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revdorothyl at 05:30pm on 24/01/2005 under fandom research
revdorothyl at 05:30pm on 24/01/2005 under fandom researchI admit it, the main reason why I'm posting this now is so that I'll have an excuse to trot out this new icon (which was created by the talented and generous ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cdaae), 'cause it's pretty.
But I have been meaning to draw attention to a book that might be of interest to other scholars and contemplators of all things meta: The Myth of the American Superhero, by John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI: 2002).
The following quotes from the very beginning of the book should suggest why I'm finding it rather intriguing and pertinent to my research interests:
p. 9 -- "Narratives of Superheroic redemption have become occasions for confessional statements of personal transformation and new trajectories of life meaning."
p. 10 -- (Referring to historical precedent of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and the rash of suicides and fan interest and creativity it seemed to inspire)
"When an artifact enters the arena of popular culture and assumes its own existence in the imagination of fans, a powerful though elusive process begins . . . . This process of behavioral alteration [in a wide variety of imitations and personal identifications with the heroes] has its closest analogues in religious ethics, but the particular artifact inspiring it is not itself religious.
"We propose to call this paradoxical and elusive result a Werther effect. In the Werther effect an audience member (a) experiences a work of fantasy within a secular context that (b) helps to shape the reader/viewer's sense of what is real and desirable, in such a way that (c) the reader/viewer takes actions consistent with the vision inspired by the interaction between his own fantasy and that popular entertainment. A Werther effect appears to be a form of voluntary behavioral change produced by interaction with a powerful artifact of popular culture. It can be a religiously tinged ethical impulse, within a nonreligious context, that occurs regardless of the intent of the artifact's creators. A Werther effect characteristically embodies a redefinition of the boundary between fact and fantasy."
cdaae), 'cause it's pretty.But I have been meaning to draw attention to a book that might be of interest to other scholars and contemplators of all things meta: The Myth of the American Superhero, by John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI: 2002).
The following quotes from the very beginning of the book should suggest why I'm finding it rather intriguing and pertinent to my research interests:
p. 9 -- "Narratives of Superheroic redemption have become occasions for confessional statements of personal transformation and new trajectories of life meaning."
p. 10 -- (Referring to historical precedent of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and the rash of suicides and fan interest and creativity it seemed to inspire)
"When an artifact enters the arena of popular culture and assumes its own existence in the imagination of fans, a powerful though elusive process begins . . . . This process of behavioral alteration [in a wide variety of imitations and personal identifications with the heroes] has its closest analogues in religious ethics, but the particular artifact inspiring it is not itself religious.
"We propose to call this paradoxical and elusive result a Werther effect. In the Werther effect an audience member (a) experiences a work of fantasy within a secular context that (b) helps to shape the reader/viewer's sense of what is real and desirable, in such a way that (c) the reader/viewer takes actions consistent with the vision inspired by the interaction between his own fantasy and that popular entertainment. A Werther effect appears to be a form of voluntary behavioral change produced by interaction with a powerful artifact of popular culture. It can be a religiously tinged ethical impulse, within a nonreligious context, that occurs regardless of the intent of the artifact's creators. A Werther effect characteristically embodies a redefinition of the boundary between fact and fantasy."