15 Fashionable Television Fandom in Season Two of The Bear (2023)
15 Fashionable Television Fandom in Season Two of The Bear (2023)
Ethan Geenen
From passive individuals to active networks, the way in which fans have been theoretically categorized is dependent on a continuum of participation and engagement, or lack thereof. In the case of television fandom, it is natural to revert to the preconceived image of the mass audience, a nebulous descriptor meant to address the so-called “average” viewer. However, these generalizations tend to be shallow in approach. For one, the displacement of television from its traditional set, as well as its subsequent diffusion across multiple devices and platforms, has resulted in an increasingly fragmented audience, marking such claims as antiquated. Secondly, these notions are largely predicated on the assumption that television is merely a source of face value entertainment, with very little intensive labour required of the viewer in return, if at all. Jenkins (1992) reasons that “television often competes with other household activities,” preventing the viewer from giving their full interest or undivided attention to what is on screen (p. 59). Although there are cases where this still holds true, such a narrow view of television audiences cannot be representative of the wide-ranging fan practices that emerge from this rich cultural form.
Undisputedly, the realm of criticism and theory has long been “reserved for an educated elite,” drawing an association between exceptionally high levels of engagement and the supposed legitimacy of academic status (Jenkins, 1992, p. 89). By contrast, television fandom is emblematic of how these discourses have been decentralized from their scholarly foundations. Indeed, it is more accurate to say that fans cultivate a “complex, fluid, and even contradictory” relationship to that which they consume, rather than anything so “monolithic” as the unquestioning mass audience (Gwenllian-Jones, 2002, p. 179). Certainly, isolation from fellow audience members generally makes analysis of theme and content far less likely, in addition to degrading the ritual dimension that once defined television (Costello & Moore, 2007, p. 135). Nonetheless, social media offers an accessible solution to the passivity of insular viewing. These online spaces function as an interpretive community, “where people discuss their delight and disgust at plotlines, dialogue, and character developments” (p. 135). This is a way of uniting and equalizing audience perspectives through a common text; after all, the only real prerequisite to membership is that shared interest itself. In fact, the basic exchange of opinions and reactions is powerful enough that it “enhances the enjoyment of the actual viewing experience,” thereby incentivizing engagement (p. 135). Beyond this, however, there exist more intricate frameworks of interpretation, evaluation, and identification through which television fans produce meaning.
On June 22, 2023, the second season of FX’s The Bear was released,