Jenkins and Poster

For tomorrow’s class we had to read an essay by Henry Jenkins. He begins with talking about the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal and how Star Wars was used to poke fun at the situation because of how popular it was at the time. The creator of the modified Star Wars poster knew that because of the popularity of the film that this would attract people’s attention on a much larger scale than if it was modeled after a random movie. In this essay Jenkins looks at how these Star Wars movies influenced so many fans to create their own spoofs, music videos, etc., so much that, in fact, it did become a part of popular culture. He believes that these fans did a very important thing because it helped move along the media revolution that was occurring at the time, and it showed just how much of an impact movies, such as Star Wars, had on people. Although movies did have a huge effect on people, it wasn’t as much as the media that was creating this hype, but really it was the fans themselves, and he refers to this as ‘fan culture’.

The Star Wars, as many would call it, phenomenon, reminds me of the Twilight movies that have recently been transformed from novels to films. These movies have become teen girls obsessions all over the world. So much so that in interviews the actors from the Twilight movies have said that sometimes premieres are scary and extremely overwhelming because people are pushing, trying to get near them and screaming their names at the top of their lungs. Just this year a movie came out called Vampires Suck, and it’s a movie that makes fun of the Twilight movies. I actually know the actress in the Vampire Sucks movie who plays the character of Alice and she was saying that her and a few other actors almost did not do the movie because they didn’t want to be in a movie that made fun of Twilight, in fear that people wouldn’t think it was funny and even be offended because they love Twilight so much. I thought that was very interesting that they almost didn’t take on a movie role because of the fear of the Twilight fans getting offended. This just shows how much popular culture does affect people’s lives and how important it is, even in people’s decision making. This also shows how important ‘fan culture’ is and that having a good fan base really is a sole contributor to whether a movie does well in the box office.

In the reading by Mark Poster, he discusses his concern with technology and how it becomes more and more advanced. I tend to agree with this concern because there are barely any regulations on the Internet and even though this is a free country, some things on the internet are just inappropriate and offensive and those are the types of things that need to be regulated by the government. Relating this to Jenkins reading, I think the Internet is a major tool of popular culture. It also helps a lot with fan culture, because the fans are the ones who are going to be making the spoofs, videos, etc, which gain the movies more attention, but there is definitely a line that shouldn’t be crossed.

“On my honor I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work”