Week 9

Hills (2004) lists a number of defining characteristics of cult TV that contain similarities to the defining characteristics of pop genres (e.g. fantasy, science fiction) discussed earlier in the Pop Genres paper. Can you identify these and discuss why you think that these characteristics are repeatedly viewed as underpinning popular genres.

I think there are 9 defining characteristics of Quality TV in sum illustrated by Wilcox and Lavery (2000) in the text. I recently watched a television series named Friends which shows one of Quality TV’s features listed by them, namely, the aspiration for realism. It describes 6 main characters’ families and their friendship. Many social problems are uncovered via the program but one episode impressed me a lot, because I saw my friend’s shadow in the show from the character`s behavior and understand what kind of attitude we should take towards our parents as well. In the show, Monica’s parents have preference for her brother which often arouses her complaints but she accepts the imperfectness of her parents and still respects them. It is a same case of my friend’s family. However my friend didn’t do as Monica did but left home when she was only a junior. Quality TV’s effort to realism contributes to familiarity with one’s own experience or memory.
Moreover, the philosophy related to life benefits audience. In my view, apart from 9 characteristics mentioned by Wilcox and Lavery, there is another evident feature. Humanism is an indispensible element in the Quality TV. Even action movie and science fiction contain the factor of humanism, needless to say, TV sitcom. A technique adopted in plot designing is installing affections to a villainous image at the end of the season to meet audience’s common aspiration.
Also because of the Oscar Prize winning for the show, we can see that the real excellent works are those seeking for human nature. For example The Hurt Locker is a classic example of discussion war and humanism. War records the development of history, changes happened, supersession of thoughts, and entanglement of humanism as well. In such special situation, the sparkle of humanism nurtured in soldiers is more touching. On the contrarily, without the reflection of human nature, Hollywood blockbusters even have received high a rating cannot be accounted in the list of Quality TV. Such kind of works can only arouse much attention by the great advertising. After watching it, audience usually would leave it out of mind, without any further contemplation. Above all, I think the humanism is also an important element of Quality TV.

What role does Hills (2004) suggest the fans play in the construction of cult TV? How is new media central to this?

In Hill (2004)’s view, he points out the fans can exert influence on the construction of cult TV through various fan activities. Although cult TV usually is not produced to gain favor from mainstream, it gains a small part of audience who are extremely love the show. Actually they are so adorable the show, that they know clearly every detail and have strong interest in certain element occurred in the show, for instance, a real fan of Star War knows Milky Way even better than Lucas. So they voluntarily create ‘Appreciation Societies’ (Hills, 2004), namely, networks for fans to exchange ideas. This contributes to emerging markets for CD, Videos, magazines, blogs and other merchandise related to the show. In addition, some of fans write their original series-related fiction, design games, and so forth. Some of them even organize TV programs. But a TV program seldom gains its title as a cult TV just after it’s presenting but after cult fans turn up. Therefore cult TV usually is featured with some subculture favored by certain kind of audience. The point is that whether a program can be titled as a cult show is totally determined by their fans. And fans we mentioned here don’t equal to all fans but those who have cult emotions towards the things related to the show. Only shows with such kind of fans can be called as cult shows. With regard to new media, internet, it is central to the fans’ contribution to the construction of cult TV.
As what I mentioned above, fans organize themselves into communities with interests in certain program. Before the internet occurs, they communicate by holding parties or carrying out some activities but these events I think are time-wasting, because there must be another new show coming out to instead the previous one soon. However nowadays they can conduct these events online. Their comments on a TV program can quickly arouse other fans’ attention and immediately form a cult community. Then this show turns into a cult TV program.
Above all,i think to produce a new media play an important role in the construction of cult TV.

Reference List:

Hills, M. (2004). Defining Cult TV; Inter-texts and Audiences, The Television Studies Reader, R.C. Allen & A. Hill. London and New York: Routledge.

Wilcox, R. Lavery, D. (2002). Introduction, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds). Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowan and Littlefield.