“Look to the north. Keep looking. There’s nothing coming from the south” (Fink, 2012).

In Food in Society (2001) author Peter Atkins speaks of food—or, more specifically, an individual’s sense of taste—as something that is part physical and part social construct. It may seem like a massive leap in ideology to apply his criticism to the broader definition of taste (an individual’s general likes and dislikes) but I believe that it does apply. A person’s ‘taste’ will always be a reflection partially of their physical reality, and partially of their communities. Taste is an essential component to identity, it dictates the discourses that you are able to operate easily in. If you are not interested in something, if you do not like it, then you will not be able to operate in the discourses that require a smooth interaction with that particular community. This holds true for fandom—it gives people a community of people drawn together by a particular interest or taste, rather than socio-cultural or physical bonds.

 

A rather neat summary of WtNV (Hayworth, 2013).

Victoria Kuttainen (2015) speaks of food “as a repository of culture…a transformer of culture” and I believe that fandom acts as much the same. The dominate discourses of a fandom reflect the dominate discourses of whichever socio-cultural group is the majority, as well as the discourses put forward by the source material. Fandom is notorious for reading against a text—transformative fanworks are among, if not outright, the most popular subcategory of fanworks—but reading with the text, and enjoying that reading, is the common interest that draws fandom members together, and therefore is essential to the process. Due to two different things working in tandem, fandom also transforms culture by providing an alternate viewpoint to said dominate discourses: the nature of narrative requires some sort of conflict, and humans, as a whole, do not usually find the everyday particularly interesting, or think of it as a legitimate source of conflict.

REFERENCES:

Atkins, P. (2001). Food in Society: Economy, culture, geography. London, United Kingdom: Hodder Headline Group.

Fink, J (Producer). (2012, June 15). 1-Pilot [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from commonplacebooks.com

Kuttainen, V. (2015). BA1002: Food Networks [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from learnjcu.jcu.edu.au

IMAGE REFERENCE:

Hayworth, Jessice (Artist). (2013). Weird at last [Image]. Retrieved from topatoco.com