Fake Geek Girls : : Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry / / Suzanne Scott.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Complete eBook-Package 2019
• VerfasserIn: Scott, Suzanne,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2019]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Critical Cultural Communication ; 22
• Physical Description: 1 online resource :; 18 black and white illustrations

Reveals the systematic marginalization of women within pop culture fan communitiesWhen Ghostbusters returned to the screen in 2016, some male fans of the original film boycotted the all-female adaptation of the cult classic, turning to Twitter to express their disapproval and making it clear that they considered the film’s “real” fans to be white, straight men. While extreme, these responses are far from unusual, with similar uproars around the female protagonists of the new Star Wars films to full-fledged geek culture wars and harassment campaigns, as exemplified by the #GamerGate controversy that began in 2014.Over the past decade, fan and geek culture has moved from the margins to the mainstream as fans have become tastemakers and promotional partners, with fan art transformed into official merchandise and fan fiction launching new franchises. But this shift has left some people behind. Suzanne Scott points to the ways in which the “men’s rights” movement and antifeminist pushback against “social justice warriors” connect to new mainstream fandom, where female casting in geek-nostalgia reboots is vilified and historically feminized forms of fan engagement—like cosplay and fan fiction—are treated as less worthy than male-dominant expressions of fandom like collection, possession, and cataloguing. While this gender bias harkens back to the origins of fandom itself, Fake Geek Girls contends that the current view of women in fandom as either inauthentic masqueraders or unwelcome interlopers has been tacitly endorsed by Hollywood franchises and the viewer demographics they selectively champion. It offers a view into the inner workings of how digital fan culture converges with old media and its biases innew and novel ways.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: Make Fandom Great Again -- 1. A Fangirl’s Place Is in the Resistance: Feminism and Fan Studies -- 2. “Get a life, will you people?!”: The Revenge of the Fanboy -- 3. Interrogating the Fake Geek Girl: The Spreadable Misogyny of Contemporary Fan Culture -- 4. Terms and Conditions: Co- Opting Fan Labor and Containing Fan Criticism -- 5. One Fanboy to Rule Them All: Fanboy Auteurs, Fantrepreneurs, and the Politics of Professionalization -- 6. From Poaching to Pinning: Fashioning Postfeminist Geek Girl(y) Culture -- Conclusion: Fan Studies’ OTP: Fandom and Intersectional Feminism -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author