Cult Media

The Cult The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975) Cult Media

The Cult Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977) Cult Media

The Cult Liquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, 1982) Cult Media

The Cult Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) Cult Media

The Cult LIVING TEXTUALITY. The authentic cult work, Eco observes, must seem like "living textuality," as if it had no authors, as postmodernist proof that "as literature comes from literature, cinema comes from cinema" (199). Cult Media Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage." Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986:

The Cult A COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD. Another closely related prerequisite of The Cult, Eco observes, is its capacity to "provide a completely furnished world so that its fans can quote characters and episodes as if they were aspects of the fan's private sectarian world, a world about which one can make up quizzes and play trivia games so that the adepts of the secret recognize through each other a shared experience" (198). Cult Media Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage." Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986:

The Cult A COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD. Cult Media Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage." Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986:

The Cult A COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD. Cult Media Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage." Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986:

The Cult A COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD. Cult Media

The Cult DETACHABILITY. The cult work, according to Eco, must also be susceptible to breaking, dislocation, unhinging, "so that one can remember only parts of it, irrespective of their original relationship with the whole." The cult viewer watching these moments--indeed watching for such moments—may let out an audible "I love this." Cult Media Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage." Travels in Hyper Reality. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1986:

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  What is the connection between “cult” and quality? Is a “bad” film or TV series more likely to become a cult work? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Can a cult work be consciously created or must it be discovered? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Do certain actors/actresses inspire “cultishness”? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  What is the relationship of camp and cult-ivation? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  What are the specific relations between genre hybridity/genre bending and cult status? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Does box office failure enhance culthood? Can a blockbuster/ratings hit acquire cult status? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Why is the fantastic, “left of real” (J. J. Abrams’ term), such a fertile ground for cult status? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Is it possible for a movie or television show to gain cult status largely through nostalgia? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Are “B.Y.O subtext” works (Joss Whedon’s phrase) ipso facto cultish? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  What role do intertextuality, metaxtextuality play in the growth of cult work? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Are cult works always counter-cultural? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Are cult works always counter-cultural? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Why is the cult “notoriously slippery” (Steven Peacock) to pin down? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Why do “Cult television’s imaginary universes support an inexhaustible range of narrative possibilities, inviting, supporting and rewarding close textual analysis, interpretation, and inventive reformulations”? (Jones and Pearson) Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  How is it that cult tv has evolved into “a meta-genre that caters to intense, interpretive audience practices,” affording “fans enormous scope for further interpretation, speculation and invention” (Jones and Pearson). Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Why has cult television come to be distinguished by its “hyperdiegesis”: ”the creation of a vast and detailed narrative space, only a fraction of which is ever directly seen or encountered within the text...” (Matt Hills, Fan Cultures 137) Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Should we follow Matt Hills’ advice that, instead of “celebrating cult texts for their supposed uniqueness,” we should focus on “analyzing and defining cult TV as a part of broader patterns within changing TV industries” (“Defining Cult TV” 522). Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  What obligation do the makers of cult series have to answer the clamor of fans for more involvement? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Does the presence of a star with cult street cred or a cult of personality guarantee cult status? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Does cult television exhibit a unique approach to character investment? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Is it still true that your standard issue television cult work, in keeping with the tradition, “represents a disruptive rather than a conservative force” (Kawin)? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  How does cult television differ—in subject matter, audience, marketing, narrative—from cult film? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  How will the emergence of multiple platforms for television programming change the nature of cult television? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Are there narrative forms unique to cult television, and if they exist, how have they influenced all of series television? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  What is the place of the “conspiracy theory” in fostering/sustaining cult TV? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  Are the traditional youth demographics of cult television changing? Cult Media

The Cult: Some Preliminary Notes & Queries  To what degree has cult television created “transnational” languages and viewing practices and furthered globalization? Cult Media