Week 2 - Pathologising Fans

Every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I watch soap opera Eastenders on BBC iPlayer. I follow the official BBC Eastenders Facebook and Instagram account, and I read articles about Eastenders in magazines such as Soaplife and All About Soap – my Nan gives me the latest issue when she has finished reading it. I like being in-the-know about what is going to happen in the storyline, and I like talking about the storyline developments with other fans. I once even sat in the laundry room in my student halls (where there is a TV) so that I could watch a one-off live episode of Eastenders, rather than watch it later on BBC iPlayer.

Eastenders to me I something of a family past-time, we always get excited to watch it on public holidays such as Easter, Christmas and New Year, as this tends to be the times that the plot gets exciting. This is also how I got into Eastenders – by watching it at home when it was already on the television. When I watch Eastenders, I gain a feeling of enjoyment and excitement – I look forward to character and plot developments.

If anyone was to ask, I would definitely say that Eastenders is better than Coronation Street (Eastenders rival), and I would even say that Coronation Street is ‘rubbish’, even though I have never watched it. I am guilty of pathologising Coronation Street fans, as I consider them to have bad taste. This links to hierarchies between fandoms, where ‘rival’ fandoms consider each other to have bad taste, and that their taste is better than their rivals.

As an open Eastenders fan, I have been pathologised by others as they consider my taste to be bad taste.

Jenkins (1992:16) argues how concepts of good taste are “rooted in social experience and reflect particular interests”. Thinking about why I like Eastenders based on my social experience and class interests, I think that I can relate to a community-feeling home environment, with visits to the local pub, chip shop, café, and market. I can relate to being working class and having a working class social experience.

I asked my friend why she did not particularly like Eastenders, and she said that it was “synonymous with the working class”. This suggests to me that fans of Eastenders are pathologised because their tastes are associated with being working class, and this does not fit others views of what good taste is.

Interestingly, the way I have been pathologised does not fit into Jensen (1992: 9) two fan characterizations – “the obsessed individual and the hysterical crowd”. However the way I have been pathologised does fit into Jenkins (1992:15-16) ideas about the pathologising of fans, which is anxiety about fans transgression of cultural and taste boundaries.

 

References

Jenkins, H. (1992) Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. London: Routledge

Jensen, J. (1992) ‘Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization’. In Lewis, L. A. (Ed.) The adoring audience. London: Routledge, pp9-29.