two fannish observations

[lolaraincoat]

I only see TV on DVD or at the gym, so anyone interested is, no doubt, way ahead of me on this, but, well, anyway: tonight the TV at the gym was playing something called Dancing with the Stars, and one of the Stars who was, apparently, signed up for a Dancing competition was Joey Fantone from NSYNC. I only know him from an icon cathexys uses, but I recognized him. He was great! He was goofy and funny! And he seemed as straight as a man dancing on television can be, alas, but then isn't he the one that doesn't get slashed so much?

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And then on the way home Fishwhistle was telling me about an article he'd read for his class on tonality, a formal analysis of certain Grateful Dead jams -- yes, yes, we don't need to mock because it pretty much mocks itself, doesn't it? -- and anyway Fishwhistle described the article as "etic." What does that mean? I asked him. It is, he revealed to me, the opposite of "emic." That is, when musicologists analyze only the formal aspects of music, in terms comprehensible to musicologists but not necessarily to the people who make or listen to the music normally, that is an etic analysis. But when musicologists try to convey something of the experiences and understandings of the people who make the music, or the fans of the music, that is an emic analysis.

So, two questions: Do people engaging in fan studies make this distinction between etic and emic? And if not, would it be useful to fan studies?

Comments

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

I like that emic/etic distinction. I want to think about it some more, but I think it has some very useful applications. And I don't think there is anything particularly mockable about analyzing the Grateful Dead (as the fan calls the kettle black). They are/were highly skilled musicians who had been playing together for decades and were really inside each others' heads, and because of their active encouragement of fannish taping, there is a huge repetoire available for analysis. Dead shows were actually extremely structured, and I've always understood them as ritual more than entertainment. Joseph Campbell tells us that religious ceremonies are re-enactments of central myths (duh, because he's still really a Catholic); a Dead show is a ceremony that re-enacts an acid trip. If they didn't have an underlying formal structure, they wouldn't be nearly so effective.

I tuned into Dancing with the Stars last night for Ian Ziering, being a long time 90210 fan myself. One of the things I find fascinating about that show is the way it showcases the differences in how the genders are trained for performing careers. Nearly all the women have had some type of dance instruction, at least as children, but most of the men are total neophytes with no theory even to get them started. The athletes often have the most difficulty of all, because they don't want to let loose. My favorite season of that show was the one when John O'Hurley (J. Peterman from Seinfeld) went up to the finals. He was charming, funny, and a good dancer.

So now I am trying to imagine Phil Lesh on Dancing with the Stars. In a purely emic way, of course.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

It's also indicative of a change in popular entertainment patterns--at one time, *everybody* knew at least basic partner dancing, and dancing was not only a central courtship ritual but an important part of socializing among married couples. So if there somehow were an equivalent of Dancing With the Stars in, say, 1930, being able to not only perform but lead common social dances was an expected part of being an adolescent or adult male.