Tumblr Post #4: Demarcating For Gender Discussion...Useful or Limiting?
Over time, the intricate world of fan practices has emerged into mainly two different types of engagement, affirmational and transformative. These modes of personifying and engaging with fannish interest have been known to play a large role in not only how the fan and text at hand interact, but how academics look into gender and other aspects of fan studies. In Lincoln Geraghty's piece "Masculine Pursuits?: Gender, Generation, and the Fan Collector" he discusses these forms of engagement, mostly collecting, and how they play into a fan's gender and search of a nostalgic outlet. His conclusion is that the importance of this "process is not that men or women collect things", but they use of these concrete methods and nostalgic tools to seek "self-identification" and "recoll[ect] moments from childhood through the collection and preservation of physical objects" (Geraghty 70). He calls this produced and accumulated nostalgia "genderless", expressing that things like the affirmative practice of collecting are ingrained now and forever into consumer entertainment engagement (Geraghty 70). I believe that the discussion between the relation of affirmative fan practices and gender such as wiki and collection building becomes limited. This is why I agree with Geraghty's argument on these practices leaning toward a more gender neutral side. Nostalgia, much like Geraghty advocates, is something that we all enjoy cultivating. The collection of fannish objects or knowledge in a concrete manner such as vinyl collecting, an area Geraghty expands on, an enjoyable, prevalent element across fans regardless of their gender. It allows them to obtain a "sense of [their] identity" that is not related to gender (Geraghty 71). Although I see less benefit in the dissection of gender and affirmative practices, if we were to discuss transformative fan works, I would agree that a productive discussion on gender and fan culture would emerge. The way that men may choose to expand on the text at hand versus women is more clearly gendered to me. I feel it is this way because of there is an element of rebellion and diversion from the status quo within transformative fan works which always women to engage in a space where they feel more freedom. In conclusion, I feel if one if seeking an active discussion of gender and fan practice, demarcating between the two is not useful. In my opinion, we should simply focus on transformative works since this provides more clear paths to interesting studies. Perhaps creating a binary within transformative fan practices instead putting it up against affirmative ones would allow for a better foundation for a rich discussion on gender within this subject. Work cited ---------------- Geraghty, Lincoln. "Masculine Pursuits?: Gender, Generation, and the Fan Collector.” Cult Collectors: Nostalgia, Fandom and Collecting Popular Culture. Pg 70-71. Print. 2014
