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The Mega-Field of Science Fiction Film: Studying Fans' Negotiations of Cultural Value Via Canonical, Art-House and Blockbuster SF Movies

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The Mega-Field of Science Fiction Film: Studying Fans' Negotiations of Cultural Value Via Canonical, Art-House and Blockbuster SF Movies University of Huddersfield Repository Sosin, Dawid The Mega-field of Science Fiction Film: Studying Fans' Negotiations of Cultural Value via Canonical, Art-house and Blockbuster SF Movies Original Citation Sosin, Dawid (2019) The Mega-field of Science Fiction Film: Studying Fans' Negotiations of Cultural Value via Canonical, Art-house and Blockbuster SF Movies. Masters thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/35144/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. 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For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ The Mega-field of Science Fiction Film: Studying Fans' Negotiations of Cultural Value via Canonical, Art-house and Blockbuster SF Movies Dawid Sosin A thesis submitted to the University of Huddersfield in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Research September 2019 The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/ or schedules to this thesis) owns any copyright in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Huddersfield the right to use such Copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching purposes. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts, may be made only in accordance with the regulations of the University Library. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. The ownership of any patents, designs, trademarks and any and all other intellectual property rights except for the Copyright (the “Intellectual Property Rights”) and any reproductions of copyright works, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property Rights and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property Rights and/or Reproductions. Abstract Despite research on fans, relatively little is known about the mechanisms behind the negotiation of cultural value of genre texts by fan consumers. The overall image of fandom that emerges from the literature (for example Fiske, 1992; Jenkins, 2012) is as a fairly uniform social formation of audience members devoted to specific pop-/subcultural goods and therefore displaying quantities of appropriate capital enabling them to engage a given field. I will explore field structures that build on Bourdieusian field theory (Bourdieu, 1979, 1992, 1993; Jenkins, 1992) by showing a lack of specificity in terms of field boundaries, allowing me to theorise fandom in relation to what I term an SF “mega-field”. I focus on relationships between cinematic science fiction and fans who engage with texts displaying a spectrum of ‘quality’ signified by cultural value. To illustrate the negotiation of cultural value of texts by fans I examine three case studies: Alien (1979), Moon (2009) and Avatar (2009). These represent different qualities (canonical, art-house, blockbuster) and correspond to a palette of Bourdieusian tastes. I conduct empirical research using qualitative interviews with thirty-two science fiction fans who vary in terms of social background, gender, age, and level of engagement with the field. Drawing from my data, I theorize Bourdieusian-based phenomena such as intra-fandom distinctions whereby fans engage with texts via a “fan gaze” showing paradoxically “detached immersion”. I also show supportive evidence for the downward cultural mobility of the most elite audience, omnivorous fans, which expands on Bourdieu’s theorisation of social action. Furthermore, I explore fandom’s approach to generic SF texts by illustrating the fannish drive to canonise textual novelty in otherwise theoretically repetitive texts. By focusing on readings of texts in relation to personal pragmatics, I discuss SF canonisation via “innovative cliché” – a position-taking which splits and recombines the repetition and difference inherent to genre (Neale, 1980). Ultimately, this enables me to theorize the formation of an SF “mega-field” acting as an industrial tool for audience expansion. To this end, I describe the intermedial nature of cinema which allows me to theorise SF films, as they are valued by fans, as multifunctional generic texts with an appeal directed towards the widest possible audience. 2 Table of Contents I. Introduction 4 II. Literature Review 7 1. Using Key Concepts from Bourdieu 7 2. From Bourdieusian Field Theory to the Science Fiction ‘Mega-field’ 11 3. Dynamics of the Field’s Audiences and Fandom 16 4. Conclusion 22 III. Methodology 23 1. Introduction 23 2. Research Approach 23 3. Research Design and Setting 24 4. Sampling Criteria 26 5. Data Collection Instrument 27 6. Data Analysis 30 7. Ethical Considerations 31 IV. Findings 32 1. Fan Distinctions: Subcultural/Cultural Capital, the Fan Gaze, and Omnivorous Fandom 32 2. New Pragmatics of Genre Fandom and the Canonisation of SF Difference 38 3. SF Films Outside Genre and Medium: The ‘Mega-field’ as an Industry Tool for Audience Expansion 44 V. Conclusion 49 1. Discussion of Findings 49 2. Limitations and Future Directions 51 VI. Bibliography 52 VII. Appendix 1 62 VIII. Appendix 2 64 3 I. Introduction This dissertation examines fan audiences’ relationships with the science fiction genre. Relying on audience practices, and distinctions between fans consuming genre texts, I will attempt to provide a way of approaching science fiction cinema as a series of overlapping Bourdieusian fields. To do so, I will seek the ways in which Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of distinction, taste, field, habitus and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1979; 1993) inform mechanisms for the appreciation of science fiction films of differing ‘quality’ (canonical, art-house and blockbuster) by fan audiences in the process of negotiating these films’ cultural value. I propose a reconceptualised view of Bourdieusian field theory and introduce a notion of the ‘mega-field’. More specifically, I will investigate the position-taking of fans within the fields of film and cultural production which inform textual hierarchies within a particular ‘constellated community’ (Altman, 1999, p.161). My approach is innovative in relation to genre; the significance of my research results from relatively under-developed understandings of the formation of genre hierarchies (Altman, 1999; Neale, 1980; 2002; cf. Jancovich 2000) within audiences as well as the underdeveloped analysis of science fiction cinema’s distinctions, demonstrating a transformation of Bourdieusian fields into new, more complex structures which need to be addressed academically. The audience negotiation of a hierarchy of genre texts depends on a number of relational (cultural, sub-cultural and fan-cultural) capital-driven factors such as subcultural, and consequently in-fandom, recognition of markers of quality. As I will show, fans demonstrate relational identification with autonomous poles of production within the sub- fields of cultural production undergoing cultural legitimation. Analysing both producer and consumer position-taking will allow me to theorize the negotiation of science fiction films’ cultural value. My literature review consists of three sections which form a theoretical arc for my research. First, I introduce the key concepts theorised by Pierre Bourdieu which I will employ. I focus on field theory and doxa as well as habitus linked with cultural capital (and other forms of capital). I will demonstrate how these concepts work with each other relationally and translate to specific, capital- informed phenomena within audiences’ consumption of science fiction films and its direct outcome – namely, negotiations of the cultural value of such texts. Secondly, I focus on the concepts of genre and science fiction, preparing the ground for empirical research, and for my demonstration of a networked field-like structure in relation to SF. This will also help me to identify the negotiations of cultural value of individual SF texts within fan audiences. Thirdly, I focus on fandom because I propose that it is fans who significantly shape the cinematic genre field they appreciate; they are crucial in the processes of defining genre (Hills, 2005; Jenkins; 1992; Lopes, 2009; Williamson; 2005). I will demonstrate that the doxa of a Bourdieusian cultural field, and its shape, depends on agentive practices in regard to the cultural goods produced within it. I will analyse fan audiences’ position-taking and relate this to the ways in which they consume SF film texts. As discussed in my methodology chapter, I utilise thirty-two semi-structured qualitative interviews, with fans from diverse social
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