CFP: Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Los Angeles, March
17-21, 2010
Call for Panel Papers: Hooray for Horrorwood: "Famous Monsters of
Filmland" and Fandom
Ostensibly aimed at an audience of largely male pre-teen and teenage
readers, "Famous Monsters of Filmland" (FM) remains under the radar of
most academics and under-recognized as a highly significant text in terms
of audience studies, gender studies, canon theory, and populist
conceptualizations of cinema history. The photo-heavy and fan-pleasing FM
offered a bi-monthly archive of stills of classic, rare, and lost horror
films, as well as news on upcoming films, profiles of actors, and
behind-the-scenes features on make-up artists. FM evinced a love for, and
more importantly, a sound knowledge of, genre film history. This tone was
set by editor Forrest J Ackerman, who served as an avuncular, enthusiastic
epistemological guide, providing readers not only with knowledge of old
and often forgotten films, but serving as a role model for how to be a
fan, including an investment in preserving and disseminating cinematic
pleasures and knowledge.
This panel examines the phenomenon of primarily young monster movie fandom
during the 1960s (the height of monster-mania) and how such fandom allowed
readers to express agency via their consumption, interpretation, and
remediation of horror films. Importantly, FM encouraged and received much
input from readers, publishing their letters, photos, artwork, makeup and
costume experiments, and reporting on readers' own film projects; Ackerman
also invited readers to submit requests for images from and information
about films of their interest to be featured in the magazine. By
emphasizing active, participatory fandom as well as consumption, FM
legitimated fans' interest in the culturally marginalized pleasures of
horror and science fiction films, empowering them to assert an increased
degree of social authority and control. Panel topics could include
analyses of FM as a forum for enactments of non-hegemonic masculinity
and/or femininity, as an impetus for readers to become media producers as
well as consumers, as a text shaping populist knowledge of film history,
as an indicator of cult or niche audiences and their relation to
mainstream media, as an influence on canon formation, as a study of the
fan as celebrity, or as a popular culture archive, amongst others.
Deadline for submissioins: August 15, 2009
Please submit presentation abstracts of no more than 450 words (plus
bibliography), along with institutional affiliation, to:
Matt Yockey at (myockey /at/ uci.edu)
Mark Hain at (mhain /at/ indiana.edu)
--
Matt Yockey
Dept. of Film and Media Studies
University of California, Irvine
