Fandom At The Crossroads: Celebration, Shame and Fan/Producer Relationships
The fans are an incredibly important force in the entertainment industry: Powerful executives, directors and writers fear them, countless web sites cater to them and their support (or wrath) can make or break a project. But who are the fans? What do they want? How do they view their complex relationships with the stories and storytellers they obsess over? Fortunately, Lynn Zubernis and Katherine Larsen are here to take us on a fascinating journey into the belly of the beast an appropriate metaphor, given their profound and passionate knowledge of the complex and challenging spooky serial Supernatural. But you don t have to be a fan of the Winchester Brothers to enjoy this witty, thoughtful and intelligent guide to the nature of fandom and the endless varieties of the fan experience. As Dean Winchester would say, They get it. --Maureen Ryan, Television Critic, AOL/Huffington PostFandom At The Crossroads raises vital questions for contemporary fan studies. Pondering whether fan practices can be therapeutic, asking how boundaries between fans and producers are policed (from both sides), and considering fan conflicts, this is a rich and timely study of Supernatural fandom which also opens up wider issues surrounding convergence culture right now. Drawing on detailed, wide-ranging interviews with showrunners and the show s cast, Fandom At The Crossroads also boasts a degree of access that s incredibly rare in work of this kind. By combining their fan and scholarly identities, Larsen and Zubernis challenge all of us to see the subject anew. --Matt Hills, Cardiff University; Author of Fan Cultures and Triumph of a Time LordLarsen and Zubernis have produced what will no doubt be a valuable addition to the growing scholarship on fan studies. Their passion as Supernatural fans shines through and they should be congratulated for researching and writing an influential book that asks the reader to not only consider their own relationship to a particular fandom but demands that they take notice and take seriously the diverse interests and emotional attachments millions have with their objects of affection. --Lincoln Geraghty, University of Portsmouth; Editor of the Directory of World Cinema: American Hollywood