REGINAROADIE'S BLOG
The O.C., THE SOUND OF MUSIC and false fandoms.
Thursday, January 4, 2007 4:14 AM
Hey AllI was just cruising around the net, and discovered this little bit of info. It seems that when THE O.C. wraps up in February, it wraps up for good. Here's the link to the article.
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=20070103fox02
All I have to say to that is GOOD FUCKIN RIDDANCE. I never liked that show at all. And just because it had Nandi as one of the leads and Morena guest starred on there doesn't mean that it was any good. It was just teen whinings in a sunny bourgeoisie setting, slathered over with bad emo. And all this apparantly is deserving of fandom.
I bring this up because in my documentary class, one student decided to make his documentary about O.C. parties. Apparantly, in the dorms on Thursday nights, some people hold viewing parties for THE O.C. and the people at these things are more stereotypically fanboyish than even the most die-hard nerd.
And it's stuff like this that really ticks me off. When it comes to fandoms and cults, it's kind of an insult when something so clearly mainstream acts like it's a cult thing when it's clearly not. Like everything involved with THE O.C. is a household name. It has SIX freaking soundtracks. It's is in no way subversive or against the grain. And another example of "mainstream thing trying to be cult" is a few years ago when they tried to have audience participation screenings for THE SOUND OF MUSIC, like what they do with THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. And to me, this is a spit in the face of the legacy of ROCKY HORROR.
The ROCKY HORROR cult, like FIREFLY, was an example of something that crashed and burned in the beginning, but just grew and grew until it became a force of it's own. It crawled out of obscurity until it became the powerhouse fandom that it is today. It EARNED it's fandom. THE SOUND OF MUSIC, on the other hand, was at one point the biggest hits of all time. It actually saved the studio from bakruptcy. So this whole thing of trying to turn the ROCKY HORROR experience into something family friendly just seems blasphemous. It cheapens the achievement of ROCKY HORROR and makes THE SOUND OF MUSIC seem more self-aggrandizing than it already is.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that when mainstream tries to act cult, it just diminishes the achievements and efforts made by real cult fandoms.
Agree? Disagree? Comments? Are there any "fandoms" out there that to you seem really false and more mianstream than cult?
COMMENTS: 6