Cult Mag

cult mag.

Issue n째 4 - April 2011

The cult of

TV Series

Latest news from Holliwood | Empathic engagement in fiction | Interview w/ a fan

How can we feel affection for a fiction character, enough to cry for its disgraces? Which are the inside mechanisms of TV series that push millions of audience’s members to organize their schedules only not to lose the weekly episode of their favorite show? Why some audience’s members not only watch the episodes aired in their country but also keep up with the American schedule? And what urge them into joining more or less istitutionalized fan groups?

In this special issue of CULT MAG dedicated to Tv Series’ fandom, we will try to answers these questions! Keep on reading!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 04

News

Mad Men renewed!

Gleeks rejoice, upcoming tour Which show will you erase?

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Features

Being moved by fiction

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Extra

Me, the fan

About Chief Editor: Sabrina Trevisan Editors: John Smith, Mick Jagger Contributors: Jenna Mullins, Gina Serpes, Katja Mellmann Contact: Editions@cultmag.com Designed by: Sabrina Trevisan

News

CHEERS, MAD MEN FANS! AFTER SOME BACK AND FORTH AND LOTS OF DRAMA INVOLVING SHOWRUNNER MATT WEINER, AMC AND LIONSGATE HAVE ANNOUNCED THAT MAD MEN HAS BEEN RENEWED FOR A FIFTH AND SIXTH SEASON. AND YES, WEINER WILL STAY ON AS SHOW RUNNER. AND IF THE CHIPS FALL IN THEIR PROPER PLACE, MAD MEN MIGHT BE SEEING A SEVENTH SEASON AS WELL‌ Find out wath's new!

Fall is usually Mad Men season, but not this year. "Story Matters Here" network AMC has released a statement confirming that its marquee series will return as it has "officially authorized production of season five of Mad Men, triggering our option with Lionsgate. While we are getting a later start than in years past due to ongoing, key non-cast

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negotiations, Mad Men will be back for a fifth season in early 2012." What was the holdup? According to Deadline, show runner Matt Weiner wants $30 million for two years, without having to sacrifice two minutes of the show, two castmembers or to allow more paid product placement.

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News

New Season Premiers August 16 Sunday 10pm | 9c

ar

tnershi

p with

and Lionsgate for agreeing to support the artistic freedom of myself, the cast and the crew so that we can continue to make the show exactly as we have from the beginning."

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AMC; Matthew Imaging/Getty Images

And if the chips fall in their proper place, Mad Men might be seeing a seventh season as well‌ Weiner says in a statement: "I want to thank all of our wonderful fans for their support. I also want to thank AMC

Jenna Mullins from E! Online

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News

Fox; Getty Images

GLEEKS REJOICE! WE KNOW WHAT MR. SCHUE'S DOING ON SUMMER VACATION Up coming solo tour!

Not many students want to spend their summer with a teacher. But we're pretty sure the coeds will make an exception in Matthew Morrison's case. Glee's resident hottie teacher chatted with E! News' Ryan Seacrest this morning, and

revealed that he will launch his first solo tour this summer. "I'm still in Glee mode right now," Morrison said. "We'll be done the beginning of May, and then we'll go right into rehearsals." The musical trek, which kicks off June 18 in Minneapolis and

wraps up July 23 in Los Angeles, will evoke a "'40s and '50s New York feel," and per Morrison, will aim for a "sexy, really moody vibe. "All told, 20 cities will be blessed with Matt's presence, and perhaps that of one of his uber famous collaborators. Both Elton John and Gwyneth Paltrow feature on his solo album, and fans shouldn't be surprised if one or both of them start turning up on the road. "We're talking about it, it's just gonna be if our schedules match up.

Elton's really interested and Gwyneth's interested as well. "As for his opening act? Glee clubs around the country can compete for the chance to appear onstage. Pretty cool.

Presales for all dates starts April 4!

Gina Serpes from E! Online

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News WHICH SHOWS WILL YOU BE ERASING FOR GOOD? Give us your opinion!

TV can be such a fickle beast. One moment you're laughing and crying along with your favorite show, and the next week you are throwing your phone at the screen in utter frustration.

After you tweet to the world that the show jumped the shark, of course. We are savvy to your disgust and outrage toward certain shows, because hey, we read the comments and the Twitter posts and whatnot. So, it's a fair question to ask: Which show will you be deleting from your DVR after this season? What shows have been on your DVR for awhile that

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you are absolutely done with after this season? We've rounded up a list of the most-complainedabout series based on Twitter yelling and other feedback we've read. Give us your opinion writing a mail to poll@cultmag.com.

Next month, we'll post the biggest sharkjumpers and the best arguments from you guys. Let the venting commence!

Chuck 90210 CSI Bones Dexter Glee Gossip Girl House Mad Men True Blood Jenna Mullins from E! Online

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Features BEING MOVED BY FICTION AND MEDIA? NOTES ON FICTIONAL WORLDS, VIRTUAL CONTACTS AND THE REALITY OF EMOTIONS Why we cry watching a Tv series? The neuropsychologist Katja Mellmann tells us everything!

Traditionally, it is thought that emotions for objects logically presuppose beliefs in the existence of such objects. But why then do novels move us,

though we know that these people who laugh and cry there are nothing but pure inventions? It is just a very complex phenomenon which—as ordinary

ABC; Getty Images

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and familiar it may seem to our intuition—is unfortunately hard to observe and to describe systematically. But why do our hairs stand on end if a tough guy in a photo or on the screen shakes a fist and swears revenge? Why the well known "lump in your throat" if two persons lift their arms to embrace each other for ever, after all the longing and craving of two hours?

We do not only recognize the action, but we also respond to it. Film theorists agree today that we respond to the fictional personae on the movie screen

Features

with our common everyday social emotions, with sympathy, pity, horror and fright; at least we do within the visual medium of film. We do not deceive ourselves about the factuality of these persons. We know that these characters are merely fictional, and this knowledge is always latently there in our brains and can be more or less highlighted, depending on the quality and intensity of the emotion. But our first sentimental response to the fictional characters happens

behavior in a sitcom stimulates giggling, and we choke up at the self-sacrifice of a hero. This is presumably due to the facial display function of laughing and crying. Those important social functions are deeply anchored in our ABC; Getty Images genetic program by biological evolution. spontaneously. It They even work obviously comes through simple from an innate "contagion": If the psychological persons on stage mechanism.We can laugh with humor, we mask it somewhat participate with other actions, involuntarily, as we but we cannot avoid laugh when it stepping completely. Film theorists agree today that into a room We do feel we respond to where the impulse the fictional someone to cry after personae on the all, whether movie screen with has just made a we really our common joke, though will or not. everyday social we have not Our specific emotions. been there emotional to listen to it. responses are Comparably, if one relatively quick, too. child in a little The impulse to laugh children's group starts or to cry is often hard crying, all others start to repress. The dense crying, too. Adults, succession of jokes seeing a weeping or embarrassing

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Features face on the screen that shows serious grief and despair, when they are not able to help the woman, but must sit and wait through the scene as it is, feel the same impulse to just cry and weep with her, regardless of her reasons. We cannot avoid by consciousness alone the power of our limbic system, the principal domain of our emotional responses. We can only stand up and

leave—if we decide for instance that this film is much too cheap for our taste—, turn off the television and no longer expose ourselves to the stimulus. In that socalled "age of sensibility," another kind of emotional influence on the reader developed, this time mainly in the domain of narrative literature. Characterrelated effects of identification are not quite the same as

ABC; Getty Images

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simple immersion.

Immersion is a transitory state in art reception, brought about by what I would like to call the "habituating vacuum." Normally, we remove anything that could disturb our concentration on the aesthetic stimulus.

We need not pay attention to the world around a book or a movie screen. We are still latently aware of our situation, but as long as there do not occur any changes, we do not consciously process any information about the surrounding world.

This effect is cut off immediately, though, if we hear a key in the lock of our door while we are reading, or if within a cinema audience someone suddenly cries "Fire!"

Selection of stimulus recognition works more strictly as long

Features as we are involved with fiction. That is why, during the act of reading, we may not hear a dog barking; or maybe we hear it, but we do not listen to it.

Identification instead is not based on the habituating vacuum alone, and it is less transitory. Though character reading. We can identification may think of him while occur together with doing the dishes, strong immersion, it imagine other initiates a sort of situations with acquaintanc him than the We do not e, or even book has told forget that the us, or even friendship, character is with the long for his merely fictional, company. respective but we then character.

The examples know him, as We do not of a variety of we would know emotional forget that a real person. he is merely involvement fictional, but with "unreal" we then know him, worlds given in this as we would know a essay should illustrate real person. That is, why our emotional we will keep him in responsiveness is not mind for some time, strictly tied to our also while we are conviction that these doing other things in occurrences are of our lives than any pragmatic

FOX; Getty Images

relevance to us.

Works of art, games and other leisure entertainments do move us as thoughts can, as old memories may annoy us or fill us with shame; as dreams sometimes can agonize us even after we get up. The content of such experiences may refer to unreal scenarios or situations that are not ours, yet the feeling we have is empirically real.

Katja Mellmann Institut f端r deutsche Philologie Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversity

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Extra FAN DAILY PRACTICES! FANDOM IS A PARTICIPATIVE CULTURE WHICH TRANSFORMS THE CONSUMPTION OF TV SERIES IN RECREATIONAL, IMMERSIVE AND PERFORMATIVE PRACTICES. FAN’S PRODUCTIONS TAKE BIRTH FROM THE ADAPTABILITY OF THE SHARED PATRIMONY, COMPLETELY FAMILIAR BETWEEN THE MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY. HERE WE HAVE THE STORY OF MARY, A 23 YEARS OLD PROFESSIONIST OF CHILDCARE FROM LOUSIANA.

Q: A:

Why do you love watching series?

You know, I think it's a great way to escape from everyday routine. I know it’s not real life or real world, but it's a mini-world I got accustomed to. I somehow get attached to the characters, I'm curious to know how the plot will develop, and I always look forward to see the next episode. Maybe the reason why I love so much watching Tv

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series is that they give me a chance to distract myself from my troubles, my life or my duties and entering in a fictional world I learned to know.

When do you start watching series?

It was 16 and I got really interested in OC, the Orange County. I had already watched some series before, such as Dawson Creek, but they never captured my

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Extra

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attention.

How many Tv Series are you watching in this period?

I think 5 or something.

Wow! It’s not confusing watching multiple series?

It's not confusing at all! as soon as you push play, you

recognize the characters, the locations, the world and the story that each series tells.

And what kind of series are the ones you’re following?

I love teendrama, romantic and

musical series.

When do you usually watch them?

If I'm busy, I watch series before going to bed. Otherwise I watch them as soon as I get the chance to, with no particular plan.

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Extra Which series evolved you the most?

Ah, It’s definitely How I Met Your Mother! I think it's genius, I love how the way the characters behave, how the story is told, the jokes, and the flash backs and flash forward. But also one of my favorites is Glee. I know that it seems the usual series about American teenager, but I really think there's something fresh in it.

The fact that there's a time to tell the story and a time to sing is something that we weren't used to see in a Tv series.

Furthermore it is such a mirror for the whole American pop culture, which I love!

What’s the craziest thing you have done not to loose an episode?

Ah! This is interesting!

Actually, it was last new year’s eve. I switch up my laptop at 1 o’clock in the

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behavior. Finally they morning, while all belong to a everyone else in the fictional world that I house was can switch on and celebrating, in order off, but that I feel not to miss the latest somehow to be a episode! part of.

What has been the most So, who’s your favorite shocking turning point in character? the series you are It’s definitely Barney watching lately?

Stinson, the Let me think..Maybe character of How I in Vampire Diaries, as Met Your we recently Tv series give Mother that found out that makes fall the biological me the down at his parents of the chance to feet all the main forget my women he character troubles and wants and aren't what duties who’s always we thought, suit to death! but two evil Did you ever dream vampires that seem about a topic or some to have no feeling for characters of Tv series? her! This fact twists I often dream of the whole story. characters of the Do you feel affection for series I watch. When I characters? dream about them, Sure, for all the they're not in their characters of the "habitat" anymore, series I love! You but they become a know, I think it's real person, who I normal to "hate," know very well and "love" or "understand" that is important to a character as long me! A few nights as you learn to know ago, for example, I him, its feeling and its

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Extra dreamed one of the characters of Glee shopping with me, like I knew him since I was a little girl!

Do you watch series with friend or alone?

I only watch tv series alone. There must be silence, and I have to feel free to react anyway I want without feeling observed! But I like to discuss about Tv series with all of my friends! Of course not all of them like the same series I do, but every series I watch was recommended by a friend of mine.

Its funny, sometimes it seems like we're talking about people we know! You know, me and my university mates write this list of what we like the most of the Glee episode every week!

Do you also discuss about them in forums on the internet?

No, I would feel like wasting my time with

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people I don't know, talking about things that don't actually exist.

How works a typical Tv series-evening?

After a hard day, I like to have some rest after the family dinner, so I put my pijama on, and start to watch as many episodes as I can! Of course of the same series...

What your friends and family think about your consummation of Tv Series?

Ah! They think I spend too much time watching too many series that are naive

and senseless. Maybe they're right, but after all I don’t care, it's just a way to relax.

Do you think you are a Series addict?

I watch many series at the same time and I spend a lot of time discussing about them with my friends.

Moreover, I feel real affection for the characters, and I feel like knowing them!

Every time I watch a series, I feel somehow like I'm a part of it. So yes, I think I could be considered as a series addict!

Interview by Sabrina Trevisan

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