Enterprising women: television fandom and the creation of popular myth

Abstract

Enterprising Women is a study of the world-wide community of fans of Star Trek and other genre television series who create and distribute fiction and art based on their favourite series. This community includes people from all walks of life - housewives, librarians, secretaries and professors of medieval literature. They take settings, plots and characters from Star Trek, Blake's 7, Miami Vice and other science fiction and action-adventure series and modify the settings, rework the plots, create new characters and invent new interactions among old characters. The fiction and art that result from this recreation are published in magazines called fanzines and sold through an intricate network of conventions, word of mouth, cross-advertising and catalogues. All of the community's publications are underground and are not sold for profit. Using a theoretical framework drawn from ethnolinguistics, mass communications studies, literary theory, the sociology of play and feminist studies, and calling upon knowledge gained from years of observation and participation in the fan community, the author demonstrates how members of the community use their fiction and art to help them cope with real-life problems and to find support and comfort in the community.