In this short post I’d like to juxtapose an unlikely pair of films in order to push harder at the taken-for-granted mythologies of extreme weather: SharkNado and Beasts of the Southern Wild.
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Posts Tagged ‘ fandom ’
Enough Said? Beasts of the Southern Wild, SharkNado, and Extreme Weather
The Deanna Durbin Cult
The figure of the recently passed Deanna Durbin (1921-2013) is fascinating today because of how it embodies a sensibility within stardom: the cult of the child star.
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“Fell in Love with a Song”: Squaresville and the Intimate Collective
"You know how sometimes when you're really really focused...you forget that you're a person? You forget that anything exists at all?"
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Booth Babe Backlash
A year of misogyny in geek culture resurrected the booth babe debate that has contributed to a backlash against female fandom.
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Star Trek into (Fandom’s) Darkness
If Star Trek was once a foundation for the idea of taking fans seriously, then today it might simply be a sad commentary on fandom’s token function within the industry, another form of “crowdsourcing,” a destructive marriage based on the contradictory feelings of mutual dependence and contempt.
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“A Mission to Civilize”: In Defense of The Newsroom’s Fans
A bevy of alarmingly disdainful reviewers has flocked to The Newsroom. Unfortunately, it’s the fans they’re sneering at.
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Adaptation by Remix: Vidding Feminist Science Fiction
The video “Parable” by Chaila is a fascinating example of what the crossover of fandom and political engagement can achieve.
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The Dark Knight Rises: Fandom and the Folk Hero
Batman cannot survive as a single, fixed figure. Batman is a virus, a folk hero, an icon, an infection. He belongs to the people. He belongs to us.
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Abbeyites Get Down with Downton Abbey
Downton Abbey has proved to be a hit for PBS and its cultural significance is evident in the various ways its fans engage with the show and with the past it mediates for us.
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Promoting an Uncertain Future: Showrunners (on Hiatus) on Twitter IV
With NBC's Community and ABC's Cougar Town on hiatus, their respective showrunners' Twitter accounts become key outlets for implicitly or explicitly encouraging fan involvement and/or activism.
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Fantasy Football: Fandom Fail
Fantasy football engenders a complex experience of fandom.
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Lost and Found Doctor Who: Time-Travelling TV?
The tantalising return of two episodes of early Doctor Who deserves celebration. But perhaps the tempting notion of two cultures or past/present eras of TV deserves a measure of critique.
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Glee: Kurt and the Casting Couch
In the second episode of Glee’s new season, “I Am Unicorn,” Kurt’s character loses the romantic lead in the school musical, West Side Story, to his more masculine boyfriend Blaine. The episode was both fascinating and confounding because instead of interrogating masculinist gender hierarchies, usually one of the show’s great strengths, the show affirmed...
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A Showrunner Goes To War: Doctor Who and the Almost Fans?
With episode 6.06 having transmitted in the US, and 6.07 – the 'game-changing' midseries finale – already broadcast in the UK, this week seems like a good time to ponder the issue of Doctor Who spoilers.
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Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who: Challenging the Format Theorem?
Moffat challenges the TV industry establishment far more notably than did series one through four. He's the Tom Baker to Russell T. Davies's Jon Pertwee.
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