Twin Peaks - Fan Culture and Social Identities - Essay Example

Revisiting “Twin Peaks Exploring Fan Culture and Social Identities The Evolving Culture of Fandom: From Viewers to Architects In a country where 98% have at least one television, 70% have more than one television, 70% have cable, and 51% of households with children have a computer (Paik 1994, p.519), the potency of media in general and television in particular cannot be overemphasized. The Media Awareness Network claims1: “The average North American girl will watch 5,000 hours of television, including 80,000 ads, before she starts kindergarten. In the United States, Saturday morning cartoons alone come with 33 commercials per hour” (2006). An instrument this pervasive, this appealing and this convenient is certain to influence the belief systems of society. It seems that question is no longer whether it does rather how much and in what manner. In current times we have seen how television has morphed from simply a provider of entertainment and a means of recreation, into a god-creator of a proxy-community – where people are drawn to the images and to the text and use them to form social identities and forge cultural distinctions. The notion of a “fan culture” is a complex one. There are a whole plethora of reasons why an individual finds himself “hooked” to a particular television show. When these individuals come together, a whole community is created, a whole subculture is forged, and the fans cease to be peripheral observers and become active agents and manipulators of the text itself. From “borrowed material”, or the material churned out by television producers, scriptwriters and directors, fans craft a patchwork quilt all their own – fusing their own individual experiences and perceptions and coming up with an entirely new animal resembling in parts, and far removed from, in other parts, the original text. This is the theory posited by Jenkins in the book “Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture” (1992) where he navigates through the media fan community and demonstrate how the cultural practices within it serve to rework the text and create its own social institutions, with its own hegemonies and rules. In order to explore how media defines social identity and on what level, this paper shall take as an example the success of the 1990 hit television show Twin Peaks. It illustrates that the effect of media on social identity can be both normative and prescriptive. First, the portrayal of young adults in Twin Peaks can be prescriptive in terms of lifestyle and behavior. Second, the developments in television genre occur simultaneously with developments in sub-culture. And that the profit-oriented nature of media makes it dependent on and influential to social change. Created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, the first season of Twin Peaks television series garnered one of the highest ratings in ABC Network for that period. Set in a seemingly quiet background, Twin Peaks features small town American life, but with a twist. For the viewer lying on the couch, eyes glued to the screen, watching this series is similar to watching community life before his eyes with characters as true to life as his next-door neighbors. Twin Peaks, like the many in its genre, represents the American viewer’s cultural origin. The story starts in the murder of a popular teenage girl, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), whose body is found wrapped in plastic by the river. The discovery of this body hence starts a series of investigation in the fictional town, Twin Peaks. The plot thickens as the trail for the murderer likewise leads to the revelation of town secrets. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that each character lives his own secret often convoluted life. Twin Peaks incorporates mystery, drama and a touch of horror and though it was far from being a traditional detective series or drama, it was well received by the American audience. In this paper, we look at three ways in which the audience use of media text is inextricably interwined with the cultivation of their social identities. First, we explore how media text activates self-perceptions and stereotypes, and provides the lenses on how the individual views himself in relation to the world, and the world in relation to him. This is done by affirming impulses developed in the sphere of our own human experiences, and at the same time, triggering recollections on previously-created media images. Second, we examine what happens when these individuals come together, and how an entirely new subculture is formed where new materials emerge and alternative texts are treated as equally valid. Third, we analyze how media forms social identities and cultural distinctions in society as a whole and how its profit-generating aspect is of vital importance. The Construction of Self-Image and the Resurrection of Remembered Images Mass media has often been accused (and rightly so) to create and propagate stereotypes and sweeping generalizations. The website Media Awareness Network states that “stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people—usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.”(2006) Society is vulnerable to this because it is among its needs to organize and define itself. Media has the capacity to make people believe that when they tune in, they are looking at who they are, watching bits and pieces of their own lives. These portrayals have a propensity to activate culturally shared stereotypes and potentially affect judgment involving stereotyped groups. (Murphy 1998, p.168) At the center of the mystery at Twin Peaks is the classic prom queen icon, Laura Palmer, the angelic one, known and envied all across town. Reviews have it that her character was reminiscent of lead in the 1950s film Laura and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca. In addition to this the one eyed character in the series, Nadine Hurley, is a female version of one of the most popular soap characters of the eighties, Patch from Days of Our Lives; while biker James Hurley is intended to be a nineties version of James Dean. The re-occurrence of these characters and the attributes associated with them give viewers a set of beliefs and truths that eventually influence behavior. This is where the inter-textual aspect of the show into the play. It is not only the stereotypes that are activated, but remembered images that people have grown comfortable with. Television inadvertently legitimizes our actions – deviant or otherwise – and in doing so, it creates newer stereotypes, newer versions of people and the truth. The perfect prom queen was the old stereo-type. Now the seemingly perfect prom queen with the dark secret is the new stereotype. Sexual content in mass media has a “profound real-life effect” (Carpenter 1998, p.158). Boxing personalities and assigning them set characteristics may have changed and there may be more room for variety but it has become no less simplistic. And these images prevail not so much because they are real but because they reflect the dreams of its audience. Feminists have spoken about the sex and violence aspect of the TV series, and indeed this proves that the discussions in fandom involve gendered discourses. To quote from George (2005, p. 110): I, we, the twenty-thirty-and-forty something audience, got off on the sexually tortured, brutally murdered, mutilated body of an adolescent girl. And what’s new about that? What’s new about television exploiting our love affair with the interfaces of sex and death, or our hunger for seeing women dead or maimed or mutilated or suicidal or raped or helpless, especially if they are sexually active? Prime time business as usual, only a little worse because the feminists let it go by, behaving like charmed backsliders involved with a man so charismatic that we just could not think straight. Strangely enough, the appeal of Twin Peaks seems to be heightened by the fact that the program exposes these characters and puts them in a more corrupted therefore infinitely more intriguing light. The selection of these stereotyped figures and the adulteration of their images are deliberate. In a way, it is giving the public what they secretly suspect – that beyond the appearance of normality our lives more disarrayed. What happens here is that the audience uses media to affirm its identity. Media constructs images of the supposed lives of people, and at the end of the day media will only provide what its viewers want. Exposing imperfection and corruption in mass media sells because it normalizes and even justifies what is normally deemed to be inappropriate. Ironically, there is a comfort in watching people immersed in scandal. Fan Culture and Subculture Fan culture has evolved throughout the decades, with cult classics like Star Trek and Twin Peaks providing the lead and establishing the barometers with which the evolution of this culture could be measured, and the lenses through wish this culture could be scrutinized and examined. On Star Trek, Bick (1996, p. 43) wrote: Dubbed a phenomenon by popular media and critics alike, Star Trek (ST)’s appeal is undoubtedly overdetermined, simultaneously dictated and reified by the self-referential nature of television, cinema and commentaries upon these media. This orchestrated commodification of ST has elevated the narrative into a cultural centerpiece while providing the basis for a theoretical template. That Twin Peaks has become a cultural centerpiece, and still remains a cultural centerpiece, is without doubt. In fact, years after its demise from television, loyal fans still gather for what they call a “Twin Peaks” festival, where a throng of fans mix and mingle with celebrities from the show. With activities ranging from quiz bees to film showings, the show is commemorated and David Lynch, paid homage to. Jenkins (2005) also wrote about how online discussions can provide fodder for the fans to connect with each other and string together their own narrative by combining their collective voices. Says Jenkin, “the interactive nature of computer net discussion makes it possible to trace the process by which television meanings are socially produced, circulated, and revised.” The series also spawned a movie version, considered a prequel to the series, “Fire Walk with Me” in 1992. According to Lynch, in a magazine article, he made the movie because “"I couldn’t get myself to leave the world of Twin Peaks. I was in love with the character of Laura Palmer and her contradictions: radiant on the surface but dying inside. I wanted to see her live, move and talk." (Chris, 1997, p. 184). Though it was almost universally hailed a failure by critics due to incomprehensibility, this incomprehensibility is precisely what gives another layer of exclusivity to the fan culture of Twin Peaks. There is an almost-deliberate attempt to construct a veil of secrecy, a for-members only curtain, where under it fans freely recreate and reconstruct Laura Palmer’s world by merging it with theirs. Certainly, this has spawned a subculture in and of itself. One such subculture, to which Twin Peaks was contributory, is the Generation x subculture. Periods are marked by trends in all aspects of life such as music, film, fashion and be it politics. These trends are directed by the reciprocal influence that society and its institutions have on each other. All throughout history, subcultures come and go with the developments in politics and thought. A growing awareness in gender issues and an increasing interest in fantasy, horror and science fiction were seen in the 1970s. In this period, there was greater experimentation in art and writing. By the 1980s emerged the subculture of particular types of girls that are attractive, superficial, and insidiously destructive. The trends of the eighties continued until the nineties along with the advent of a broad subculture, the Generation X. Twin Peaks was one of its products. Entertainment Zone Review has some good views on the show: “A hybrid murder/mystery, primetime soap opera, darkly funny comedy and super- natural thriller...Twin Peaks was all of these and yet at the same time none.” Generation X does not exactly represent a particular age group although it refers to “youth.” Being among the Gen X meant being jaded, being passive-aggressive, and being on the edge. It was this time that cynicism was identified with the youth who supposedly engaged in drugs, sex and alcohol. It meant being young, corrupted and in crisis. We see the same dualism of good and evil, of helplessness and aggression in Twin Peaks, which represents the spirit of the Generation X both thematically and symbolically. The character of Laura Palmer has also prompted the formation of a subculture. The symbolic dethroning of the Homecoming Queen, the duality of virgin and Madonna – these triggers different impulses and reactions in men and women. Laura Mulvey (1990, p. 3) has come up with the theory of the “male gaze”, a theory that visual pop culture is tailored around pleasing the heterosexual male spectator and satisfying his desire for pleasure. Says Mulvey (ibid): In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote looked-at-ness. Woman displayed as sexual object is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle: from pin-ups to striptease, from Ziegfield to Busby Berkeley, she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire. The Exchange between Media and Society: A Symbiosis leading to a Metamorphosis Society uses media as a form of escape. The soap opera genre with its far-fetched plot-lines, larger than life characters, and impassioned yet contrived dialogue is the perfect example of this phenomenon at work on television. A genre originally sponsored by soap manufacturers for its market – women, particularly housewives­ – owes its success largely to the modern-day fairy tale quality that it possesses. The dynamism of media has recently pulled more viewer types to similar genres and their successes are attributed to the same thing. Unlike science fiction or fantasy, soap operas, detective series, programs like Twin Peaks are set on modern times following more or less the logic of everyday life, hence creating an impression of realism. It seems real and yet in the same breath out of the ordinary; exciting yet somewhat predictable. Entertainment, just like art, works when it successfully defamiliarizes the familiar. Media entertainment of this form does not necessarily reflect the nature of society but it does take a pulse on what society hopes or expects to see. And here occurs an exchange in values and belief systems between the media and those who patronize it. For example, when social change geared towards racial equality, and society was ready to shun racial prejudice, media provided it with condemnation of racism. We saw movies such as A Time to Kill and Amistad. When the fire of racial tension had died out, and it was time for something less aggressive, Whoopie Goldberg was who the viewers loved. Success in media occurs when it can attract in audience, but it cannot sell an idea when the public is not ready. [We] set out the background debate over whether the mass media has a powerful influence upon its audience, or if it is the audience of viewing and reading consumers who wield the most power...we have found, unsurprisingly, that the power relationship between media and the audience involves a bit of both, or to be more precise, a lot of both. The media disseminates a huge number of messages about identity and acceptable forms of self-expression, gender, sexuality, and lifestyle. At the same time, the public have their own even more robust set of diverse feelings on these issues. The medias suggestions may be seductive, but can never simply overpower contrary feelings in the audience. (Gauntlett 2002, p. 19) Media therefore needs to understand and even categorize its audience. Media has the capacity to group individual members of society into groups by determining what they want to see or what they choose to believe. A close inspection of the different genres would at the same time reflect the cultural variations of the audience. There are programs which specifically target a particular age group, gender, background, and cultural origin. Media, profit-oriented, naturally needs to define its viewers (quite literally) to serve its own ends. Advertising and media icons of success, beauty and righteousness are being sold to the audience everyday. Networks and advertising firms, using statistical information on demographics, determine exactly when. This calculation added to creativity and technology results in changes in values. The Northeast Wales Institute of Higher Education explains2: The media are certainly the most influential mediators, represent and purveyors of values, beliefs and social practices within society. They produce "our" collective identity, they reflect or reproduce "our" sense of collective national identity, speaking for society as a whole. An alternative viewpoint is to see the media as speaking for only dominant social groups and cultural values. A composite view is the cultural pluralist view, that the media has the task of reflecting or representing the contrasting cultural perspectives and cultures within a society, such as those of ethnic minorities and religious faiths. Conclusion All the points raised and all the examples point to the simple contention that the collective sense of identity of a group will always be as dynamic as powerful institutions like media. And both are so linked in that the changes will be simultaneous. Following the thought of Foucault, shunning the idea of an internal ‘essence,’ and realizing just how extensive the coverage of media is tantamount to saying that media has enough power to forge social identity and prescribe the manner in which people live. But what this fails to cover is that the audience – in particular, the fans – also prescribe in some way how the medium positions and repositions itself. What is missing in the analysis of the power of the media, is the analysis of the power of the consumer to architect changes in the medium through skillful mastery and manipulation. Jenkins uses the word “poaching” – but perhaps a more accurate word is “reinventing”. And only when the media understands this notion, that the dependence is reciprocal, can media survives and thrive. Bibliography Allen, R.C., 1985. Channels of Discourse: Television and Contemporary Debate, London: Methuen. Bick, I. “Boys in Space: "Star Trek," Latency, and the Neverending Story”. Cinema Journal, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter, 1996), pp. 43-60. Bryant, J. and Dolf Z., 1991. Responding to the Screen: Reception and Reaction Processes Communication. Erlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ. Carpenter, L.M., 1998. From girls into women: scripts for sexuality and romance in seventeen magazine. Journal of Sex Research 35, p. 158. Conrad, S. and Milburn. M. 2001. Sexual Intelligence. New York: Crown Publishers. Gauntlett, D., 2002 Media, Gender and Identity. Routledge. George, D. H. “Lynching Women: A Feminist Reading of Twin Peaks”. in David Lavery (eds.), Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks (Detriot: Wayne State University Press, 2005): 109-119. Glover, D., 1984. The Sociology of the Mass Media. Lancashire: Causeway Books Gross, D.M and Scott, S., 1990. Proceeding with caution. Time Magazine, (July 16, 1990). Jenkins, H. "Television Fans, Poachers, Nomads," in Kenneth Gelder and Sarah Thornton (eds.) The Subculture Reader (London: Routledge, 2005): 506-522. Henry Jenkins, "Do You Enjoy Making the Rest of Us Feel Stupid?: alt.tv.twinpeaks, the Trickster Author, and Viewer Mastery," in David Lavery (eds.), Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks (Detriot: Wayne State University Press, 2005): 51-69 The Museum of Broadcast Communications. Soap Opera. [online] Available from: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/soapopera/soapopera.htm. Mulvey, L. (1990) “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Issues in Feminist Film Criticism. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Murphy, S., 1998. The Impact of Factual versus Fictional Media Portrayals on Cultural Stereotypes. In Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, pp 165-178. Paik, H., and Comstock., 1994. The effects of television violence on antisocial behavior: a meta-analysis. Communication Research, pp. 516-546. Shaw, Doug, 2003. Zones Eye View of Twin Peaks-DVD Episode 1-7. Entertainment Zone Review. [online]. Available from: . Tropiano, S., 2000. TV Towns. 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