"IT'S NOT A FAIRY TALE ANYMORE": GENDER, GENRE, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Author(s): HENRY JENKINS III

Source: Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 43, No. 1/2, Audiences (Spring and Summer 1991), pp.
90-110
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the University Film & Video Association
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"IT'S NOT A FAIRY TALE ANYMORE":
GENDER,
GENRE,
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
HENRY
JENKINS
III
Believe the
impossible. Everything
you've
heard is true. It's not a
fairy
tale
anymore, (from
TV Guide ad for
Beauty
and the Beast's third season
opener?Burke
and
Dunadee)
Speaking
of
doing things
the
right
way, anyone
who starts a
story
with
"once
upon
a time" should end it
with
"happily
ever after."
(Beauty
and the Beast
fan)
The
January 13,
1990 issue of TV Guide
featured a
profile
of
Beauty
and the Beast
and its faithful fans: "The show that
wouldn't die
...
and the fans who
wouldn't let it"
(Carlson 2).
TV Guide
sympathetically
documents the massive
fan culture which had
converged
around
the
program,
the
charity
efforts of the
Helper's
Network and other local
clubs,
and the
grassroots
movement that had
been directed in
response
to its initial
cancellation and which had resulted in its
much
publicized
return to the airwaves.
While
noting
some fan dissatisfaction with
plot developments
in the
program's
third
season,
the
magazine confidently
con
cluded that "most fans will remain
loyal."
Ironically, just
two
days
before this issue
hit the
newsstands,
CBS had cancelled
Beauty
and the Beast a second and final
time. The series which "refused to die"
was now
officially
dead and
many
of its
loyal
fans reacted as much with relief as
with
mourning.
Beauty
and the Beast
fans,
who
only
a few
months before had seemed united in their
efforts to save the
show,
now were
sharply
divided,
unsure of how to
respond
to
recent
changes
in the series' creative
per
sonnel and format. Most fans were
deeply
saddened
by
the
departure
of series star
Linda Hamilton
(who
was
pregnant
and
wanted more time to
spend
with her fam
ily)
and the
producers'
decision to
brutally
murder her
character,
Catherine. Some
continued to
urge loyalty
to the
program
producers, expressing hope
and confi
dence that their creative
integrity
would
find a
way
to resolve the difficulties caused
by
the star's
departure: "Respect
them
enough
to trust
them;
trust them
enough
to
believe;
believe them
enough
to know that
they
will
satisfy
us"
(Herbert).
Others
remained
equally loyal
to their own
metatextual
conception
of the series
which
they
felt had been violated
by
the
network and the series's creators: "I don't
even
recognize
this as
Beauty
and the
Beast
anymore.
Do
you seriously
think
that this is what
people
want to watch?"
(Kopmanis). Many expressed
their sense
of frustration and
powerlessness,
their in
ability
to
protect
their favorite series from
being radically
altered in the
hopes
of
broadening
its
potential
audience.
The
changes
were
widely perceived
as
motivated
by
a network desire to attract a
more masculine
audience,
even at the ex
pense
of the
program's
committed female
fans and their desires for a
happy
resolu
tion of the characters' romance. CBS
Henry
Jenkins III is Assistant Professor of
Literature and Media Studies at M.I.T. and has
published extensively
on
aspects
of film and
popular
culture in Camera
Obscura,
Cinema
Journal,
Critical Studies in Mass Communica
tion,
Wide
Angle,
and The Velvet
Light Trap.
Copyright
? 1991
by
H. Jenkins III.
90 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 43.1-2
(Spring-Summer 1991)
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President Howard
Stringer
lent credence
to this claim with some
particularly
ill
conceived remarks at a network
press
conference about what he described as the
"exotic"
appeal
of the "hot house" show:
"I've
gotten
a lot of letters from nuns?I
don't know what to make of that. Makes
me
very
nervous
actually.
Were we
target
ing
it
just
for nuns? I think we have to
target priests,
too"
(qtd.
in
Ostrow).
Con
vinced that the
program's
survival de
pended upon
its
ability
to attract
"priests"
(and
other masculine
viewers)
rather than
an "exotic"
following
of "nuns"
(and
other female
spectators),
the
producers
not
only
shifted the series' focus from the
love
story
towards more action-adventure
plots
but also killed the show's female
protagonist, thereby foreclosing any pos
sibility
of a
subsequent
return to the core
romance.
The heated
reception
of
Beauty
and the
Beast's third season
brings
into
sharp
fo
cus a number of issues
surrounding
the
political
and cultural status of television
fans. TV Guide and the network both fell
into the
trap
of
taking
for
granted
the fans'
unconditional
loyalty
to the series and its
producers.
Such a
position
is consistent
with traditional
representations
of fans as
cultural
dupes
and mindless consumers.
We often
speak
of fans as if
they
were
unquestionably accepting
of
any
and all
products
associated with a favorite series
or
performer.
The
Beauty
and the Beast
fans, however,
were
anything
but uncriti
cal or
passive;
their
membership
within a
larger community
of fans and their
public
commitment to the
program encouraged
them to
protest
network actions which
endangered
its future and
producer
ac
tions which violated their collective sense
of the
program's
contents.
Increasingly,
the fans had come to
recognize
that their
interests in the series were not
necessarily
aligned
with the
producers'
interests
and,
indeed,
in this
situation,
that the two were
fundamentally opposed.
One fan
aptly
de
scribed the
program's producers
as treat
ing
the fans like trained
dogs:
"Since the
end of
May,
it's been 'sit
fans,
fetch
fans,
rollover
fans, beg fans,'
and now I
sup
pose they'd
like us to
play dead,
or at least
quietly
slink
off,
tail between our
legs,
whimpering softly
and
licking
our
wounds"
(Landman).
The bitterness of these remarks
suggests
the
power
imbalance that exists between
media
producers
who have access to the
means of cultural
production
and media
consumers who must
appeal
to them for
"scraps"
of the
types
of narratives
they
would like to watch. Critics of the contem
porary
audience research
paradigm
often
focus on the
ways
that economic barriers
of
entry
to the means of cultural
produc
tion work to disenfranchise viewers from
participation
within television culture and
thereby
seem to
preclude any
effective
form of
popular
resistance to
program
ideologies.
Michael
Budd,
Robert Ent
man,
and
Clay
Steinman are critical of
John Fiske's use of the
metaphor
of the
nomad to refer to
popular
forces which are
"uncontainable,
restless and free" when
they may "actually
be
powerless
and de
pendent. People
who are nomads cannot
settle
down; they
are at the
mercy
of
natural forces
they
cannot control"
(Budd,
et al.
176).
These writers
correctly
note that
political
intervention on the level
of
reception may
be no substitute for a
politics
that is also concerned with condi
tions of
production.
My
own
work,
which draws
insights
from
the theoretical formulations of Michel de
Certeau, acknowledges
these
power
im
balances as the undesirable context within
which
popular
readers must
operate, yet
it
seeks to document the
strategies by
which
fans
try
to overcome their alienation from
popular
culture and
try
to
reshape
textual
materials in accordance with their own
interests. For
me,
an interest in audience
activism is
perfectly
consistent with work
on the
political economy
of media owner
ship, showing
two sides of the same
power
imbalance. No account of fan culture
makes sense unless it is seen as
responsive
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to a situation in which fans make
strong
emotional investments in
programs
and
yet
have no direct control over network
decision-making.
What is often
forgotten
by
both advocates and critics of his theo
retical
position
is that de Certeau does not
promise
an
easy victory
for the consumer
in relation to these
powerful systems
of
cultural
production
and
ideological
circu
lation but rather
provides
a model for
describing ongoing conflicts,
"advances
and retreats" as consumers seek to
"poach"
useful materials from the domi
nant
"scriptural economy"
and to rework
them to serve alternative interests. There
is, however,
a
big leap
between acknowl
edging
that audiences lack access to the
means of
production
and
saying
that audi
ences
necessarily accept textually pre
ferred
meanings, though
critics often col
lapse
the two into
top-down arguments
about the cultural
power
and
ideological
authority
of the media industries.
I would break with both the
knee-jerk
pessimism
of the older critical studies
par
adigm
and the
easy optimism
that charac
terizes
many
recent accounts of audience
response:
audiences are not
consistently
resistant to textual
ideologies any
more
than
they
are
consistently
blinded to their
own
interests;
nor is all audience resis
tance
necessarily progressive. Rather,
au
dience
response
is a
complex
and
dynamic
process
of
conflicting
demands and
expec
tations,
a
process whereby program
mate
rials are
gradually,
albeit
imperfectly,
fit
into the context of the viewers' lived ex
periences.
The
advantage
of de Certeau's
account over Stuart Hall's earlier "encod
ing
and
decoding"
formulation is the de
gree
to which de Certeau allows us to
avoid a fixed or static
categorization
of
audience
response
in favor of a model that
emphasizes
the continuous
process
of
ap
propriation
and redefinition of cultural ma
terials. That
advantage
is lost if we reduce
audience
response
to
sweeping
claims
about
generalized popular
resistance. No
single synchronic
record of audience re
sponse
can
fully
account for the constant
shifts within the audience's
relationship
to
the
primary
textual
materials; rather,
what
is needed is a diachronic mode of ethno
graphic writing
that traces over time the
process by
which audiences move in and
out of
harmony
with textual
ideologies
and
begin
to assert their own interests
upon
broadcast content.
Fan culture
provides
a
particularly
fruitful
site for research into this
process
of
pop
ular
appropriation
and
ideological negoti
ation. While
many
audience studies
begin
by constituting
the audience and
by
fram
ing
an
agenda
for its
responses (a process
which holds not
only
for traditional media
effects research but also for much so
called
"ethnographic" research), studying
fan culture allows us to
tap
into a
pre
constituted
community
with an
ongoing
relationship
to
popular
media.1
My study
is
truly ethnographic
in that it
investigates
the
practices, beliefs,
and attitudes of a
complex
subcultural
community
rather
than
generating
interviews with viewers
arbitrarily
assembled into a
response
group
for the basis of a short-term re
search
project.
Fans are
already engaged
in detailed discussions not
only
of
pro
gram
content but of their
relationship
to
television and
already produce
a broad
range
of artifacts which can be mined for
the
insight they
offer into fan
reception
practices.
This article will examine a
variety
of such
materials in
trying
to trace the
controversy
surrounding Beauty
and the Beast
(club
newsletters, letterzines, scrapbooks,
fan
fiction);
I will also draw on discussions
with members of a Boston area
Beauty
and the Beast fan
club,
North of
Shangri
La, including
attendance and
participation
at their
regular meetings
as well as the
results of an
open-ended survey designed
to solicit information about their broader
viewing
habits. While such discourse
may
or
may
not
accurately
reflect the
personal
responses
of
any
individual
Beauty
and
the Beast
fan,
that
public
discourse
may
be
legitimately
examined in order to locate
92 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 43.1-2
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the
categories
and
assumptions
which fans
share as an
interpretive community
and to
analyze
the
process by
which collective
interpretations
of the
program
text were
formulated.2
This
essay amplifies
the fans' own under
standings
of the
reception process by
em
ploying
theoretical models drawn from the
Cultural Studies
literature,
but it does not
simply attempt
to
project my
own critical
response
to the series on to fan
culture;
the
essay
was written with constant feed
back from the fans cited and was
reshaped
in
response
to their criticisms. The result
is not intended as a
traditionally objective
account of fan
response (if
such a
thing
were
possible)
but rather as an insider's
ethnography
written in direct collabora
tion with the subcultural
community
it
documents. Such an
approach rejects
an
impossible
ideal of
objective
distance
(that
often allows the researcher to
map
his or
her own views onto the social
experience
of the
subjects)
in favor of a mode of
scholarship
which allows the cultural com
munity
a
say
within its own
representa
tion.3
I seek to record and
analyze, then,
the
concrete
responses
of a
specific
fan com
munity
to
Beauty
and the Beast and make
no claims that these fans are
necessarily
representative
of the
ways
that the
pro
gram
was received
by
non-fan viewers.
Indeed,
fandom as an
interpretive
institu
tion
imposes
its own
categories upon
tex
tual
reception
which reflect not
only
the
broader social
background
of its member
ship (categories
of
class, gender,
race,
etc.)
but also the
particular
interests of
fandom in
sustaining
its cultural commu
nity
and
promoting
its
self-identity.
Fan
audiences
adopt particular
modes of re
ception
that work to facilitate their subse
quent participation
within fan
culture;
fan
critics elaborate
complex readings
of the
series which differ
substantially
from the
transient
meaning production
that charac
terizes more
typical
modes of television
reception;
fan critics draw
upon
the aes
thetic traditions of the fan
community
in
the
process
of
translating interpretive
un
derstandings
into a
basis for their own
cultural
productions.4
Too
often,
Cultural
Studies has moved from extreme exam
ples
of subcultural
appropriations
to broad
generalizations
about audience
response
without
regard
to the
particularity
of fan
culture.
What I am
calling for, then,
is a
style
of
media
ethnography
which is
historically
informed and
context-specific,
which re
jects
the
temptation
to make
quick
and
easy generalizations
and instead tries to
come to
grips
with the more difficult task
of
documenting
the diverse and contradic
tory quality
of
popular
culture.
By tracing
fan
response
to
Beauty
and the
Beast,
a
more vivid sense of the
process by
which
fan critical
practice
moves from
eager
acceptance
of a new text towards active
resistance to its
subsequent
transforma
tions is
possible.
More
specifically,
this
article considers the
place
of
generic
for
mulas within the fans'
understanding
of
the series and their
complex relationship
with its
producers.
Once
Upon
A Time
. . .
Traditional notions of
genre
as a class of
texts,
a set of textual features and conven
tions,
or a formula
by
which texts are
constructed do not seem
adequate
to the
type
of
struggle
over
generic placement
that surrounded
Beauty
and the Beast.
For the most
part,
such models
ignore
the
role(s) played by genre
in the reader's
efforts to make
meaning
from textual ma
terials. Thomas Schatz's notion in
Holly
wood Film
Genres,
that
genres represent
a
kind of tacit contract between media
pro
ducers and
audiences, seemingly gives
equal weight
to the role of formulas in
both
encoding
and
decoding films,
with
Schatz
speaking
of a
"reciprocal
studio
audience
relationship" ("The
Structural
Influence"
97).
His
account, however,
im
plicitly
favors the
generic knowledge
of
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the filmmaker over the
activity
of the
spectator.
Schatz
gives
us little sense of
the nature of the audience's
expectations
or how
they originate;
these
expectations
are read from the
texts,
rather than docu
mented
through
audience
response.
What
Hollywood
delivers is
presumed
to be
what the audience
wanted, largely
based
on the economic
argument
that the indus
try
seeks to
anticipate
and fulfill audience
demand. Schatz's
examples
are all films
which fit
unambiguously
within a
single
generic category
and therefore
pose
few
problems
about
generic placement
and in
terpretation.
The readers' decision to
pur
chase a ticket to such a film thus
signals
their
acceptance
of a set of conventional
expectations
about the
likely development
of the
plot
or
disposition
of the
characters;
once the
appropriate genre
is identified
and
accepted,
readers
simply interpret
it
according
to those conventions.
Most recent accounts focus even more
explicitly
on the
ways
that
genre
distinc
tions structure the viewer's
experience
of
given films, through,
as with
Schatz,
this
is
typically
characterized as a
top-down
process.
Such accounts
may discuss,
of
ten in
highly sophisticated ways,
the tax
onomic
problems
encountered
by
scholars
and critics in
identifying
the conventions
and boundaries of
particular genres,
but
take for
granted
that
popular reading
is
determined,
one
way
or
another, by
the
reader's
early
and correct
recognition
of
texts as
belonging
to
particular generic
traditions. Rick
Altman,
for
example, sug
gests
that
genre
"short-circuits the 'nor
mal'
sequence
of
interpretation"
and
usurps
the function
played by
the
interpre
tive
community
in
making
sense of the
narrative: "Seen in this
light, genres ap
pear
as
agents
of a
quite specific
and
effective
ideological project:
to control the
audience's reaction to a
specific
film
by
providing
the context in which that film
must be
interpreted" (4). Dudley
Andrew
pushes
this
concept
of a
top-down
control
over
meaning-making
even further:
"[Genres]
ensure the
production
of mean
ing by regulating
the viewer's relation to
the
images
and narratives constructed for
him or her. In
fact, genres
construct the
proper spectator
for their own
consump
tion.
They
build the desire and then
rep
resent the satisfaction of what
they
have
triggered" (110).
John
Hartley, writing
from a different theoretical
position,
con
tends that "audience's different
potential
pleasures
are channeled and
disciplined by
genres,"
which
pre-determine
the
range
of
their
likely responses (qtd.
in Fiske
114).
These
types
of
ideological genre analysis,
then,
offer us limited
insight
into the men
tal life of the
viewer;
even when theorists
seem to be
suggesting
a "contract" be
tween media
producers
and media con
sumers,
that contract
is,
in
fact,
remark
ably one-sided,
a contract of adhesion
allowing
readers little more than the
right
to refuse
engagement
with a
particular
media
product.
The
price
of admission to
the
genre
text is the surrender of individ
ual
judgment
and social
identity.
If such models
provide insight
into the role
of
genres
within the Classical
Hollywood
Cinema
(though space
alone
requires
me
to concede that claim
here),
we should be
suspicious
about
importing
them into tele
vision studies. If film scholars were forced
to rethink the broad
generic
classifications
of
literary
criticism
(such
as
comedy
and
tragedy)
into the much more
specific
cat
egories
of the
Hollywood marketplace
(such
as screwball
comedy,
film
noir,
or
the adult
western),
television critics are
often forced to make the
opposite
move,
creating relatively
broad
categories
which
reflect the
blurring
of boundaries between
genres
within network
programming.
Thus,
David Thorburn sees melodrama as
the dominant television
form,
a
genre
which includes "most made-for-television
movies,
the
soap operas,
and all the law
yers, cowboys, cops
and
docs,
the
fugi
tives and
adventurers,
the fraternal and
filial comrades who have filled the
prime
hours"
(539-40).
David Marc offers a sim
ilarly
broad notion of television
comedy,
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while John Fiske makes
large-scale
dis
tinctions between masculine and feminine
forms of network
programming.
If the
Hollywood
studio
system
fore
grounded
distinct
genres
as
consistently
appealing
to
particular
audience
segments,
television has relied
upon
a
process
which
Todd Gitlin has called "recombination" to
broaden the
appeal
of
any given program
to
encompass
a
larger
share of the
poten
tial audience: "The
logic
of
maximizing
the
quick payoff
has
produced
that
very
Hollywood hybrid,
the recombinant
form,
which assumes that selected features of
recent hits can be
spliced together
to make
a
eugenic
success"
(64).
The networks
thus
promote
series which
belong
not to a
single genre
but to
multiple genres, hoping
to combine the
security
that comes from
building
on
past
success with the
novelty
that
may help
to attract audience enthusi
asm. Generic traditions are
manipulated
as well with an
eye
towards
combining
different
demographic groups
with dif
ferent cultural interests into the
type
of
large
audience needed for
ratings
success.
Beauty
and the Beast is a textbook exam
ple
of this
type
of recombination
process.
The
program
was
carefully
constructed to
build on
multiple genre
traditions in its
quest
for a
larger rating share, though
the
polysemous
address of the
program
also
reflected creative differences between its
producers
and the network executives and
sparked disputes
with the
program's
fans.
What remained unresolved
throughout
the
series' run was
precisely
the
question
of
its
generic
status and the
interpretive
strategies by
which this text was to be
understood.
Most accounts credit CBS Entertainment
Division President Kim LeMasters with
originating
the idea for a series based on
Beauty
and the
Beast, following
a
viewing
of Jean Cocteau's classic film version of
the fable. LeMasters
approached
Witt/
Thomas
productions
about
developing
the
idea into a series for
possible airing
in the
1988-89 season. As
producer
Paul Witt
explained
in an interview
shortly
after the
show's
premiere,
"We didn't want an
other monster show. We didn't want a
show where the beast breaks
through
walls. We wanted
something classy"
(Oney 37).
Writer Ron
Koslow,
hired to
create the
program concepts
and to write
its
pilot episode,
viewed the show as a
chance to create a
"classical love
story
in
classical terms" as well as to
explore
his
fascination with the
mythic possibilities
of
a
Utopian society existing
underneath the
streets of New York
City (Kloer 4).
Ko
slow
hoped
to contrast the "frantic
pace
and
intensity
of New York" with the
"lyrical
romance of the
underground"
within a
program
that was
intentionally
constructed as a
hybrid
of
many
different
genres
and which
might thereby
attract a
broad-based audience of
women, men,
and children
(Gordon 26).
Producer Witt
similarly
described the show as
"con
sciously designed
to have a
split personal
ity."
He
continued, "Everything
above
ground
is filmed in a
stark,
even
brutally
realistic
style; everything
below the sur
face is shot
through
a
vaporous
haze in
hope
of
creating
a
mystical
environment
(Oney 37).5
Interestingly,
this format
requires
a curi
ous
crossing
of traditional
gender
bound
aries: the
professional
stories with the
adventure
plots
center around Catherine
in her own
sphere
of
action,
while Vin
cent's world is the more domestic and
relationship-centered.
Catherine's
job
as
an
investigator
for the District
Attorney's
office
("where
the
wealthy
and
powerful
rule") provides
a base for traditional ac
tion-adventure
plots
with her
professional
activities, bringing
her into contact with
the harsher elements of
contemporary
life
(street gangs, drugs, prostitution,
child
abuse,
voodoo
cults, subway vigilantes)
and
placing
her in
dangerous positions
from which Vincent can rescue her.6 Vin
cent's role as one of the leaders of an
underground Utopian society ("a
secret
place
far below the
city
streets
. . .
safe
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from hate and
harm")
allowed the series
to shift its focus to the dilemmas faced
by
this alternative
community
and its colorful
members.7 The romance between the two
characters
provides
a kind of
bridge
which
links the two worlds
together
and thus
allows smooth transitions between two
very
different
generic
traditions. As series
writer Howard Gordon
explained:
It is a constant source of satisfaction
for me that one week's
episode may
take us
through
the mean streets of
Manhattan,
while the next week
may
take us into the
very
bowels of the
Earth, encountering mythic
charac
ters like Paracelsus.
. . .
The
only
necessary
denominator is to have
Catherine and Vincent involved in
some
organic context?though
not
necessarily
with
equal emphasis.
The
tough part
here is to find some central
subject
which interfaces with both
worlds, relying, hopefully,
on
only
a
modicum of coincidence.
(26)
In each
case,
the
ongoing
romance be
tween Vincent and Catherine
plays
a sec
ondary
but
important
role, motivating
their involvement in this week's
plot
with
out
becoming
its dominant focus.
Television critics
praised
the series for its
generic
innovations and advised
against
a
return to the television formulas which the
producers sought
to transcend
(Burke
and
Dunadee).
Network
executives, however,
pushed
the
producers
to
incorporate
more
and more elements of conventional action
adventure television into the series format
as a means of
insuring
its success with
traditional
Friday night
viewers. In a re
cent
interview,
series writer
George
R. R.
Martin
suggests
that the networks and
producers
were,
from the
beginning,
sharply
divided over the nature of the
series and the audience which it
hoped
to
attract:
There were certain elements from the
network
right
at the
beginning
that
regarded
us as a
hairy
version of The
Incredible Hulk. If we were
going
to
be
primarily
an action/adventure
show oriented towards children with
an
obligatory
beast-out at the second
act's
end,
and a
major
rescue to end
the fourth
act,
I
really
didn't want to
be involved. But from
talking
to Ron
Koslow,
it became clear that his am
bitions for the show were
very high
and that he
regarded
it as adult
oriented drama.
(Grosse 53-54)
Martin recounts initial network resistance
to
any devlopment
of the Tunnel World
population
or the more romantic
aspects
of the
story, seeing
it
simply
as "a
cop
show with a
hairy
hero who saved
peo
ple."
From the
very beginning, Beauty
and the Beast
appealed
to female viewers
and seemed
capable
of
attracting
a
younger
audience within its
early evening
time
slot; yet,
it
appeared
to
perplex
and
even
annoy
male viewers.
Only
as the
program began
to
gain
a
greater
audience
following
were the
producers
allowed to
break more
fully
with action-adventure
formulas and
explore
the romantic and
fantastic elements of the series.
Yet,
as
ratings
declined in the second
season,
the
producers responded
to
pressures
to
broaden its audience base
by trying
to
attract more of the male viewers drawn to
traditional action shows. When male view
ership
was not
forthcoming,
the network
cancelled the
series, only
to retreat from
that decision in the face of an
unprece
dented
grassroots campaign. Instead,
the
network
again sought
to
manipulate ge
neric formulas to "retool" the
program
towards a
higher
masculine
viewership.
Thus,
Martin's account of the series'
pro
duction
explicitly
links its
generic place
ment and
plot development
to shifts in the
network's
perception
of its
ratings
and
audience
composition. Crudely put,
ro
mance-centered
episodes
meant more fe
male
fans,
while action
plots
held
open
the
prospect
of
enlarging
its share of male
viewership.
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Those theories cited earlier which
imply
that
recognition
of
genre predetermines
ideological response
do not seem
applica
ble to a text which evokes as
many
dif
ferent
genre
traditions as
Beauty
and the
Beast. The
producers'
sense of its
generic
categorization
differs from that of the
readers and both contrast
sharply
with the
network's
perception
of the same
pro
gram. Publicity
for the
program signals
multiple genre categories
as more or less
equally appropriate:
some ads feature ro
mantic
images
of an
embracing couple
on
a moonlit
balcony, promising
"a love
story
of a different
kind,"
while others
showed a
roaring Vincent, poised
for ac
tion, asking
whether he was "Man or
Beast?"
(Burke
and
Dunadee). Minimally,
then,
the reader must determine which
generic
formula will
yield
the best results
in
appreciating
and
interpreting any given
episode.
Just as the
producers sought
to
accent one or another
generic
tradition as
a
strategy
to attract different audience
segments (romance
for
women,
action
adventure for
men),
readers seem to have
chosen to focus their emotional invest
ment on some
aspects
of the
program's
formulaic structure as
potentially
reward
ing
while
experiencing
others as an
ongo
ing
source of
displeasure
and dissatisfac
tion.
From
Reading
The Romance To
Reading
As Romance
Peter J. Rabinowitz has
suggested
that
genre study might productively
shift its
focus
away
from
properties
of texts and
onto the
"strategies
that readers use to
process texts," seeing genres
as "bundles
of
operations," conventions,
and
expecta
tions that readers draw
upon
in the
pro
cess of
making meanings
from textual ma
terials. As Rabinowitz
puts it,
"
'reading'
is
always 'reading
as'
"
(421). Beauty
and
the Beast will reveal different
meanings
and
generate
different
pleasures
if it is
read as a romance or as an action
adventure
series,
or to use Rabinowitz's
example,
Dashiel Hammett's The Glass
Key poses
different dilemmas when read
as literature or as a
popular
detective
story.
Different
genres
evoke different
questions
which readers want to ask and
provide
different rules for
assigning signif
icance and structure to textual content.
Rabinowitz
distinguishes
between four ba
sic
types
of
interpretive strategies: (1)
"rules of notice" which
give priority
to
particular aspects
of narratives as
poten
tially interesting
and
significant
while as
signing
others to the
margins; (2)
"rules of
signification"
which
help
to determine
what
types
of
meanings
or
implications
can be ascribed to
particular
textual fea
tures; (3)
"rules of
configuration"
which
shape
the reader's
expectations
about
likely plot developments
and allow the
reader to
recognize
what would constitute
a
satisfactory
resolution of that
plot; (4)
"rules of coherence" which
shape
the
extrapolations
that readers make from tex
tual
details,
the
speculations they
make
about information not
explicitly present
within the
story.
The reader's
experience,
he
suggests,
thus
requires
an initial deci
sion about what
genre
will be most
appro
priately applied
to a
given
narrative and
then the
systematic application
of those
generic
rules to the
process
of
making
meaning
from the
textually provided
infor
mation.
Beauty
and the Beast was
"readable"
within a number of different
genres:
as a
fairy
tale or fable which
might provide
"enchantment" to both children and
adults;
as a classical romance which must
necessarily
end
tragically;
as a more con
temporary
romance which
might
hold the
possibility
of a
happy
resolution of char
acter
differences;
as an action-adventure
story
about a
couple
of
crime-fighters
who
struggle
to
impose
their own notion of
justice upon
the
world;
as the
saga
of an
underground Utopian society's attempt
to
define and
preserve
its own
values;
as
"quality television,"
a more nebulous cat
egory comparable
to Rabinowitz's notion
of
"literature,"
which would
emphasize
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the series'
production
values,
serious so
cial
themes, literary references,
and clas
sical musical
performances
as an
appeal
to
cultural
respectability.
Some of these
ge
neric
placements
would be
mutually
ex
clusive?or at least were
perceived
as
contradictory
within fan and
producer
dis
course; romance fans were not drawn to
the show for its action elements and vice
versa. Others
(Romance, Fairy Tale,
and
"Quality Television") might
be
mutually
reinforcing
or
potentially overlapping.
Each
reading, however,
would
foreground
different
episodes
or different moments in
episodes
as
particularly pleasurable
or
sig
nificant
(rules
of
notice)
and would ascribe
different
meanings
to them
(rules
of
signif
icance);
each would make its own
predic
tions about
likely plot developments (rules
of
configuration)
and its own
judgments
about what would constitute
a desirable
resolution of the narrative
(rules
of coher
ence).
If the network and the
producers sought
to
keep
as
many
of these
possibilities
alive as
possible
in order to build a coalition of
different audiences around the
series,
in
dividual fans
certainly privileged
some
readings
over others in
making
sense of
the
unfolding
series. Some fans were
drawn towards the "tunnel world" as an
imaginary community
whose values offer
hopeful
solutions to
contemporary
social
issues, adopting
it as a model for their own
social interactions and
charity
work.
Other fans seemed to have been
particu
larly
drawn to the series as an
exemplar
of
a
particular
notion of
"quality television,"
tracking
down the sources of the
literary
references and musical
passages quoted
on the
program
or
tracing
the
history
of
the character names and its
symbolic
im
agery.
Yet while these
potential interpre
tations of the
program
do not
completely
disappear
from the readers'
experiences
of
the
series,
most of the members of the
Boston
group
were insistent that
Beauty
and the Beast
was,
first and
foremost,
a
romance: "When
you
don't have that ro
mantic
element,
the show
goes
down the
tubes
very quickly.
You can do a show
about the tunnel
people
and the tunnel
world but that's not the
major
focus of the
series. It's
really
about the love between
these two
people."
Aired
episodes
were
evaluated, primarily,
according
to how much
they
contributed
to the
unfolding
narrative of Vincent and
Catherine's love. Asked to
identify
their
favorite
episodes,
the Boston
Beauty
and
the Beast fans
consistently pointed
out
episodes
which had a
strong
romantic fo
cus or which
represented important
shifts
in the character
relationships:
"Once
Upon
a Time
. .
.," "Masques,"
"A
Happy
Life,"
"Promises of
Someday,"
"Orphans,"
"A Fair and Perfect
Knight."
Some cited the
episodes involving
the
character of Elliot
Burch,
the
only signif
icant rival Vincent faced for Catherine's
affections,
while others focused their
praise
on the
episodes featuring
the vil
lainous
Paracelsus,
who threatens not
only
the romantic
couple
but the future of
the entire tunnel world
community. Expla
nations
given
for these
preferences
consis
tently emphasized
the
ways
these
epi
sodes had contributed to the character
relationships
and the
progression
of the
romance.
They
are about characters I love and
are
truly
romantic or
[are] just
B&B
episodes
as
opposed
to formula TV
"Cops
and Robbers"
episodes.
These are
episodes
that
emphasize
Vincent and
Catherine,
their relation
ship,
and
things, people,
and inci
dents
(past
or
present)
that affect their
relationship,
whether for
good
or bad.
Many specifically opposed
these relation
ship-centered episodes
to the more action
centered
episodes preferred by
the net
work executives: one woman said that she
preferred
"those without violence and
guns." Indeed,
asked to cite their least
favorite
episodes,
many
focused
specifi
cally
on those
episodes
which contained
the
highest
amount of violence or which
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spent
the
greatest
amount of time devel
oping
traditional action-adventure
plots:
"The Hollow
Men,"
"The
Outsiders,"
"Terrible
Savior,"
"Dark
Spirit."
The
fans
complained
that these
episodes
were
"too ominous and
dark,"
"concentrate on
action without much character
develop
ment,"
offered formulaic
plots
and too
much
emphasis
on "the
problems
of the
guest
star of the week." The action-focus
of these
episodes
seemed irrelevant to
their
conception
of the
program's generic
development ("didn't
move the relation
ship
either forward or
backward")
and
thus
played
a
relatively
minimal role in
their
interpretation
of the series. Their
conception
of the
program's generic
de
velopment, then,
formed a solid basis
from which the
group
could evaluate the
merits of individual
episodes.
While indi
vidual fans
might
have
particular
favorites
among
the aired
stories,
there is a
high
degree
of consensus
among
the
group
about which stories came closest to ful
filling
their sense of the series and which
fell far short of the mark.
"Promises Of
Someday"
Fan
interpretive practice consistently
foregrounded
the most romantic
aspects
of the series text?even within
episodes
that are otherwise dominated
by
action
adventure
plots.
The
Whispering Gallery,
a
popular
fan
newsletter,
ran a
regular
column
reviewing
the individual
episodes,
focusing primarily
on those
plot
elements
which fans wanted to see
developed
more
fully, trying
to
speculate
about "What
They
Don't Tell Us." These reviews
give
insight
into the rules of notice which fans
applied
in the
process
of
reading Beauty
and the Beast as a romance and the rules
of
signification
as a focus for their atten
tion.
Consider,
for
example,
one fan's
discussion of "Terrible
Savior,"
an
epi
sode
frequently
cited as one of the series'
worst because of its focus on Vincent's
violent
struggle
with a
subway vigilante:
It starts out with us not
knowing
whether Vincent and Catherine have
seen each other often or whether the
subway
slasher incident has
brought
them
together.
. . .
We also see that
Vincent is sure of his
relationship
with Catherine and she is still
testing
and
learning.
. . .
Why
does she fear
him? Does she not trust him
yet?
This
is
obviously
the case when she
pulls
away
from
him,
and Vincent almost
strikes a
lamp
in his
rage.
We see
Catherine's fear of Vincent
change
after she confronts him then has time
to think about it. Vincent as
always
is
forgiving, again. (The perfect man.)
(Terhaar 5)
Here,
dramatic moments within a sus
pense-centered plot
are
being
read for the
clues that
they provide
about the romantic
relationship
between the series
protago
nists,
with
gestures, looks,
and vocal
tones mined for their
suggestion
of a
grow
ing
level of
intimacy.
The
questions
the
fan chooses to ask about the
episode orig
inate from her sense that the series as a
whole should be read as a romance rather
than as an action-adventure series. Most
of the first two seasons'
episodes,
fans
insist, provide
some moments which are
meaningful primarily
in terms of the char
acter
romance,
even if those moments
receive
relatively
little screen time and are
often
marginal
to the
primary plot
devel
opment:
"No matter how
grim
it
got,
there
was
always
a warm
balcony
scene at the
end of each
episode."
Fan
critics, then,
focused their
primary
interest on such
moments, offering
elabo
rate
interpretations
of each
gesture
or
expression, trying
to fit them into some
overall
progression
of the
relationship.
Consider,
for
example,
one fan critic's
reading
of such a scene from "Chamber
Music,"
an
episode
otherwise dominated
by
Vincent's efforts to
help
a street kid
turn
away
from
drugs
and towards the
development
of his musical skills:
Catherine and Vincent are
sitting
in
the tunnel entrance
way listening
to a
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concert in the
park
above them. This
is
only
the second time Catherine and
Vincent have been out on a "Real"
date that didn't involve a
murder,
chase or rescue
. . .
Are we
going
to
see more of these little romantic times
between Catherine and
Vincent,
where
they
are off
spending
time
alone?
. . .
Farther into the
scene,
it
begins
to rain. Catherine
begins
act
ing
like a care-free
child,
playing
in
the
rain, laughing exuberantly.
I won
der if Catherine has become much
more comfortable around Vincent
and
finally
let loose a little. Her ac
tions and movements in the rain bor
dered on the seductive
side,
and we
see Vincent
watching
and
enjoying
this. What is he
thinking
about? He
smiles and chuckles
along
with her
giddiness,
but there is a
hint of
maybe
a little more of the
physical (desire?)
side of this
relationship. (Burke)
As this
example suggests,
the fans' exten
sive
mining
of these
meaningful
moments
for their
insight
into the characters'
unspo
ken attitudes and
feelings
leads
directly
into
speculations
about
possible
future
narrative
developments.
These
types
of localized
interpretations
are the raw materials from which fans
construct a more
global analysis
of the
series as rules of notice and
signification
are
supplemented by
rules of coherence
and
configuration.
Fans
may, indeed,
en
gage
in heated debates at this level of local
interpretation
and
may disagree
about
how
they
read individual scenes or even
the overall
progression
across scenes. Yet
these
disagreements
occur within a shared
frame of
reference,
a common sense of the
series'
generic placement
and a tacit
agreement
about what
questions
are worth
asking
and what moments
provide accept
able evidence from which to answer such
questions.
A fan critic can thus evoke this
same moment as
part
of a
succession of
scenes
illustrating
her sense of the
ongoing
development
of the character relation
ships:
"Think back to 'Brothers' and
'Chamber Music' and 'Remember Love.'
. . .
Check out the sickroom scene in
'Ashes,
Ashes' and the
balcony
scene in
the same
episode.
The final scene in
'Brothers,'
the date scene and the
parting
scene in 'Chamber Music' Don't tell me
you
don't see and feel Catherine turn on to
Vincent"
(Almedina). Here,
the individual
moments which form the basis for this
larger interpretation
no
longer
need such
detailed
interpretation;
the scene from
"Chamber Music" can be reduced to a
brief
reference,
since her audience has
already
absorbed its local
significance
and
fit it into their
larger
sense of the series'
development.
Generic
expectations
are
being
fit to the
particulars
of this
program text;
as
rules of
notice, signification, coherence,
and con
figuration
are
applied episode by episode
to the
unfolding series,
the more abstract
generic
formula
gets replaced by
a
pro
gram-specific
meta-text. The fans' meta
text is
always
much more than
simply
the
crude outlines of a
generic formula;
it has
built
upon
all the information
specifically
provided
in the aired
episodes,
informa
tion offered
by secondary
sources
(e.g.,
the
"program bible," published
inter
views)
and the foundation of fan
specula
tions about that information.
Yet,
its
point
of
origins lay
within the
reading hypothe
sis introduced
by
the viewer's decision to
read the text as
belonging
to a
particular
generic
tradition. As Rabinowitz
explains:
Literary
works "work"
only
because
the reader comes to them with a
fairly
detailed
understanding
of what he or
she is
getting
into beforehand. I am
not
denying
that
every
work of fiction
creates its own
world,
but I am
saying
that it can do so
only
because it
assumes that the reader will have
certain skills to
begin
with.
(423)
The fans'
predictions
about future narra
tive
developments
are
grounded
not sim
ply
in a sense of what
types
of stories
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romances
typically
tell but also in their
sense of what motivates these
particular
characters,
what concrete
problems they
need to
overcome,
and what circum
stances would allow them to achieve
greater intimacy.
Their
interpretations
must
necessarily
be confirmed and recon
firmed
by
references to
specific
moments
in the text.
Nevertheless,
their
descrip
tions of these characters and their
prob
lems still bear a
striking
resemblance to
the conventions of the "Ideal Romance"
which Janice
Radway
identified
through
her field work with the Smithton women.
Radway
characterizes romances as "exer
cises in the
imaginative
transformation of
masculinity
to conform with female stan
dards," describing
the
process by
which
men and women overcome
gender
differ
ences in levels of
intimacy
and communi
cativeness to arrive at a
relationship
of
sharing
and
nurturing (Radway, Reading
147).
The woman needs to learn how to
read
past
the man's harsh and stoic exte
rior towards "evidence of his
hidden, gen
tle nature"
(139).
The fans' Vincent is torn
between his
gentleness
and his realization
of a
darker,
bestial side which he fears will
forever block his chances of romantic ful
fillment.
Only by resolving
this contradic
tion within his nature can Vincent
hope
for
happiness
with Catherine.
Moreover,
Radway suggests,
the ideal ro
mance deals with "the female
push
towards individuation and actualization of
self,"
the female
push
for
autonomy
and
personal identity
within terms which are
nevertheless
compatible
with the desire to
reaffirm heterosexual
marriage {Reading
147).
The fans' Catherine is such a
figure
who must reconcile her desires for
profes
sional
autonomy
and for romantic affec
tion,
who must decide what course will
best
provide
her the
"happy
life" she
seeks. These characters function within
fan discourse
simultaneously
as rounded
and individuated characters whose moti
vations must be
explained through
refer
ence to
program history
and as narrative
types
whose future actions can be
pre
dieted,
at least in
part, according
to
ge
neric formula.
It is
important
to note that few of the
members of the Boston
Beauty
and the
Beast club
regarded
themselves as
regular
readers of
popular
romances or
regular
viewers of
soap operas, though
some ex
pressed
an interest in more classical works
that told romantic
stories,
such as Wuther
ing Heights
or Jane
Eyre,
and
many
listed
television series with romantic
subplots
(Remington Steele, Moonlighting,
Scare
crow and Mrs.
King,
and Dark
Shadows)
as
particular
favorites.
Indeed,
in discus
sions,
the women were often
openly
hos
tile to the conventions of the
popular
romance,
particularly
those which
they
saw as
undermining
the
autonomy
of the
female
protagonist,
what
they
described
as a shift from women who are
"very
tough
and
feisty"
at the book's
openings
into "Millie
Milquetoast
characters" as a
precondition
for their
winning
of the
man's love. Those fans who did "occa
sionally"
read romantic fiction were
quick
to assert that the conventions of that
genre
were
changing
in
response
to "feedback
from the female fans" and were
beginning
to reflect the
greater possibility
of femi
nine
authority
and
independence following
marriage.
Almost all
claimed, however,
that
Beauty
and the Beast was
offering
a
style
of romance which could not be
readily
found in other
popular
fiction.
To understand the
meanings
these women
placed
on the
romance,
it is useful to
consider their social status and
ideological
orientation. All of the women in the
group
worked outside of the
home,
some in
traditional female service
jobs (teachers,
nurses),
others within low-level or middle
management jobs. Many
of them were
married, though
some were
single.
Most
were in their
early
to
mid-thirties, though
several were older. Asked on the
ques
tionnaire,
all of the women identified
themselves as
feminists, though many
qualified
that label in some fashion:
"yes
and
no," "Yes,
but not strident about
it,"
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etc. It is a
group
which differs
sharply
from traditional
stereotypes
of bored
housewives
eagerly consuming popular
romances; rather,
these were women who
confronted the
contradictory expectations
surrounding femininity
in the late
1980s,
and who were
trying
to find
ways
to ac
tively pursue
careers without
rejecting
the
possibility
of some
type
of romantic com
mitment or without
losing aspects
of tra
ditional
femininity
that
they
saw as
plea
surable and attractive. If these women did
not feel
entirely
comfortable as
feminists,
despite
the
degree
to which their
profes
sional lives broke with traditional feminine
roles and the
degree
to which some of
them remained
entirely independent
of
men,
they
also did not feel comfortable
identifying
themselves as consumers of
popular
romances,
an
image
which
might
pull
them too
sharply
back within restric
tive notions of
femininity.
These re
sponses suggest
that the women had to
have some
way
of
reconciling
their
partic
ular
political
commitments and their own
lifestyles
with their desire for
romance,
pushing
towards some modification of ro
mantic conventions in order to
provide
for
a
greater
sense of feminine
power
and
authority.
Indeed,
their emotional commitment to
Catherine?a character who is torn be
tween
professional
ambitions and a desire
for a more
traditionally
feminine
lifestyle
or,
read
generically,
between action
adventure and romance
subplots?might
help
them to
explore
their own
ambiguous
relationship
to feminism. The characters
are
consistently
described in
ways
that
evoke a break with traditional
gender
roles,
while
simultaneously attaching
to
them the
pleasures
these women found in
preserving
and
accenting
traditional forms
of sexual difference.
Vincent can be sensitive without be
ing wimpy.
I think all women want a
sensitive man but there are some men
who have this sensitive side but then
they
lack a masculine side. I think
he's a
blending
of both sides that's the
most
perfect.
I find Catherine to be
tough,
resource
ful,
reliable. She can take care of
herself. But she's also allowed to
cry.
...
I see her more as a
person
than as a woman. She's not like cer
tain women on shows now who are
stereotypical
women's libbers.
They're tough?they
act like
men,
while Catherine is
strong yet very
feminine and I like that about her.
The
relationship
between characters was
seen, then,
as one which would
provide
each room to
explore
the full
range
of their
personalities,
to exercise both their
strengths
and their
vulnerability.
The
pro
gram, they hoped,
would
provide
a
type
of
romance that was relevant to an
age
of
changing gender roles,
a romance not
based on submission but rather on mutual
trust and commitment.
Vincent loves her?he loves
every
thing
about her and
accepts
her for
the
good
and the bad.
...
He
sup
ports
her whatever comes.
Vincent
taught
her to feel other
peo
ple's
needs and she's
just grown
so
much
[during
the
series]
and of
course,
she
gave
it back to him. She
let him know that he could be loved
just
the
way
he
was,
not out of
grati
tude for his
help
or out of
pity
be
cause he's
alone,
but
just
because
he's Vincent.
If the conventional
romance,
as critics like
Janice
Radway
or Tania Modleski have
suggested, represents
a male
protagonist
who will love the heroine above all others
but
only
on the condition that she submit
her desires and ambitions to his
will,
these
women saw
Beauty
and the Beast as of
fering
the
possibility
of a
type
of relation
ship
which reflected their commitment to
"the
power, strength,
and
autonomy
of
women" without
rejecting aspects
of tra
ditional
femininity
and
masculinity
that
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they
saw as desirable. Romantic
consum
mation, then,
did not entail
simply
the
fulfillment of the viewers' erotic
fantasies,
but rather
posed
an
ideological solution,
a
reconciliation of
differences,
the
possibil
ity
of trust and
intimacy
between two
people
who are so different and
yet
so
alike.
There is a confrontation and a resolu
tion that has to
happen.
It doesn't
have
anything
to do with
people going
to bed
together.
It has to do with
completeness.
It can be
touching.
It
can be
hugging.
It can even be
just
standing looking
at each other but the
completeness
needs to be there and
for Catherine and
Vincent, they
never
got
it. We
only get
a hint of it.
Such a
reading
of the
program helps
to
explain why
Catherine was a
particularly
pivotal figure
for these women. As Rad
way suggests,
the heroine becomes the
focus for feminine identification. If she
can
successfully negotiate through
these
conflicting demands,
then her
story
offers
hope
for the readers' own efforts to
repo
sition themselves
during
a
period
of social
change:
"I saw a lot of
myself
in her. The
character's
gone through
a lot of what I've
gone through."
The fans'
expectations
about the
likely development
of the series
were
very
much bound to their
hopes
for
the success of Catherine in
resolving
the
types
of dilemmas which
they
confronted
in their
personal lives, suggestive
of the
type
of "emotional realism" fans seek in
popular
television texts.8
One member of the Boston fan club de
scribed her sense of the
program's
overall
plot trajectory:
The first season saw the
characters
deciding
to
"pursue
a relation
ship together,"
a decision which is
reached
by
the season's conclusion
("A
Happy Life");
the second season should
have
"deepened"
their
relationship
work
ing
to resolve the differences which
sepa
rate
them, reaching
a crisis
point by
the
season's
three-part finale;
the third season
should have
begun
with their realization
"that
they belonged together"
and have
started to "moved towards some of their
dreams,
towards
maybe
some kind of life
together below,
some kind of
wedding
or
other
symbolic ceremony. Then,
at the
end, they
could have had Catherine ex
pecting
a
baby
or
having
a
baby
and have
it end
happily?play
the
thing through
from
beginning
to end."
Her
Beauty
and the Beast had
always
been
moving
towards a
happy ending
which would have resolved the difficulties
separating
the
couple,
would have re
vealed them to exist
largely
within the
characters'
minds,
and would have al
lowed them the "satisfaction" of a tradi
tional
family
life
together.
The other fans
offered similar visions of a desirable reso
lution for the series.
I would like to have seen
significant
progress
made in V & C's
relationship
throughout
the
season,
perhaps
re
sulting
in a
wedding
or some other
commitment vows or
ceremony by
the end of the season. But not without
a
few
obstacles to overcome
along
the
way
to make
things interesting.
Vin
cent
being
able to come to terms with
his dark
side,
which is essential if
their
relationship
is to
progress.
Catherine and Vincent would have
consummated their
love, married,
and had a child.
[The
series should end
with]
Cather
ine
moving
into the tunnels.
The
consistency
with which the fans re
turn to these same
images?marriage,
sex
ual
consummation,
birth?as a means of
resolving
this
"perfect
and
impossible
re
lationship" points
towards the
degree
to
which
they
were
relying upon familiarity
with
generic
conventions to
shape
their
experience
of the series.
The fans'
projections
about the series'
development closely
mirror
Radway's
ac
count of the "Ideal Romance" formula:
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1. The heroine's social
identity
is de
stroyed. [In
"Once
Upon
a Time
. .
.,"
Catherine is mistaken for another
woman and
disfigured;
Catherine
re
pudiates
her
previous engagement,
rejects
her
place
in her father's
firm,
and seeks
a new life for
herself.]
2. The heroine reacts
antagonistically
to an aristocratic male.
[In
"Once
Upon
a Time
. .
.,"
Catherine reacts
with fear and fascination
upon
her
first encounter with
Vincent.]
3. The aristocratic male
responds
am
biguously
to the heroine.
[Throughout
the
early part
of the first
season,
Vincent desires Catherine and
yet
he
sends her
away ;
Catherine fears Vin
cent in "A Terrible
Savior."]
. . .
7. The heroine and hero are
physi
cally
and/or
emotionally separated.
[In
"A
Happy Life,"
Catherine flees
to New
Jersey hoping
to resolve her
conflicting desires, planning
to end
her
relationship
with
Vincent.]
8. The hero treats the heroine ten
derly. [The
characters embrace at the
end of the first
season.]
9. The heroine
responds warmly
to
the hero's act of tenderness.
[Cather
ine comes to feel closer to Vincent as
the second season
begins.]
10. The heroine
reinterprets
the
hero's
ambiguous
behavior as the
product
of a
previous
hurt.
[The
sec
ond season offers several
episodes
exploring
Vincent's
past, including
a
story
of his first romantic
experi
ences;
the crisis which Vincent faces
in
reconciling
his
gentleness
and his
bestiality heightens throughout
the
season.] (Radway, Reading 134)
Having successfully mapped through
the
series each of these
expected
movements
within the romantic
narrative,
the fans
came to
anticipate
the final
completion
of
the formulaic
plot.
11. The hero
proposes/openly
de
clares his love for/demonstrates his
unwavering
commitment to the hero
ine with a
supreme
act of tenderness.
12. The heroine
responds sexually
and
emotionally.
13. The heroine's
identity
is restored.
So
grounded
have these
expectations
be
come in the fans'
interpretation
of textual
specifics,
in
meaningful
moments from the
episodes,
that
they
seem to
originate
not
from an outside
interpretive
formula but
rather from within the series itself.
Beauty
and the Beast
appears
to
promise
the
type
of romantic resolution that its
producers
had
consistently
denied: Vincent and
Catherine must consummate their rela
tionship
and thus
provide appropriate
clo
sure to this romantic narrative.
"Feel The
Fury"
As
Radway documents,
romance readers
often
flip
to the back of the book to
confirm that the
story's
resolution will
satisfy
their
generic expectations
before
they
invest the time and
money
in
reading
it.
"Dot,"
the book store
employee
who
advised women which books would best
satisfy
their
tastes,
directed the Smithton
readers
away
from stories that would frus
trate their desires and leave them unful
filled. The viewers of an
unfolding
televi
sion
series,
such as
Beauty
and the
Beast,
have no similar means of
verifying
that the
program
will
bring
its narrative to an
ap
propriate
resolution.
Instead,
the fans
were forced to
place
their trust in the
producers
to
provide
them with the
type
of
unfolding story they
wanted to watch. The
producers' persistent
refusal to
provide
the viewers with
precisely
those
plot
de
velopments (increased intimacy
between
Vincent and
Catherine,
Vincent's resolu
tion of his
personal
conflicts,
the achieve
ment of some
type
of stable romantic
commitment)
was
perceived
as a
betrayal
of
implicit promises
made to them
by
virtue of the
program's apparent
reliance
on the
generic
formulas of the romance.
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Many
of the members of the Boston club
expressed
distrust that even if Linda
Hamilton's
departure
had not forced the
producers
in other directions
they
would
have delivered on the commitments
they
made to fans: "It would have been a lot
more near misses.
They
never would have
given
us our romance."
Their intense
displeasure
in the third sea
son seems to have fed on several
years
of
disappointments
in the series' refusal to
gratify
their fantasies about the romantic
possibilities
between these two charac
ters,
a
history
of TV Guide blurbs
promis
ing
romantic interludes which
proved
more
teasing
than
gratifying,
of scenes
that
edged
towards romantic
commitment,
only
to be
interrupted
or to have the
characters back
away
from consumma
tion. For
many
of the
fans,
the
cryptic
and
hurried consummation
("lava flowing")
that
opens "Though
Lovers Be Lost.
.
.,"
the third season
premiere,
was a "ludi
crous
nightmare"
which denied the view
ers
precisely
the
types
of warmth and
intimacy they
had desired for this
couple.
That moment was
simply
the last in a
series of "insults" to their
hopes
and
expectations: "They
were
tremendously
electric scenes but afterwards
you just
felt
annoyed." Initially,
fans could find textual
explanations
for the
couple's inability
to
achieve romantic fulfillment
(the
divisive
influence of
Father,
Vincent's anxieties
and
fears,
Catherine's desires for autono
my). Yet,
these
explanations crumpled
in
the face of
progressively
more
"teasing"
and
exploitation, forcing
them to shift
their
anger
onto the
producers,
who for
whatever reason
(early
time
slot,
male
anxiety
about Catherine's
relationship
with a
"beast,"
network
interference)
would not deliver to the fans what the
series itself
appeared
to be
promising.
As fan culture
emerged,
as fanzine stories
began
to
appear, they
focused
increasingly
on the unfulfilled romantic
possibilities
of
the
material, representing ways
that Vin
cent and Catherine
might
overcome the
obstacles
blocking personal
fulfillment?
that
they might escape
from the tunnels to
enjoy
time
together,
that
they
could con
summate their
relationship,
that Vincent
and Catherine could become
parents,
liv
ing
in the "world below" and
raising
a
new
generation.9
The fanzine titles?Cas
cade
of Dreams,
A Promise
of Eternity,
Sonnets and
Roses,
Tunnels
of
Love,
A
Life
Without
Limits, Crystal Visions,
or
Faded Roses?evoke the most sentimen
tal
images
from the
program
world as a
basis for new narratives which fulfull
pre
cisely
those romantic fantasies
being
frus
trated
by
the aired
episodes.
By
the time the belated third season
ap
peared,
the fan
community
had
developed
a firm sense of how the romance between
Catherine and Vincent should be resolved.
Each saw its resolution in somewhat dif
ferent
images
and under different circum
stances.
Yet,
a consensus had evolved
within the fan
community
that the charac
ters must overcome the intense differ
ences which
separate
them and achieve
the
family happiness they
had for so
long
been denied. This meta-text allowed some
fans to
deny
the
"authenticity"
of the
third season
episodes, claiming
that
they
were not
part
of the series canon and
therefore not
binding
on fan
speculations.
I looked at it as a
separate
version of
possible reality
...
I don't choose to
believe this is
going
to be the
reality
for these characters. In
my mind,
they
are off
living happily
ever after
and I will continue to read stories and
write stories about them.
...
I don't
feel
emotionally depressed
about it
because I don't feel
any
ownership
of
the third season. I don't feel that
that's
really
what
happened
to the
characters.
For
others, however,
the televised
images
proved
too
vivid,
their closeness to these
characters too
strong
to allow them this
type
of distance from the broadcast
events: "What should have been a
joyous
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time for Catherine and Vincent has turned
into a terrible
nightmare
and I feel
trapped
in it with them"
(Freeman 3).
The
Beauty
and the Beast
they
had
watched and
supported
was
officially
dead;
its
producers
and the network had
killed
it, shifting
the
program's
focus
towards
generic
formulas that held no
compelling
interest for them.
I think
they
were
going
for the heroic
image,
not
realizing
that when we saw
Vincent,
we didn't
just
see the heroic
image.
We saw the romantic Vincent.
They
did their best to build the
per
fect heroic
image
which meant that
they
had to
provide
an
equally great
villain.
. . .
The
problem
is that to do
so
they
sacrificed the romantic side of
the
plot
and that did it. That act of
killing
Catherine made him the
great
est villain I've ever seen. Nonethe
less, they
had
given up
forever the
chance to
go
back and
bring
in the
romantic element of
Catherine,
which
is what
they
had that was so valuable
to
begin
with.
The fans felt no
"ownership"
of the third
season
episodes
because the
producers
had violated the
spirit
of what had drawn
these women to the text. Instead of the
possibility
of
greater intimacy
and ro
mance,
of a reconciliation of
differences,
the
long-delayed
consummation scene was
reduced to a succession of
quick
and cli
ched
images
of flowers
blooming
and lava
flowing.
So
cryptic
and
confusing
was the
sequence
that some fans have
jokingly
referred to Catherine's
baby
as the result
of "immaculate
conception."
Rather than
using
consummation as a means of achiev
ing greater
trust between the two
lovers,
of
resolving
the conflicts which
separated
them,
sexual intercourse broke the em
pathic
bond that
joined
them
;
Vincent lost
his
memory
not
only
of that moment but of
much that
transpired
between him and
Catherine.
For two
years,
we've waited for that
grand, passionate
kiss of our dreams
and what we
get
instead is mouth-to
mouth resuscitation and not much of
that!
. . .
The fact that Vincent never
once remembered that
anything
had
happened just
makes it worse. For
him,
subjectively speaking, nothing
did
happen.
And now that she's
dead,
nothing
can ever
happen
. . .
Why
did
the writers
deny
this
experience
to
Vincent and Catherine
(and
to
us)
when
they'll
never have the chance
again?! (DeLeon 3)
From that
moment,
the
program
assumed
the worst features
Radway's
readers iden
tified in the "failed romance":
Where the ideal romance
appears
to
be about the
inevitability
of the
deep
ening
of "true love" into an intense
conjugal commitment,
failed ro
mances take as their
principal subject
the
myriad problems
and difficulties
that must be overcome if mere sexual
attraction is not to deteriorate into
violence,
indifference or abandon
ment.
{Reading 162)
The series moved
relentlessly
to foreclose
any
possibility
of romantic fulfillment for
Vincent and
Catherine,
and in the
process,
took
away
much that the fans had found
endearing
about earlier
episodes.
Cather
ine is
brutally
tortured and
murdered;
Vin
cent
goes
on a
rampage seeking vengeance
for her
death,
his
gentleness completely
overpowered by
bestial
fury.
Scenes of
violence scarred the
special places
from
previous episodes
which had become so
saturated with
meaning
and emotions
through
the fans'
repeated re-readings
of
those scenes and which had become em
bedded within the fans' own
narratives;
beloved characters were revealed as trai
tors or killed.
The
producers sought
to
appease
fans
by
the introduction of a new female
protago
nist, Diana,
who
many suspected
was de
signed
to be a future lover for
Vincent,
a
development
which viewers felt would
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only
further undermine the
"specialness"
they
had seen in the Vincent-Catherine
romance.
Let's face
it,
we can't have the ro
mance
back,
because Vincent can
never love
anyone again
as he did
Catherine,
and to have him do so
would be to violate
everything
the
writers established about their rela
tionship
and thus would be unbeliev
able.
(Rious 16)
Moreover,
Diana's
strength
and
indepen
dence
pushed
too far
against
romantic
convention.
Many
fans felt she lacked
those
aspects
of traditional
femininity
that
had drawn them to
Catherine,
and there
fore,
she seemed less well suited to their
needs to work
through ideological prob
lems: "Diana can take care of herself. She
doesn't need to look to
anyone
for
help.
But I can't
picture
her on the
balcony
in a
silk
nightgown.
. . .
Catherine was all soft
and Diana is all
hard-edged."
Several of
the women
suggested
that
they
found Di
ana's character
interesting
and that it
might
become the focus of a
fascinating
series but Diana did not fit well within
their
expectations
for
Beauty
and the
Beast.
The tensions which had been
building
be
tween fans and
producers
for months
erupted publicly
with some fans
writing
angry
letters
demanding
its immediate
cancellation and
many breaking
all ties
with
Beauty
and the Beast fandom in the
controversy
which surrounded these de
velopments.
Letterzines and club newslet
ters overflowed with
painful expressions
of the fans'
responses
to the third season.
Many
reacted with relief when the series
was
finally pulled
from the air.
Yet,
it
would be a mistake to describe this trau
matic break between fans and
producers
as the end of
Beauty
and the Beast fan
dom. The characters had established a
coherence and
stability
within fan culture
even after the series itself had ceased
production.
Fans could now turn their
attention
entirely
to the creation and con
sumption
of "zine" narratives which more
perfectly
fulfilled their
generic expecta
tions and satisfied their desires for these
characters. The infrastructure established
during
the
long struggle
to
protect
the
series from cancellation now serves as the
basis for an autonomous fan
culture,
drawing
its characters from the aired
epi
sodes
yet taking
them in directions
totally
unimagined by
the
producers.
Conclusion
As we
began,
so we end?with fan frus
tration over the third season and with
questions
about the
complex
and unstable
relationship
that exists between
producers
and fans. Fans often
express
a kind of
worshipful
awe of
program creators,
an
awe that stems from their tremendous
fascination and enthusiasm for the charac
ters and situations offered them
by popu
lar media texts.
They
see themselves as
fiercely loyal
to the
integrity
of those
texts,
to the wealth of their
visions,
and
the coherence of their characterizations.
This attitude has
frequently
led outside
observers to see fans as
all-accepting
and
uncritical.
Yet,
as we have
seen,
what the
fans
support
is often not the text which the
media
industry produced
but rather the
text which
they
have created
through
their
collective discussions and
interpretations
of the aired material and their
speculations
about its
likely development.
Where the
aired
episodes
break with the fans' own
metatextual sense of the
series, they
are
harshly
criticized or
rejected altogether.
The fans' commitment to the
program,
the
consensus about its contents which
origi
nates from within their own
ranks,
forms
the basis for their assertion of a
right
to
"police" producer actions,
to
protect
the
show from
perceived
violation or
betrayal.
They
claim the
authority
to
speak
for the
characters,
a claim which often sets them
on a collision course with the
program
producers
who reserve the
right
to re
shape
the series in
response
to
changing
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ratings
and
shifting pressures
from the
networks.
The fans'
reading
of
Beauty
and the Beast
as a romance does not
represent
a
pro
found break with the conventions of
pop
ular culture or even of this
particular pro
gram.
The formulas
they
use in
interpreting
the
episodes,
if
they
do not
originate
within
Beauty
and the
Beast,
certainly gain
their attractiveness
through
their
reproduction
elsewhere within the
mass media. The fans' own
reworking
of
those
conventions,
while
substantial, rep
resents little more than a local reform or
inflection of
ideologies already
in much
broader circulation. The fans were
initially
drawn to
Beauty
and the Beast rather than
other broadcast
programming precisely
because
they
felt a
compatibility
between
its world view and their
own,
because it
seemed to
speak
of values which
they
shared and attitudes that
they
wanted to
see
publicly
articulated. This closeness
between
fan, text,
and
producer,
how
ever,
proved remarkably
short-lived. Hav
ing
"embraced" the
program
as a focus
for their own subcultural
activity,
fans
remained
sharply
critical of
aspects
of the
series content that violated their sense of
the characters and the fictional world
they
inhabited.
At a certain
point, then,
when the
produc
ers
finally
and
irrevocably
denied the
plea
sure which the fans
sought
from the
series,
their frustration
overpowered
their fasci
nation. The fans were
brought
to the
pain
ful realization that their interests in the
series were
fundamentally incompatible
with those of the
producers
and that no
possible
reconciliation of the two could be
achieved. Even
starting
from a
position
that is
relatively
mainstream within Amer
ican
political thought
and that is in
sym
pathy
with this
particular program,
the
fans found themselves at odds with the
textual
producers
and were
brought
to a
recognition
of the limited
power they
can
exercise within the dominant cultural
economy.
Rather than
rejecting Beauty
and the
Beast
entirely, however,
the fans
"poached"
its
materials, appropriated
its
cultural resources for their own
use,
and
allowed the characters a life
independent
from that
provided by
the aired
episodes.
The characters seemed too vivid an
expression
of their desires to be
simply
discarded. The texts the fans
produce
still
necessarily
bear traces of the
ideology
that
structured the
original text,
still bear re
semblences to the characters and situa
tions that drew them to this
particular
program,
but
they
have been inflected
through
the fans' own
ideological
beliefs
and
reshaped
to
respond
to their own
desires and interests. The text
must,
in the
end,
be remade before it can become
entirely
theirs.
Acknowledgment
This
essay
is extracted from the
forthcoming
book,
Textual Poachers: Television Fans and
Participatory
Cut
lure, by
the kind
permission
of
Routledge.
Notes
1
For a useful discussion of the role of audi
ence researchers in
constituting
the
audience,
see
Radway.
2
There
are,
for
example,
several members of
the Boston
group
who
prefer
the third season to
the other two and who are often
highly
critical
of the construction of Catherine's character
within the first two season's
episodes.
These
fans reflect
larger
sentiments within the fan
community, although
third season
supporters
are outnumbered
by
critics. It should not be
assumed, then,
that the account of fan
response
to the
program
offered here reflects absolute
conformity
within
Beauty
and the Beast fandom
so much as
general
tendencies within the
group.
3
This
approach responds
to movements
within feminist
ethnography
to
recognize
the
importance
and value of "situated
knowledge"
and to alter the
power
relations between the
ethnographer
and the
community. See,
for ex
ample, Clifford,
Clifford and
Marcus,
Marcus
and
Fischer, Moore, Strathern, McRobbie,
and
Roberts.
108 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 43.1-2
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4
These
aspects
of fandom are discussed
more
fully
in
Jenkins,
Textual Poachers.
5
For a detailed discussion of the
ways pro
duction
design
and visual
style
reflects these
different
generic traditions,
see Battaile.
6
See,
for
example,
"Terrible
Savior,"
"Siege,"
"Now
Way Down,"
"Beast
Within,"
"Dark
Spirit,"
"A Children's
Story," "Temp
tation,"
and
"Everything
is
Everything,"
to
cite
only
first season
episodes
which focus
primarily
on Catherine's confrontation of
above-ground problems.
7
See,
for
example, "Song
of
Orpheus,"
"The
Alchemist,"
"To
Reign
in
Hell,"
"China
Moon,"
"Chamber
Music,"
"God Bless the
Child,"
"Dead of
Winter," "Masques,"
"Fe
ver,"
"Ashes
. . .
Ashes,"
"A Gentle
Rain,"
and
"Ozymandius,"
for
episodes
that focus
heavily
on the tunnel world as an
underground
Utopia.
For a useful discussion of the older and
broader tradition of the
underground Utopia,
see Williams.
8
The
term,
"emotional
realism,"
is derived
from
Ang;
its
relationship
to fan
reading prac
tices is discussed more
fully
in
Jenkins,
Textual
Poachers.
9
For a fuller discussion of fanzine
writing
as
fan cultural
practice,
see
Jenkins,
"Star Trek."
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