Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture

“Emotional realism” means that the fans’ understanding of their own experiences may be influenced by fictional representations, but this same concept preserves their ability to remain critical of a program’s ideology.

is not a property of fictions so much as it is an interpretive fiction fans construct in the process of making meaning of popular narratives.

risk, however, in becoming so preoccupied with the erotic dimensions of slash, in becoming so fascinated with its “scandalous” quality that we ignore its larger narrative content and its complex relationship to the primary text. Slash, like other genres of fan fiction, represents a mode of textual commentary.

slash does not, however, provide a politically stable or even consistently coherent response to these concerns.

fan practices blur the distinction between reading and writing.

allows us to use fandom as a

action-centered fictions facilitate alternative pleasures for women, even if they must be accommodated more comfortably to the women’s interests and tastes.

differential between the “landowners” and the “poachers”; yet it also acknowledges ways fans may resist legal constraints on their pleasure and challenge attempts to regulate the production and circulation of popular meanings.

More traditionally feminine stories do not require such constant reworking in order to become open to feminine pleasures; more