Cult Media

Cult Media

Survey of Popular Culture

Cult MediaThe Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975)

Cult MediaSurvey of Popular Culture

Cult MediaEraserhead (David Lynch, 1977)


Cult MediaLiquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, 1982)


Cult MediaDonnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)


Cult MediaLIVING TEXTUALITY. The authentic cult work, Eco observes, must seem like "living textuality," as if it had no authors, as postmodernist proof that "as literature comes from literature, cinema comes from cinema" (199).

Cult Media

Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage."

Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver. New York:

Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986: 197-211.Survey of Popular Culture

Cult MediaA COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD. Another closely related prerequisite of Cult Media, Eco observes, is its capacity to "provide a completely furnished world so that its fans can quote characters and episodes as if they were aspects of the fan's private sectarian world, a world about which one can make up quizzes and play trivia games so that the adepts of the secret recognize through each other a shared experience" (198).

Cult Media




Cult MediaA COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD.

Cult Media





Cult Media





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Cult MediaDETACHABILITY. Cult Media work, according to Eco, must also be susceptible to breaking, dislocation, unhinging, "so that one can remember only parts of it, irrespective of their original relationship with the whole." Cult Media viewer watching these moments--indeed watching for such moments—may let out an audible "I love this."

Cult Media




Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & QueriesWhat is the connection between “cult” and quality? Is a “bad” film or TV series more likely to become a cult work?


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries

Can a cult work be consciously created or must it be discovered?


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & QueriesDo certain actors/actresses inspire “cultishness”?


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & QueriesWhat is the relationship of camp and cult-ivation?


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & QueriesWhat are the specific relations between genre hybridity/genre bending and cult status?


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & QueriesDoes box office failure enhance culthood? Can a blockbuster/ratings hit acquire cult status?


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & QueriesWhy is the fantastic, “left of real” (J. J. Abrams’ term), such a fertile ground for cult status?



Is it possible for a movie or television show to gain cult status largely through nostalgia?


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & QueriesAre “B.Y.O subtext” works (Joss Whedon’s phrase) ipso facto cultish?


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & QueriesWhat role do intertextuality, metaxtextuality play in the growth of cult work?



Are cult works always counter-cultural?



Are cult works always counter-cultural?



Why do “Cult [media]’s imaginary universes support an inexhaustible range of narrative possibilities, inviting, supporting and rewarding close textual analysis, interpretation, and inventive reformulations”? (Jones and Pearson)



How is it that cult media have evolved into “a meta-genre that caters to intense, interpretive audience practices,” affording “fans enormous scope for further interpretation, speculation and invention” (Jones and Pearson).


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & QueriesWhy have cult media come to be distinguished by their “hyperdiegesis”: ”the creation of a vast and detailed narrative space, only a fraction of which is ever directly seen or encountered within the text . . .” (Matt Hills, Fan Cultures 137)


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries Should we follow Matt Hills’ advice that, instead of “celebrating cult texts for their supposed uniqueness,” we should focus on “analyzing and defining cult TV as a part of broader patterns within changing TV industries” (“Defining Cult TV” 522).


Cult Media: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries What obligation do the makers of cult series and films have to answer the clamor of fans for more involvement?



Does the presence of a star with cult street cred or a cult of personality guarantee cult status?



Do cult media exhibit a unique approach to character investment?



Is it still true that your standard issue television cult work, in keeping with the tradition, “represents a disruptive rather than a conservative force” (Kawin)?



How does cult television differ—in subject matter, audience, marketing, narrative—from cult film?



How will the emergence of multiple platforms change the nature of cult media?



Are there narrative forms unique to cult media, and if they exist, how have they influenced all of film and television?



What is the place of the “conspiracy theory” in fostering/sustaining cult TV?



Are the traditional youth demographics of cult media changing?



To what degree has cult media created “transnational” languages and viewing practices and furthered globalization?


Cult Media: A Basic Glossaryactivated text: A television program which generates buzz.ancillary text: Both secondary (criticism, publicity) and tertiary (discussion and commentary occurring at the fan level) texts.convergence culture: "The . . . ways the business landscape is changing in response to the growing integration of content and brands across media platforms and the increasingly prominent roles that consumers are playing in shaping the flow of media" (Convergence Culture Consortium).cult tv: Television which attracts and sustains a usually small but rabid audience, the members of which begin to use the show in cultish fashion. According to Reeves: "By the 1990s, there were generally two types of cult television shows. The first type, in the tradition of Star Trek, is comprised of prime-time network programs that failed to generate large ratings numbers, but succeeded in attracting substantial numbers of avid fans. Twin Peaks is the most outstanding recent example of this category. Shows of the second type first appear on cable or in fringe timeslots and are narrowly targeted at a niche audience. Comedy Central's Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) and MTV's Beavis and Butthead (B&B) exemplify this category of cult programming that was never intended to appeal to mass audience."


http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#buzz

Cult Media: A Basic Glossaryfan fiction: Stories written by viewers (and often posted on the web) which make use of a television’s show’s characters in new, sometimes improbable situations. See also slash fan fiction. fan-scholar. Matt Hills' term (Fan Cultures) for a fan whose interest/enthusiasm for the work he/she obsessively follow exhibits the kind of academic rigor ordinarily expected of an academic scholar. See also scholar-fan.homage. A spoof, "send-up" of another work of art, usually done in admiration of the original rather than for purposes of ridicule.interpretive community: The idea, pioneered by Stanley Fish, that "[s]imilar readings are produced . . . because similarly located readers learn a similar set of reading strategies and interpretive codes which they bring to bear upon the texts they encounter" [Radway].intertextual: The tendency--typical of postmodernism--of texts not merely to allude to other texts but to depend upon the similarities, differences, and contrasts between texts in order to establish their own signification. "Intertextuality should not be, but frequently is, used to refer to the intentional allusion (overt or covert) to, citation or quotation of previous texts in literary texts" [The Literary Encyclopedia].


http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#slash%20fan%20fiction

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#scholar-fan

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#postmodernism

Cult Media: A Basic Glossaryjumping the shark: The "defining moment" when a television program "has reached its peak" and begins to go downhill. Named after a moment in Happy Days when its most memorable character (The Fonz) takes part in a shark jumping contest. See the Jump the Shark website: http://www.jumptheshark.com.Mary Sue: in fan fiction, a character who represents the identity of the author inserted into the story line of a series. "Superstar," a Season Four episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is a perfect example.multi-platform (or cross-platform): Originally a designation for software capable of running on different operating systems, now refers as well to media forms appearing on multiple media. Lost, for example, is incarnated not just on television but in books, videogames, board games, websites, internet-based "alternative reality games," cell phones, music CDs, and DVDs.narrative special effect: Jason Mittell's term for an original form of storytelling--Lost's surprise introduction of flash forwards, for example, or its final season "flash sideways"--intended to provoke buzz and generate fan involvement. Netflix adultery: Watching ahead of a partner (thus being unfaithful) an item--typically an episode of a television series--in a Netflix streaming cue.


http://www.jumptheshark.com/

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#fan%20fiction

Cult Media: A Basic Glossarypastiche: Describes a work of art made up almost entirely of assembled bits and pieces from other works. According to Frederic Jamieson, the characteristic form of expression in postmodernism.postmodernism: A cultural style or sensibility, a response to and evolution from modernism, which exhibits--indeed embraces--disunity, superficiality, self-referential, intertextuality, parody, pastiche, recombination, irony, indifference, discontinuity, disrespect, alienation, meaninglessness. recombinant programming: Todd Gitlin's term (Inside Primetime) for the production of a television program by genre-splicing together other, existing forms.scholar-fan. Matt Hills' term (Fan Cultures) for an academic whose interest/enthusiam for the shows he/she investigates exhibit certain fannish behaviors. See also fan-scholar.self-referentiality: The tendency of a work of art to become self-conscious, to call attention to itself--its conventions, structure, signification--as part of its own discourse.slash fan fiction: Fan fiction which links together, usually in sexual situations, pairs of characters who are not so involved in the diegesis. In slash fan fiction, Mulder and Skinner might become lovers, or Spock and Kirk.


http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#postmodernism

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#self-referential

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#intertextual

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#pastiche

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#recombinant%20programming

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#fan-scholar

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#fan%20fiction

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#diegesis

Cult Media: A Basic Glossaryspoiler virgin: A fan who assiduously avoids all spoilers.spoiler whore: A fan who actively seeks out and/or propagates spoilers.spreadable: Media dispersed widely on a variety of formal and informal platforms.sticky: Old-model media aggregating in centralized locations (like networks).webisode: "[A]n episode of a television show that airs initially as an Internet download or stream as opposed to first airing on broadcast or cable television" (Wikipedia). A new factor in multi-platform storytelling.


http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#spoiler

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#spoiler

http://davidlavery.net/Pages/Television_Glossary.htm#multi-platform


Watch Midnight Movies

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El Topo (@2:37) Night of the Living

Dead (@13:10) Pink Flamingos (@27) The Harder They

Come (@42:06) Rocky Horror Picture

Show (@51:35) Eraserhead (@1:07)

Introduction: @ 00.00; 12:30; 1:19:50

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003E48TXO/ref=avod_yvl_watch_now

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003E48TXO/ref=avod_yvl_watch_now

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