Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15176/vol55no101
Young Ladies, Music Connoisseurs and their Tastes: The Figure of the Fangirl as the Place of Articulation of Social Tastes
Petra Požgaj
Abstract
This article sets off with a number of discussions dedicated to the relationship between social differences and tastes, showing that these texts often rely on an uncritical reproduction of Bourdieu’s understanding of tastes as directly and unidirectionally determined by class as the privileged category of social analysis. I approach these discussions through the figure of the fangirl, which represents a rich intersection of contemporary discourses on popular culture and taste. In doing so, I rely on the paradigm of girlhood studies which approaches culture by introducing gender and age as significant categories of analysis. Tracing the process through which the figure of the fangirl is articulated in different historical contexts, I show that gender and age play a significant role in the discursive production of the opposition between high and popular, that is, different forms of popular culture. By analysing the discourse of Croatian and foreign music journalists, I conclude that the figure of the fangirl functions as a discursive embodiment of the notions associated with the deprivileged pole of the opposition between what is considered high or low in cultural terms. I point to the pathologization of this figure as a means and effect of the elision of its crucial role in the production of both the profit of the culture industry and the position of the authentic Subject of culture, which is represented by the critic.
Keywords
fangirls, popular culture, taste, girlhood studies
Hrčak ID:
202025
URI
Publication date:
21.6.2018.
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