Commitment to Freedom: A Fannish Struggle for the Representativeness of Political Identities.
| Autor | de Souza-Leao, Andre Luiz Maranhao |
1 Introduction
Consumption presents countless possibilities for a range of cultural behaviors. According to the Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), consumption is understood as the way consumers produce identity projects (Arnould & Thompson, 2007; Arsel & Thompson, 2011; Belk, 2013; Kaptan, 2016; Mikkonen et al., 2011). This process is increasingly engaged with social movement agendas, such as ethnicity or race (Banks, 2021; Pittman, 2020), gender (Arend, 2016; Kuehn & Parker, 2021; Walther & Schouten, 2016), and sexuality (Kaptan, 2016; Neal, 2018). Thus, there seems to be convergence between the elaboration of identity projects through consumption and discussions about the formulation of political identities based on discourses observed in social life (Arsel & Thompson, 2011; Parsons, 2010).
Based on the post-structuralist perspective, identity politics are addressed in association with the subjectivity issue (Deleuze & Guatarri, 1987; Laclau & Mouffe, 2014), sometimes in homologous terms (Hall, 1992). Within the scope of CCT, this articulation involves the very constitution of consumers' subjectivity (Belk, 2013; Coskuner-Balli, 2020), which has been mainly treated from a critical viewpoint based on Michel Foucault's theoretical production in this regard (Arnould & Thompson, 2015).
According to Foucault (1988a, 2012a), subjectivation takes place as individuals try to know themselves. Such a process presupposes a movement between morality and pleasure, which culminates in an ethical statute. Thus, the idea about who we are and the world we live in pervades the constitution of ethics, which is inherent to social and desire practices exercised during continuous self-transformation processes (Foucault, 2012b). Such practices have epistemic foundations and enable the building of subjectivity based on incorporated and reframed truths, either through knowledge propagating discourses or through agencies carrying out behaviors (Foucault, 2011). This process results from positions taken at the time to cope with power forces, through resistance acts that affect the way power is conducted, rather than nullifying it (Foucault, 2012b).
Therefore, it is evident how subjectivity in Foucault's theory intersects with the concept of political identities (Ivic & Lakicevic, 2011; Parsons, 2010). Accordingly, Hanna (2013) indicated that Foucauldian thought allows us to interpret how individuals find themselves in the middle of a dispute involving dominant positions and autonomous subjectivities--these subjectivities are made possible through the exercise of resistance.
In a context where technologies enable audiences to appropriate the media they enjoy, consumers are no longer subsumed to the cultural industry (Sauter, 2014). According to Martin-Barbero (2018), subjects are capable of appropriating the language diffused by the media. Accordingly, Kellner (2020) points out how contemporary ubiquitous media culture provides a connectivity space for consumers to appropriate content to express their subjectivities.
The entertainment industry has emerged as an arena of increasing possibilities for the exercise of consumer resistance (Martin, 2019; Monaghan, 2021; Press & Liebes, 2016), since it plays an important role in creating and maintaining political identities (Cooper et al., 2010; Kozinets, 2001; Walther & Schouten, 2016). Its modus operandi is aligned with new configurations of capitalism; thus, it implies not only economic, but political and cultural relevance as well (Hackley & Hackley, 2019; Toubia et al., 2019). On the other hand, it is also associated with the way new information and communications technologies and the media have reconfigured social life (Chen, 2021; Sugihartati, 2020).
This process enables consumers to converge and act in the so-called pop culture in a participative way (Fuschillo, 2020; Seregina & Schouten, 2016). Fans are best defined as active consumers who engage with pop culture by interacting with each other, as well as with media texts and content developers (Guschwan, 2012; Hills, 2012). This engagement often enables them to express political positions (Fuschillo, 2020; Jenkins, 2006a) and, consequently, to create or maintain identity projects (Booth & Kelly, 2013; Kozinets, 2001).
The aim of the current study was to investigate how fans behave towards the greater introduction of political identities in pop culture. Such an investigation can contribute to the CCT field by focusing on the association between fan practices and media products as an interdisciplinary topic (Hackley & Hackley, 2019; Sugihartati, 2020), as well as by articulating how political identities guided by consumption practices (Arend, 2016; Crockett, 2022; Kates, 2004; Lamont & Molnar, 2001) can be interpreted based on Foucault's theory (Arnould & Thompson, 2015; Holt, 2017).
The current research analyzed the repercussions of new Star Wars movies among fans. Star Wars was created by George Lucas in the 1970s and became one of the most famous and profitable movie franchises, so far (Benson, 2020; Watson, 2020). For more than four decades, the saga has won over fans and admirers from several generations (Hills, 2003; Wood et al., 2020), as well as playing an instrumental role in a movement aimed at legitimizing consumers who used to inhibit their bond to pop culture (Hills, 2003; Taylor, 2014).
New movies released after the franchise was acquired by Disney in 2012 have provided greater narrative space for characters representing political identities associated with gender, ethnicity and sexuality (Brown, 2017; Condis, 2015; Proctor, 2018). Such identities stand out among the most addressed ones in consumer research focused on analyzing the market as a political arena for the elaboration of identity projects (Kuehn & Parker, 2021; Neal, 2018; Pittman, 2020).
Thus, the present research analyzed how Star Wars fans behave towards the introduction of political identities in new movies belonging to the franchise. In this sense, we follow Kozinets' (2020) understanding about choosing an online interactive platform that brings together consumers who address the investigated object that is representative, relevant and current. Thus, the study focuses on the interactions of Star Wars fans in the largest forum of the film saga, which is constantly fed with new comments and content produced by the fandom (Proctor, 2013; Whitney, 2017). Additionally, the study aligns with Denegri-Knott and Tadajewski's (2017) understanding of the validity of performing a Foucauldian analysis on data obtained via netnographic treatment.
2 Demand for representativeness in the entertainment industry
The entertainment industry has consolidated itself as a global market of cultural relevance (Hackley & Hackley, 2019; Toubia et al., 2019). The movie industry stands out among the main branches, since it introduces and legitimizes identity projects (Kozinets, 2001; Walther & Schouten, 2016), as well as enabling consumers to identify with them (Cooper et al., 2010; DeLorme & Reid, 1999). Movie consumption enables individuals to identify with characters and narrative contexts, a fact that shapes the experience of fruition (Choi et al., 2014; Walther & Schouten, 2016). This happens because movie plots often show social representations prevailing in ordinary life (Cobb & Horeck, 2018; Lugowski, 1999; Wright, 2014).
The movie industry has attributed secondary functions (e.g., comic relief) or supporting roles (e.g., romantic partner) to non-dominant social groups (e.g., women, non-whites, homosexuals) for a long time (Bakhitiari & Salimi, 2015; Molina-Guzman, 2016). This process has contributed to reproducing and perpetuating stigmatized stereotypes (Courtney, 2005; Lugowski, 1999; Wright, 2014). However, during the 2010s, this approach was put in check by the sum of events that shook the image of the entertainment industry, such as boycotts due to the prevalence of white people in leading roles and awards nominations (Molina-Guzman, 2016), as well as sexual harassment complaints against men holding important positions in the industry (Cobb & Horeck, 2018). In addition, segments of the audience started demanding major representation in bigger Hollywood productions (Martin, 2019; Monaghan, 2021; Press & Liebes, 2016).
The discussion about the new Star Wars movies produced after Lucasfilm was acquired by Disney has been extensively observed due to the presence of non-dominant identities in leading roles (Proctor, 2018; Wood, Litherland, & Reed, 2020). Three topics have become prevalent, namely: female (Brown, 2017; Wood et al., 2020) and black male protagonism (Proctor, 2018), as well as conjectures about the potential homo affective relationship between two main characters (Condis, 2015).
This type of repercussion sheds light on the role played by fans as specialized and highly involved consumers who act proactively, as well as emphasizing how different market agencies overlap and are negotiated (Kozinets, 2002; Scaraboto, 2015). According to Jenkins (2006a), fans are the maximum representation of participatory culture, in which individuals increasingly and spontaneously try to become active participants in the cultural context they belong to (Fuschillo, 2020; Jenkins, 2006b).
Accordingly, they take advantage of technologies available in the market in order to interact with peers and produce in a collective way (Chen, 2021; Guschwan, 2012). This happens due to media convergence (Jenkins, 2006a), since the development and popularization of new devices and technologies allows different social agents (e.g., market players) to converge their interests in an economic, sociocultural and political microsphere that is increasingly hard to dissociate from.
Fan consumption practices have led to discussions about identity (Booth & Kelly, 2013; Kozinets, 2001). On the other hand, the construction of identity projects through consumption has been associated with consumer...
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