Film, Screen and Media Seminar Series
Monday 19 October, 18.00-19.30
Boardroom (M2), Grand Parade
Professor Matt Hills
(Aberystwyth University)
'Is
Sherlock Fan Fiction?
Theorising the Hybrid Identity of the Showrunner Fan'
BBC TV’s Sherlock has repeatedly been positioned as ‘fan fiction’. However, scholars have pondered whether binaries of cultural power still divide showrunners and fans, perhaps making Sherlock ambivalent fan service rather than fan fiction. Sherlock can also be thought of as a singular brand, making it distinct from fan fiction that Abigail De Kosnick argues is consumed via an ‘archive’ of variants (2015: 121). And yet, at the same time that it attempts to ward off other versions in pursuit of brand distinction, Sherlock exists materially in relation to the commercial archive of previous adaptations that, contra De Kosnick’s argument, cannot be denied. Professor Hills will thus argue that Sherlock is a type of fan fiction not solely because of the fandom performed by its showrunners, but also because of its archontic existence within a cultural “database” of Sherlocks.
As showrunner-fans, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss also draw on fandom’s archetypal experiences of speculating and anticipating. Sherlock proffers powerful cliffhangers: it is a structure of gaps and delays (attributed to the availability of its lead actors) that echoes and incites fan experiences of re-viewing and ‘forensic fandom’ (Mittell 2009: 128). Although Moffat and Gatiss cannot wholly unify their roles as fans and professional producers (differing ‘communities of practice’ make this unlikely), they incorporate lived fandom within an unusual TV-industry temporality. Sherlock thus fuses connotations of ‘quality’ (scarcity; a cinematic duree) with industrial constructions of ‘fan-made time’ (Gwynne 2014: 79).
Matt Hills is Professor of Film and TV Studies at Aberystwyth University. He is the author of six books, from Fan Cultures (2002) to Doctor Who: The Unfolding Event (2015), and the editor of New Dimensions of Doctor Who (2013), published in the show’s 50th anniversary year. Matt has published more than a hundred journal articles/book chapters in the areas of cult media and fandom, and is currently working on Sherlock: Detecting Quality TV (forthcoming from I.B. Tauris in 2016).
All welcome!
For any queries, please contact the organisers, Patricia McManus ([log in to unmask]), Douglas McNaughton ([log in to unmask]), or Aris Mousoutzanis ([log in to unmask])