Cult Media
Cult Media
The Cult
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim
Sharman, 1975)
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The Cult
Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977)
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The Cult
Liquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, 1982)
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The Cult
Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
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The Cult
LIVING TEXTUALITY. The authentic cult work, Eco observes, must seem like
"living textuality," as if it had no authors, as postmodernist proof that "as
literature comes from literature, cinema comes from cinema" (199).
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Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual
Collage." Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver.
New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986: 197-211.
The Cult
A COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD. Another closely related prerequisite of
The Cult, Eco observes, is its capacity to "provide a completely furnished
world so that its fans can quote characters and episodes as if they were
aspects of the fan's private sectarian world, a world about which one can
make up quizzes and play trivia games so that the adepts of the secret
recognize through each other a shared experience" (198).
Cult Media
Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual
Collage." Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver.
New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986: 197-211.
The Cult
Cult Media
A COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD.
Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual
Collage." Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver.
New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986: 197-211.
The Cult
Cult Media
A COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD.
Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual
Collage." Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver.
New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986: 197-211.
The Cult
A COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD.
Cult Media
The Cult
DETACHABILITY. The cult work, according to Eco, must also be susceptible
to breaking, dislocation, unhinging, "so that one can remember only parts
of it, irrespective of their original relationship with the whole." The cult
viewer watching these moments--indeed watching for such moments—may
let out an audible "I love this."
Cult Media
Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual
Collage." Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver.
New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986: 197-211.
The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
What is the connection between “cult” and quality? Is a “bad” film or TV
series more likely to become a cult work?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Can a cult work be consciously created or must it be discovered?
Cult Media
The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Do certain actors/actresses inspire “cultishness”?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
What is the relationship of camp and cult-ivation?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
What are the specific relations between genre hybridity/genre bending
and cult status?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Does box office failure enhance culthood? Can a blockbuster/ratings hit
acquire cult status?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Why is the fantastic, “left of real” (J. J. Abrams’ term), such a fertile
ground for cult status?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Is it possible for a movie or television show to gain cult status largely
through nostalgia?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Are “B.Y.O subtext” works (Joss Whedon’s phrase) ipso facto cultish?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
What role do intertextuality, metaxtextuality play in the growth of cult
work?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Are cult works always counter-cultural?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Are cult works always counter-cultural?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Why is the cult “notoriously slippery” (Steven Peacock) to pin down?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Why do “Cult television’s imaginary universes support an inexhaustible range
of narrative possibilities, inviting, supporting and rewarding close textual
analysis, interpretation, and inventive reformulations”? (Jones and Pearson)
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
How is it that cult tv has evolved into “a meta-genre that caters to intense,
interpretive audience practices,” affording “fans enormous scope for further
interpretation, speculation and invention” (Jones and Pearson).
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Why has cult television come to be distinguished by its “hyperdiegesis”: ”the
creation of a vast and detailed narrative space, only a fraction of which is ever
directly seen or encountered within the text . . .” (Matt Hills, Fan Cultures 137)
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Should we follow Matt Hills’ advice that, instead of “celebrating cult texts for
their supposed uniqueness,” we should focus on “analyzing and defining cult TV
as a part of broader patterns within changing TV industries” (“Defining Cult TV”
522).
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
 What obligation do the makers of cult series have to answer the clamor of
fans for more involvement?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Does the presence of a star with cult street cred or a cult of personality
guarantee cult status?
Cult Media
The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Does cult television exhibit a unique approach to character investment?
Cult Media
The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Is it still true that your standard issue television cult work, in keeping with the
tradition, “represents a disruptive rather than a conservative force” (Kawin)?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
How does cult television differ—in subject matter, audience, marketing,
narrative—from cult film?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
How will the emergence of multiple platforms for television programming
change the nature of cult television?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Are there narrative forms unique to cult television, and if they exist, how have
they influenced all of series television?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
What is the place of the “conspiracy theory” in fostering/sustaining cult TV?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
Are the traditional youth demographics of cult television changing?
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The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries
To what degree has cult television created “transnational” languages and
viewing practices and furthered globalization?
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