say, AEL, Apollon and Omonia fans’ antagonistic discourse towards APOEL fans. The controversy in 2017, when state-run broadcaster Cyta were willing to pay for the television rights of APOEL’s Champions League qualifier away to Viitorul but not Apollon’s Europa League qualifier in Aberdeen, could be, for instance, valid motivation of a sense of injustice for Apollon’s supporters. 

Not all antagonistic discourse is equal. Some of it, it seems, is more intense and long-lasting than other kinds of antagonistic discourse. It may also be triggered by different things, some of which are felt more keenly than others, and some having a longer pedigree than others, and so on. Considering that not all fans may express the same antagonistic sentiments, or the same antagonistic sentiments with the same intensity, there could also be scope for differentiating even within the antagonistic discourse of fans of the same team. Perhaps antagonistic discourse exists on a continuum rather than a binarity? 

For instance, it may be that APOEL’s AU79 right-wing, ultra-nationalist, fan group, which believes strongly in unification with Greece (the enosis concept) actually express a brand of ultra-antagonistic discourse as opposed to the “usual” antagonistic discourse of other ordinary APOEL fans? If, perhaps, most APOEL fans are nationalists, and pro-Greece, it is not likely that all APOEL fans are AU79 types. The shortlived success of the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party in Greece, seeing some electoral support from 2010 to 2019, and advancing the old Megali concept of a Greek Empire which seeks – among other things – to incorporate Cyprus, shows what we have always suspected: that the extremists may not be in the majority. 

The same consideration applies to Omonia’s fiercely left-wing Gate 9 anti-nationalist fan group which espouses a single united Cypriot state. They are not representative of all Omonia fans. Apollon’s blue and white colours may signify a pro-Greece positioning, but they are widely regarded as sitting in the centre of the political spectrum, while Anorthosis Famagusta’s blue and white signified a pro-Greece position that is far to the right off Apollon’s. Apollon’s Gate 1 fan group also has appreciable pro-union support. In the 2008 election, around 2,000 Apollon supporters decided to forgo their vote, although this was in direct protest at the supposed cronyism of the Cypriot Football Association (this is another notable example of how politically extreme football can be in Cyprus). Whilst slightly more political than AEL, Apollon are not defined by their radical beliefs in the way that, for instance, APOEL or Anorthosis Famagusta are. (Anorthosis are the other traditionally right-wing club in Cyprus). 

I read somewhere that AEL’s Gate 3 fan group have adopted a rare apolitical position (although there are some left-wing elements within their support). Thus, during the presidential election in 2008, over 400 voting slips were allegedly spoilt by being marked simply for “AEL” rather than for any of the political candidates running in the election.  Many of Gate 3’s street tags may be seen accompanied by anarchist symbols. 

Thus, there could be scope for continuously differentiating antagonistic discourse itself, and allowing more nuance. 

It seems, too, that antagonistic discourse can bypass the “us vs. them” binarity and find locus in sites of negotiation. An interesting example of this would be how, in 2014, when the Cypriot government introduced proposals requiring biometric identification of everyone entering a football stadium in the form of ID cards (those with criminal records would be forbidden from entering), representatives of every major fan group in Cyprus, including Gate 1 and Gate 3 – but not including, interestingly, APOEL’s AU79 (who chose to stage their own protest) – gathered at the parliament building in Nicosia under one banner, where they put forward a unified peaceful protest. 

Is there a sense in which antagonistic discourse is in fact, strategic, or strategically antagonistic? The different clubs from different cities – again with the notable exception of APOEL – were willing to put their antagonistic discourse aside and work together when the situation demanded it and when threatened by what they regarded as a common enemy. It seems that APOEL, at least in the 2014 example of the ID card protest, was the exception to this strategic setting aside of antagonistic discourse. It might also be that APOEL is the club that all the other clubs’ fans love to hate, and they can set aside their differences as long as it is not with APOEL. What could be behind such “specialised” formations of antagonistic discourse?

So how exactly does the “us/them” binarity play out where the rival teams would accept happily what the other side enjoys? I do not think that the source of Omonia’s antagonism towards APOEL is because APOEL have comparably fewer fans or are not people centred, as this would not count as antagonistic discourse (since this is an absence rather than an existing thing to detest). The identity of Omonia as having more fans and being more people-centred than APOEL does not in itself directly counteract the reality that APOEL are now serial winners (compared to Omonia), materially successful, successful on the field and with more money. One can still have more fans and more money at the same time. Omonia could be people centred and still enjoy being serial winners also, if they could have both. These elements are not mutually exclusive.

If it is true that in Cyprus one knows your politics from the team you support, is there recognition, within antagonistic discourse, that what is going in is more than just a football game? That is, how is antagonistic discourse in football fandom an emotive proxy for a general “policy” of mutual opposition in Cyprus? What role, if any, do Graeco-Turkish relations, and the Graeco-Turkish schism, for instance, play in fanning antagonistic discourse? Does the fact that it is nearly 50 years since the unhealed division of the island into a Turkish-held north and Greek Cypriot south suggest a waning salience of history or its continuation, evolution and metamorphosis? What sort of role does the unfinished business of history and the past in Cyprus play in provoking antagonistic discourse and in shaping its form, style and content? 

The account that you have given, Stelios, seems to regard antagonistic discourse as non-serious in that it merely seeks to annoy and irritate the other side, rather than to reflect or entrench a long-lived national schism. But, if it is correct, for instance, that Omonia’s success coincided with the political success of the left in the 1970s when the right was discredited and blamed for the 1974 Turkish invasion (itself triggered by the Greek-engineered coup to unite the island with Greece), and if it can be argued that APOEL has now risen to the top as the right gained favour in Cyprus politics, then it may be a fair expectation that history plays a more salient role in feeding and sustaining antagonistic discourse. 

Since the shadow of Greece and Turkey looms large over the rivalry between Omonia and APOEL, for instance, to what extent can antagonistic discourse also be considered to exhibit traits of a proxy conflict? After all, some of the salient divisions directly express the Greece/Turkey division:

• APOEL fans (nationalists) vs Omonia fans (anti-nationalists)

• APOEL = Hellonocentric; espouses Greek identity and ideas 

• Omonia = Cypriot-centric; Turkish Cypriots; Turkish-leaning; 

• Omonia fans = waving Cyprus flags (Che Guevara t-shirts) 

• APOEL fans = waving Greek flags

• Anorthosis Famagusta (blue and white colours)

How deep (or how shallow) does the antagonism that feeds antagonistic discourse run? When APOEL play in Europe, for instance do Omonia fans support them as patriotic Cypriots, or is the domestic dispute extended to Europe as well? When Greece became European champions, did APOEL fans celebrate while Omonia fans were not happy? With Greece failing economically, is there a sense of schadenfreude amongst some of the anti-nationalist football fans in Cyprus? 

Does the “us vs. them” schism run so deep that there is no possibility of bridging the breach? Or are there certain shared Cypriot traits that can be seen in both Omonia and APOEL fans alike? For instance, one can talk of the putative Cypriot tendency towards stubbornness – is there reason to believe that both sets of fans have the same shared trait and therefore could be alike in certain senses? In Ireland, fans of Celtic and Rangers may perhaps still be expected to enjoy Irish beer and have certain “Irish traits” that cross the perennial divide. Consider the fact that at one point Omonia and APOEL were once one team until, in 1948, Omonia members and players split from APOEL over politics. If they used to be one club, then perhaps there are some prior shared values that have been buried under more recent animosity? If they used to be one team, to what extent is the antagonistic discourse mere sibling rivalry rather than fratricide?

How much of the antagonistic discourse in Cypriot football is anchored in the deep-level history of “Hellenic-Christian Civilization” vs. “Muslim” (i.e., dating back to Ottoman hegemony over the Hellene), the contest of enosis vs. taksim,  and of an internal Cold War (i.e., if the Cold War model cannot be sustained because all major players and guarantors of the 1960 independence – Britain, Turkey and Greece –  were all on the “Western” side of the Cold War divide, and Turkey and Greece are both members of NATO, still the Cold War divide may be reprised in the division between the right vs. left, the nationalists vs. the Communists). The divide between Omonia and APOEL seems to be an “internal Cold War” divide between the pro-Western, pro-Greek right and the Communist left. But it seems that it is impossible to entangle the various strands of these deep level histories until one can say which ones are evident in such and such expressions of antagonistic discourse. The clash of enosis and taksim, however, seems most significant from the point of view of the agonia (“a struggle for victory”) and agōn (a “contest”), with the internal Cold War between the right and the communists assisting in sharpening the antagonistic discourse.

Could we speak in terms of higher intensity antagonistic discourse and lower intensity antagonistic discourse, if, say, we consider that the huge rivalry between the Limassol clubs is still not as big as the rivalry with the Nicosia clubs or the rivalry between the Nicosia clubs? Could the expression of antagonistic discourse on many street corners and doorways in Limassol, illustrated by huge 1s and 3s often painted over each other in a contest for prominence, be a form on antagonistic discourse that is more accommodating and banal rather than all-out? We see that, once APOEL come into the picture, the antagonistic discourse with the Limassol teams – especially Apollon and AEL – becomes intense and even settles into iterations of aggression.

A few other talking points:

How is antagonistic discourse distinct from football banter and bragging rights? Do Cypriot rival fans banter and troll each other in addition to antagonistic discourse? Or are football banter and bragging rights elements of antagonistic discourse itself? Banter and bragging rights, however, tend to be friendlier (or at least less hostile) than antagonistic. If an image of a Che Guevara or a swastika is displayed with the prime or sole intention to irritate and pique the opposite team’s fans, rather than to promote what these symbols historically or politically stand for, how is this intention not indicating that antagonistic discourse is harmless banter?

Could you say a bit more about the antagonistic discourse driven by “Gate” fan groups (Gate 9, Gate 1, gate 3 etc.)?

What is the gendered dimension of antagonistic discourse? Kartakoullis, Kriemadis and Pouloukas, in Soccer and Society (2009) have said that 77% of men between 21 and 70 years support a football club. So is antagonist discourse male?

As unification overtures continue to ebb and flow between the North and South, and the infamous Ledra street opens to north-south crossings, does the nature of antagonistic also change or, at least, is it inflected by these ebbs and flows of tension?

Finally, I am interested in “us vs. them”, also, from an apartheid studies (AS) point of view because “us vs. them” is a decimalising operation. The fact that, after the violence of 1963, Turkish Cypriots started living in their own enclaves within Cyprus itself, the expulsions of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots from North and South, the persistent division between North and South, the existence of the Turkish Cypriot quarter in Nicosia, and the reality and symbolism of Ledra Street and the division of Nicosia by the Green Line, also interests me from the point of view of the Apartheid Studies framework of decimalisation). With the little reading I have done on the so-called “Cyprus Problem” or the “Cyprus Question” as I was preparing notes for this conversation, I have to say that there are some traces and echoes of such persistently irresolvable “Questions” as the Palestinian Question, the Irish Question and, in colonised Africa, the Native Question, and so on. This makes me think that the study of antagonistic discourse in Cyprus has relevance for the global framework of apartheid studies. 

Does the performative element of antagonistic discourse in the terraces also include throwing of flares and fireworks, as happened in 2016 when an Apollon firework was fired into a densely populated section of the APOEL support or, like during the title decider in 2014 with AEL, when the match was controversially abandoned following the alleged use of a “pistol-fired missile”, targeted at the APOEL dugout?

Of the two domains of politics and sex that you have identified, that of politics is more readily identifiable, due to the prevalence and visibility of deeply marked ideological formations in Cyprus. However, I wonder if the domain of sex is easily identified in the political domain except as a convenient improvisation to emphasise a political and ideological point. The derogatory language of pussies, fags, pussies, sluts, and bastards, for instance, seems to me to function to humiliate and delegitimise those that may be thought of as “weak” and “sensitive”. If this reading (that sexual insults are improvised) is correct, then the domain of sex is in fact not a separate domain. Instead, it can be read as a subdomain of the domain of politics. 

As you correctly point out that in football “scoring involves the physical violation of a designated territory, which conceptually invites penetrative metaphors”, this interpretation accords with rape more than it does with sex. It is a language of violation, not of love-making or enjoyment. As such, I am doubtful that the subdomain of sex makes sense only if contextualized in a heteronormative sexist milieu, specifically one that promotes hegemonic, or otherwise dominant masculinities. That is, unless you are regarding rape to be an element of heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinities. But the pairing or association of sex and rape is a bit of a stretch.

The contests in the domain of politics seem to coalesce around unresolved questions about what is means to be Cypriot. Hence, a number of domains present themselves to the performance of antagonistic discourse:

CYPRUS IS TURKISH (taksim)

CYPRUS IS GREEK (enosis)

CYPRUS IS CYPRIOT (ambivalent, patriotic)

CYPRUS IS --- (ongoing quest for resolution of the “Cyprus Problem”)

These contests can be accommodated in the subdomain of sex, but perhaps if we considered not just sex but rape. Because sex is consensual, it may not be useful in the attempt to interpret the contests outlined above. Rape, on the other hand, can accommodate the often-violent historical schisms that today still sustain antagonistic discourse.

In the game dimension, how do you conclude that rival fans, in their use of political symbols in an auxiliary-instrumental mode, may be trying “to win over the opponent”, instead of keeping the opponent at bay? If the objective is to win over the opponent, won’t this game dimension in itself result in the dissolving of antagonistic discourse? Suppose I succeed in winning over my opponent, then what? Perhaps you can explain further and also illustrate what you mean by “to win over the opponent”. Do Omonia fans try to win over APOEL fans? What for? How? When the “pistol-fired missile” was targeted at the APOEL dugout by AEL fans, leading to the abandonment of the match, or when an Apollon firework was targeted at APOEL fans, was this an attempt to win over the opponent? There seems to be a contradiction when you state that, in the game dimension, “these messages are just convenient and effective means to effectively attack the opponents”. How, then, can one win over an opponent by attacking them?

Whereas in the game dimension that you describe, the historically established meaning of antagonistic messages may be said to have become irrelevant, what exactly makes historical meanings irrelevant?  Is it a quest to forget the past or to heal the past or is it just the onset of a tendency towards wilful historical amnesia? Is the irrelevance arising from the fact that this is just a football match? My experience in Zimbabwe is that history remains politically charged, even many decades after an event such as the Gukurahundi genocide that killed thousands in the south of Zimbabwe. Football games between Dynamos and Highlanders are tense events, sometimes flaring up in violence.

I agree with your argument that in the cultural hypothesis what we see and hear in and around football games could be manifestations of underlying normative structures. You identify sexism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy as these underlying normative structures. I wonder, however, why you do not include politics here, or ideology, since Cyprus is visibly ideologically divided, but also since you identify the political domain as being salient alongside the domain of sex. Where does the political domain fit into these three underlying structures of sexism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy? I still need convincing that there is no politics in the underlying normative structures. If anything, politics seems to be the golden thread that cuts through all the other themes. In any case, even if you succeed in making the cultural hypothesis exclude politics, the earlier point you made about the game dimension which makes history and politics irrelevant might also end up making the normative underlying structures irrelevant. Can we eat our cake and still have it? If the game dimension succeeds in making history and politics irrelevant, how does sexism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy survive? Shouldn’t they also be rendered irrelevant by the same process that, in the game dimension, render history and politics irrelevant?

I disagree somewhat with your contention that “Cyprus was a society in the periphery of the East-West antagonism”. I do not think that there is warrant to this claim of Cypriot exceptionalism in geopolitics. The historical evidence seems to suggest that Cyprus was, in fact, at the heart of it. A core reason for this is that Cyprus was, is, and remains a STRATEGIC LOCATION in the Eastern Mediterranean. Let us not forget that this location was the crucial main route to India, then Britain’s most important overseas possession. This mere fact means that it cannot be on the periphery of global geopolitics, of which the East-West antagonism is a part. Consider that the modern “Cyprus question” properly begins (in my view anyway) with the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) (the same one after which Bulgaria gets its independence from Turkey) and the Congress of Berlin after which Cyprus was leased to Britain and became an important part of the British Empire. This fact links Cyprus to the events in the Balkans which Dora is looking at because the events in Bulgaria, for instance, centred Russo-Turkish and great power geopolitical contests which involved all of Europe, Russia and Turkey at the centre of which was the question of the “sick man of Europe” (the headache of the imminent breakup of the Ottoman Empire). 

In the post-war “agreement”, Britain was going to use Cyprus seemingly to protect the “sick man of Europe” (the Ottoman Empire) against possible Russian aggression. Cyprus would serve the British Empire as a key military base for its colonial routes. Famagusta harbour was completed during the heyday of the British Empire, a strategic naval outpost overlooking the Suez Canal since 1906. There is a clear East-West thread here. So, Cyprus, like Bulgaria, enters the 20th century as a pawn in a “great power” game of exit from one waning empire and entry into another rising empire.  Britain used (and later, by extension, NATO) and still uses Cyprus as a military base, retaining the two Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

Secondly, I feel that there is scope to retrieve some salient features in Cyprus’ history that may suggest that there is no need to treat Cyprus as exceptional. For instance, the irredentist claims around the incorporation of Cyprus either into Greece or Turkey are reminiscent of the Balkans theme that Dora is examining. After all, the link between Dora’s study of Bulgaria and Stelios study of Cyprus is actually Turkey/Ottoman empire. Cyprus was ceded by the Ottomans to the British, thus inserting Cyprus into the East/West contest perhaps not directly but by inversion. Cyprus seems to be an inverted Bulgaria or an inverted Balkans, but with the same outcomes.

The over three centuries of Ottoman rule of Cyprus between 1571 and 1878 (de jure until 1914), then becoming a British colony (1878/1914) (ceded to Britain by the Ottomans at the Congress of Berlin in 1878), until the Zürich Agreement of 1959, followed by independence of Cyprus (1960) and decolonisation, are, rather than exceptional, mirroring both the Balkans in miniature and also colonial and decolonising Africa, with all attendant fractures, partitions and colonial hangovers. The ceding of Cyprus to Britain by the Ottomans at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 is interesting in its timing and location as it is also very close to the Berlin Conference of 1884 where Africa was sliced up as if it were a cake by European powers. Most African problems begin at this time, in a conference room in Berlin. The independence of Cyprus in 1960 also bears close resemblance to the independence and decolonisation happening around this time in African countries such as Ghana. The problems that followed in the 1970s mirror the problems that followed independence in Africa in countries such as Nigeria, including the scourge of military rule.

I believe that the “Cyprus Problem”, which includes the military rules, coups, social strife, partition and north-south division, is a manifestation of what I would call the delayed “hotness” of the Cold War, best exemplified by what took place in once “non-aligned” Yugoslavia.

My view would be that history is not irrelevant to antagonistic discourse in Cyprus. Rather, it is at its heart.

Politics and Sex in Football Fans' Antagonistic Discourse in Cyprus

I dedicated my blog last year to the Global Fandom Jamboree — a series of conversations amongst scholar from many different nations about fandom and fandom studies. I have been gratified by the level of interests this undertaking generated. We are already seeing unexpected collaborations — from conference sessions to co-authored papers — emerge from the match-making that was required to make this series work. But there were still some outstanding (in both senses of the term) conversations still to be completed when the blog shut down for the summer. So for the next few weeks, I will be sharing a bit more consideration of the topic.

Politics and Sex in Football Fans' Antagonistic Discourse in Cyprus

Stelios Stylianou

Cyprus University of Technology

About 12 years ago, two colleagues invited me to take part in the preparation of a grant proposal to study the use of political symbols by young people in the public sphere of Cyprus (area controlled by the Republic of Cyprus).  The idea was attractive as Cyprus has been a place of intense political struggle, including armed conflicts from the mid-fifties to the mid-seventies and a public sphere of political antagonism that has been effervescent well into the decades that followed.  Public use of political symbols was part of the political process, both in elite and lay discourses.  As a sociologist, even though my specialization was in criminology, I gladly accepted, we luckily got the grant, and we dived into the field.  One major site of data collection was football (soccer) games.  Part of the curiosity that motivated our study was the readily observable fact that football fans are the most vocal and loud among young people in publicly, massively, and constantly communicating political messages, especially during and around football games, but also on city walls, school desks, their bodies, and on the internet.  Our study soon entered the area of football fandom and focused mainly on fan identities.  In the following years, I ended up continuing this project, as I had moved to a communications department, I met a colleague who studied football fandom, and I had the opportunity to do more field research, mostly observations of football games and in-depth interviews with fans.  The focus of my study shifted toward football fans' antagonistic discourse.

Football fans perform and reaffirm their collective identity as fans of their team, members of fan clubs, residents of the team's home city, etc.  One mode of doing this is by expressing their devotion to their fandom object during football games, as other fans express their devotion to other fandom objects during other occasions or rituals: citizens express their devotion to their country during parades, believers express their devotion to their God(s) during religious services, and music lovers express their devotion to their favorite musicians during concerts.  Similarly, football fans chant, dance, paint themselves and display banners in favor of their team.  

There is a second way in which football fans produce and take part in the antagonistic discourse: they apply the us vs. them model, whereby, what they are (what they claim to be, what they identify with) is defined in binary opposition to what they are not (what they detest, what they condemn).  The embodiment of this latter element (them) is the opposite team and its fans.  Thus, through antagonistic discursive practices, fans praise the superiority of the ingroup by exposing the inferiority of the outgroup.  During football games, this is enacted in a game-like mode, with informal goals and rules, winners and losers (who will be louder, who will be more offensive, who will be more "creative" in destroying the opponent's reputation).  This game runs simultaneously with the football game: while 22 players play football on the field, hundreds or thousands of fans play symbols on the terraces.  Regarding the content of this communication, there are two main cultural domains where the antagonistic discourse is located: politics and sex (interestingly, sport-related content, e.g., about the opposite team's poor performance is almost absent).

Beginning with the former domain, there is, plainly speaking, a lot of politics in football fans' antagonistic discourse, as it would (reasonably but not necessarily) be expected in an intensively public political setting like Cyprus.  Football fans present identity discourses that densely contain political messages, such as praising or condemning political ideologies, parties, and figures.  What we are finding in our ethnography is that there is a political-historical dimension that explains the political elements in football fans' antagonistic discourse.  The presence of such elements is expressive, yet rational: fans affirm their political identity as citizens and this identity correlates with football clubs' origins, histories, ideological orientations, and party affiliations.

On the other hand, we are finding that the political gravity of these messages is variable and often noticeably light.  During antagonistic communication, fans exchange curses, call names, and otherwise discursively attack their opponents in ways that transform politics into a playful game, where the sacred becomes profane, heroes become bastards, and victims of violence become objects of contempt and ridicule.  Indicatively, emblematic historical figures, like Che Guevara, or symbols representing extremist ideologies, like swastikas, are displayed with the prime or sole intention to irritate and pique the opposite team's fans (rather than to promote what these symbols historically or politically stand for).  We term this the game dimension.  Our conclusion is that in their struggle to win over the opponent, fans use political symbols in an auxiliary-instrumental mode, whereby the historically established meaning of such messages becomes irrelevant.  In other words, these messages are just convenient and effective means to attack the opponents.  This is the first idea/observation that I would like to share in this conversation, asking to what extent this happens elsewhere too.  Do football fans use historically and politically sensitive derogatory (perhaps anti-patriotic, extremist, vulgar, etc.) terms to pique their opponents in the course of a symbols game?

Turning to the second domain, sex, we must first note that sex-related themes are more widespread than politics in they manifestations in football fans' antagonistic discourse, both quantitatively as well as in terms of discursive structures.  Their content and intensity differ across societies but they follow a more or less common discursive form: to be a (serious, active, real, etc.) fan of a football team, you "must be" reputable, heterosexual, masculine, and you must (be able to and actually) penetrate others (interestingly, these formative "criteria" apply to female fans as well).  These identity elements are displayed in various ways, including what fans say and do during and around the game.  Various sex-related themes are found in our data, the most prevalent among which are those articulating us vs. them divisions concerning gender, sexuality, and family or descent reputation.  If I were given a word limit of just four words to present our thematic findings, those would be fags, pussies, sluts, and bastards.  These are the main claims against the outgroup, which simultaneously signify the superior qualities of the in-group; that is, we are heterosexuals (not fags like them), males (not pussies like them), reputable (not sluts like their mothers and sisters), and honorable (not bastards like them).

Why do fans choose to use these sex-related themes? Part of the answer comes from the nature of antagonistic sports, where a binary opposition (winner vs. loser) is native, more clearly so if winning is a function of scoring against an opponent. In football, scoring involves the physical violation of a designated territory, which conceptually invites penetrative metaphors. But such interpretation makes sense only if contextualized in a heteronormative sexist milieu, specifically one that promotes penetrative, hegemonic, or otherwise dominant masculinities. This necessary condition leads to a more sociological explanation, obtained by zooming out of the football game as an event to ask where these discursive elements come from. My answer is mainstream culture. The evidence, at least as I interpret it, is in favor of what I call the cultural hypothesis: what we see and hear in and around football games are manifestations of the underlying normative structures of sexism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy. These structures are discursively manifested during football games, as, there, they more easily find their way out of mainstream normative barriers (this discourse is also found in mediated content, such as print newspapers and on the internet, albeit to a lesser degree, due to formal or informal censorship). I support this answer by juxtaposing it with an alternative explanation, namely the subcultural hypothesis. I argue that football fans are not a subculture, as they share with mainstream culture more than they oppose. They are significantly different only in behavioral terms: they depart from mainstream norms of communication and decency. To conclude, I quote one of our interview participants: "Just go to a football game to understand our society". So, the second question I would like to discuss is to what extent hegemonic or otherwise dominant masculinity (as expressed in my description above) persists or is declining in football fans' antagonistic discourse.

Stelios Stylianou (PhD in Sociology, University of Washington) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Internet Studies at the Cyprus University of Technology. He has taught courses in sociology, criminology and social research methodology at the University of Washington, the University of Cyprus, Intercollege, the University of Nicosia, and the Cyprus University of Technology. His research has focused on victimless deviance, crime seriousness, juvenile delinquency, drug use, rave parties, internet use, privacy concerns, television violence, and football fandom. He has published articles in international journals, a book on juvenile delinquency in Cyprus (University of Nicosia Press, 2007) and a book on television violence (Papazisi, 2018).\\

Dora Valkanova is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Critical Media Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is a film historian and practitioner whose research focuses on memory and nostalgia in film and media, mediated representations of Eastern Europe and Russia, film branding, and media fandom. Her most recent article: “White masculinity in the ‘New Cold War: reading Rocky IV and White Nights as multidirectional memories” was published in the journal Critical Studies in Media Communication in April, 2022.

Transformation of the Functions of Kazakh Television in the Information Society

Transformation of the Functions of Kazakh Television
in the Information Society

ULBOSSYN M. YESSENBEKOVA

L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University

Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

During the research, we obtained the results that substantiate the necessity to transform television in Kazakhstan which is a universal institution of public life in the information society performing political and socio-cultural functions. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that over the past 10 years the Kazakhstan government has initiated institutional measures to create and maintain the system of socially responsible television, and to improve information legislation and to reconstruct the paradigm of the state information policy.

The Kazakh society promotes and supports the idea of establishing equal relationships between television broadcasters and their audience and developing a transparent media economics and media research. In the present paper, we systematize the national legislation of Kazakhstan in the field of freedom of speech; creation, acquisition, processing and dissemination of information; and organization of activities of journalists and mass media.

The fundamental principles of socially responsible television should embrace openness and transparency. The same characteristics of television were specified in the European Convention on Transfrontier Television. The Convention also names universality, diversity, responsibility and independence.

Thus, the old broadcast schedules are being replaced with editorial policy, and social irresponsibility of media-managers’ television is superseded by a growing responsibility. Under such conditions, TV ratings and measuring TV audience will encourage institutional changes, expansion of TV audience and its transformation from a passive segment into an active participant in social and political discourse.

Modern convergence-prone television implies the transformation of passive audience into active consumers and full-fledged participants in the complicated communication process. With the emergence of interactive television, this process takes on a different quality.

In this context, we can identify the information society with the civil society, in which not only instruments of political communication, but also the major actors of these processes have been significantly changed. Thus, society and its institutions, as well as the entire audience, are becoming active participants in multilateral communication that can influence not only the program policy, but also take part in forming and administering the television agenda.

The legislative acts adopted by the Kazakh Parliament regulating the spheres of the information policy and information communications contain principal provisions on the place and the role of television in the territory of Kazakhstan, and stipulate the necessity to reconsider television as a single complex of mass media.

In the given paper, we intend to demonstrate the degree to which the legal system of Kazakhstan in the sphere of the information policy is formed and integrated. We believe that further democratic modernization of the social system, accession of Kazakhstan to international agreements on human and civil rights and freedoms, as well as on cross-border movement of information flows, will become a catalyst for further development of the information society and the Kazakh digital television.

Therefore, it is necessary to continue to implement tasks on enhancing the effectiveness of the public administration system and ensure the access to innovative infrastructure in the field of information and communication. Creation of the information environment for socio-economic and cultural development of the state and society, as well as the expansion of the Kazakh information space, also suggest pooling the effort of the state and society. Since the government program “Information Kazakhstan-2020” is implemented in two stages (Stage 1 – from 2013 to 2017; Stage 2 – from 2018 to 2020), with a view to achieving its main objectives the following key indices have been determined:

1.                  Availability of the information and communication infrastructure in households of the Republic of Kazakhstan – 100%; the number of Internet users in 2020 – 75%; the level of computer literacy of the population – 80%; coverage with digital television and radio services of Kazakhstan’s population – 95%.

2.                  The share of the sector of information and communication technologies in the country’s GDP – 4%; the share of public health organizations operating within the single health care network – 100%; the share of scientific and educational organizations operating within the single national scientific and educational network – 100%.

3.                  The share of electronic mass media in the total number of mass media registered in Kazakhstan – 100%; the share of Kazakhstani online stores in the total turnover of products and services with electronic payment – 40%.

4.                  The share of public services provided electronically – 50%; the share of electronic public services rendered in relation to the total number of services provided in the traditional form – 80%.

Official documents adopted in 2010 do not contain exhaustive answers to modern challenges, some of them are concentrated on resolving technical issues about introduction of digital broadcasting, but they lack approaches to organization of television in the digital environment.

Tendencies in the development of the global information space require the state and society to jointly search for and establish new categories of electronic mass communication tools reflecting the processes of inevitable convergence of information and communication. It is also necessary to realize the inevitability of an increase in social responsibility of television and its development in the information society which become increasingly topical in the conditions of Kazakhstan.

Nowadays, the special importance in attributable to network-based mass communication tools, online and other information and communication resources that provide open access to informational and moral values, encourage the audience to freely express their opinion, and generate a massive inflow of original ideas. The abovementioned principles are the fundamental democratic values of society.

The problems of formation of the information society in Kazakhstan are reflected in many legislative acts and government programs. In general, they are aimed at resolving political-economic and social issues about eliminating information inequality in society, as well as technocratic and technological problems.

There is an integral legal institution developed in the country, i.e. legislation in the field of freedom of speech; creation, acquisition, processing and dissemination of information; and organization of activities of journalists and mass media. This system is constantly and actively evolving. Several objective factors have a stimulating effect on this process. Such catalysts incorporate further democratic modernization of the social system, accession of Kazakhstan to international agreements on human and civil rights and freedoms, as well as on cross-border movement of information flows, etc.

Government agencies and authorities gradually change their attitude towards mass media and create departments to deal with mass communication channels. The program of electronic government is being gradually implemented. The early 2000s were marked by a discussion about the issues of further strengthening the democratic trajectory of Kazakhstan’s development. This work culminated in the adoption of two important documents: the Concept of Civil Society Development in Kazakhstan for 2006–2011 and the Concept of Development of the Information Space Competitiveness in Kazakhstan for 2006–2009.

Later, all these changes in legislation were enshrined in the law “On Amendments and Additions to the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan”. Under the influence of these factors, the liberal trajectory of the development of media law in Kazakhstan was approved. It was implemented by adoption of the following documents:

1.     The laws “On Mass Media”, “On Informatization”, and “On Communications”.

2.     The Concept of Civil Society Development.

3.     The Concept of Development of the Information Space Competitiveness in Kazakhstan.

4.     The Concept of Information Security in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

5.     The Program for Reducing Information Inequality in the Republic of Kazakhstan (the government program “Information Kazakhstan-2020”).

The government program “Information Kazakhstan-2020” underlines a crucial role of electronic mass media in strengthening democratic institutions and society development. This is attributable to traditionally high level of coverage with conventional television which represents the most effective means of gaining information. The recent sociological research studies have shown that 88% of Kazakhs prefer watching domestic TV channels, while 53% of respondents watch them daily. Online media encompass a wide range of various resources, the most important of which are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Audience of online media projects in Kazakhstan

Indicator

Mail.ru Group

Vk.com

Ok.ru

Monthly Reach

Thousand people

4209,7

2718,2

1937,5

Population ages 12–54

80,1%

51,7%

36,9%

Average Weekly Reach

Thousand people

3635,8

1923,0

1282,6

Population ages 12–54

69,2%

36,6%

24,4%

Average Weekly Frequency

142,4

114,6

55,7

Average Daily Reach

Weekdays

Thousand people

2462,7

1027,3

681,4

Population ages 12–54

46,9%

19,5%

13,0%

Weekends

Thousand people

1922,6

925,9

566,0

Population ages 12–54

36,6%

17,6%

10,8%

Average Daily Frequency

32,1

31,8

15,7

Kazakhstani television broadcasters are represented by several binary oppositions: conventional television and innovative electronic mass communication channels; television and the environment of online and mobile television; open access to information and the problem of restricting access to data; opportunity to freely express opinions and inability to take it.

Hence, society and the sphere of electronic mass media in particular experience serious problems associated with the necessity for institutional changes. These changes are impossible without improvement and further liberalization of national legislation, implementation of the updated information policy and modernization of the system of television and radio broadcasting in the conditions of formation of the information society as an important element of civil society.

Admittedly, in practice, the development of television is hindered by the inadequacy of legal regulation in information relations within the socio-political system and by poor social awareness of the issues mentioned, which creates managerial risks.

We believe that the only effective mechanism for its construction is the introduction of the model of the public media sphere. To preserve and augment considerably the advantages of television in the Kazakhstani context, one should understand the nature of the impact of information and communication technologies on the media industry. We suppose that today’s television system in Kazakhstan can be characterized as a combination of all-Republic and regional, state and commercial, production and network companies. We assume that the need of the information society can lead to formation of a more flexible system of TV channels that will rely on solely the interests and needs of different segments of the audience.

Interactive technologies should facilitate this process due to their capability to establish the so-called “feedback” with the audience. Without them, it is impossible to achieve a qualitative programming that meets the needs of public institutions and individuals. Such an audience becomes an active social object of television communication acquiring the properties of a functional element of the political order, which means returning to a new technological paradigm – the instruments of the direct democratic public governance. Building new media relationships and game-changing content management result in increased civic engagement. And this will be an effective way of changing the social segment.

Ulbossyn M. Yessenbekova is a professor in the Department of Teleradio and Public Relations at L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Republic of Kazakhstan. Her research interest is scientific direction of media such as trends in the development of modern mass communications, and human in the information society.

Television in the Development of Information Society Culture in Kazakhstan

In 2020, I received an invitation to do a Zoom talk in Nur-Sultan (now Astana), Ksakhstan. It meant setting an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night, Atlanta time, since the internet has gone further in shattering geographic boundaries than it has temporal ones. But I had to do this and it turned out to be a really rewarding experience to interact with these bright, engaging, and earnest students and their faculty advisors. I have stayed in touch with my Ulbossyn M Yessenbekov at LN Gumilyov Eurasian National University since. Today I am sharing some of their work. Many of us know little of this Eurasian country. Be honest, how many of you thought first of Borat before settling into a less fanciful vision of the country? Here, she shares some outstanding work introducing It to media conditions there, an exploration to be continued in a second installment next time.

Television in the Development of Information Society Culture in Kazakhstan

ULBOSSYN M. YESSENBEKOVA

L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University

Astana, Kazakhstan

         Currently, Kazakhstan television is the most accessible and popular means of mass communication. It occupies an important segment of the country’s media market, providing citizens with information and knowledge from all areas of social relations and human activities. Television has a huge impact on political, economic, information and cultural processes. Well-known researchers wrote about the formation of a “communication society” based on communication (Webster, 2001).

Furthermore, Kazakh scientists and journalists do not conduct valuable measurements and studies of the telecommunications market in the digital technology segment. Television as a means of forming the information culture of society also remains a less-studied part of the media market. This provision shows the relevance of the scientific method of studying modern television. The authors tried to consider the functioning of television as a factor affecting cultural processes in the information society. Many researchers agree with the opinion about the onset of a qualitatively different stage of development of human civilization, where human life is radically changed under the influence of new technologies (Council of Europe, 1997).

The American scientific community does not use the term “information society”, instead they use the term “information superhighway”. On the contrary, in Europe, the definition “information society” can be found in many official documents of the European Union. In this article, an information society is understood as a society that is formed and depends on the level of convergence of information and communication technologies. Such society is characterized by the accelerated interpenetration and influence of different cultures; meanwhile, it opens up wide opportunities for self-identification of any person. Information culture is understood as the way to harmonize the spiritual component of a person with the surrounding world, and the ability to replenish one’s knowledge, identify, find and use socially important information.

For well-being and obtaining the necessary knowledge, it is significant to have unhindered access to information and technology skills. For these purposes, public policy is implemented in Kazakhstan. The Ministry of Information has been tasked to ensure favorable conditions for the development of Kazakhstan’s mass media, considering global trends. State bodies adopt a set of incentive mechanisms and change legislation on information and communication issues. The government program “Digital Kazakhstan” was adopted. Experts forecast that the expected results of the program ‘can contribute to the successful development of digital television in the country’ (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Forecast of expected results of the Government Program “Digital Kazakhstan” for 2020

            In addition, the transformation of the information space of Kazakhstan takes place through the formation of new mechanisms of the state information order, which is based on the principles of transparency and efficiency. For this purpose, it is necessary to use the international experience of subsidizing and work further on improving the quality of broadcasting of Kazakhstan television.

Another direction is the development of the Kazakh segment of the Internet, which will consist of two areas. The first one includes technical issues – the provision of the population with broadband Internet access services. Today, the number of Kazakhstan Internet users exceeds 93%; however, the ultimate goal is to reach maximum indicators (Marcuse, 1996). In terms of penetration of broadband Internet access, Kazakhstan has a good rating among developing countries. This indicator in the business segment is much better than in the segment of Home Internet (Figure 2).

According to the government program of digitalization, more than 1,200 settlements will be equipped with high-speed Internet access. The provision of members of society with the possibility of unhindered access to socially important information will be another direction. With new technologies, digital television reaches the most remote settlements of Kazakhstan, the residents of which got the opportunity to watch news, favorite TV programs and films. Thus, one can state that Kazakhstan television creates new standards of culture and is an essential indicator of the level of development of public and national culture (Andreev, 1996).

Figure 2. The level of Internet penetration in Kazakhstan

            Modern Kazakhstan television is characterized by a shift of emphasis on light entertainment projects, instead of cultural-educational and educative programs. Kazakhstan's creative community is concerned about the lack of educative programs on state-run TV channels that would cover political, economic and socio-cultural changes in the life of the country. Increasingly regular discussions on pages of online media about the need to purposefully raise the level of culture and knowledge of society force managers of teleholdings to change the program broadcasting policy, their program policy, the concepts of ongoing projects.

The info-communications infrastructure of the state has been dynamically developing in Kazakhstan over the past 20 years. This is evidenced by a stable growth in revenues in the communications industry, which is also an important indicator of the increase in the scope of information services. The structure and dynamics of revenues from communication services is an important indicator of the development of the info-communications industry of the state (Figure 3). Statistical data indicate the correctness of the chosen development model.

Figure 3. Structure of revenues from communication services in Kazakhstan

(January-December 2020)

The analysis shows that Kazakhstan authorities take sufficient measures to eliminate information inequality, improve the information culture of society. All this shows the scale of Kazakhstan programs on the development of info-communication capabilities of the country.

In this article, the author shares the opinion on the importance of the culture-forming function of television. At the same time, the authors emphasize its educational features, based on the following principles:

(i)         Information culture as a sociocultural element of the information society, which plays an important role in the formation of this society;

(ii)       Communication and educational properties of television in information society culture;

(iii)     New info-communication technologies are an important link in the formation of information culture in the Kazakhstan information society;

(iv)      The influence of Kazakhstan TV channels on the cultural and information situation in the republic, the editorial broadcasting policy of a TV channel – on the enforcement of spiritual, cultural and national traditions of Kazakhstan society.

            The television segment of communication actively forms new spiritual values, worldview and type of culture (Castells, 2009). Like many cultures of the peoples of the world, the culture of the Kazakh people also consists of acquired and created values. Undoubtedly, mass media play an important role in its formation. Television propaganda plays a significant role here, as well as it plays an important role in the dissemination of spiritual values.

Affirming the necessity and revealing the role of television broadcasting in the formation of new cultural landmarks, it is important to study the influence of television on the culture of the people, information and social policy.

As in many developing countries, television is a generally available source of information in Kazakhstan. It provides the majority of the population with the necessary information, simultaneously affecting the political, economic and socio-cultural well-being of society. The author viewed television as a way of disseminating information with information properties only. The development of information technologies has changed the traditional properties of television towards strengthening the communicative direction and interactive communication of the viewer with the TV studio (Zubov & Fokeev, 1998; Information Society and Information Culture: Changed Paradigms of the 21st Century, 2012). Modern researchers distinguish several elements of interaction between the parties of the communicative process: “a creator of information – technical means of transfer – an information message – the audience”.

Over the past 20 years, Kazakh television has become an important tool for the creation and dissemination of cultural values and performs the following functions:

•         Kazakhstan TV channels disseminate cultural information, performing an informative function;

•         Kazakh television conducts and promotes propaganda of national values, performs cultural and educational functions;

•         TV projects of Kazakhstan TV channels are aimed at raising the cultural and educative level of Kazakhstan society.

Kazakhstan TV channels produce a wide range of national products (Molchanova, 2005). The television market turns into an art and educational encyclopedia for the mass audience. In this regard, a culture-forming function of television is of particular importance.

            The article revealed the information and educational qualities of television and confirmed its dual functions: television broadcasting is a mass communication tool that most effectively serves in the propaganda of cultural policy. The problems of the functioning of Kazakhstan television under the new legislation regulating the information policy of the state have been examined.

The basis for the effective implementation of the educational functions of television is the high level of the info-communication industry, new communication technologies. Over the past 20 years, Kazakhstan has developed its infrastructure on a systemic basis; the annual growth of the industry is 7-10%. All this taken together promotes the successful implementation of the communicative and educational functions of television and the information policy of the state in general.

Ulbossyn M. Yessenbekova is a professor in the Department of Teleradio and Public Relations at L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Republic of Kazakhstan. Her research interest is scientific direction of media such as trends in the development of modern mass communications, and human in the information society.

The Return of the Sacred Slacker: Television in a Post-Covid America

The Return of the Sacred Slacker: Television in a Post-Covid America

Martine Foquet, USC

“No one is sitting around...just waiting for the old regime to come back” said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell in response to questions about America’s economic future.We are in a strange transitional period where there is an understanding that change is on the horizon, but what that change looks like is anybody’s guess. However, there is one area of life that most observers agree has been changed forever by COVID: work.

The near universal condemnation of Kim Kardashian’s comment that “nobody wants to work these days” is a reflection of the quickly changing perception of the role work plays in our lives. It’s not necessarily that her statement was wrong, but that people feel that lacking ambition is justified under the circumstances. Moreover, the pandemic has accelerated the cultural belief that hard work is not what distinguishes the rich from the average person. While the Great Resignation increased wages for many Americans, analysts have found that wage increases are not proportional to the rate of inflation. Inflation has contributed to 64% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, a trend that even affects those making six figures or more. Moreover, as the cost of living rises people are finding American staples like homeownership and debt-free living harder to achieve. As New York Magazine writer Amil Niazi states, “work [isn’t] my identity or my family; it [is] a means to an end.” And the end is not as enticing as it was in the past.

Popular television shows reflect the changing sentiment around work. Fraud stories like Inventing Anna, The Dropout, Tinder Swindler, and Bad Vegan reinforce our belief that the rich are cavalier with money and that the con man is often indistinguishable from the noble class. WeCrash and Super Pumped provide examples of wealthy moguls who have won their brinkmanship with the law, but often use tactics very similar to those of convicted frauds.

White Lotus and Succession present the wealthy as bumbling fools who nonetheless hold significant power over the lives of average Americans. Squid Game serves to highlight the strange perversion the rich have in observing the suffering of others and the near suicidal torture we are willing to endure to reset our financial station in life. Most recently, Apple’s Severance explores the tacit agreement employees make with their employers to bifurcate their lives while toiling on tasks where the output is not fully understood.

However, current television focuses on a work culture that is dying out. COVID forced companies to establish work from home infrastructures and while there is a push for return to offices, many employees now know that they can effectively do the bulk of their work from home and as a result demand more flexibility. Many GenZers began their careers remotely and their blunt attitude towards mental health days, rejection of traditional hierarchical structures, work-life balance, and corporate political action has baffled even the most open-minded Millennials. While hustle culture is still alive and well, hustling is now associated more so with working for yourself as opposed to working for others.

1

Some have made guesses about what a post-COVID America may look like. Sean Monahan, co-founder of the now inactive art collective K-HOLE, predicts a rise in “early-aughts indie sleaze” and a return of irony. This may spark the return of the slacker characters of Clerks, Pineapple Express, and Superbad.

But the slackers of the 2020s will likely be depicted with dignity and perhaps even reverence. The Big Lebowski’s The Dude is an example of how a slacker can transcend a purely comedic role. J.M. Tyree and Ben Walters note the film’s “radical indifference to worldly notions of success and masculinity” suggesting the slacker can come to represent the shifting perceptions of work. AMC’s short-lived Lodge 49 is an example of slacker protagonists being used to answer humanity's perpetual search for the meaning of life. HBO Max’s Search Party also effectively takes a cast of slackers with little ambition (“Working feels bad and I don’t ever want to work another day in my entire life”) and uses them as vessels to mock criticisms of the millennial generation.

America’s relationship to the supernatural is also affected by our relationship to work. Kurt Anderson’s book Fantasyland posits that Americans have always been uniquely susceptible to the promises of the occult. The explosive popularity of Rhonda Byrne’s book The Secret and the rise of gurus teaching the laws of attraction in the 2000s demonstrates how the supernatural can infiltrate even secular conceptions of work.

In the 2020s, we are experiencing a rise in the popularity of astrologists. However, instead of telling us to work harder to attract financial success, astrologists provide comfort by giving insights on predetermined personalities and fates, often requiring nothing but vigilance in order to achieve the life we want.

While I don’t see a return of a Miss Cleo figure, I believe television shows, even those rooted in our reality, will more freely integrate mystical elements. FX’s Atlanta and Showtime’s Yellowjackets provide prototypes for how television series can be set in our present world addressing current issues, while incorporating supernatural elements.

Astrology’s popularity may also bring a decline in biographically based media. In an era where Wikipedia pages mimic authorized biographies, the demand for shows like WeCrashed, The Dropout, Super Pumped and Joe v. Carole seems redundant. While some “true story” shows have attained critical acclaim, the general consensus appears to be that we are oversaturated with stories about troubled founders. The reason why biographical series may wane is that we no longer idolize business moguls, politicians, and celebrities the same way we did in the 2010s. Even pop culture staples like Bill Gates have been ravaged by controversy, destroying the belief that there could ever truly be a benevolent billionaire. The scandals of Elizabeth Holmes and Adam Neumann captured the public’s attention because these individuals had been venerated by trusted sources. If the awareness of fraudsters continues to grow and charisma is met with skepticism, there will be less space for people to garner enough attention to warrant a television show.

Other countries provide examples for how work culture may change in America. China has battled the growing tangping or lying flat movement. The lying flat movement was spurred by a social media post from a disenchanted 31 year old man named Luo Huazhong. The post titled “Lying Flat is Justice” embodies the rejection of China’s traditional work ethic and manifests in Chinese millennials rejecting marriage, children rearing, and homeownership aspirations. Participants in the lying flat counterculture work only as much is necessary to afford housing, food, and high priority leisure activities.

Sanhe gods provide a more extreme example of the lying flat ethos. The Sanhe gods are domestic migrants in China who have completely given up on life and live by the motto of work for one day, party for three. For Sanhe gods, vices are consumed to excess, sometimes leading to sudden death.

The trends in China support the prediction that we will see the return of the glorified slacker. But a more sinister question arises in regards to television: how does the audience disentangle the reverence for the slacker with the conduct of television production studios and platforms towards their employees?

Union conflict in cinema is not new, but we are now living in an environment where there is a strong coalition across industries to improve working conditions. In November 2021, UNI Global Union released “Demanding Dignity Behind the Scenes” which collected information from global unions representing 150,000 cinematic crew members and found that crew members regularly work over 50-60 hours a week while struggling to enforce collective bargaining agreements on set.

Last year IATSE, which represents Hollywood’s behind the scene crew members, voted to authorize a call to strike driven by demands for safer working conditions, liveable wages, and on set enforcement of collective bargaining agreements. Despite IATSE reaching an agreement with AMPTP, 50.4% of union members rejected the contract and felt that their demands had not been addressed.

A key reason for the frustration among behind the scene workers is that streaming platforms have taken advantage of their quick assent in popularity. The “New Media” side letter, which was created to address productions of media made for internet distribution, does not provide the same protections available to traditional broadcast productions. Beyond production conflicts, streaming platforms like Netflix have been criticized for mentally straining work environments where some managers report feeling “pressure to fire people or risk looking soft.”

Ultimately, there is no definitive answer for what television will look like. What is clear is that a “vibe shift” is coming and those attached to old dynamics are likely to be left behind.

Happy Media for the Chronically Cynical

Martina Foquet is a J.D. candidate, class of 2022, in USC’s Gould School of Law. She took my Masters seminar on Arts and Culture journalism in the Spring and wrote two really compelling papers I wanted to share with you. Both consider contemporary television in a post-Pandemic or Late Pandemic framework.

Happy Media for the Chronically Cynical

Martina Foquet, USC

In the shadow of prestige television, cynical perspectives reign. Succession is a comedic but depressing look at the omnipotent power of America’s oligarchy, every Euphoria character experiences a traumatic event before they turn eighteen, and Squid Game introduced us to charming characters who were brutally killed in attempts to course correct their lives. I’m a self-proclaimed cynic and recent data suggests that I’m not alone. For the first time, the longitudinal General Social Survey found that Americans reporting they are not too happy exceeds the Americans reporting they are very happy. Naturally, media reflects the increasingly downtrodden emotion permeating the country.

But everyone needs balance and too much darkness is not a sustainable consumption pattern. The problem is that, for the cynic, happy depictions can feel vapid as the happiness is often reliant on unrealistic solutions or some deus ex machina plot device. To melt a cynic’s heart, conflicts and obstacles that are common in everyday life need to be thoroughly addressed and confronted. The cynic does not dismiss positive outlooks altogether, but rather struggles to find comfort in optimistic depictions that rely on unrealistic elements. However, a slew of recent television shows and movies have, in my opinion, successfully addressed the cynics' need for realism and optimism.

Adult Swim’s Smiling Friends stands out because within eleven minutes, the show’s episodes manage to address the most controversial topics in culture today while also imbuing fun irreverent humor. The show confronts suicide, cancel culture, cultural appropriation, and celebrity worship all while remaining accessible to all people along the political spectrum. The topics don’t feel heavy because they are appropriately contextualized, finding humor in the series of events that bring about the controversial topics as opposed to relying on opinions on the topics being humorous. In the first episode, Charlie and Pim are tasked with making a suicidal man, Desmond, smile. Pim optimistically pursues happy activities while Charlie immediately dismisses the man as a lost cause. Pim’s activities reveal the fallacies of a family or friends first approach and the limitations of escapist self-care days. When the pair realizes that it may not be possible to “cure” this man of suicidal ideation, they return to the office only to accidentally have Desmond find his purpose in bliblie termination services. Smiling Friends is a successful show because it understands how humor works. Humor finds absurdity in reality and great comedy understands the details that make even the most serious topics funny for all.

Abbott Elementary has taken America by storm and its sitcom format may trick the viewer into believing that it is another happy go lucky show. However, the show effectively addresses the reality of many teachers in America without succumbing to a dreary aura. The colorful cast of characters are all deeply flawed, frequently oscillating between being an encouraging presence and a nuisance. Janine consistently brings a positive perspective, but often disrupts the delicate balance that keeps the lights on (literally). Ava is a self-indulgent and corrupt principal that brings a necessary levity to overbearing conflicts. Barbara is a veteran teacher who sometimes adheres too rigidly to precedent. In Abbott Elementary the teachers are underpaid, understaffed, and overworked, but find realistic solutions that make coping in the environment possible. A key reason for the show’s light feeling is that both the cynical and optimistic characters have legitimate perspectives. This provides an environment where no one is demonized but rather the show highlights contexts where characters are strongest and weakest.

Free Guy also successfully addresses the ails of Big Tech while not succumbing to the “big bad tech” tropes. Two moments in the movie stood out to me (spoiler alert!). When the code-stealing tech CEO
Antwan almost completes his destruction of what remains of the Free City servers, Millie, the shrewd coding protagonist, proposes the exchange of what’s left of Free City for coding rights and the remaining profits from the game. Antwan identifies the offer as the “dumbest deal” he’s ever encountered. While a seemingly throw-away portion of the confrontation, it felt comforting as a born cynic to see recognition of the true cost of the offer. While Millie proceeds to justify the deal because she “built something special,” there is an underlying business rationale behind her offer. Instead of having Free City upheld in endless negotiations that would diminish the hype spurred by the NPC Guy, Millie and Keys are able to capitalize on the attention and monetize what remained of NPC Free City. Additionally, the film does not rely on the “boy gets the girl” trope. Free Guy addresses the limitation of a relationship between artificial intelligence and a conventional human. Even though it would seem like Guy is abandoned, the reappearance of Guy’s best friend Buddy leads to Guy’s happy ending. The movie suggests that romantic love is not the only type of love that leads to a fulfilling life.

In contrast, I would argue Ted Lasso struggles with the Ellen Degeneres syndrome. The podcast “Celebrity Memoir Book Club” identifies the Ellen Degeneres syndrome as the skepticism people feel when someone is overly optimistic. Optimism isn’t the issue, but optimism as the sole motivating factor can feel empty when other factors of life are not taken into consideration. In Ted Lasso’s first season, Rebecca, the new owner of the AFC Richmond football club, hires Ted to spite her ex-husband. Ted has never coached soccer and is subject to abuse from the team and fans, some who openly call him “wanker.” Despite the abuse, Ted is able to charm himself out of criticism. A smile and pithy aphorism seems to mends all Ted’s interpersonal issues. In a way, Ted is presented as a Messiah whose kindness converts everyone around him. While Ted Lasso is certainly a fun watch, the cynical viewer may not be moved by the fact that the show foreshadows the superiority of Ted’s approach. There is no real conflict between Ted and the other characters because the audience already knows that Ted will successfully convert all those around him. The solution to every problem seems to be smiles, homemade biscuits, and dad jokes. While the show is comforting, the cynic knows that the hope isn’t transferable to real life and therefore the show is not as satisfying. Season 2 seems more interested in developing Ted’s character, but the cynic may not be motivated to continue the show after an unconvincing first season. While the streaming era seems to treat television and movies as disposable content, a lot of innovations are occurring under the streaming model. And in the world of unhappy Americans and dark anti-heroes, some shows have proven powerful in brightening our black hearts.

Fandom and Neurodiversity

Dutch acafan Martine Mussies lives in the Netherlands, where she is writing her Phd about the Cyborg Mermaid. She is also working on a project about King Alfred, with support from Leiden University. Her autism plays an important role in her scholarly work. She pleads for a type of fan studies research that incorporates neurodiversity.

If I had received a dollar for every time the children at the schoolyard asked me where I really came from, I would have been quite a rich kid. As for bodily features, I ‘pass’ as a Dutch woman in the Netherlands. I might be a bit on the short side, but solely in terms of skin tone and hair color and eyes, I’d say I fit in quite easily. Still, something has always been ‘off’. The children’s question was a keen one, and in line with the feeling that has accompanied me all my life. A sense of not-belonging, as if I am some sort of wandering alien, accidentally lost on planet earth. Throughout my life, many people around me saw how this Otherness of mine manifested itself in my way of moving, talking, dressing and above all: thinking. From exactly the same building blocks, I consistently constructed a narrative that was completely different from the one constructed by my neurotypical peers. Because autism has such an enormous influence on the way I experience the world, it is logical that this has also affected my academic work. 

Looking back, this was already visible when I was still an undergraduate in musicology - a decade before my diagnosis. In terms of grades, my studies went rather well, but in terms of cooperation and contacts with teachers... not so much. I did not really understand what they expected of me and, despite working hard, I regularly clashed with the university’s neurotypical norms, which made me feel like a freak. Yet, I vividly remember one presentation in which my autism was actually an advantage to  me. It was in the context of a course about ways of experiencing music. I tend to experience colors when I hear sounds. This neurological phenomenon, commonly referred to with the umbrella term "synesthesia", is more common in people with autism (20 percent of people with diagnosed autism also have reported synesthesia, much more than the average 2-4 percent). In order to demonstrate this to my classmates, I made a computer simulation (in ActionScript - good ol’ times) that showed the colors I experienced with certain sounds. I played the piano and the colors simultaneously appeared on the screen.  My classmates could also type in words, which would then automatically appear in the "right" colors. To arm myself against disbelief and suggestions of paranormality, I had included an interview with none other than Professor Robbert Dijkgraaf which he had given me prior to the demonstration. He was already a national celebrity at the time, explaining on TV about the universe, string theory, quantum gravity and the border area of mathematics and particle physics. And he is a synesthete as well. It worked. I received applause and the highest possible grade, but much more importantly, it was the first time that I felt how my Otherness could be an asset. 

Fast forward a decade. I have been officially diagnosed with a "very severe case of autism spectrum disorder" and work from home on my dissertation and numerous other projects. I delivered over 30 paper presentations and published over 40 articles. My interests are wide and intense, but they are united by a common thread: autism. This label refers to a range of complex neurological aspects that causes the autistic brain to be wired differently. But just like a jam pot label might list the ingredients but reveal little about the taste or one's experience in eating the jam, the label that a person likes to identify him/herself with tells little about lived experiences. What does it mean to be an autistic individual in a neurotypical society? As I wrote in Transformative Works and Cultures (in a special issue on "Fan Studies Methodologies"), “I plead for a type of fan studies research from the angle that everyone has different perceptions in mind and that the human memory is more reconstructive than reproductive in nature. That means that nobody can accurately interpret our actions and feelings without us expressing them ourselves.” Because everything I do is done from my own framework, formed by my own brain, all my work is directly or indirectly about autism. This allows me to offer a unique perspective that is useful to academia - and with that, to our society - rather than a deviation that needs to be adjusted. Moreover, as I will never fit into the mould of any neurotypical society, with their static categories of identity (immigrant/autochthonous, male/female, child/adult, gay/straight etc.), I now consider it one of my tasks to problematise these pre-formed pigeonholes.

The greatest challenges in academically working with and from explicitly neurodiverse perspectives come, of course, from a methodological point of view. My undergraduate studies (musicology, Slavistics, conservatory) were quite traditional in their methodologies. In the Utrecht musicology department, we nicknamed this approach "the Pollmannian tradition", after the 2005 book "De Letteren als Wetenschappen" (The Humanities as Sciences) by Utrecht Professor of Linguistics Thijs Pollmann. In it, the author argued for "rationality" and "truth-telling" within the so-called “alpha sciences”. Central to his thinking was the philosophical tradition of science, and questions around the purpose and function of humanities research play a rather subordinate role in his book. Fifteen years later, even within the more traditional disciplines, voices are raised against the so-called objectivity of the researcher. My methodology, which I call “autiethnography” (a writing of and about the autistic self), aims to show how neurotypical status affects auto-ethnographic perception. Subsequently, autiethnographies can cross the boundaries of humanism by providing examples of metahumanist subjectivity. Moreover, by zooming in and out of the writing of an autiethnography, I can address issues of intersectionality versus simultaneity as well.

I would like to end this Statement with a little disclaimer. Don’t get me wrong, it is by no means my intention to argue that my autistic mode of analyzing (or even my whole way of being in the world) is somehow “better” than the many non-autistic ones. I am not in any competition; I mainly want to offer alternative understandings. A diamond has many facets and you can only see a few of them at one time. However, looking at it through an autistic lens can show you a facet that you may not have noticed before. Use it as you wish.

Celebrating Rice Boy and Vattu: An Interview With Web Comics Creator Evan Dahm (Part Three)

Current Issues and State of the Field

James Lee: So maybe we can shift to talking about platforms and other issues, the state of the field here. You've been through many changes in the field of webcomics from the early days of web rings, the push towards merchandising t-shirts and such, and so on. How does this current era compare to prior times and what do you see as key issues these days?

Evan Dahm: Whoa big one. Okay how does it compare… I feel like I got in sort of on the tail end of the merchandise-heavy thing or that it’s never been a big part of my stuff because I approached webcomics not being totally aware of webcomics and not being interested in the sort of gag comic strip thing that a lot of webcomics were at the time. But because my stuff has been so tailored towards going to be a book, book sales have been a huge part and a type of limited self-publishing have been my thing in a larger way and I feel like a lot of my contemporaries.

Well, the big shift to me is that death of the independent Internet thing. The fact that people don't tend to leave social media platforms. I think a lot of people only a little bit younger than me don't have any memory of an Internet that's a little more made by individuals, and so it doesn't even occur to them they can put a thing on a platform that's their own.

I’ve been re-serializing Vattu on Webtoon, the big Korean webcomics. I don't have to explain that to you. I look at the numbers on there, the millions and millions of people reading some of that stuff and that those numbers are so big that that is what the medium is for them. There is a huge number of people just on that platform making and reading that I just wasn't aware of until a little while ago.

So, I feel like that's kind of what webcomics is now. And what does that mean? That means that people making comics for that platform and tending to not put them anywhere else are tending to not have their own place and their own audience and brand building project outside of Webtoon. That just leads everybody into the same rut that YouTube creators or whoever is on where they're just trying to appeal to the inscrutable audience dynamics and algorithms of that platform and they're trying to not get their content banned because they mentioned or deal with any particular narrative content. And then they try to make a living just off the back of that platform, which is apparently feasible, and people do it. I have like 7000 followers on there and as a result, I was not aware of this, I get 100 or 200 bucks a month in ad sharing. That's great but you need an insane amount of readership there if you're going to make a living off of their ad revenue. Or you need to be contracted to do their Webtoons originals or whatever. It's just not self-publishing. It's great that platform is there and that there's so many people there. And people are doing great work on it, but it's compromised. It could shut down at any minute. They could kick you off at any minute.

The amount of money that you could make doing your work it just pales in comparison to what you could do, in theory, if you could bring that audience somewhere else, and just sell 1% of them a book or a t-shirt or whatever. I don't know, I'm kind of rambling but that's the shape of the shift as I see it. It sounds like I'm being judgmental of people operating in that scene as it is now, but I don't mean to be because it's kind of like that's what it is. There's so many people there that how could you not? We're so divorced from the idea of artists having their own Internet spaces that why would it not seem self-evident to you that the only thing to do is just build up as much of an audience on Webtoon as possible and hope for the best? It just puts people in a really, really delicate precarious position and it's kind of self-publishing but it removes a lot of the benefits of self-publishing as I have seen them.

James Lee: Yeah it's been an interesting shift to observe when we think back to the earlier with the Wild West days of the Internet there was this old idea proposed by Scott Mccloud, comic theorist, about the infinite campus basically that with this great new tool, the Internet, that we would be liberated from the constraints of the physical and there would be this golden age of people experimenting in weird and interesting ways. But I think we've seen over the years there are constraints that people consider. If you want to print for book, for example, if you want what you made to be available in book form, then you have to consider print dimensions, resolution size. And now with Webtoons you have this long vertical scrolling format designed for the mobile experience. So it's another kind of set of constraints and maybe more limiting and not necessarily let's say as liberating as other paths that could have been taken.

Evan Dahm: The thing is I'm kind of an apologist for that. I think that he was basically right. The infinite canvas thing got used in a few like gimmicky token ways throughout the years. I made Rice Boy in 2006-2008. It's formatted as a book. It does not take advantage of the infinite canvas Internet thing at all. But structurally that book could not exist if not for the Internet. You can't just publish a 500-page comic book anywhere but the Internet. There was no publisher would have done that. That is a kind of infinite canvas type thing as comics have always been limited by not only the physical size of the pages but the means of their production and distribution. I think it's important to keep in mind that maybe comics on the Internet haven't taken advantage of that physical trim size limitation being lifted, but certainly they have profoundly taken advantage of a huge opening up of the limitations by means of production.

James Lee: Even with Webtoons we can think of the infinite scroll as being kind of an application of this.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, and there's sorts of stories all the time being produced now that could not have existed were they subject to all of the constraints that existed in form before the Internet.

James Lee: Yeah, it's interesting because there are a lot of key issues going on now, but also people can make the argument that now is the best time to get into this stuff. You can just make anything you want and post it on any number of platforms. Burying some of these issues of censorship and other factors.

Evan Dahm: As long as you're as long as people have in mind that you can put it everywhere. I see kids - that's rude of me – I've seen a lot of people agonizing over “I'm making this comic, should I put it on Webtoons or whatever?” You should put it fucking everywhere. Why not? You're trying to get it out there. These are these are platforms that you can use. There's no there's nothing wrong with it. Just don't think that any one of them is going to make it all happen for you.

James Lee: Yeah, I think also related to this is that the field is open to everyone. So, in essence people feel they have a lot of competition with people with more developed skills. You have professionals, aspiring art students making webcomics as well. Big departure from the early days when this very small kind of amateurish works that existed back then compared to now. Could you talk more about this idea of polish which you've spoken about previously?

Evan Dahm: Oh yeah, I was just talking on Twitter about that. A lot of it is that everybody's on the Internet now and everybody who's making art is putting it there and there's just so much of it that it kind of pushes everybody in a different way than it used to. But also, I think that we, I don't know, I feel like audiences are expecting a certain level and type of polish in a way that they weren't before. And I don't know if that's good. I feel like audiences are expecting a high budget movie type of polish from a piece of art made by an individual and I don't like that. I have this sort of loose and indefensible theory that we're, at least in America and maybe at least in the Anglosphere, we're kind of atrophying our understanding or we're losing our understanding of drawings as such. We're not really understanding what goes into them what decisions are being made what they are. So, as a result of that maybe we expect drawings to have an extreme level of polish or kind of internalized embarrassment of the fact that they're drawings or something.

I think about American animation and how animation for kids is allowed to be really visually inventive and rich and visually smart, to fully lean into drawings as a beautiful thing to be explored in their own right. Animation for adults in America is stuff in the Family Guy mold where there's nothing there. It's just making a joke of the fact that it's a drawing – like “isn't this show funny? Isn't it funny that it's a drawing?” – and it's kind of embarrassed to even explore the possibilities of drawing. It is made of drawings and that's enough. It was a very loose kind of idea…

James Lee: I think definitely there is something there. You look at these animations for adults, things like Family Guy and others in that genre, and it feels terrible in a way that you don't see with cartoons aimed at kids.

Evan Dahm: Right so there's the sense that emerges out of that, I think that drawings are for kids or finding beauty and interest in drawings is something that adults should not do. Adults are supposed to look at realistic highly developed images.

James Lee: Yeah, it's a very specific way of thinking of polish that closeness to reality is the metric of, say, artistic skill or quality.

Evan Dahm : Exactly, closer to the optical even. I find that deadening because you're never going to, I don't know, we don't live in reality. We live in our little poetic socially constructed image of reality. This is connected to that objectivity and worldbuilding thing I was talking about. How are you going to objectively represent something that everybody has their own perspective on? There's optical reality, there's the reality that the camera shows us, but I think we do a disservice to our visual engagement with the world if we treat that as the one thing that every representation has to go for.

James Lee: Why do the job of the camera when the camera already exists?

Evan Dahm: Yeah, and we don't live in that reality. We have optical input from the world but there's a lot more to our visual experience of the world than that, I think, and there should be in our production of images too, I think.

James Lee: Okay, so building on this, over the years we've been seeing more encroachment from outside players who have been more interested in profitability in the spaces and tools used by independent creators like yourself. We have cases such as Amazon I think back in 2018 at Small Press Expo showcasing their original print-on-demand service. We have Kickstarter’s foray onto the crypto roller coaster. And, more recently, we had the Toronto Comic Art Festival (TCAF) giving space to NFT art and being met with backlash this past year. So, what are your thoughts on this trend, especially in relation to independent art?

Evan Dahm: Generally, it feels kind of bleak. The NFT thing particularly just feels like a really apocalyptic cashing in thing. It's so nakedly wasteful and all of the sort of futurist arguments for its miraculous capabilities, I think I am smart enough to be able to tell if there's something there or not and I just don't see it. So it just feels totally just like nihilistic cash grab type people. The Pink Cat, the NFT person who was invited to TCAF and then disinvited has just I think cut and run like she just vanished from all for social media platforms. So, what is that a rug pull? Is that what people -

James Lee: Yes, that's the term. A lot of these scam terms are becoming very popular these days.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, and that’s related but I guess that's a separate thing from Amazon buying all this stuff. That’s related to what I'm talking about with the Internet being locked up, and all these platforms. It's exciting to see people pushing against that and it's exciting to sometimes have this sense that there's this broad backlash against it, that people remember that they can do things outside of these platforms, that self-publishing is a thing in various ways. I don't know what to make of it really. I am encouraged that there seemed to be a lot of people who understand that it's happening, and that you can operate in spaces outside of it to at least some extent. I try not to get too doom and gloom about it with myself, I guess.

James Lee: Yeah it feels very easy to fall into this negative cycle, especially when it feels like it's inescapable. As much as you try to ignore terms like NFT and crypto they just keep coming up.

Evan Dahm: Yeah it's inescapable, but I feel like for me a lot of a part of why I'm able to not get sucked into it, maybe just my disposition, but also it feels good to be making something consistently that is out there in its own little space and that is entirely mine and that I'm not dependent on any of these – I mean I am dependent on platforms – but I doing this thing separate from Amazon and all this stuff. People are reading it and I feel like I'm doing something that helps me.

James Lee: So, compromise is a recurring theme that you mentioned, at times, specifically the kinds of compromises, you have to make to keep doing what you want to do, and to survive. At times, this might mean buying into corporate structures, whether that be working with them or engaging with others on their terms, on the terms set by those structures, such as the walled gardens that you mentioned before. So, while we may be critical of these, there can also be no functional alternatives, especially when it comes down to a matter of survival. Can you speak more about this kind of ambivalence and how you navigate it?

Evan Dahm: I'm doing this as a career so there's an aspect of me that is just a totally cynical striver about it. I can try to navigate it with principles or whatever, but there is no way of having a career doing it where I stick to all of them or where I don't engage with any part of the culture or the Internet that I don't like. I think it's been kind of easier for me to wrap my head around that because I've been working in comics and that medium has always been thought of and I've always thought of it as pretty compromised from the jump. It's a commercial medium. It's a commercial illustration turned into entertainment storytelling. There's so many different aspects of what I'm doing that proceed from these rich traditions of compromise and commodification. I don't know how else to look at it really. When I was in college, my minor was in studio art and at that time the school I was at the arts department was entirely aimed at the fine art world which has always been kind of just frustrating or uninteresting to me. I learned an awful lot like technical drawing and stuff doing that, but the idea that there's any pure art free from compromise or engagement with the material world is just silly and frustrating to me. And it was it was kind of funny I guess to be working on Rice Boy, this very tacky pop-y illustrative thing, at the same time as I was taking classes in this program that just had no interest or understanding of illustration or comics or anything that debased. I had one more thought, give me one second.

James Lee: Okay sure.

Evan Dahm: Oh yeah and I've been thinking about what it takes for a thing to materially exist. We're making this work within capitalism. Either I'm compromising in all sorts of ways and trying to make it something that will make me a living, or I'm independently wealthy, or it doesn't get done. I want it to be read. This is how I engage with the world in large part. This is how I understand the world and how I talk to far more people than I will ever talk to as an individual so how do I fit that into the world? I have to make it pop cultural, make it intelligible, and sort of compromise to that extent. And then I have to make a living doing it however, I can. That's the only way that it can exist. Because if I don't think about it like that, then I'm just privileging work made by people who already have the money, basically. I'm not a rich kid. That's not the position I've ever been in. This is my job.

James Lee: Yeah, that's an excellent point that even the works that try to be abstract and removed are made in a context which enable that, and maybe that means coming from a family of wealth which we are not all necessarily privy to.

Evan Dahm: I guess I'm lucky that the sort of thing that interests me is kind of pulpy and a mass audience type thing.

James Lee: Well, we got to work within the system we're born into. Even if you want to change it, we won't change it overnight.

Evan Dahm: Mm hmm.

Closing Thoughts

James Lee: Okay, so home stretch. There are just a couple questions to wrap up. What are you into these days? It could be anything. You mentioned some of the manga you're reading earlier.

Evan Dahm: Oh yeah, I've been thinking a lot about Dragon Ball. I read all of Dragon Ball a little while ago and I can't stop thinking about it. I've been reading a lot about self-publishing. Different, earlier, obsolete areas in comics self-publishing. I've been reading a lot of interviews with Jeff Smith, who made Bone. I've been reading Dave Sim’s big weird argumentative self-publishing diatribe with the caveat that I do find that guy pretty unhinged and despicable, but he occupied a very particular space in self-publishing like periodical self-publishing when the direct market was a new thing for comics. I've been very interested in that.

I'm thinking of maybe doing some sort of limited podcast where I interview people about their approaches to self-publishing in different eras because I know people who have engaged with that at different times and it's interesting to see. I'm really trying to wrap my head around, at least in a big, vague, vibe-oriented way, wrap my head around how working independently works in different circumstances. The sort of thing that I'm doing is very different and it's always been very different from a self-publisher like a Jeff Smith, but a lot of the dynamics are the same on some level, like the culture around the art.

What else have I been into, I've just finished Future Boy Conan, Miyazaki’s early series from 1979 which I just loved it so much.

James Lee: What do you like about it?

Evan Dahm: It's very focused and the pacing is incredible. It's telling one big story basically nonstop continuously and each episode mostly is focused around a simple challenge to be undertaken. It doesn't hugely overreach. It's not trying to do something big and complicated and particularly because it's Miyazaki. I'm used to see his stuff in very expensive opulent motion picture animation. It looks very cheap and limited, but it does it all so confidently and beautifully. I just loved it. You rarely see serialized storytelling that fits together that well, in my opinion. I recommend it.

James Lee: All right, I'll add it to the list. The next question is: what would be your dream project if you had unlimited time and resources? It could be webcomics, it could be anything else. It could be something you're currently working on, or something you want to see down the line, big or small.

Evan Dahm: Unlimited time and resources… If it's literally unlimited, I guess it would be – I don't know – just the same sort of thing I'm doing, but just taking more pop cultural space. I would make a big traditionally animated movie and just make it available in every possible place. Or I would start an animation studio. No, I don't know. In reality, my dream project is probably the thing I'm starting after Vattu, which is a… Well, the reason I'm thinking so much about the material conditions for art and how a thing can't exist unless it can materially exist is because I'm trying to at least understand how I'm going to make it happen in a self-publishing way. And I’m trying to approach the story and the means by which I published the story in a smart and eyes open sort of way. I want to continue to self-publish these big expansive long-term projects in a way that can work and they can continue to exist in the Internet as it is. But that project is a lot of what I am thinking about and I feel like I can approach it in a way, where I am mobilizing a lot of what I’ve learned about serial storytelling and sort of starting over but still building on a lot of the stuff. I’m very excited about it. I've written a lot of a lot of it.

James Lee: And I'll be looking forward to seeing it.

Evan Dahm: I appreciate that.

James Lee: So any words, in closing, you want to convey to let's say people who want to express themselves through our but feel intimidated or overwhelmed in terms of figuring out where to even start.

Evan Dahm: It feels like the most important thing is that you know what you want to make. It might be kind of difficult to figure out what that thing is in the most personal and honest way but hold to that and don't worry too much about what people will say about it, or how it'll fit into the world or whatever. The main thing, the engine, that all makes it happen is just doing the thing that they intensely want to do and not really giving a shit about how feasible it is, or if people like it or whatever, to an extent. And that to me is the value of working in comics, in particular, because you can do it with one person or a very small team for no money and it's a visual medium. You can do fucking anything.

James Lee: So basically, to make comics you got to make comics.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, and everybody has their thing. Everybody has their own angle. I guess that's it.

James Lee: Okay, so that's all the questions I have. Let me stop the recording here.

Evan Dahm: Cool, thank you for having me.

Celebrating Rice Boy and Vattu: An Interview with Web Comic Creator Eric Dahm (Part Two)

Fans and Community

James Lee: Let me shift gears a little bit. The following questions fall under this umbrella of “finding your own people,” about community and audiences. So, to start off, is there an audience in mind when you were in which you tell your approach towards with your work?

Evan Dahm: I try to be extremely clear, and I try to make the storytelling engaging and have a “pull you forward” sort of way. I like working with extremely dense big ideas but part of what is appealing to me about storytelling is that I want to do that in a way that basically anybody can understand and that pulls you through it in an exciting sort of way. I'm trying to make it as entertainment effectively so that is kind of a way of having an audience in mind, but I don't have a particular audience in mind.

With The Island Book trilogy that I did for First Second Books, those are ostensibly for a middle grade audience, which is, I think, from 10 to 14. I guess I kept it kind of intentionally superficially simple, but I didn't think about that terribly much, and I don't really know how to think about that terribly much.

My sort of tastes don't tend to go in the direction of intense gore or violence or sexuality in terms of storytelling. So, though there's not a lot, I haven't had to think about it very much. And with most of the stuff that I want to do, part of the creative challenge to me is taking the big, complicated ideas I want to work with and making them work in a pop cultural register. That's as much as I think about it.

James Lee: I think those are good considerations, because when you start crafting towards your audience, then perhaps that changes how you think about the story and maybe compromises your own vision for it. With that in mind, though, there's this idea in business and media about the long tail.

In comics it often came up a while back as “1000 true fans” – that you only needed a thousand people who really support you to have you be able to do to work you want. How do you feel that kind of idea holds up especially after all these years with crowdfunding platforms and other shifts in the field?

Evan Dahm: I imagine that the numbers on that have changed somewhat, but that was exactly the sort of thing that made sense around when I was starting before Web 2.0. I have this experience a lot now over the past several years going to comic conventions and stuff where an awful lot of people tell me that they came to my work around 2010 or before 2010 which is great to see that people have been interested in what I'm doing for so long.

But the fact that it's a big percentage has a feeling of inertia or decreased momentum or something as if I got in with a certain type of world and now nobody else finds me so I've been trying to keep that in mind. But I want a big pop cultural footprint. I want people to read this stuff.

James Lee: I was one of those 2010 people.

Evan Dahm: Hey exactly. Did you go to a convention that I signed that or a show?

James Lee: I think it was maybe Comic-Con.

Evan Dahm: Cool.

James Lee: I don't know I lost track over all these years.

Evan Dahm: That's a very long time. Yeah the solution for independent people doing lo-fi art like comics is I think it's always going to be a small number of people who are very invested, especially if you're really doing your particular thing in the way that comics allow you to do more than other more expensive media, then your dream should be that you connect with the probably pretty small number of people who are totally on board with what you're doing now. Maybe that's not enough in every circumstance to support a career but that seems honest.

James Lee: Yeah, I'm starting to think maybe there's about X amount of people that supports the work which makes it sustainable and then maybe there's a smaller amount of people who really support it in a way that makes you feel motivated to keep doing it, let's say as like a community.

So, with that said, maybe to build on that, so something you raised in your documentary was that the actual work of making comics is quite depressive. You stare at a screen or paper all day alone oftentimes kind of get something out of your head. We can joke about this, about how long it actually takes to make comics and all the different skill sets you kind of need to do them as well. So, the question would be then what keeps someone going in comics work? Especially doing it independently. Why comics over something else like let's say the novel?

Evan Dahm: Working in a novel is appealing to me sometimes because it's so much more efficient. But for me the answer to that question for me is different from somebody starting out or whatever because what keeps me going is that first of all I've been doing it for so long that it feels like a native language in a way. But also, I know that I'm talking to an audience and that I'll hear something from somebody, and that people will read it. That's a big part of what keeps me going.

But also there's this trick you have to do where you become clear enough on what you want to make and have a sort of internal motivation to do it in exactly the way that you want to do, and then you have to sort of fool yourself into having faith in it and thinking that it's possible and thinking that you'll do it well, even if you're disappointed in every single step of it or whatever. There is a part of my brain constantly doing this sort of imposter syndrome, or down talking, or that sort of stuff. There's always a million ways to talk yourself out of doing something. But well first of all it's my career so I have to but also, I just sort of built the way that I think of this stuff around just not giving that any oxygen, I guess. And just sort of trying to look at it objectively like obviously you could talk yourself out of doing it. Obviously, all the things that I see wrong with a page that I've drawn in a certain light, those are objective faults, but I'm fucking doing it. This is the way it's going to get done, with these faults. I'm making a 1300-page comic book. It is what it is.

Would you mind if I disappear for one second?

James Lee: Okay sure.

Evan Dahm: We're back. Alright hello.

James Lee: Okay welcome back. Thank you, if this is running long just let me know and we can wrap things up.

Evan Dahm: I'm good.

James Lee: Okay, all right because I still got a bunch of questions here. So, I want to say that there are definitely people who support your work, so I think imposter syndrome will always be rearing its head, even if it's not warranted.

Evan Dahm: Yeah and it's the sort of thing where what is the circumstance in which it's warranted? I understand it as it's just a sort of narrativization that my brain does to talk about an anxiety thing. There is no reality that it could point towards so why give it any attention?

James Lee: Okay, so building on some of these themes, are there any communities you feel that you're a part of? Groups of friends not necessarily let's say webcomics like a webcomics community, though you can point to one if you feel like you are part of one, but in general as well.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, I don't know, I have a couple of a couple of good little sort of crowds that I'm a part of in my social world outside of being a comics person. I'm not extremely social. I'm becoming more comfortable at that fact as being at the age that I am or whatever. Within comics world I do feel very close to the sort of cohort of people that I met through webcomics who were all kind of around my age and started all around the time I did. Basically, we just sort of would see each other all the time and it became a little scene. It's funny how locked in time that is because people aren't doing the same thing now and the way that I was publishing then and the way that I met those people just doesn't really exist anymore.

James Lee: Yeah, how do you even meet people, especially at conventions now? It's all very chaotic and strange these days.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, I’m not good, I don't think I’ve ever been really good at that. I need like an intro, or I need like an angle to approach or something. I can be like a charming professional person, but I don't think I'm extremely social.

James Lee: Yes, all kinds of troubles we have to deal with as introverts. So, here's a question. You run a stream, The Ambiguity Program, in which you regularly curate and show different kinds of animated cartoons, mainly strange and off the beaten path things. So, what was the motivation for doing this?

Evan Dahm: I’ve always been sort of interested in that stuff, but I hadn't learned terribly much about it, or found very much of it. It was kind of a premise to do that, and it was fun to build a little space and do the trade dress and just have a show. I don't know. I started it shortly after the pandemic just as having a thing to do that was sort of abstractly social. And it's been exciting to learn more about the cartoons and stuff and it's been cool to talk to people and meet a lot of people by means of the Twitch chat or whatever, meet a lot of meet a lot of people there. That was fun. It's been fun. I feel like it's been good for my passive visual education, just to see so many different ways that drawings can look. That's good for me.

James Lee: Yeah, some of that clay animation stuff – I remember dropping into a few of them - it's really bizarre but interesting.

Evan Dahm: It feels good for you, doesn't it?

James Lee: Yeah, it's like “oh people did all sorts of crazy things and maybe I can be a little inspired by that too.”

Evan Dahm: I love that feeling.

James Lee: How is Twitch, by the way? When we think about different platforms. Do you feel it's new and strange? How has that experience been running a Twitch channel and engaging with people there?

Evan Dahm: There's a lot of it that I just haven't learned how it works. I feel like there's a whole culture of Twitch that I don't understand. There's all these different things that people can do with their streams that I haven't learned, but as a very straightforward way of just “I'm putting a thing on the stream and there's people in the chat that I can keep up with and talk to them,” that works great. I run the sound through a physical soundboard so I’ve tried to make as much of it as possible physical and outside of the computer just so I can wrap my head around it a little better, I guess. It's been pretty cool, I guess. Years and years ago I used to livestream drawing. I would have the webcam on my laptop aimed at the paper on some precursor streaming service to Twitch but that sort of thing has been just easy to do for 14 years or something.

James Lee: Yeah, it's like one of those things I feel a lot of artists kind of do, I guess to add some more variety to let's say their social media presence.

Evan Dahm: I haven't done streaming drawing in a while. It’s kind of stressful.

James Lee: Yeah, you got the live audience component, and you have to perform in a way.

Evan Dahm: Even if you're not performing, you're still kind of performing.

Celebrating Rice Boy and Vattu: An Interview with Web Comic Creator Evan Dahm (Part One)

Evan Dahm is an independent artist and longtime webcomic creator. In 2006 he began Rice Boy, a surreal fantasy webcomic and has since self-published several fantasy epics set in the same universe. His body of work also includes published works such as the Island Book series, a high seas adventure, with First Second and The Harrowing of Hell, a retelling of the time between Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, with Iron Circus Comics. In 2010, Dahm began Vattu, a story about a young girl’s conflict with an expanding empire. 12 years and nearly 1,300 pages later, he completed Vattu on September 12, 2022. As a longtime webcomic creator, Dahm has been on the frontlines of the changes in independent webcomic production. From the early days of small, personal websites to the rise and concentration of large-scale social media and aggregator platforms such as Webtoons, Dahm continues to create his own unique work. Even as he adapts, Dahm retains his personal voice in his art. In this interview, Dahm discusses some insights into his approach to storytelling, his experiences with making webcomics, and the current state of and issues in the field with fellow comics artist James Lee. Dahm’s next project, 3rd Voice, begins in December 2022.

 Here’s the audio version of the interview. Passcode: &AYyWw7*

James Lee: I thought to start off maybe we could start at the very beginning with Rice Boy, your first webcomic. Something you mentioned in previous talks and videos you've done is that you mentioned how your start in webcomics had an element of luck involved. What kind of factors do you think made that time when you self-published rice boy the right moment?

Evan Dahm: I can only really determine this in a kind of a loose retrospective way, but the big transition that I’ve lived through in my adulthood, the big transitions in my life, have been the Internet emerging and becoming more and more accessible and then the really strikingly rapid boxing out of everything into corporate social media platforms, the Web 2.0 shift.

In retrospect, it feels like there was this window of, I don't know, probably under two decades when there were enough people on the Internet, and there were enough people aware that they could sort of take charge and just make a place of their own on the Internet, that it was a sustainable thing to self-publish your idiosyncratic little thing in that particular model.

But then, as the Internet has gotten more of a thing that everybody is on, what the Internet is to everybody is just Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or whatever. It's just funny that it doesn't even seem to occur to people that you can have control of any space there, that anything can exist outside of these corporate platforms.

James Lee: It's definitely been interesting to observe.

Evan Dahm: How old are you? Do you mind if I ask?

James Lee: I'm 34 right now.

Evan Dahm: Exact same.

James Lee: I’ve observed the same kind of shift from the hopes and dreams of the early Internet to where we're at now.

Evan Dahm: Yeah.

James Lee: I want to continue that line of questioning soon in a bit so hold that thought. Before we get there, though let me ask you a little bit about your process. You primarily use a brush in your work, which has a great expressive quality to it, and it really reflects the human hand behind the work itself. In your documentary, Making Vattu, you spoke about the improvisatory quality of the brush. Can you talk a little bit more about that, and maybe perhaps how it informs your own values and approach to art?

Evan Dahm: I try to sort of be reasonably pragmatic about it. I'm very aware that it's easy to slip into being a little bit precious or superstitious about technology and stuff. The way that people unfairly valorize work in physical media over digital illustration, I just don't think that's the right way of looking at it. But I do have a strong sort of automatic revulsion towards a lot of technology. It takes me a while to acclimate to it.

I like traditional drawing skills, feeling in touch with tools and aesthetics of drawing that have been in places like commercial illustration for 100 years. I like feeling in touch with that. I like learning skills where I can sort of understand the history of them. And just on the granular level I figure any physical tool is going to just produce more randomness and imperfection in a way that I like. It takes an enormous amount of muscle control to use any kind of brush in a way. It's a very particular type of skill and I don't want to lose it.

While I'm working on a tablet or whatever there's pressure sensitivity, there's a lot of subtlety and range that can be done with those lines, but I haven't really learned how to do that. I can draw competently on a tablet because I can draw but it's dry. With a brush at such an intensely high resolution and degree of muscle control, you can do literally an infinite number of lines. It's important to me to maintain practice in that.

James Lee: At some points it's as if it's a little too liberating and a little bit of constraints can sometimes help define your work.

Evan Dahm: I think so because if you're constrained in some sort of way, then you can more fully understand the huge range of possibility within that constraint, I think.

World Building and Storytelling

James Lee: This might be a good opportunity to talk more about world building and storytelling. So, to start off, you have a wide range of works now, from Order of Tales, The Island Book series, things like The Harrowing of Hell, and the illustration series you did for Moby Dick and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Can you talk a little bit about the motivations for these different kinds of works you've pursued?

Evan Dahm: Yes, do you mind if I turn my camera off because I think my computer gets overloaded.

James Lee: Okay that's fine no worries.

Evan Dahm: Basically, I just latch onto something and get obsessed with it. A lot of those projects, I did concurrent with Vattu which I've been working on since 2010 so a lot of it is trying to judge how much I can do it once. I feel like I've gotten a little better at understanding the sort of work, the sort of interest, that I have in a project that will actually propel me through it in a way that is not too grueling.

There's the money thing, like if a publisher is interested in working with me and I have something that I can make work with them. Then at certain points I'm kind of obliged to go through that but I'll just latch on to some idea and sometimes it'll stick in my head for a couple years until it can materially happen.

The Harrowing of Hell book with Iron Circus was an idea that I had probably two or three years before I actually started working and actually signed the contract on it. It seemed like an interesting way to work through Christian anarchism. And it occurred to me years and years ago that with books that are in the public domain, you can just do whatever you want with them so I had this rolling idea in my head of “Oh, I should think about what old book I like that'll be fun to draw.”

James Lee: I got my copy right here.

Evan Dahm: Oh yeah.

James Lee: That's interesting. The public domain stuff. Those are good points you raised in terms of having the freedom to explore with these things that are in the public domain. With that line of thought, what do you think about Disney's dominance of in this field of copyright?

Evan Dahm: I think Disney is the enemy basically. I'm very interested in old animation, and this is the thing I just learned. Back when full color film printing was being developed there was this window of a few years where it was not technologically possible to do full color film animation, but Disney had the exclusive rights to use that technology for five years or something in the 30s. So, there's this window of time where the only color cartoons coming out in America were from Disney. I don't know, it's just a horrible anti-art thing to do to close off this technology from the whole rest of the world, what was this obviously booming and exciting new medium.

But yeah, they've always been doing that. Their main project is to, in the way that capitalism delineates and commodifies all physical space available to it, the project of I guess any corporation like Disney is going to be to expand and commodify all the intellectual property space. Bleed dry the theoretical fictional universes of Star Wars or whatever and just extend copyrights so that they can maintain control of their stupid little mouse cartoon that nobody who worked on it is even alive.

James Lee: Recently I saw that Winnie the Pooh finally entered public domain. That was a bit of big news at the moment.

Evan Dahm: The book at least. It's the same deal with The Wizard of Oz where derivative works can refer to the book but not to the adaptation because the adaptation is still under copyright.

James Lee: Little nuances in that which can complicate the picture.

Evan Dahm: Pretty cool though. I love the public domain.

James Lee: There's lots of great ideas there and why not explore some of these things in a different way as well.

James Lee: I want to get back to the corporate stuff because I think it'll tie into the current issues and trends but let me ask a little bit more about your approach to world building and storytelling.

You started Rice Boy with improvisation with those first few pages, which had a dreamy quality to them, and by the end of it there was this very big sprawling history of a world in which you set subsequent stories, such as Order of Tales and Vattu. So with that said, how do you manage this tension between planning things out and letting things flow more freely, specifically the big picture stuff and the small steps need to take to get there?

Evan Dahm: I’m trying to think about that lately, because I have approached that in different ways for everything. I can identify in retrospect that that my working solution to that problem was to have a big clear template for the story that I could always refer to, and I could improvise, but it was always in connection to that template. Rice Boy in particular was very, not totally, pretty significantly improv but it's such a clear and straightforward riff or parody on the normal epic quest, the hero's journey thing, that I had that to hold on to as I was meandering around. Order of Tales was planned very, very tightly so that's a different question, I think.

Vattu has ended up having a lot of sort of improv space within it, and it hasn't been modeled on a clear template story. But what has ended up happening is that I've just had a very clear sense of like a few guiding principles for Vattu like the thematic arguments of it, the trajectories of the central characters, and the physical space of the story takes place in. That being like extremely consistent is a helpful thing, I think, to keep it all sort of tied together.

James Lee: Yeah.

Evan Dahm: Go ahead sorry.

James Lee: I was going to mention how, in your documentary you had gone through some of this in terms of how you actually used modeling software to craft the location and use that as a frame of reference, which I thought was a very interesting and detailed approach to world building.

Evan Dahm: Thank you, it was very fun obsessive little project. And the main thing is that it yields something that feels pretty consistent throughout the book, which is I imagine generally pretty difficult to do in something that takes that long to make.

But I am really trying to think about this improvisation versus planning thing lately because I'm reading a lot of manga and comics that are a little more comfortable wearing on their sleeve the fact that they've been originally serialized and sort of improvised. I love that and it feels so true to the nature of how comics are generally made unpublished. There's some disservice being done to the medium I think when we when we impose the standards of a perfectly planned out and self-contained novel on it so I'm trying to think about that in regards to how I'm approaching the next stuff I'm doing.

James Lee: Maybe we can think of the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe interconnected world approach here. I want to get to a point you raised about world building as well in your documentary. Basically, the argument you made was that, at the end of the day, the setting, the world that you craft, all these things must work in service to the story. And building on that, you also note that the characters in these worlds don't have their whole cosmology defined, let alone understood. Could you speak a little more about what informed this approach and maybe challenges with this, especially when you navigate these tensions between improv and structure?

Evan Dahm: I don't mean it to be as dogmatic as it probably sounds in that this is just my approach and I'm prioritizing certain things. It is important to keep in mind that you're not making an objective thing and that a lot of the premises of world building in the secondary world fantasy traditions that I’m into are on the premise that you're observing a story objectively – you're observing a world objectively and being described totally objectively to you. I don't think such a thing is possible in the same way that pure objective journalism is a kind of politically regressive impossible idea, I think.

You're always making some sort of statement, so I think it's important to keep in mind that it can be a productive tool to build in this sense of a consistent world, but you can really get sort of stuck, I think, because the thing will never be detailed or objective seeming enough. And you can go in the direction of nailing down all those little details but for what? I'm doing this stuff because I like stories and I like drawing basically. If the literary tool of an invented setting, which is a tool that I love and I like how it works, if that tool is not conducive to the story, then I'm just going to break it. Why not?

I've been interested in the world building thing and part of why I'm interested in it is because that's been consistently the biggest single thing that people want to talk to me about in my work. It always comes up in relation to my work, I guess, because my stuff is so visually, at least, totally invented-seeming.

I'm interested in it and I'm interested in how it's talked about. I look at a lot of media about how to do it, how to world build, and it just doesn't… This idea that you can objectively build a real believable world, that you can like have a strong feeling of escapism into it, just feels like a dead end to me and it feels ideologically and creatively limiting. Yeah, I got a little abstract there but that's basically what I think.

James Lee: I think it really ties into the corporate approach to world building. You have the Star Wars films and then they make a reference to a planet which is their theme park in one of their cities which you can go to experience another facet of this, which you know goes on and on. Basically, it’s a very ruthlessly cynical way of approaching world building perhaps.

Evan Dahm: Absolutely but it's interesting too. It's fun and interesting to see all the detail worked out or whatever. But I think that's exactly the comparison, I think Star Wars is the best possible example to talk about with that stuff I was thinking about. There's a useful parable for this – you have all these weird random background characters in the first Star Wars movie in 1977 that were mostly reused costumes from other movies, or whatever they had on hand in that cantina scene. But then, after the movie came out and George Lucas was leveraging, trying to do this really unprecedented thing with merchandising and making little action figures every single character, all those characters have to be named because now they're action figures. That's the exact same logic by which every single detail that serves a story begins to seem to demand expansion into further elaborated media product. I haven't watched any of the new Disney stuff, but it seems like filling in all the little gaps or whatever. Maybe the shows are good, but the approach is just so as cynical, as you say yes.

James Lee: Yeah, I don't want to downplay the love and effort that goes into these productions, and also the people who enjoy them and then subsequently are inspired by them. But you can't help but feel a little bit of ambivalence towards them as well.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, and you don't want to be rude to people for liking a thing that's utterly dominant in pop culture, but it is utterly dominant so there's no foul in giving the product shit, I don't think.

James Lee: Yes, we can think of it as some healthy critique.

Evan Dahm: Sure, yes.

James Lee: I think Star Wars is a good example to talk about this next question here. So, in recent times, or actually maybe it's been going on much longer, there seems to be a tendency among audiences to rigidly equate media consumption with political activism and morality. That what you watch on screen will inform their moral compass. And likewise, they feel that these works and the people who make them must reflect righteous view of the world or what have you. Could you give your impressions on this idea that stories can be used as a way to inform or explore real world issues and maybe some of the twists and turns that has taken?

Evan Dahm: Yeah man that's a huge part of the discourse I think that's been a pretty striking increase over my adulthood over the course of my being aware of it and it's coincided with a general increase in political literacy, which in myself and in you know other people of my generation, or whatever, which is good. But it's an interesting problem because I think that culturally – generally – we're better equipped to, as creators and readers, think about what work is saying politically. But we're doing that within a world where we are increasingly politically disempowered lately. I feel like we default towards a really legislative or punitive way of looking at this stuff. So, we can look at and we can pick apart the initially invisible political premises of a certain work. But if our conclusion is to say that this work is bad and if you like anything about it then you're bad that's against the spirit of the critical apparatus that brought us there in the first place, I think.

And it's silly. I don't engage with a lot of it publicly, but it is silly watching all this culture war stuff where people are trying to make supporting this or that media a political act when it's all just Disney stuff. They don't care about you. There is probably some good happening when works of fiction make a liberatory argument or represent people and ways of life that aren't habitually represented. But it just feels like we're just otherwise disempowered so we're fixating on what's happening in pop culture.

James Lee: To be honest, this was my pet theory too. That people feel they lack control in real world politics and situations so these fantasy worlds that they find comfort in become their way of asserting control and also thinking through these issues.

Evan Dahm: Yeah. All this talking around the abortion thing this last day, the ways that the mainstream of the culture has to think about political agency are very, very limited. People will talk about “you have to vote.” And I voted. We voted. Democrats have an enormous amount of power. So, what else? I feel like we don't have a lot of political imagination and we can't even really understand the world, or at least the mainstream of the culture in America can’t really understand what political power is or how to exert pressure or something. I'm part of that. I'm a defeatist about all this stuff too a lot but… I imagine I made that connection a little better.

James Lee: It's complicated to navigate these issues and be working in let's say crafting stories, making fiction, and comics, media, entertainment.

There is an interesting case to get at some of these complexities – the Harry Potter series.

Famously there was youthful activism around the series, the Harry Potter Alliance from a while ago and the premise of this organization was put into action the kind of spirit of the characters in the real world.

Evan Dahm: I'm familiar with this.

James Lee: Yes, so you probably know that they made some headway on some issues like Fair Trade chocolate things like this, other social issues, but as most of us are familiar with the author of the series, J.K. Rowling, has expressed a lot of negative views about certain communities, which has resulted in tensions in terms of how do you draw inspiration from a work made by someone who does not necessarily share the viewpoints or support of the audience. And the organization rebranded a couple years afterwards, kind of to distance themselves. But I think it's a good case to think about how fiction can be used as a vehicle to motivate people but also it is wrapped around in these issues of does it reflect on the author? Can the audience just run with it in their own way?

Evan Dahm: Yeah, that's interesting. I like stories that are by one person. There was part of it that was exciting to me to see Rowling wrote these books herself and they're her thing. I was exactly the age to be into them when they were coming out. It's just wild to see something that is all about one person's project become this huge global media thing, and it wasn't some created-by-committee intellectual property. What are you going to do? She's so just out there and despicable but I don't know how to engage with any of that.

James Lee: She's not making it easy to keep liking the books.

Evan Dahm: Yeah.

James Lee: But people try to separate the two.

Evan Dahm: Since I read those as a kid I've gotten deeper into the sorts of fantasy writing that I feel like those books are a pale imitation of. So there's that too, but even if the books were could be great and she would still be who she is. Yeah, I don't know, what's the question there exactly?

James Lee: I think the original question was about using stories as a way to inform real world issues. Oh, and something else that I've read is that oftentimes people they don't necessarily just consume media in one direction. Sometimes the media itself is a vehicle for them to express certain things which means that what the author is saying matters less than what they want to express through however they critique or consume it.

Evan Dahm: You mean in a fandom sort of sense?

James Lee: Yes, in a fandom sort of sense, where they see something and interpret it or use it for their own purposes.

Evan Dahm: Yeah, that generally seems cool to me. I've never been in that sort of world and I've never really understood the impulse. But generally, I like seeing people take ownership of this stuff that’s so aggressively owned by somebody else.

James Lee: Yeah, I mean I think there's kind of a thread here in terms of also copyright and ownership to in terms of when we think about fan output, like fanfiction or other kind of fan productions in terms of what are the fans free to do with this work. Can they do something more interesting or something more valuable for themselves with it? But the law lays its heavy hand at times and shuts down somebody’s fan production.

Evan Dahm: Yeah and then in some circumstances, the creator is incentivized to shut it down so that they can be shown to be defending their ownership of a thing or something. It has not really come up as a thing for me to think very much about, I guess.

James Lee: Yeah well, I suppose maybe if we can make the Overside extended universe a thing perhaps this will come up.

Evan Dahm: I don't see why they wouldn't be fine and cool with me.

James Lee: Yeah, I guess there are some legal issues, especially with fanfiction if companies choose to pursue them. I think most people just fly under the radar which I think is fine.

James Lee is a graduate of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. He likes comics, art, and popular culture related topics.

A Blast from the Past: David Halperin Writes About Slash

Three decades ago, at the start of my career, I was a professor in the Literature section at MIT and more or less across the hall from me was my colleague, David Halperin, who was one of the founding figures in Gay and Lesbian Studies. Halperin was an important influence on my early work. He and Ruth Perry ran an informal workshop on the study of gender and sexuality which introduced me to a wide array of new authors and ideas as queer approaches to culture were becoming more wide-spread in academia and as the AIDS crisis was pushing queer activism into the streets, not to mention the museums (debates around Robert Maplethorpe’s work were boiling over). Halperin was a patient and sometimes petulant guide through this material, which would become a core foundation for the ways I wrote about fan fiction especially in Textual Poachers. And in return, fan fiction became a topic which we collectively considered.

I could not have been more flattered when Halperin, a considerably more senior scholar, began to incorporate some of my work into his writing as part of his larger project of “queering” classical studies. He spoke on more than one occasion of what could be learned by juxtaposing slash fiction with other works of fiction. But he never published this writing and through the years, I have found myself reaching for it since it feels like a lost chapter in the history of fan and fandom studies. When he retired recently, he stumbled upon the manuscript of one of those talks and shared it with me. He explained, “I never finished that essay, and I gave up hope of publishing it long ago. I think the whole project of “queering” canonical texts got very old very quickly — which is not to say it has run out of steam. On the contrary, there is a new vogue for queering Greek tragedy — but since tragedy is about what happens when things go wrong, to say that it is queer does not really tell us anything we didn’t already know. Anyway, I rather liked that old paper, fully thirty years old now, when I reread it, but I don’t write that way any more.…”

I asked if I might share it with my blog readers, nevertheless, and he consented. So here for the first time in print is his essay on slash fan fiction.

Enjoy.

The article lives here.

Back to School Special: Participatory Politics and the Civic ImaginationM

My other class this term is one which I have taught before but I find I need to do significant updating each time it is offered, because the political world has been evolving so rapidly. I am teaching the class this time with Sangita Shrestova, my former student and oft-time writing and research collaborator. In many ways, this class is Civic Paths, the class. Civic Paths is the research group, consisting of 15 or so PhD students who work on various activities associated with the MacArthur-Foundation funded Civic Imagination Protect. We are vert busy at the moment with a strong focus on “plant-based democracy,” political de-polarization, and debates around monuments and memorials.

We are reading core texts which are foundational to our research and interpretive paradigm, going back to the work of the Youth and Participatory Politics project, including our book, By Any Media Necessary. Much of what we read from there comes from former students and collaborators who have continued to do important work on these topics. We are going to be drawing on the activities described in Sangita’s book, Practicing Futures, as well as discussions to shape the pedagogical approach to the class, and help students put these ideas into practice. We believe that the class offers a rich fusion of political communication and cultural studies — a political approach to culture and a cultural approach to politics — which helps us make sense of our current moment and its relationship to the larger media environment. Hope you enjoy seeing what we are teaching this term.

COMM 576: Civic Media, Participatory Politics and the Civic Imagination

4.0 Units

Fall 2022, Tuesdays 12:30-3:20pm

Section: 20854D

Location: ASC 240

Henry Jenkins and Sangita Shresthova

Contact Information:

Henry Jenkins

Office: ASC 101C

Office hours by appointment. Please send all inquires regarding office hour appointments to Amanda Ford (amandafo@usc.edu) and questions regarding the course to Professor Jenkins at hjenkins@usc.edu.

Sangita Shresthova

Office hours by appointment. Please contact at shrestho@usc.edu

Course Description: 

Civic Media: “Any use of any technology for the purposes of increasing civic engagement and public participation, enabling the exchange of meaningful information, fostering social connectivity, constructing critical perspectives, insuring transparency and accountability, or strengthening citizen agency.” (Jenkins)

Participatory Politics: “Interactive, peer-based acts through which individuals and groups seek to exert both voice and influence on issues of public concern. Importantly, these acts are not guided by deference to elites or formal institutions. Examples of participatory political acts include starting a new political group online, writing and disseminating a blog post about a political issue, forwarding a funny political video to one’s social network, or participating in a poetry slam.” (Joe Kahne and Cathy Cohen)

Civic Imagination: The capacity to imagine social change, including the ability to envision a better world, the process of change which might achieve it, the shared interests of an imagined/imagining community, one’s own civic agency, the perspectives of others, and for the most oppressed, opportunities for freedom and equality that have not yet been experienced.

What can approaches rooted in cultural and media studies contribute to our understanding of civic practices, organizations and movements? How might a closer consideration of democratic citizenship contribute to our understanding of core concepts, such as the relationship between publics and audiences, civics and politics, the nature of participation, imagination and action, the power of storytelling, or the implications of remix practices? Over the past few years, political movements, such as Occupy Wall Street, March for Our Lives, #blacklivesmatter, the Women’s March, and the Arab Spring movements, to cite a few examples over the past years, have explored new strategies that rely heavily on networked communication to build community, mobilize their base and increase public awareness. At the same time, new work in political science and communication studies seeks to understand the ways these movements have tapped into the expanded communication capacities of everyday people and the ways that cultural participation might spill over into engagement with civic and political issues. In this class, we will be looking at how scholars and practitioners have responded to these new movements and the ways that their work is reframing our understanding of the nature of democracy.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Often, we think about civic engagement as grounded in a rationalist discourse and shaped by structures of information, but democratic deliberation also has strong cultural roots and is shaped by what Raymond Williams would call “a structure of feeling.” We may ask in the first instance what citizens need to know in order to make wise decisions and, in the second, what it feels like to be an empowered citizen capable of making a difference, navigating difference, and sharing common interests with others . Across the trajectory of the course, we will explore a range of other institutions and practices that have similarly contributed to the public awareness, civic engagement, and social connectivity required for a functioning democracy. By the end of the semester, we will have collectively engaged, re-imagined, and experienced the multi-faceted relationships between civic media, participatory politics, and civic imagination in a changing media landscape.

Course Requirements

Required Readings and Supplementary Materials

Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis (Eds.) (2022). Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Gabriel Peters-Lazaro and Sangita Shresthova (2020). Practicing Futures: A Civic Imagination Handbook. New York, New York: Peter Lang Verlag.

All other readings can be found on Blackboard.

Description and Assessment of Assignments

• Contributions to Class Forum on Blackboard (10 Percent)

Students will contribute questions and comments to the class forum on Blackboard.

• Attendance and Participation in Class Discussion (10 Percent)
  

• Short Paper  (20 Percent)

Students will either develop a five-page case study report on a civic or cultural organization or network they feel is making innovative use of civic media, or students will develop a five-page report which traces the political impact of a particular story (from popular culture, folklore, history, religion, etc.) as it becomes a resource or battleground for the civic imagination. 

• Media Prototype (20 percent)

Students will work collaboratively to prototype a media action informed by case studies introduced in class, guests and personal knowledge / experience. The action can include text, short videos, podcasts, slideshows, photo-essays, or anything else approved by the instructors. The prototypes will be shared in short pitch-like presentations.  

• Final Paper (40 percent)

Students will develop a final project or paper that applies the broad ideas of the course. Students should discuss their project with the instructor early in the semester so we can set an appropriate scale for this project. Students will be ready to give a 10-15 minute presentation on their project in the final weeks of the class. Final paper will be due on final exam date for the class: Tuesday, December 13, 2022. 

Add/Drop Dates for Session 001 (15 weeks: 8/22/22 – 12/2/22)

Link: https://classes.usc.edu/term-20223/calendar/

Friday, September 9: Last day to register and add classes for Session 001

Friday, September 9: Last day to drop a class without a mark of “W,” except for Monday-only classes, and receive a refund for Session 001

Friday, September 9: Last day to change enrollment option to audit for Session 001

Friday, September 9: Last day to change a Pass/No Pass to a letter grade for Session 001

Friday, September 9: Last day to purchase or waive tuition refund insurance for fall

Tuesday, September 13: Last day to add or drop a Monday-only class without a mark of “W” and receive a refund or change to Pass/No Pass or Audit for Session 001

Friday, October 7: Last day to drop a course without a mark of “W” on the transcript for Session 001. Mark of “W” will still appear on student record and STARS report and tuition charges still apply. [Please drop any course by the end of week three (or the 20 percent mark of the session) to avoid tuition charges.]

Friday, November 11: Last day to drop a class with a mark of “W” for Session 001

Statement on Academic Conduct and Support Systems

Academic Conduct:

Plagiarism – presenting someone else’s ideas as your own, either verbatim or recast in your own words – is a serious academic offense with serious consequences. Please familiarize yourself with the discussion of plagiarism in SCampus in Part B, Section 11, “Behavior Violating University Standards” policy.usc.edu/scampus-part-b. Other forms of academic dishonesty are equally unacceptable. See additional information in SCampus and university policies on scientific misconduct, http://policy.usc.edu/scientific-misconduct.

Support Systems:

Student Counseling Services (SCS) – (213) 740-7711 – 24/7 on call

Free and confidential mental health treatment for students, including short-term psychotherapy, group counseling, stress fitness workshops, and crisis intervention. engemannshc.usc.edu/counseling

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1 (800) 273-8255

Provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Services (RSVP) – (213) 740-4900 – 24/7 on call

Free and confidential therapy services, workshops, and training for situations related to gender- based harm. engemannshc.usc.edu/rsvp

Sexual Assault Resource Center

For more information about how to get help or help a survivor, rights, reporting options, and additional resources, visit the website: sarc.usc.edu

Office of Equity and Diversity (OED)/Title IX Compliance – (213) 740-5086

Works with faculty, staff, visitors, applicants, and students around issues of protected class.

equity.usc.edu

Bias Assessment Response and Support

Incidents of bias, hate crimes and microaggressions need to be reported allowing for appropriate investigation and response. studentaffairs.usc.edu/bias-assessment-response-support

The Office of Disability Services and Programs

Provides certification for students with disabilities and helps arrange relevant accommodations.

dsp.usc.edu

Student Support and Advocacy – (213) 821-4710

Assists students and families in resolving complex issues adversely affecting their success as a student EX: personal, financial, and academic. studentaffairs.usc.edu/ssa

Diversity at USC

Information on events, programs and training, the Diversity Task Force (including representatives for each school), chronology, participation, and various resources for students. diversity.usc.edu

USC Emergency Information

Provides safety and other updates, including ways in which instruction will be continued if an officially declared emergency makes travel to campus infeasible. emergency.usc.edu

USC Department of Public Safety – UPC: (213) 740-4321 – HSC: (323) 442-1000 – 24-hour emergency or to report a crime.

Provides overall safety to USC community. dps.usc.edu

WEEKLY BREAKDOWN 

WEEKLY BREAKDOWN

Day 1 (August 24): What Do We Mean by Civic Media?

DAY 2 (August 30):  Participatory Politics

DAY 3 (September 6): Rethinking the Civic

Day 4 (September 13): The Work of the Imagination

First Paper Due

DAY 5 (September 20): Utopia and Dystopia

DAY 6 (September 27): Publics/Audiences and Participation

DAY 7 (October 4)  Why Media Matters

*Media Prototype Due

In Class Activity: Students share case studies

DAY 8 (October 11): Monuments

DAY 9 (October 18): Performance, Ritual, and the Body

DAY 10 (October 25): Pedagogies

DAY 11 (November 1): Polarization

DAY 12 (November 8): Green Imagination

DAY 13 (November 15): Feeding Civic Imagination

Day 14  (November 24): Thanksgiving week (workshopping final projects)

Day 15 (November 29): Final Presentations

*Final Paper Due

Day 1 (August 24): What Do We Mean by Civic Media?

• Eric Gordon & Paul Mihailidis (Eds.), “Introduction,” in Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 1–26), (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016).

• Ethan Zuckerman, “Effective Civics,” in E. Gordon & P. Mihailidis (Eds.), Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 49–75), (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016).

• Beth Simone Noveck, “Re-Imagining Government Through Civic Media,” in E. Gordon & P. Mihailidis (Eds.), Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 149–164), (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016).

• Aymar Jean Christian, Faithe Day, Mark Díaz & Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin (2020). “Platforming Intersectionality: Networked Solidarity and the Limits of Corporate Social Media.” Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120933301

• Sasha Costanza-Chock, “Design Sites: Hackerspaces, Fablabs, Hackathons, and DiscoTechs,” in Design Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2020).

Optional

• Andrew Schrock, “Introduction,” in Civic Tech: Making Technology Work For People (pp. 1–21), (Long Beach: Rogue Academic Press, 2018).

• Jonny Sun, “Media-Consciousness as Part of Resistance,” in Maureen Johnson (Ed.), How I Resist (pp. 141–152), (New York: Wednesday Books, 2018).

• Kevin Driscoll, “Cultivating Community,” in The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media (pp. 132 – 167), (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022).

In class workshop: Origin Stories

DAY 2 (August 30):  Participatory Politics 

• Joseph Kahne, Ellen Middaugh and Danielle Allen, “Youth, New Media, and Participatory Politics,” in Danielle Allen, From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age (pp. 35–58) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).

• Henry Jenkins, “Youth Voice, Media, and Political Engagement: Introducing the Core Concepts,” in By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism (New York: New York University Press, 2016). Available online.

• Henry Jenkins and Rogelio Lopez (2018), “On Emma Gonzalez’s Jacket and Other Media: The Participatory Politics of the #Neveragain Movement.” Brown Journal of World Affairs, https://bjwa.brown.edu/25-1/on-emma-gonzalezs-jacket-and-other-media-the-participatory-politics-of-the-neveragain-movement/

Optional 

• Nick Couldry, “Rethinking the Politics of Voice,” in Why Voice Matters:  Culture and Politics After Neoliberalism (London: Sage, 2010)

• Elisabeth Soep, “Youth Agency in Public Spheres: Emerging Tactics, Literacies, and Risks,” in Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis (Eds.) Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 393–420) (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017).

• James Paul Gee and Henry Jenkins, “Do We Still Believe that Networked Youth Can Change the World?,” in Connected Learning Alliance (November 19, 2018). http://psicologia.udg.edu/PTCEDH/admin/publicacions/14.pdf

• Nancy, “Emma Gonzales Wants You to Vote,” (November 5, 2018) (26:47): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/nancy/episodes/emma-gonzalez-march-for-our-lives-vote 

DAY 3 (September 6): Rethinking the Civic

• Ethan Zuckerman, “Cute Cats” in Danielle Allen (Ed.) From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age (pp. 131–154) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).

• Peter Dahlgren, “Civic Cultures: An Analytic Frame," in Media and Political Engagement: Citizens, Communication, and Democracy (pp. 102–123) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

• Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, “‘Decreasing World Suck’: Harnessing Popular Culture for Fan Activism” in By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism (New York: New York University Press, 2016). Available online

• adrienne maree brown, “Introduction,” in Emergent Strategies: Sharing Change, Changing Worlds (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017)

• Eve Ewing, “The Quality of the Light: Evidence, Truths, and the Odd Practice of the Poet-Sociologist,” in Perlow, O., Wheeler, D., Bethea, S., Scott, B. (Eds.) Black Women's Liberatory Pedagogies (pp. 195–209). (London: Palgrave Macmillan) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65789-9_11

Optional

• Henry Jenkins, “From Culture Jamming to Cultural Acupuncture,” in Marilyn DeLaure and Moritz Fink (Ed.) Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance (New York: New York University Press, 2017).

• Caesar McDowell and Melissa Yvonne Chinchilla, “Partnering with Communities and Institutions” in Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis (Eds.) Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 461–480) (Cambridge: MIT Press).

Day 4 (September 13): The Work of the Imagination

• Alex Khasnabish and Max Haiven, “Lessons from Social Movements: Six Notes on the Radical Imagination,” in Truthout (August 9, 2014) http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25411-lessons-from-social- movements-six-notes-on-the-radical-imagination

• Robin D. G. Kelley, “When History Sleeps” and “Dreams of the New Land,” inFreedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (pp. 1–12; 13–35) (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002).

• Gianpaolo Baiocchi et al., “The Civic Imagination,” in The Civic Imagination: Making a Difference in American Political Life (pp. 52–76) (New York: Routledge, 2014).

• Drucila Cornell and Stephen D. Seely, “What Has Happened to the Public Imagination and Why?” Global-e, 10(19). https://globalejournal.org/global-e/march-2017/what-has-happened-public-imagination-and-why

• Henry Jenkins, Gabriel Peters-Lazaro and Sangita Shresthova “Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Foundations” in Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (pp. 1–30) (New York: New York University Press, 2020).

• Gabriel Peters-Lazaro and Sangita Shresthova. “Introduction” in Practicing Futures: A Civic Imagination Action Handbook (pp. 3–21) (New York, New York: Peter Lang Verlag).

Optional

• Geoff Muligan, The Imaginary Crisis (and How We Might Quicken Social and Public Imagination (London: UCL STEaPP and Demos Helsinki, 2020)

• Bridgit Antoinette Evans, “From Stories to Systems: Using A Narrative Systems Approach to Inform Narrative Change Strategy,” in Pop Culture Collaborative (2022)

• Maya Rupert, “I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman,” in Maureen Johnson (Ed.) How I Resist: Activism and Hope for a New Generation (New York: Wednesday Press, 2018).

• How Do You Like It So Far?: Warren Hedges on the Fantasy Roots of the Capital Insurrection https://www.howdoyoulikeitsofar.org/episode-81-warren-hedges-on-the-fantasy-roots-of-the-capital-insurrection/

First Paper Due

DAY 5 (September 20): Utopia and Dystopia

• Steven Duncombe (2012). “Utopia is No Place: An Interview with Stephen Duncombe,” in Walker Art Center. https://walkerart.org/magazine/stephen-duncombe-utopia-open-field

• Curtis Marez, “Farm Worker Futurisms in Speculative Culture,” in Farm Worker Futurism: Speculative Technologies of Resistance (pp. 119–153) (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016).

• William Lempert, “Navajos on Mars: Native Sci-Fi Film Futures,” in Medium (2015, September 21) https://medium.com/space-anthropology/navajos-on-mars-4c336175d945

• Isabel Delano, Mehitabel Glenhaber, Do Own (Donna) Kim, Paulina Lanz, Ioana Mischie, Tyler Quick, Khaliah Peterson-Reed, Christopher J. Persaud, Becky Pham, Rahul Reddy, Javier Rivera, Essence L. Wilson, Henry Jenkins & Sangita Shresthova (2022) “Flying cars and bigots: projecting post-COVID-19 worlds through the atlas of the civic imagination as refuge for hope”, Continuum, 36:2, 169-183, DOI: 10.1080/10304312.2021.2003303

• Ezra Klein Podcast, “An Inspiring Conversation About Democracy with Danielle Allen,” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/podcasts/the-daily/proud-boys-jan-6.html

In Class Activity: Atlas of the Civic Imagination

DAY 6 (September 27): Publics/Audiences and Participation

• Sonia Livingstone, “On the Relationship Between Audiences and Publics,” in Sonia Livingstone (Ed.) Audiences and Publics: When Cultural Engagement Matters for the Public Sphere (pp. 17–41) (London: Intellect, 2005).

• Zeynep Tufekci, “Censorship and Attention,” in Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest (pp. 28–48) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

• Patrisse Marie Cullors-Brignac, “We Didn’t Start a Movement. We Started a Network” (2016, February 22). (https://medium.com/@patrissemariecullorsbrignac/we-didn-t-start-a-movement-we- started-a-network-90f9b5717668#.4q060svov)

• Zizi Papacherssi, “Affective Publics,” in Affective publics: Sentiment, Technologies, and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)

• Victoria Bernal, “Infopolitics and Sacrificial Citizenship: Sovereignty in the Spaces Beyond the Nation,” in Nation as Network: Diaspora, Cyberspace and Citizenship (pp. 29–54) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

Optional

• Manuel Castells, “Networking Minds, Creating Meanings, Contesting Power,” in Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age (pp. 1–19) (New York: Polity, 2012)

• Pierre Rosanvallon and Arthur Goldhammer, “Introduction,” in Counter-democracy: Politics in the Age of Mistrust (pp.1–27) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)

• Michael Warner, (2002). Publics and Counterpublics. Public Culture, 14(1), 49–90. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-14-1-49

• Christopher Kelty, “From Participation to Power,” in Aaron Delwiche and Jennifer Henderson (Eds.) The Participatory Cultures Handbook (pp. 22–31) (New York/London: Routledge, 2013).

DAY 7 (October 4)  Why Media Matters

• John Fiske, “Los Angeles: A Tale of Three Videos” and “Technostruggles,” Media Matters: Race and Gender in U.S. Politics (pp. 125–190; 217–254) (New York: Routledge, 1996).

• Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1970), “Constituents of a Theory of the Media,” New Left Review, 64, (pp. 13–36).

• An Xiao Mina, “All About the Feels,” in Memes to Movements (pp.28–48) (Boston: Beacon Press, 2019) (available online, not downloadable)

• Himal Sanchar (2022), “Understanding Balan Shah’s Potential Victory as Mayor of Kathmandu in 5 Points.

• Asmita Belbase. “Things you perhaps did not know about Kathmandu’s new Mayor Balen Shah,” in My República (May 27, 2022).

• Balenda Shah (2020, January 10) Balidan - Lyrics in English https://geetkolyrics.com/balidan-lyrics-balen/

• Prometheus Radio Project (2013, June 26). “Get on Air! Community Radio for Social Justice with Prometheus Radio Project & Ramon Ramirez Prometheus Radio” [Video file] (1:00:45) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehcIjYbSsqo

Optional

• Bertolt Brecht, “The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication,” from Jon Willett (Trans. & Ed.) Brecht on Theatre (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964). [«Der Rundfunk als Kommunikationsapparat» in Blätter des Hessischen Landestheaters, Darmstadt, No. 16, July 1932] http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/source-text/8/

• IllumiNative On-Air, “We Have Medicine for Each Other” (54:54): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-have-medicine-for-each-other/id1509597197?i=1000486696860  

• Sasha Constanza-Chock, “Walkout Warriors: Transmedia Organizing,” in Out of the Shadows and Into the Streets!: Transmedia Organizing and the Immigrant Rights Movement (pp. 47–68) (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014). Available online

*Media Prototype Due

In Class Activity: Students share case studies

DAY 8 (October 11): Monuments

• James W. Carey, “A Cultural Approach to Communication,” in Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society (pp. 11–28) (New York: Routledge, 1992).

• Svetlana Boym, “Restorative Nostalgia” and “Reflexive Nostalgia,” The Future of Nostalgia (pp. 41–48; pp. 49–55)  (Boston: Basic Books, 2002). 

• Karen L. Cox, “Introduction” and “Charleston, Charlottesville and Continued Challenges to Removal,” in No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice (pp. 1–11; pp. 149–167) (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021)

• American History TV C-SPAN (2020, July 22), “Debating and Removing Monuments" [Video file] (https://youtu.be/NhtyJs_xUxE)

• Alexandra Schwartz, “The Historian Scrutinizing Our Idea of Monuments,” in The New Yorker, March 3, 2022. (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/the-historian-scrutinizing-our-idea-of-monuments)

• Brian S. Hood. “What Goes Wrong in Debates over Public Monuments,” in Social Science Quarterly, Vol.102 (3), p.1074-1083.

In Class Activity: Monuments from the Future Workshop

DAY 9 (October 18): Performance, Ritual, and the Body

• Victor Turner (1974), "Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology." Rice Institute Pamphlet - Rice University Studies, 60, no. 3 https://hdl.handle.net/1911/63159.

• José Esteban Muñoz, “Queers, Punks, and the Utopian Performative,” in 

• Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (p. 97–114) (New York: New York University Press, 2009)

• Sangita Shresthova, “Embodiment, Space & Empathy,” in Paul Mihailidis, Sangita Shresthova & Megan Fromm (Eds.), Transformative Media Pedagogies (pp. 33–37) (New York: Routledge, 2021), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003031246

• Aswin Punathambekar (2009), “Television, Participatory Culture, and Politics: The Case of Indian Idol,” Flow, 10(5). http://www.flowjournal.org/2009/08/television- participatory-culture-and-politics-the-case-of-indian-idol-aswin-punathambekar-the- university-of-michigan/

• Sangita Shresthova, “Dance It, Film It, Share It: Exploring Participatory Dance and Civic Potential” in David Elliott, Marissa Silverman & Wayne Bowman (Eds.), Artistic Citizenship: Artistry, Social Responsibility, and Ethical Praxis (pp.146–162) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).

Optional

• Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (New York: Holt, 2007).

• Benjamin Shepard, "Notes Towards an Introduction" in Play, Creativity and Social Movements: If I Can't Dance, It's Not My Revolution (pp. 1–23) (New York: Routledge, 2011).

DAY 10 (October 25): Pedagogies

• Paulo Freire, excerpt from Pedagogy of the Oppressed (M. Bergman Ramos, Trans.) (New York/London: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005) (Original work published in 1970).

• Paulo Freire, excerpt from Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage (P. Clarke, Trans.) (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998).

• bell hooks, ”Paulo Freire,” Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (pp. 45–58) (New York: Routledge, 1994).

• Paul Mihailidis, Sangita Shresthova & Meg Fromm, “The Values of Transformative Media Pedagogies,” in Transformative Media Pedagogies (pp. 14–28) (New York: Routledge, 2021), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003031246

• Roman Gerodimos, “Authentic Encounters,” in Paul Mihailidis, Sangita Shresthova & Megan Fromm (Eds.), Transformative Media Pedagogies (pp. 38–49) (New York: Routledge, 2021), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003031246

DAY 11 (November 1): Polarization

• Honestly with Bari Weiss (2021), “Condoleezza Rice on Race, Russia, Freedom and Why America’s Best Days Are Still Ahead,” [Audio file] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/condoleezza-rice-on-race-russia-freedom-and-why/id1570872415?i=1000551866282

• Braver Angels Podcast, “A Conservative Perspective on January 6th & the 2020 Election | Peter Wood with Ciaran O'Connor,” (2022, January 20) [Audio file].

https://braverangels.org/a-conservative-perspective-on-january-6th-the-2020-election-peter-wood-with-ciaran-oconnor/

• Braver Angels Podcast, “Depolarization in the Age of Misinformation | Jonathan Rauch with David Blankenhorn & Ciaran O’Connor,” (2022, February 19) [Audio file].

https://braverangels.org/depolarization-in-the-age-of-misinformation/

• Monica Guzman, “Introduction” and (one other chapter), in I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times (Dallas: BenBella Books, 2022).

• Whitney Phillips and Ryan M . Milner, “The Gathering Storm,” in You are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories and Our Polluted Media Landscape (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2021).

• Sarah Banet Weiser, “Introduction,” in Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019).

• The Daily (2022, June 9), “Proud Boys’ Path to Jan. 6” [Audio file and transcription] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/podcasts/the-daily/proud-boys-jan-6.html

Optional

• W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg, “The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics,” in E. Gordon & P. Mihailidis (Eds.), Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (pp. 77–105), (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016).

• danah boyd, “Learning All the Wrong Things”, in  DML 2017 Keynote [Video file], https://youtu.be/WWrD9wSsn3c

DAY 12 (November 8): Green Imagination

• Sarah Mcfarland Taylor, “Introduction,” in Ecopiety: Green Media and the Dilemma of Environmental Virtue (New York: New York University Press, 2019).

• Candis Callison, “The Inuit Gift,” in How Climate Change Comes to Matter: The Communal Life of Facts (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014).

• Veronica Hollinger (2021, February 17). “Plants and Other Science Fictions.” in Public Books. https://www.publicbooks.org/plants-and-other-science-fictions/

• Imaginary Worlds, “Episode 144: SolarPunk – the Future” [Audio file] https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/solarpunk-the-future

Optional

• Joost Raessens, “Collapsus, or How to Make Players Become Environmental Citizens” and Jennifer Gabrys, “Sensing the Air and Experimenting with Environmental Citizenship,” in S. Lammes, J. Raessens, M. de Lange, R. Glas, & I. de Vries (Eds.), The Playful Citizen: Civic Engagement in a Mediatized Culture (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022).

DAY 13 (November 15): Feeding Civic Imagination

• Donna Kim, Paulina Lanz and Sangita Shresthova. “Introduction”, in Feeding Civic Imagination Forum, Lateral (forthcoming).

• JS, Passing Down and Following up: Jewish Cuisine’s Umbrella Potential, Feeding Civic Imagination Forum, Lateral (forthcoming).

• BE, They Broke Bread with Sincere Hearts: Imagining New Gymnastics Cultures. Feeding Civic Imagination Forum, Lateral (forthcoming).

• Iñaki Martínez de Albeniz, “Sweet Disturbances: Candy as Speculative Imagination for a Socially Grounded Memory” in Beth Forrest and Greg de St. Maurice (Eds.) Food in Memory and Imagination: Space, Place, and Taste (Massachusetts: Bloomsbury, 2022).

• Gravy Podcast (2021, September 15), Migration: Making Meals and Homes in Alabama [Audio file] https://www.southernfoodways.org/gravy/migration-making-meals-and-homes-in-alabama/

Day 14  (November 24): Thanksgiving week (workshopping final projects)

Day 15 (November 29): Final Presentations

*Final Paper Due

Back to School Special: Imaginary Worlds

This semester. I am teaching a large lecture class for the USC Cinema School focused on imaginary worlds and the craft of world-making. My core propositions are that there has been a shift across the entertainment industry towards more detailed, more fully elaborated worlds and towards undertanding franchising in terms of “worlds” and “universes.” As this happens, certain crafts, such as production design and costume design, take on new importante as they add so much information about the world, some of which is integrated into the narrative, some of which hints at other potential stories that pave the way for extensions. And certain contemporary filmmakers are more interested in their worlds than their stories, which does not totally break with the classical Hollywood system but does raise the possibility of other aesthetics and ways of watching, especially when coupled with greater control over the image flow and greater access to paratextual and metatextual information online.

The class starts with the prehistory of the cinema — with George Melies and the other magicians who saw film as an extension of their performances, with earlier immersive technologies including wax museums, panoramas and cycloramas, and magic lanterns, with the focus on travel across early films whether actualities or fantasies. From there, we will consider Thief of Bagdad as an immersive entertainment experience, thinking about it in the context of the age of movie palaces, theater orchestras, and live stage productions before movies. We will consider the tension between decorative and narrative use of setting in these early films. Across the term, I am interested in a comparative media approach, including the graphic Aerts, architecture, and various media. And we will be taking advantage of our LA location by bringing in all kinds of media professionals — especially art directors and costume designers, but also writers, game designers, activists and fans, etc. who will bring new perspectives to our appreciation of the worlds on screen.

There are more and more world building classes being taught, especially in the wake of Mark J. P. Wolf’s remarkable anthologies on sub creation and world-building. And I am making use of podcasts as secondary readings, especially episodes of Imaginary Worlds, a great podcast to which my course title pays tribute. So below you will see my syllabus which may give you some ideas about how to approach this topic.

The highlight of the course — other than my own stunning lectures, of course — are the guest speakers from our local industry — production designers, costume designers, game designers, writers, fans, and activists, etc. I am going to learn so much through these conversations. I had a great pre-interview last weekend with Rick Carter, who has done iconic work with Spielberg, Zemeckis, Abrams, and Cameron, among others and has two Oscars. I would love to hear from others teaching in this space. Write me at hjenkins@usc.edu.

CTCS 469: Imaginary Worlds

Prof. Henry Jenkins

Weds. 6-10pm

While the Cinema School rightfully stresses the importance of story in the Hollywood tradition, there has been an increasing recognition that worlds (and world-building) have always played important roles in shaping cinema and an aesthetic focused on rich world-building is central to understanding contemporary cinema movements around the world. In this class, we will be focusing primarily on forms of fantasy and speculative fiction to which world-building plays a central role, but we are also expanding outward to include historical fiction. We want to explore how the nature of world-building has changed through the years, how world building fits into the larger transmedia logics of the contemporary film industry, how media ranging from the architecture of movie palaces to contemporary games design has changed Hollywood’s world-building practices, why a focus on world-building helps us to better understand the creative contributions made by production designers and art directors, and why certain filmmakers are better received as world-builders rather than storytellers. Our class sessions will include frequent guest speakers, including production designers, art directors, costume designers, special effects artists, animators, and others. Screenings range from silent epics, such as Thief of Bagdad, to more contemporary works including Snowpiercer, Black Panther and Dune.

Henry Jenkins

ASC 101

Office Hours: By Appointment

For content questions: hjenkins@us .edu

For appointments: Amandafo@usc.edu (Amanda Ford)

Assignments:

Blackboard Forum: Each week students will write 2-3 paragraphs on the Blackboard Discussion Forum. These posts should reflect on points of comparison between the two films assigned for that week and should draw where appropriate on one or more assigned readings. Due Weds. afternoons by 3pm. (20 points)

Papers:

You can complete these assignments in any order but one should be due on each due date (Oct. 5, Oct. 20, Nov. 30) and all three topics should be addressed by the end of the term:

1. Take one production design detail or costume and explain what it contributes to the film as a whole. (20 points)

1. Visit one of the following exhibitions and share your thoughts on how it illuminates key issues from the class. Draw on course materials to provide some conceptual vocabulary for the assignment: (20 points)

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum

• Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum

• Rick Carter, “Time,” El Segundo Museum of Art

1. Write a close reading of the world-building practices deployed by one film from the class. Assess the world based on criteria from Mark J.P. Wolf’s “Worlds Within the World”. Discuss specific elements from the film to illustrate your ideas. (20 Points)

Take Home Final Exam: Due on the exam date for the class. (20 points)

Assigned Books:

Deborah Landis, Film Craft: Costume Design

Week 1 (Aug. 24) Attraction, Illusion and Immersion in Early and Silent Cinema

Before Class:

• Hugo (2010, Martin Scorsese, 126 min, Dante Ferretti, Sandy Powell)

• How did Magicians Shape the History of Cinema? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvPG3o-pFW0

• La Voyage Dans La Lune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNAHcMMOHE8

• Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYQeCqKSebU

Reading:

• Leah Lehmbeck, Britt Salveson, and Vanessa R. Schwartz, City of Cinema: Paris 1850-1907

• Mark J. P. Wolf, “World Design,” Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds

Guest: Vanessa R. Schwartz

Screening: Thief of Bagdad (1924, Raoul Walsh, 140 min, William Cameron Menzies, Mitchell Leisen)

Week 2 (Aug. 31) The Work of Production Design

Before Class: Thief of Bagdad (1940, Michael Powell et al, 106 min, Vincent Korda, John Armstrong et al)

Reading:

• Lily Alexander, “Mythology,” in The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds

• Lucy Fisher, “The Silent Screen,” Art Direction and Production Design

• Charles Affron, “Set as Artifice,” Sets in Motion: Art Direction and Film Narrative

Recommended Resources:

• Imaginary Worlds: “The Golem and The Jinni” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-golem-and-the-jinni

• Orphans vs. Empires https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQYvliWUfng

• How Do You Like It So Far? “Jeff Gomez on the Collective Journey of The Last Jedi” http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2018/2/18/how-do-you-like-it-so-far-podcast-episode-2-jeff-gomez-on-the-collective-journey-of-the-last-jedi

• C. S. Tashiro, “What Is Production Design?” and “Circles of Feeling,” Pretty Pictures: Production Design and the History Film 

Guests: Rick Carter

Screening: Bride of Frankenstein (1935, James Whale, 75 min, Charles D. Hall, Vera West)

Week 3 (Sept. 7) The Work of Costume Design

Before Class:

• Faust (1926, F.W, Murnau, 106 min, Robert Herlth)

• Universal Monsters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dc07nSb5p4

Reading: Deborah Landis, Film Craft: Costume Design

Guests: Deborah Landis

Screening: Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming, 101 min, Cederic Gibbons, Adrian)

Week 4 (Sept. 14) The Wonderful Worlds of Oz

Before Class:

• Return to Oz (1985, Walter Murch, 113 min, Norman Reynolds, Raymond Hughes)

• Lost in Oz (2016, Craig George, 30 min)

Reading:

• Henry Jenkins, “‘All Over the Map’: Building (and Rebuilding) Oz,” Revisiting Imaginary Worlds

• Henry Jenkins, “Matter, Antimatter, Doesn’t Matter,” World-Builders on World-Building

• Gerard Hynes, “Locations and Borders” and “Geography and Maps,” Jennifer Harwood-Smith, “Portals,” Companion to Imaginary Worlds

Recommended Resources: 

• Imaginary Worlds, “Denslow of Oz” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/king-denslow-of-oz

Guests: Mark Warshaw

Screening:

• Belle et Bete (1942, Jean Cocteau, 93 min, Christian Bérard, Antonio Castillo)

• Salome (1923, Charles Bryant and Alla Nazimova 74 min, Natacha Rambova)

Week 5 (Sept. 21) Modernism, Surrealism, and Imagination

Before Class: 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953, Roy Rowland, 114 min, Rudolph Sternad, Cary Odell)

Reading:

• Jessica Aldred, “Authorship,” Companion to Imaginary Worlds

• Lily Alexander, “Fictional World Building as Ritual, Drama and Medium,” Revisiting Imaginary Worlds

Recommended Resources: Henry Jenkins, “A Person’s a Person, No Matter How Small,” Where the Wild Ones Were

Guests: Junot Diaz, Patrick Tatopoulos

Screening: Jason and the Argonauts (1963, Don Chaffey, 104 min, Jack Maxsted, Toni Starzi-Braga)

Week 6 (Sept. 29) Imagining and Re-Imagining the Adventure Genre

Before Class: 2000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954, Richard Fleischer, 127 min, Harper Goff, Emile Kuri)

Reading:

• David Bordwell, from Film Art: An Introduction (on functions)

• Seth Barry Watter, “On the Concept of Setting: A Study of V.F. Perkins,” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies

Recommended Resources:

• J. P. Tellote, “Science Fiction as ‘True Life Adventure’, Film and History

• C. S. Tashiro, “A Few Words About a Hat,” Pretty Pictures: Production Design and The History Film

• Imaginary Worlds, “Reimagining the Gods” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/reimagining-the-gods

Guests: Howard Rodman, Michael Green

Screening: The Masque of the Red Death (1964, Roger Corman, 90 min, Daniel Haller, Laura Nightingale)

Week 7 (Oct. 5) Camp, Pop and Excess in Film and Television

Before Class:

• Batman (1966, Leslie Martinson, 104 min, Serge Krizman and Jack Martin Smith, Pat Barto)

• Barbarella (1968, Roger Vadim, 98 min, Mario Garbuglia, Jacques Fonteray)

Reading:

• William Urrichio and Roberta Pearson, “I’m Not Fooled By that Cheap Disguise,” Many More Lives of The Batman

• Angelos Koutsourakis, “A Modest Proposal For Re-Thinking Cinematic Excess,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video

Recommended Resources:

• Robin Blaetz, “The Auteur Renaissance,” Costume, Make-up and Hair

• Henry Jenkins and Lynn Spigel, “Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel, The Many Lives of the Batman

Guests: Francois Audouy, Giovanna Melton, Marina Toybina

Screening: The Empire Strikes Back (1980, Irven Kirshner, 124 min, Norman Reynolds, John Mollo)

Week 8 (Oct. 12) World-Building in Spielberg and Lucas

Before Class: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Steven Spielberg, 115 min, Leslie Dilley and Joe Jackson, Deborah Nadoolman)

Reading: 

• Imaginary Worlds, “1977” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/1977

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Empire vs. Rebels” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/empire-vs-rebels

Recommended Resources:

• J.D. Connor, “The New Hollywood” Art Direction and Production Design

• Tamar Jeffries McDonald, “The New Hollywood” Costume, Make-Up and Hair

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Expanded Universe” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-expanded-universe

Guests: Richard LeMarchand, James Bissell 

Screening: Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott, 117 min, Lawrence Paull, Michael Kaplan and Charles Knode )

Week 9 (Oct. 20) Speculative Fiction and the Art of World-Building

Before Class: Minority Report (2002, Steven Spielberg, 145 min, Alex McDowell, Deborah Lynn Scott)

Read:

• Ann Jillian-Pindleton, “World Building,” Design Unbound

• How Do You Like It So Far?, Alex McDowell https://www.howdoyoulikeitsofar.org/alex-mcdowell-on-world-building-production-design-and-ready-player-one/

Recommended Resources:

• Bob Rahak, “That Which Survives,” More Than Meets the Eye

• Imaginary Worlds, Futures Without Asians https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/asian-futures-without-asians

• Imaginary Worlds, The Visions of Phillip K. Deck https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/visions-of-philip-k-dick

Guests: Alex McDowell

Screening: The Fellowship of the Rings (2001, Peter Jackson, 178 min, Grant Major, Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor)

Week 10 (Nov. 2) Establishing, Expanding, and Sharing Worlds

Before Class: Pirates of the Caribbean: At The World’s Edge (2007, Gore Verbinski, 167 min, Rick Heinricks, Cheryl Carasik)

Reading: 

• Mark J. P. Wolf, “Invented Cultures,” Benjamin H. Robinson, “History and Timelines,” and “World Completeness,” Companion of Imaginary Worlds

• Dan Hassler-Forest,  “World Building and Convergence Culture,” Science Fiction, Fantasy and Politics

• James Castonguay, “The Modern Entertainment Marketplace, 2000-Present,” Costume, Make-up and Hair

Recommended Resources:

• Mark J. P. Wolf, “Concerning the ‘Sub’ in Subcreation,” World-Builders on World-Building

• Imaginary Worlds, “Making Up Creatures” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/making-up-creatures-special-edition

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Hobbits and the Hippies” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-hobbits-and-the-hippies

• Imaginary Worlds, “Fantasy Maps” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/fantasy-maps

Guests: Wynn Thomas; Bo Welch

Screening: Gangs of New York (2002, Martin Scorsese, 167 min, Dante Ferretti, Sandy Powell)

Week 11 (Nov. 9) World Building in Historical Fiction and Action Cinema

Before Class: John Wick (2014, Chad Stahiski, 101 min, Dan Leigh, Susan Bode)

Reading:

• John Wick: A Masterpiece of world building https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PgIFNsOErA

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Canon” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-canon

Screening: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011, Rupert Wyatt, 105 min, Claude Parre, Renee April)

Week 12 (Nov. 14) Solarpunk and Fictional Environments

Before Class: Spirited Away (2001, Hayao Miyazaki, 125 min, Norobu Yoshida)

Reading:  

• Lauren Baumaroun,  “Hybridized Identities in Animation Production”

• Imaginary Worlds, “Solar Punk – the Future” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/solarpunk-the-future

Guests: Lauren Baumaroun, Stefan Dechant

Screening: Black Panther (2018, Ryan Coogler, 134 min, Hannah Bechler, Ruth E. Carter)

Nov. 23: Thanksgiving Holiday

Week 13 (Nov. 30) Afrofuturism, Fan Activism and Global Culture

Before Class: Snowpiercer

Reading: 

• Kara Kennedy, “The Softer Side of Dune,” Exploring Imaginary Worlds

• Scott Bukatman, “The Wakandan Dream,” Black Panther

Recommended Resources:

• Stephen Prince, “The Digital Backlot,” Art Direction and Production Design

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Ecology of Dune” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-ecology-of-dune

• Imaginary Worlds, “The Book of Dune” https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/the-book-of-dune

Guests: Panel of contemporary film costume designers (Deborah Landis), Terry Marshall

Screening: Dune (2021, Denis Villeneuve, 156 min, Patrice Vermette, Bob Morgan and Jacqueline West)

The Trans* Fantasy in Harry Langdon’s The Chaser

In the fall, I taught a seminar on American film Comedy with a particular focus on comic performance and slapstick. I included a range of lesser known figures but I also wanted to represent the big Four silent comedians — Keaton Lloyd, Chaplin, and Langdon. Langdon is often an afterthought these day since modern audiences often find it difficult to appreciate his slow-reaction style alongside the fast rough and tumble of his contemporaries. I ended up selecting The Chaser, one of the films where Langdon directed himself, pushing past the slander that Frank Capra fostered in The Name Above the Title that Langdon lost his way once he rejected Capra’s shaping role. This turned out to be one of the more popular films from the class with students intrigued by its difference from other silent comedy and especially its bold play with gender identity, which has to be seen to be believed. One MA student, Sabrina Sonner wrote an essay on the film as a Trans fantasy which suggests why Langdon may be especially meaningful to the generation coming of age right now.

The Trans* Fantasy in Harry Langdon’s The Chaser

by Sabrina Sonner

Introduction

Watching Harry Langdon in The Chaser, I am transfixed by his hat. Throughout the film, he appears as a philanderer in a night club, a guilty husband in court, a wife in the kitchen, a illicit fugitive, a uniformed captain, and a ghost-like apparition. He falls off a cliff in a runaway vehicle, lays eggs, kisses the iceman, and is nearly driven to suicide. And, throughout it all, the hat remains. 

This consistent signifier of his identity stays with him throughout the film, which takes the basic premise of The Husband (played by Harry Langdon) accused of infidelity and court ordered to “take his wife’s place in the kitchen, or serve six months in jail.”[1] He dons a dress and performs his wife’s role, while The Wife (played by Gladys McConnell) takes on her husband’s role. Left at home, Langdon must deal with unwanted advances from the iceman and bill collector. As a result, he tries and fails to kill himself, writing a note that states he is leaving because “no woman knows what it is to go without pants.”[2] At the golf club with his hyper-masculine friend, he rediscovers a masculine uniform, and through a series of mishaps returns home covered in white flour. Though his mother-in-law flees, his wife returns to his arms, and the same intertitle that opened the film closes it, proclaiming “In the beginning, God created man in his own image and likeness. A little later on, he created woman.”[3]

While it may be one of Langdon’s less discussed films, I believe The Chaser opens up unique spaces surrounding gender and identity through interweaving Langdon’s innocent star persona with the potential of comedy to disrupt societal expectations. Within the history of clowns and silent comedians, there exists a power to break away from normative societal values.[4] We see this idea in Langdon’s disruption of gender in the film, as his comedic identity remains consistent while his gender presentation wildly fluctuates. Additionally, the slapstick nature of the film opens up ideas around the body and what it is allowed to do. Though made to dress a certain way, Langdon is still able to freely use his body in the world in a way enviable to a trans* body. In the way Langdon is clothed and in his undamageable slapstick body, a trans* fantasy emerges. What if I could wear a dress and be seen as a woman? Or wear a suit and be seen as a man? The film highlights the absurdity of the world responding to a single gendered indicator so strongly, but also opens up a freeing daydream that asks, “What would happen if we could be seen this way?” Langdon’s body never bruises, breaks, or tears – it behaves how he wants it to. With mine, I consider thousands of dollars of surgery to get it to behave as I wish. In this conflux of gender non-conformity, traditionally gendered clothing, Langdon’s consistent star persona, and a freely controlled slapstick body, The Chaser creates a fantastical trans* space. 

In my journey through discovering my identity, I have understood it as the way one sees oneself internally, the way this is reflected to the world externally, and most importantly the way one searches to find a happy combination of the two. To that extent, this essay is structured in those three parts, pulling on theorists such as Jack Halberstam, Teresa de Lauretis, Louise Peacock, James Agee, and Muriel Andrin to connect ideas between comedy and queerness. 

Langdon’s Consistent Star Persona and the Queerness of Childhood

Throughout The Chaser, Langdon is depicted with an unwavering consistency through his identifiable comedic persona, including his blank face, childlike innocence, and, of course, that hat. Regardless of his attire in the film, the way in which he comedically responds to situations and the recognizability of his star persona shines through. This sense of his baby-faced naivete is detailed by James Agee is his essay on silent film comedy: 

“Like Chaplin, Langdon wore a coat which buttoned on his wishbone and swung out wide below, but the effect was very different: he seemed like an outsized baby who had begun to outgrow his clothes. The crown of his hat was rounded and the brim was turned up all around, like a little boy’s hat, and he looked as if he wore diapers under his pants. His walk was that of a child which has just gotten sure on its feet, and his body and hands fitted that age. His face was kept pale to show off, with the simplicity of a nursery-school drawing, the bright, ignorant, gentle eyes and the little twirling mouth…. He was a virtuoso of hesitations and of delicately indecisive motions, and he was particularly fine in a high wind, rounding a corner with a kind of skittering toddle, both hands nursing his hatbrim.”[5]

In The Chaser, we see this childlikeness in the consistency of his reactions, where he responds with a great deal of perplexity to the absurdity of the situations that he finds himself in, especially gendered rituals. Throughout the film, he seems unable to fully grasp any gendered roles assigned to him, both feminine and masculine. For instance, the charge he faces during the film is that of being an unfaithful or unruly husband. However, looking at the film’s depiction of this behavior, Langdon hardly seems the type. He goes to this club to eat peanuts and watch. Though slightly voyeuristic, this depiction is relatively tame in comparison to the way a philandering womanizer could appear. When he finishes in the club, he then dons a masculine uniform, which fails him in his goals of appearing the idealized husband. He fairs no better when he performs the wife’s role. In his dress, he seems uncomprehending of feminine ideas, such as the cooking behaviors he is asked to take on as well as understanding of reproduction, albeit that of chickens and eggs. When he returns to his masculine attire, he counters the hyper-masculinity of his friend while golfing. Within these scenarios, which are rife with gendered expectations, Langdon always fails to measure up, or even understand exactly what he’s being measured up to. 

Langdon’s child-like lack of understanding of gendered norms creates a parallel with Jack Halberstam’s writings on the queerness of childhood. When writing of childhood and its depictions in cinema, Halberstam writes: 

“There is nothing natural in the end about gender as it emerges from childhood; the hetero scripts that are forced on children have nothing to do with nature and everything to do with violent enforcements of hetero-reproductive domesticity. These enforcements, even when they can accommodate some degree of bodily difference, direct children toward regular understandings of the body in time and space. But the weird set of experiences that we call childhood stands outside adult logics of time and space. The time of the child, then, like the time of the queer, is always already over and still to come.[“6]

Though Langdon is not a literal child, his childlike nature evokes this queerness. He acts as a receptacle that the world places meaning on. As he attempts to sort through it, he appears as if he’s a child completely unaware of what is expected of him and encountering gendered expectations for the first time. In both his masculinized uniform and feminized wife’s attire, he seems out of place, like a child playing dress-up. Langdon’s character operates in a different logic from the rest of the world and, due to his specific star persona, encapsulates this childlike logic and queer aspect of the time of childhood. 

To illustrate the innocence and consistency of Langdon’s comedic persona in a specific example, throughout The Chaser, Langdon has this consistent deadpan reaction, where he faces the camera and blinks a couple times, uncomprehending the absurdity of the comedic bit that just happened. We see this throughout the film as a constant presence, whether he is reacting to a woman falling into his arms when he wears his masculine uniform, the iceman kissing him when he dons a dress, or when he lays an egg. Alongside his ever-constant hat is a solidified comedic identity that refuses to adapt to ever-changing gendered expectations. In Langdon’s confusion regarding the gendered expectations, and the consistency of his identity beneath it all, there is space within the film to question alongside Langdon exactly how valuable these societal expectations are. 

Additionally, I would argue that there’s a queerness to Langdon’s body as a slapstick body. His star persona adheres to ideas that Muriel Andrin considers writing of an unbreakable slapstick form:

“These are “bodies without organs,” immune to fragmentation or, when they do suffer fragmentation, insensitive to trauma. They remain whole no matter what the threat, displaying not a permanent moral integrity like melodramatic characters, but a lasting physical integrity… The slapstick world is a perfect place for instant healing.”[7]

There are many ways in this world that the trans* body can find itself under threat or in need of healing, whether it is due to growing rates of violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming people,[8] or trans* bodies themselves being voluntarily surgically modified to better fit one’s gender expression. The idea of the resilient slapstick body appears in The Chaser in a sequence near the end of the film, where Langdon hides in the trunk of a car that topples off a cliff and crashes through multiple billboards into his kitchen without troubling Langdon one bit. In a more serious and subtle way, the scene in which he fails to kill himself in several ways can be read as the trans*, slapstick body resisting its own demise and providing a protection that the individual needs despite their momentary wants. 

Altogether, the confused, youthful quality of Langdon’s star persona connects his performance to a queer period of childhood, and the slapstick nature of this comedic body opens spaces for a specifically trans* imagination of the carefree, freedom of physical expression. The internal reflection of identity within Langdon’s star role in this film establishes a consistency and queerness to his self that clashes with the way society views him throughout the film. 

Society, Gender, and The Clown Outside It All

While Langdon’s identity remains constant in the visibility of his comedic star persona to the audience, society takes gendered cues from his clothing and behavior and focuses on them to an absurd degree. Additionally, his role as a clown in the film places Langdon as a figure outside of societal boundaries to whom failure is central.  Louise Peacock writes of the clown as “an outsider and a truthteller” who can comment on the societies in which they live.[9] Peacock additionally writes of the way failure is a part of clowning: 

“Failure or ‘incompetence’ is a staple ingredient of clown performance… Clowns demonstrate their inability to complete whatever exploit they have begun. In doing so they speak to the inner vulnerability of the audience whose members are often bound by societal conventions which value success over failure.”[10]

The failures of Langdon within the film largely relate to his inability to adhere to gendered roles, such as his initial failings at masculinity that bring about the film’s inciting incident and his subsequent failures to perform his wife’s duties in the kitchen. In doing so, he highlights the constructed nature of the assignment of these duties based on gender. He places himself outside of the gendered expectations of society in a literal way in the opening scene, where he appears a dance club just to watch the activities. And in the comedic bits of the film, his inability to perform either masculinity or femininity allows the audience to consider the facades of those structures. In watching him actively try to learn and fail at these activities he’s been given based on his gender assignment, there is a trans* understanding of the failure to perform at the roles of the gender one is assigned at birth, as well as the complexity of learning the rituals of one’s own gender. 

The failings of the clown echo Jack Halberstam’s considerations of failure and queerness, solidifying Langdon’s placement in the film as a queer, comedic outsider. In Halberstam’s writings on queerness and failure, Halberstam writes: 

“The Queer Art of Failure dismantles the logics of successes and failure with which we currently live. Under certain circumstances failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world. Failing is something queers do and have always done exceptionally well; for queers failure can be a style, to cite Quentin Crisp, or a way of life, to cite Foucault, and it can stand in contrast to the grim scenarios of success that depend on “trying and trying again.”[11]

In applying Halberstam’s ideas around failure to the film, we can find joyous resistance in the way that Langdon fails at the tasks placed before him in the film. His placid reactions to his failures allow us to safely fantasize about the possibilities that open up before us if we too embrace this logic of failure. 

            Further considering the way the world interacts with Langdon by way of his encounters with the bill collector and iceman, we can apply ideas surrounding the technologies of gender from Teresa de Lauretis to the film. Within her essay “The Technology of Gender,” de Lauretis establishes gender as a construction that is inseparably connects gender, work, class, and race, writing, “social representation of gender affects its subjective construction and that, vice versa, the subjective representation of gender – or self-representation – affects its social construction.”[12] Given the complexity with which de Lauretis breaks down the social construction of gender, there is an absurdity to the simplicity to the way gender operates within the film when it comes to passing as a gender within the film. As soon as Langdon changes his clothes, the outside world chooses to see him as a woman. By changing one factor of his appearance, Langdon completely alters the way the world views his gender. In contrast, however, we still see Langdon as himself due to his aforementioned star persona, challenging the notion that gender operates this discretely. While the behavior of the men towards Langdon is largely disrespectful, leering at and nonconsensually kissing him, there is also a small space within these interactions to read an absurd form of respect. They see someone placing a feminine indicator on themself, and despite the obviously visible Harry Langdon beneath it, they choose to treat the individual as the presentation he puts forth into the world. Returning to de Lauretis’ theories, the film itself also operates as a technology that can expand and challenge notions of gender and, through this representation, hope to affect its societal construction. 

            The simplicity of the direct correlation between Langdon’s changing outfits and the way the world genders him opens up a fantasy that, while absurd, evokes a trans* desire to live within a world that could operate in the way that the world of The Chaser does. In Scott Balzerack’s writing on queered masculinity in Hollywood comedians, he brings up the way that “as a gendered subject, the male comedian rearranges (or, at times, rejects) heteronormative protocols.”[13]Viewing Langdon as a gendered subject within the film, he distorts and evades masculinity and femininity as much as he can, playing within a space that allows him to transform in an almost enviable way. 

Unifying Gendered Identity Through a Familiar Spectator

Between the tensions of Langdon’s constant identity to the audience and his shifting gender presentation to the world, one might wonder if the film offers a point of resolution of these external and internal identities. By its closing shot, the film leaves us with an image of Langdon remaining in his dress and hat and reuniting with his wife, who has returned to her more traditionally feminine clothes. Looking back at the role played by Gladys McConnell as The Wife in the film provides the answers and resolution we seek. 

At the start of the film, McConnell is seen talking nonstop over the phone at her silent husband, and it is her desire to divorce him that brings about the gender-swapping court order. While nothing in this order explicitly mentions her, in the following scenes we see her partially switch roles with her husband – she wears a blazer and tie with a skirt as an incomplete transference into his role. In this outfit, there are suggestions at her failures at femininity when she finds her husband’s suicide note and, believing him dead, sobs until her make-up runs to a heightened extent. While Langdon’s arc throughout the film depicts him failing at femininity in a skirt, McConnell fails at the same ideas of gender while dressed oppositely. In addition, despite the change in roles, she still sees him as her husband, referring to him as such with her friends later in the film. This contrasts with the starkly shifted view of Langdon’s gender by the iceman and bill collector. The film gives her the power to see his identity through the façade of his clothing. When Langdon returns to the house covered in flour, his mother-in-law runs out in fear of a ghost while McConnell, after a temporary fright, recognizes and embraces her husband. 

Within this ending moment, some of the more nuanced ideas of gender within the film come together. After having both the husband and wife change their gendered attires, reuniting them when the wife has changed back but the husband remains the same gives a sense of ambiguity around the return to gendered roles within the film. While there is a normative reading of this ending that reunites the heterosexual couple with each person in their place, the actual execution of it has two femininely clothed individuals reuniting. With McConnell recognizing her husband beneath it all, there is an acknowledgement of his identity separate from his presentation. In the space with his wife, Langdon can be seen for who he is, regardless of how he presents. The film closes on a final shot of Langdon with his usual puzzled reaction to his wife returning to him, albeit with a couple of smiles tossed in. Coupled with the closing title reminding us of God creating man in his image and creating woman later on, there is a hint at the queer, homosocial world predating woman, as well as a challenge to the audience in if these binary viewpoints still hold up after watching a film that so comedically unpacks the artificiality of their construction. 

Conclusion

By applying a trans* perspective to The Chaser, we can see the way that the film negotiates ideas gender, considering where it is performative, intrinsic, and a part of one’s identity. While there are complex structures around gender in society, there is something delightfully freeing about the space created by the film. In the comedic failures and childlike incomprehension of Langdon, there emerges a queerness in the film that is only heightened by its preoccupation with gender. There isn’t one specific trans* identity explored within the film, but a variety of resonances that makes an umbrella term more appropriate than a specific notion. For instance, in viewing a fantasy of wearing a dress and being seen as a woman, there’s a trans-feminine fantasy. In the idea that he remains a man beneath his clothing regardless of how everyone views him, we see the opposite in the way of a trans-masculine fantasy. And in his positioning throughout the film that remains as neither successfully the uniformed studly husband nor the submissive wife, but finding peace in his final image of a ghost-like version of himself, there’s a non-binary desire of finding a space separate from any of these rituals. Altogether, the film provides evokes a sense of trans* desire through the absurdity with which its gendered rituals exist, the connection between queerness and comedic failure, and the queerness that Langdon’s childlike persona. 

 Sabrina Sonner is a recent graduate of the University of Southern California’s Cinema and Media Studies Masters program. Their work focuses on queer studies, interactive media, and media that supports live communal forms of play. They have previously been featured at USC’s First Forum conference in 2021, where they examined late stage capitalism through a playfully destructive reimagining of the board game Monopoly. Outside of academia, Sabrina works professionally in new play development for theatre. 

Works Cited

Agee, James. “Comedy’s Greatest Era.” Life, 1949. https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2019/11/17/comedys-greatest-era-james-agee/

Andrin, Muriel. “Back to the ‘Slap’: Slapstick’s Hyperbolic Gesture and The Rhetoric of Violence,” Slapstick Comedy (AFI Film Readers). Routledge, 2009.

Balzerack, Scott. “Someone Like Me for a Member.” Buffoon Men: Classic Hollywood Comedians and Queered Masculinity. Detroit: Wayne State University, 2013.

The Chaser. Harry Langdon. Harry Langdon Corporation. First National Pictures. 1928. 

De Lauretis, Teresa. 1987. “The Technology of Gender.” Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1-30. 

“Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2021.” Human Rights Campaign. 2021. https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2021

Halberstam, Jack. “Becoming Trans*.” Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability. Oakland: University of California Press, 45-62. 2017.

Halberstam, Jack. The Queer Art of Failure. Duke University Press Books. 2011. 

Peacock, Louise, “Clowns and Clown Play,” in Peta Tait and Katie Lavers (eds.), The Routledge Circus Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2016. 

[1] The Chaser. Harry Langdon. Harry Langdon Corporation. First National Pictures. 1928.

[2] The Chaser

[3] The Chaser

[4] Peacock, Louise, “Clowns and Clown Play,” in Peta Tait and Katie Lavers (eds.), The Routledge Circus Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2016. 90.

[5] Agee, James. “Comedy’s Greatest Era.” Life, 1949.

[6] Halberstam, Jack. “Becoming Trans*.” Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability. Oakland: University of California Press, 61. 2017.

[7] Andrin, Muriel. “Back to the ‘Slap’: Slapstick’s Hyperbolic Gesture and The Rhetoric of Violence,” Slapstick Comedy (AFI Film Readers). Routledge, 2009. 232

[8] “Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2021.” Human Rights Campaign. 2021. https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2021

[9] Peacock, 88.

[10] Peacock, 86.

[11] Halberstam, Jack. The Queer Art of Failure. Duke University Press Books. 2011. 2-3.

[12] De Lauretis, Teresa. 1987. “The Technology of Gender.” Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 8-9. 

[13] Balzerack, Scott. “Someone Like Me for a Member.” Buffoon Men: Classic Hollywood Comedians and Queered Masculinity. Detroit: Wayne State University, 2013. 4

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Hyo Jen Lee (South Korea) and Kirsten Pike (Qatar) (Part Two)

illustrator/SF writer Park Moon Young.

Response to Kirsten Pike's response

(by Hyo Jin Kim)

Dear Kirsten and everyone,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response.

You raised several interesting issues: Korean feminist SF (what the government's scientific discourse is in terms of reaching the public, especially women and girls; how Korean feminist SF expresses Korean sentiment and experiences; what common themes/characteristics of Korean feminist SF are; similarities vs. differences of Korean feminist SF and Western SF; male participants in feminist book clubs), Doctor Who fandom and comparisons with the Scully effect, and the response for the 13th Doctor, Jodie Whittaker.

First, I want to start with some good news and changes in terms of the science culture in South Korea. Since my dissertation, the Korean government and science communicators and experts have reached out to the public for science culture. ‘The Science & Culture Consultative Group’ was established last month, April 2022. This group will work mainly on several missions, such as spreading scientific and cultural activities, designing scientific projects, installing collaborative platforms for developing scientific culture, providing research/suggestions for scientific culture and its policies, filming and producing scientific images and broadcastings, holding academic conferences and seminars, and completing other voluntary scientific and cultural activities. As this group supports and encourages voluntary scientific and cultural activities, it may include some SF fandom activities. I am excited about the group and looking forward to their actions. This group will be the bridge between the public (hopefully include SF fans) and the government in terms of science culture. The government’s efforts in science culture have been accomplished through KOFAC and WISET. The Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity (KOFAC) leads science culture and develops policies as a quasi-governmental and non-profit organization under the Ministry of Science and ICT. In addition, the Korea Foundation for Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology (WISET) is a public institution funded by the government to encourage girls and women in the STEAM (A stands for Art) fields. According to WISET, the gender gap in natural science and engineering has decreased by 1.0% and 10.2%.

Korean SF and especially Korean feminist SF may step ahead of the government's science discourse. Korean feminist SF encourages readers to experience the future and even the current status quo, such as sexist oppression, discrimination, climate change and facing and living with non-human species, including aliens, AI, etc. Korean feminist SF has become more popular with the public since the 2010s. Statistics from the online bookstore ‘Aladin’ show the growth of female readers in their 20s to 40s, as I mentioned in my opening statement. With the reboot of feminism, new young female SF writers such as Cho-Yeop Kim and Se-Rang Chung and their work have become popular with the public. Cho-Yeop Kim won the 43rd Korea Artist Prize with her If We Cannot Move at the Speed of Light (Hubble, 2019) and the 11th Young Writer's Award with her following works. Se-Rang Chung's work School Nurse Ahn Eunyoung (Minumsa, 2015) aired on Netflix's original series in 2020. Media industries also showed interest and started making cinematic dramas such as 'SF8', eight directors with eight original Korean SFs in AI, AR, robot, game, fantasy, horror, supernatural, etc. Now Korean readers and audiences have more chances to meet Korean SF through books and media. The entrance barrier of SF has become lower and easier than before for the public.

As I mentioned in the opening statement, book club participants strongly tied with Korean feminist SF compared to Western SF. One reason might be the Korean storytelling. Participants and the public readers read Korean names, places, and even world views in Korean. They are used to reading characters' Western words and Western world views, making them feel distant from the genre. However, young SF Korean writers' works depict Korean characters (even many Korean female characters, single, married, young, and old) with Korean names, places, and cultures, allowing readers to feel comfortable with Korean SF. Korean feminist SF is mainly concerned with society's various issues and presents many diverse voices of Korean culture. For example, South Korea's constitutional court ordered the law banning abortion must be revised by the end of 2020. It's been 66 years since abortion became illegal. At the end of 2020, several SF writers joined the #abolition of abortion campaign by writing and sharing short SF stories. Korean SF writers openly associate their work with social issues. Korean feminist SF reflects current social issues and lets readers consider what-if situations. Therefore, Korean feminist SF book club participants engage strongly with Korean feminist SF.

Kirsten asked about Korean feminist SF's common themes or characteristics, and I'm working on analyzing and researching as same theme of a book project this year. Fandom research and the sub-genre of feminist SF are rare and getting to start in South Korea. So far, I've seen in Korean feminist SF themes of disability, gender issues, various types of violence toward women and others, stereotypes of women and others, prejudice against women and others, posthuman, patriarchy etc. Analyzing common themes and characteristics of Korean feminist SF is in progress. As a Korean feminist SF reader, I’ve got the impression that every single voice seems to matter to Korean SF writers. Korean feminist SF and Western feminist SF have in common that feminist issues meet the SF genre. Feminist SF writers are actively involved with social issues and let readers find solutions through their imaginations. The difference between Korean feminist SF and Western SF is how feminist issues reflect Korean society. As famous Western feminist SF books have been translated into Korean, readers feel Western feminist SF to be learned rather than empathetic. Every culture deals with different feministic issues. This is why Korean readers get more comfortable and engage tightly with Korean feminist SF. Kirsten wondered if there were male participants in the feminist SF book club. There were no male participants in the "Meet without meeting; 500 days' journey of reading feminist sf" club, but there were some male participants in other feminist SF book clubs I participated. Those male participants had entirely different attitudes toward feministic issues. They joined the book club because they wanted to learn more and understand feministic issues through the book and discussion.

Kirsten asked the Doctor Who fandom about the Scully effect, however, I could not find any academic research in South Korea. SF fandom studies in South Korea are few. In the part of my dissertation, some Whovians learn and understand complicated physics terms through Doctor Who. In my dissertation, I suggested SF fandom as a part of science communication. Scully effect on The X-File seems to follow a similar path, approaching SF fandom as the part of science communication in popular culture. Therefore, finding Scully effect of The X-Files or any other SF in South Korea will be fascinating and could be a good research project for WISET. I was able to find a news article about the fandom of The X-Files. How I remembered The X-Files is unique and different from these days’ SF fandom because of the dubbed version. Kirsten mentioned watching the dubbed version of The X-Files, and there was a massive fanbase surrounding dubbing actors in the '90s PC era in South Korea. There were several fan communities for the dubbing actors and main characters, Mulder and Scully. Still, many fans remember Mulder and Scully as the dubbed version of the voices. One news article shows that The X-Files returned in 2016, and the dubbing actors as Mulder and Scully got the information from the fans and celebrated together. The dubbing actors were as famous and vital as the original actors of Korean The X-Files’ fans. In the '90s in South Korea, I and Korean people were familiar with dubbed versions of television programs such asMacGyver, The X-Files, and other foreign films and television programs. The dubbed actors were top-rated as well. I remember MacGyver's Korean dubbing actor's voice. I was shocked when I heard the actual voice of MacGyver (Richard Dean Anderson). It didn't sound right to me. I am sure this kind of experience is common for people who grew up in the '90s. The popularity and fandom of dubbed versions of films and television programs may differ. Focusing on the differences may present how international fans deal with original characters' voices vs. dubbing actors' voices in a different context. At the same time, the '90s PC era is significant to SF fandom studies in South Korea. That period began with SF fandom, translating Western SFs, and creating Korean SFs. Some current famous SF writers/critics have been actively involved with the '90s PC era since. Several Korean SF scholars consider the '90s PC era a significant time for Korean SF fandom, and research is in progress.

As Kirsten asked about the response of the 13th Doctor, the Jodie Whittaker of Korean Whovians, I would say this might be another good start for the future Doctor Who fandom studies. I was pretty excited about Jodie Whittaker being the 13th Doctor because The Doctor's gender has never been revealed on the show. Though I had to dig deeper for the research, glancing over several Doctor Who online fan communities' comments seem negative responses. As some fans welcomed the female Doctor, they were disappointed with her performance and storytelling. I don't think this is about Jodie Whittaker's performance but fans' frustrations with accepting the female Doctor. The program has run for more than 60 years. Old and even new Whovians are already too familiar with male Doctors. It might take some time to adjust to new perspectives, such as gender or race issues, on the Doctor.

It was an excellent opportunity to learn about Qatar girls’ Disney princess fandom and discuss dubbed versions of films and television programs. It’s been fun to be part of this Global fandom Jamboree Conversation. Always exciting to meet a friendly but inspiring colleague. Thanks again to Kirsten for the thoughtful feedbacks, and hope everyone also enjoyed our conversations.

Part 2: Second Response to Hyo Jin Kim

(by Kirsten Pike)

Thanks so much for your thoughtful reflections, HJ! You’ve raised a lot of excellent points and questions for me to think about. I offer below a few initial thoughts.

With regard to Arab girls creating their own princess-themed media and cultural productions … I, too, was intrigued by this discovery.  It immediately brought to mind Henry Jenkins’s pioneering research on female fans of Star Trek, who—in writing new stories about beloved characters—remade popular texts “in their own image, forcing them to respond to their needs and to gratify their desires.”[1] Broadly speaking, the participants in my study tended to create princess-themed narratives that opened up possibilities of greater freedom and independence for girls. And their creations spanned a variety of forms, including songs, videos, games, short stories, photos, and theatrical plays. In a story written as part of a fourth-grade school project, for instance, one participant reimagined Belle from Beauty and the Beast (1991) as a beast, thereby defying customary ideas about how a Disney princess should look and act. Another participant wrote, produced, and starred in a princess-themed play at her high school, which she described as “an Arab version of Cinderella.” However, unlike Disney’s Cinderella (1950), her story challenged gendered conventions in that the heroine—despite being pursued by a prince—opted not to marry so that she could live a more independent existence.[2]

While it’s difficult to pinpoint the precise combination of factors that fostered the girls’ creative (and in some cases, feminist) sensibilities, it’s clear that some participants were encouraged to explore their gendered interests in school-related assignments and activities prior to college. And given that all the girls I interviewed were former students at Northwestern University in Qatar—an American university with staff, faculty, and students from around the world—I think it’s safe to say that they were already interested in and receptive to diverse viewpoints, with childhood influences also surely coming from their family and friends as well as media and other educational/cultural institutions. Indeed, many of the girls I interviewed cited Sheikha Moza, the chairperson of Qatar Foundation (and mother of the current Emir), as a major role model, especially given that her educational initiatives helped international universities come to Qatar, thus paving the way for more young women to earn college degrees here.[3]

The question of how dubbing informs reception within specific cultural contexts is an interesting one, especially when audiences grow up consuming an eclectic mix of local and global media. In the case of the girls I interviewed, all were fluent in English and Arabic, and they moved easily between Western and Middle Eastern media. Regarding language preferences in Disney media, a few patterns emerged in my findings. First, watching Disney films in English was the preferred mode for girls in my initial study, with ten out of 14 (71%) stating that the original films were their favorite. Some noted that Disney’s English-language releases were the most “authentic” and therefore adored, while others commented that because meaning can be lost in translation, they preferred watching the originals. Four girls in the study (29%) said that they favored the Egyptian-dubbed versions of Disney films because the dialogue, jokes, and/or cultural references were funnier.[4] Interestingly, when eight of the original 14 participants later answered questions about Jeem TV’s local adaptations of Disney films and TV shows (which, beginning in 2013, were dubbed into classical Arabic and edited to be more culturally appropriate for Arab youth), none reported a fondness for these versions. Even though the girls appreciated some of Jeem’s gender-productive editing strategies, including its tendency to eliminate derogatory comments about women and to replace comments about a female character’s looks with remarks about her intelligence, they felt that classical Arabic sounded “too formal” and/or “too serious,” which made them feel distanced from these texts. Ultimately, this discovery highlights the challenges faced by indigenous media producers who strive to create culturally relevant content for local audiences, while also navigating children’s desires for popular global fare.[5]

It was interesting to read your comments about the circulation of Disney content in Korea, including how most parents and young people prefer subtitled rather than Korean-dubbed Disney films because they can help viewers learn English. A few of the girls in my initial study reported that they learned to speak English by watching Disney films and TV shows too. Still, I agree that locally dubbed versions of popular media can have important benefits. One participant in my second study seemed to feel similarly when she suggested that watching Disney programming in classical Arabic on Jeem TV might sharpen Arabic language proficiency among local youth, which some adults fear is in decline because of the country’s rapid globalization over the past fifteen years. However, given the distancing effect described above, perhaps local youth (especially those from the Arab Gulf) would be more receptive to Jeem’s adaptations if they were dubbed in the local khaliji dialect as opposed classical Arabic.

Although my research on Disney fandom in Qatar has so far focused on Arab girls, I agree that it would be fascinating to explore the views of Disney fans living here who come from various racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds. While my chapter “Princess Culture in Qatar” (2015) included an analysis of girls’ responses to portrayals of Middle Eastern characters in Aladdin (1992), it would be interesting for a future study to examine girls’ ideas about representations of race and ethnicity (and their intersections with other markers of identity) across a broader body of Disney princess films, including some of the more recent releases, such as Frozen (2013), Moana (2016), and Frozen II (2019). When I conducted my initial interviews with Arab girls in 2013, a couple of participants talked about how much they admired the more unconventional Disney princesses, including Mulan from Mulan (1998) and Merida from Brave (2012). I would love to find out if, how, and to what extent this interest in non-traditional princesses has evolved with some of Disney’s contemporary releases. And I’d love to learn more about the reception of Disney princess media in South Korea too. 

I’m so glad to have had this opportunity to discuss examples of youthful female fandom in Korea and Qatar with you, HJ, as well as to participate in this broader Global Fandom Jamboree. I look forward to seeing how the insights shared via these cross-cultural exchanges over the past few months will continue to evolve and inform our scholarship (and fandom) as time moves forward!

Notes

[1] Jenkins (III), Henry. “Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 5.2 (1988): 103.

[2] Pike, Kirsten. “Princess Culture in Qatar: Exploring Princess Media Narratives in the Lives of Arab Female Youth.” In Princess Cultures: Mediating Girls’ Imaginations and Identities, eds. Miriam Forman-Brunell and Rebecca C. Hains, 139-160. New York: Peter Lang, 2015: 154-155.

[3] Arab girls who grow up in Qatar are often encouraged by their families to stay close to home after graduating from high school; Arab males, however, often attend university abroad.

[4] Pike, “Princess Culture in Qatar,” 146.

[5] Pike, Kirsten. “Disney in Doha: Arab Girls Negotiate Global and Local Versions of Disney Media.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 11 (2018): 72-90.

Global Fandom Jamboree Conversation: Hyo Jin Kim (South Korea) and Kristen Pike (Qatar) (Part One)

"Disney Live! Mickey's Music Festival" in Doha, Qatar in 2014

Dear Kirsten and everyone,                                                                                  

I am very happy to be part of this Global fandom project, discussing Disney princesses and their fandom. I was delighted to read Kirsten's opening statement especially Arab females' reaction to these princesses was fascinating. The study results did not report previous media or feminist critics' adverse effects on gender roles, body image, and love interests. Instead, the unexpected and captivating results captured Arab girls' participatory Disney princess culture. Thus, I wonder about Arab female youths and their culture—what makes them create their own princess story, and what is in it? Per Kirsten's study, girls enjoy and consume Disney princess media and products and use the content to create another cultural product incorporating "their gendered interests and concerns." This makes me wonder about Arab girls' gendered interests and concerns. It would be interesting to compare Disney princess fandom in different countries/cultures if possible. Each culture may consume these princesses differently. I want to know these differences and their makeup. 

What strikes me is that the girls' storytelling is riveting. This is the part where participatory fan culture steps in. A couple of questions pop up. First, how did these girls know or notice their gendered interests and concerns relative to Disney princesses? What are these gendered interests and concerns? Second, what made these participants very creative and active in telling their stories? These questions may reveal the possible factor for these young female participants' creativity and feministic activity. Did specific social changes or the school system encourage them? What of generational influence (for example, their parents' feministic awareness compared to the previous generation)? Third, why did Arab girls create stories? Were there any common themes? Or any specific topics related to their culture? How did they differ compared to Disney's original princess story? I was just excited Arab girls actively recreate their story through Disney princesses. They are not just consuming Disney but also creating their own culture. Understanding Arab girls' Disney fandom can lead to another perspective on Disney princesses. In addition, Qatar's population drives another research idea, comparing other female youth (different cultural-based) of similar age, consuming Disney film/television, such as Asian girls who live in Qatar vs. Arab girls in Qatar. I am interested in how ethnicity or different cultures may affect media consumption. 

Another exciting result of the initial study was the top appealing Disney princesses are Cinderella and Belle, and most girls liked a white princess. Although Kirsten's study did not address any influences on body images, growing up with colored skin, and watching and liking white princesses might give different experiences. When I grew up, I remember there was a 'skin color' crayon—the color of white princesses' skin color in Disney films and television, a bright pink—that has disappeared and does not exist anymore in South Korea. I know it is shocking that there was a specific skin color crayon. Although the racist crayon is gone, whitening beauty products are prevalent in most Asian countries. It could be part of imperial Whiteness in Asia. In some way, Disney is still responsible for girls' body image/skin color. I know Kirsten's participants like Cinderella and Belle because of their characters, not their skin color; however, I'd like to know how Arab girls consume the skin colors of Disney princesses. 

Disney princesses have changed in three different periods. The first era is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950), and Sleeping Beauty (1959). Thirty years later, the second era included characters from The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas (1995), and Mulan (1998). The last era's princesses appear in The Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Brave (2012), and Frozen (2013) (England et al., 2011)[1]. Kirsten's initial study falls in the second era. Since the global popularity of Frozen, I wonder if there are any Disney princess trend changes with girls. Alternatively, did previous participants see Frozen or Disney princesses from the same era differently? How do audiences/fans respond to Disney's changes with princesses? 

As Kirsten mentioned, organizations such as the Doha Film Institute (DFI) and The Short Film Lab try to make local productions, but they do not do enough to produce local contents. Are there any government support or policies to encourage local media production? I am also curious about how media audiences respond to local productions and the popularity of local media content compared to foreign/imported productions. This curiosity leads me to think that the more foreign/imported media production gets popular, the less chance there will be for local/indigenous media products to be produced based on the media industry perspective. Therefore, I'd like to know the dynamics of the media industry in Qatar, how the government relates to supporting or encouraging local media productions, and how audiences react.

Another part of Kirsten's research topic on dubbing may apply to some countries importing Disney films and television programs, including South Korea. Arab girls' positive responses to "cultural surgeries" are interesting. In the description of participants, they are comfortable with English. As they do not have any language issues and prefer dubbed versions of Disney films and television, it makes me wonder again, what social circumstances support these young female participants? In South Korea, Disney films and television are an excellent way to learn English, relating to higher education fever, especially in English. Parents, kids, and young adults prefer a subtitled version of Disney rather than a dubbed version. However, the value of a dubbed version is crucial, in my opinion. Nowadays, media critics criticize the globalization phenomenon in media wiping out local and indigenous cultures. The translator of Lost in South Korea mentioned the value of dubbing, which is another way to create the show from a Korean perspective. He said dubbing is not just a direct translation of language but also links two different cultures to make sure audiences understand the contents based on their cultural experiences. I agree with him on the value of dubbing; however, the audiences seem to think differently in South Korea. Therefore, some networks air foreign films and television shows in a subtitled version instead of airing a dubbed version. I wonder how general audiences reflect on dubbing and classical Arabic editing. 

Dear HJ (and everyone ),

Thanks so much for sharing your opening statement; I’m delighted to have the opportunity to discuss it with you as part of this Global Fandom Jamboree! You raise several interesting points about fans of science fiction (SF) in South Korea as well as government efforts to spark public interest in science culture more broadly. It’s disappointing to learn that the government’s science culture events so far have not included the texts or practices of SF fandom. But you make a great point about how government initiatives might benefit by doing so. To that end, I wondered if you could say more about how you see feminist SF, specifically, in relation to the government’s efforts. For example, to what extent does Korean feminist science fiction work for or against the government’s science discourses? How might Korean feminist SF be utilized to improve the government’s outreach to the public about science, especially women and girls? I’m not sure if any of the science culture events that you mentioned (e.g., the Korean Science Fair) are circulating gender-specific discourses that encourage women and girls to pursue STEM fields; but, either way, it’s exciting to ponder how Korean feminist SF might be harnessed to further promote (or jumpstart) those efforts. 

Reading your comments about Dr. Who brought back a memory of when I lived and worked in South Korea for a year in the mid-1990s. At that time, The X-Files was all the rage, and the family I lived with watched a Korean-dubbed version of it. I’m not sure if any of the fans that you engaged with during your research discussed this show, but it’s interesting to think about how and why certain SF TV shows have resonated with Korean viewers at particular historical moments, and why certain SF shows inspire young viewers to go into STEM fields (i.e., the “Scully Effect”).[1] Was there a similar effect on female viewers of The X-Files in Korea? And do we see that effect with Dr. Who? Given your interesting insights about “Whovians,” I was curious how the casting of Jodie Whittaker (the first female to play “The Doctor” title role) on Dr. Who has been received by Korean fans. I would imagine that female fans might have seen this as an exciting update to the long-running series, especially against the backdrop of the gender-related social movements (e.g., #MeToo) that you mention as having contributed to the recent growth of feminist SF in Korea.

I enjoyed learning about your research projects on the two different feminist SF book clubs in Korea. In particular, I was intrigued by the fact that in both clubs, participants felt emotionally distanced from translations of Western SF texts but had a strong affinity for Korean feminist SF texts. To that end, you noted that the expression of specifically Korean sentiments and experiences seemed to resonate more strongly with book club members. I was wondering if you might be able to say a bit more about what those sentiments and/or experiences are, as well as how some Korean feminist SF authors are tapping into them. For instance, are there certain themes and/or characteristics of Korean feminist SF texts that appeal to Korean fans? How are feminist elements in Korean SF similar to and/or different from feminist sensibilities in some of the Western texts that the Korean book club participants engaged with? In addition to the diverse topics that were discussed in the “500 Days’ Journey of Reading Feminist SF” club, it was heartening to learn about how the club functioned more broadly as a safe space for female participants to share their everyday experiences. Out of curiosity, did either book club include male participants? My sense from what you wrote is that these were female-oriented spaces, but if males were participating, I would love to hear more about their interest in and/or views about feminist SF.

In thinking about how feminist SF fandom in South Korea relates to Disney fandom amongst girls in Qatar, what really jumps out at me is how language and cultural specificity seem to be working in each context. While feminist narratives produced by Korean authors appealed more strongly to the members of the two book clubs than translations of Western texts, the girls in my study tended to report the opposite of this pattern when they discussed the original English-language versions of Disney films and TV shows and the versions that were dubbed into classical Arabic (and edited to be more culturally appropriate for Arab youth) by staff at the youth-oriented channel, Jeem TV, in Qatar. While the girls that I interviewed understood that Jeem’s adaptations of Disney content were designed, in part, to help preserve and affirm the country’s Arabic language and cultural traditions, they also felt incredibly distanced from these media texts. This was largely related to the fact that, like most Arabic speakers, they use classical Arabic to write but not generally to speak (using, instead, the khaliji dialect of the Arab Gulf). Thus, Jeem TV’s attempt at “localizing” Disney’s content for the benefit of Arab youth in Qatar (and the broader MENA region) actually created a kind of cultural dissonance, with girls reporting that the dialogue sounded much too formal to be enjoyable. As such, the participants voiced a preference for either the original English-language versions of Disney films and TV shows (which some perceived as the most “authentic”) or the Egyptian-dubbed versions that they encountered on TV or in movie theaters in the early 2000s. Interestingly, a couple of the Qatari girls in my study told me that they preferred the Egyptian-dubbed versions of Disney films and TV shows because the jokes and comedic dialogue were funnier in that dialect than they were in English. Although I’m not exactly sure where this takes us, perhaps language and cultural specificity are topics to consider more fully as we continue discussing fandom across different media texts, cultural contexts, and feminist sensibilities in Korea and Qatar.

Notes

[1] For useful information and statistics about the “Scully Effect” in the U.S., see: “The Scully Effect: I Want to Believe in STEM.” Featuring research by 21st Century Fox, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence (2018). Accessible at: https://seejane.org/research-informs-empowers/the-scully-effect-i-want-to-believe-in-stem/

[1] England, Dawn E., Descartes, Lara, & Collier-Meek, Melissa A. (2011). Gender role portrayal

and the Disney princesses. Sex Roles, 64(1), 555-567.