Book Review: Fan Cultures
Abstract
Book Reviews Matt Hills, Fan Cultures. London: Routledge, 2002. 236 pp. ISBN Reviewed by Milly Williamson University of North London Prior to the last decade media fans have been derided and pathologized in media discourses and in the academic world. American and British scholars studying fandom have generally responded to this denigration by drawing on a cultural studies tradition of support for the subordinate and we have seen a variety of theories that pose the media fan as a rebel who subverts the logic of consumer culture. Matt Hills' Fan Cultures is the first theor- etical overview which fundamentally challenges the view of fan-as-rebel by asking about the academic investments to be found in both sets of claims. This excellent contribution to understanding fandom begins by unpack- ing the 'moral dualisms' to be found across the study of fandom which support the unsustainable distinctions made between the 'rational' and the 'immersed'.These distinctions are'made to appear natural by their reliance on imagined subjectivities, so that "we" are "good" while "they" are "bad"' (p. 21). Hills examines the way that the 'bad' passive consumer is an imag- ined subjectivity which is mobilized by fans and academics alike to draw a