Category: Fandom
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The Pop Culture Lens on Wes Anderson
In the twenty-first episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher and I welcome friend of the podcast Shane Tilton, an assistant professor of multimedia journalism at Ohio Northern University, to discuss filmmaker Wes Anderson by focusing on his films Rushmore and Moonrise Kingdom. In this episode, our conversation focuses on whether or not to…
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Professional Wrestling, Smarks, and Convergent Media
As part of the project on understanding professional wrestling through the theoretical lens of convergence (i.e. convergent wrestling), I recently wrote out an explanation for how Christopher Olson (Seems Obvious to Me) and I see this concept of convergence being able to describe various aspects of professional wrestling. Now, being that we are academics, one…
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Convergent Wrestling: The Nature of Professional Wrestling
Professional wrestling has been criticized for its emphasis on the fiction of its entertainment rather than the reality of its sport. My partner, Christopher Olson (Seems Obvious to Me), and I argue that professional wrestling functions as a convergent media product, representing a vital text for examining the media landscape of the 21st century. The…
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Call for Papers: Pro Wrestling Symposium
Here is another call that is speaking to research near and dear to my heart: The Pro Wrestling Symposium: Laying the Academic ‘Smackdown’ Weekend of Saturday, 18th June 2016 Hosted by the Department of Theatre, Film & Television Studies, Aberystwyth University As one of the only cultural forms to have had an almost consistent presence…
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Call for Papers: The Fan Studies Network conference 2016
Originally posted on The Fan Studies Network: THE FAN STUDIES NETWORK CONFERENCE 2016 25-26th June 2016 University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Keynote Speaker: Professor Henry Jenkins (University of Southern California, USA). The fourth annual Fan Studies Network Conference is returning to the University of East Anglia for a two-day programme in June 2016. The…
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The Pop Culture Lens Takes on Joss Whedon
On this eighteenth episode of The Pop Culture Lens, we present the recording of a second roundtable discussion from the 2015 Midwest Popular Culture Association Conference. This roundtable discusses the topic of director and showrunner Joss Whedon — and how much of a controversial figure and person he is for so many people, including his…
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A First Encounter with Live Sports Entertainment
Two men enter the ring — the “squared circle” — muscles tense, skin already glistening with sweat. They circle the ring, calling out to their fans in the crowd to let their admiration roar and shake the building. The room still reverberates with the booming baselines of their entrance music, leaving the audiences’ ears to…
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The Pop Culture Lens: Fan Harassment
I have been talking about this idea of fractured fandom on this blog for awhile now, because I have been concerned with the problems and tensions fans are facing in contemporary fan communities and fandoms. Across the Internet and around the world, it seems that hardly a day goes by without another story, another anecdote,…
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The Pop Culture Lens Takes on Professional Wrestling
In the fifteenth episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Chris and I welcome friend of the podcast, and friend in general, Joe Belfeuil to discuss the largest professional wrestling company in the world, World Wrestling Entertainment, at the time when it ruled the 1980s as the World Wrestling Federation. Both Chris and Joe grew…
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My Little Pony on The Pop Culture Lens
In the fourteenth episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher and I are joined by Aaron Kashtan of Miami University in Ohio (https://ogresfeathers.wordpress.com) to discuss the gendered and transmedia nature of the long-surviving and recently rejuvenated franchise, My Little Pony. Our discussion focuses on the distinctions between the earlier manifestations of this franchise and…
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