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Is fandom taking over our lives?
This article talks about the extent of fandom and includes the supposed 'Joss Whedon Grocery List'. |
 Is fandom taking over our lives? Could a grocery list ever become a cult hit? Perhaps.
A satirical article from Datelinehollywood.com envisioned what might be if fans of cult writer/director Joss Whedon ever took fandom to a scary place. The article jokingly reports that a grocery list written by Joss Whedon leaked onto the Internet and has been generating thousands of hits, inspiring a Joss's Grocery Shoppers fan club. This caused sales of items on the list to increase by 173 per cent and even rallying fans to raise $2.5 million to turn it into a television series.
One would assume that no one could possibly take this seriously, but an article published in the official Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine refers to the Datelinehollywood.com article as if it were based on truth. "It sounds like the maddest Buffy April Fool ever, but it's not." The ambiguity of the Datelinehollywood.com article eludes to something profound about the nature of fandom today - and not just the need for a competent fact-checker at the Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine.
After reading these two articles, and as a self-professed fan of Buffy and Joss Whedon myself, I began to wonder about a few things. What was Datelinehollywood.com trying to satirize when it published that article? What would make the Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine believe such absurdity? What does it even mean to be a "fan"? And why won't Joss return any of my calls?
My first two questions are probably the easiest to answer. Joss Whedon has an incredibly obsess-ahem devoted fan base, despite the fact that most people don't even know who Joss Whedon is. A writer for the San Francisco Chronicle's website, SFGate.com, was recently bewildered to receive hate mail from fans of Joss' latest project Serenity because of his favourable review of the movie. (Serenity is based on Firefly which was cancelled after one season). According to the writer, the fans were angry that he "didn't praise Whedon's TV show Firefly enough" and because he "pointed out that critics generally didn't like that show". In a response to the hate mail, the writer, who is a self-professed geek, went so far as to say, "Joss Whedon has spawned the most hardcore science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts ever to walk this planet. This includes people who learn to speak Klingon, people who remain in character after they leave the Renaissance Fair and people who boycotted the Lord of the Rings movies because there were elves at Helm's Deep."
I can do nothing but nod my head slowly in shame and agree. So that answers my first two questions: Datelinehollywood.com was ridiculing the fervour with which those hardcore Joss fans, and any hardcore fans for that matter, fixate on one fandom or another. And the Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine was quite right to believe that satirical article because Joss fans might just be that scary.
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Fun Facts about Fandom:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer roughly translates in German to Buffy in the Thrall of Demons; in Japanese to The Vampire Killer: Holy Girl Buffy; and in Hungarian to Buffy: The Bogey of the Vampires.
To read the complete article, click here
To read the supposed 'joss Whedon Grocery list', click here
| | [by Róisín (Excalibur Online) ] [0 comments]
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