The poorly received final season of Game of Thrones, dissatisfaction among fans about a cast character or a harsh opinion about an artist’s behaviour. Criticism of movies, music, art, or celebrities is of all times. And that can become very fierce, says dr. Simone Driessen of ESHCC in El Pais, Spain’s biggest newspaper.
Fans' frustrations
In the newspaper, Simone discusses how people sometimes react ‘toxic’ to certain people or events within culture or media. She particularly sees a change in the way that happens. Where before people would express their frustration through letters to film-, series- or music producers or the artists themselves, today this is done publicly on social media. With that, they get a huge stage, and it becomes easier for others to join in that frustration and actions.
Fuss over Hermione
With a huge wave of commotion as a result. This happened, for example, with the casting for the all-female Ghostbusters remake. But we see it with the casting for The Little Mermaid and The Rings of Power as well. Some diehard fans of Tolkien are of the opinion that elves can only be white. Simone gives another moving example of toxic practices in El Pais. Commotion arose, when a black person was cast for the role of Hermione Granger in the stage version of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. While Hermione’s skin colour is never really mentioned in the books.
Dark practices
Simone is currently working on an edited book collection, together with Dr. Bethan Jones – University of York, en Dr. Benjamin Litherland – University of Huddersfield, in which they address various dark ‘toxic’ practices by fans. For example, how they deal with cancelled artists or how we can explain certain political phenomena with fandom in mind, like QAnon’s conspiracy theories. Simone also researches fans of cancelled artists like Johnny Depp or Marco Borsato and artists who do something that went down the wrong way, for example Taylor Swift’s political coming-out. The collection of scientific chapters will be released in late 2023 or 2024 under the name “Participatory Culture Wars”.
Read the Spanish news article from El Pais
- Researcher