4.4 Moving from “Pilgrimage” to Heimat
Fans in my sample cultivate the celebrity image as a place of comfort, enjoyment, and solace. This “being at home” with the celebrity image is something Sandvoss refers to as fandom as a homeland or Heimat or what Aden calls a “promised land” (1999). The conjuring of the notion of a promised land, for Aden, stems from the importance of place in fandom, yet Aden still refers to this place as one of spiritual significance, but replaces religious language with the notion of place (see Aden 1999, quoted in Sandvoss 2005, 60, 61, 63). Sandvoss, on the other hand, conceives of fandom as Heimat:
In this sense, I believe, fandom best compares to the emotional significance of the places we have grown to call …show more content…
I favour Heimat over promised land because promised land conceives of fandom as an idealized destination, rather than the more varied implications of Heimat or homeland, suggesting a place of retreat and enjoyment, but still real and imperfect. This retreat is intertwined, but never seamlessly, into broader narratives inherent in the celebrity figure, ones that speak to the individualized concerns of a given fan base. Consider this comment from, Mike, a Johnny Cash fan, and his insight into what Cash represents for him, personally, as well as the fan base as whole:
Amazingly, he reflects Americana. If you think of his past and battles with drugs right up until the 80s and 90s, America has this image of Johnny Cash that they believe and want him to be. And he provides that lone, powerful figure image, like Kristofferson referred to him as the father of our country. He provides that image people want to see and his voice resonates and has meaning. It had substance. And really, if you think about it, there are only a few singers that have been able to …show more content…
He is an atypical fan, and is representative of these types of fans fandom-as-religion scholars, such as Doss, focus on. Yet, Henry, as an admitted Johnny Cash fan, still tells us something important the material culture of his fandom. The silver cross delivered to him, by Cash, represents his most treasured object in his collection, but the narrative behind the object is even more insightful and compelling into the nature of Henry’s fan experience, and speaks to the “context bound” (Corrigan 2004) nature of how and what Henry collects . When fandom-as-religion scholars focus on fan practice and process they miss these individualized reasons behind why objects are important to fans and maintain a centrality in their life as well as the multi-dimensional aspect and life of these objects (see McDannell 1995; Morgan 2010). My point is that fandom is complex and the way Fandom-as-Religion literature presents it betrays this complexity and the autonomy of each fan to construct their own narrative. Fans have far more agency than for which scholars of fandom-as-religion give them credit. Fandom-as-religion portrays fans as homogenous, obsessive, and fanatic, players in the construction of the celebrity as a religious figure, and their normative fan emotion, sentiment, and action, as religious in nature. While I can write,
Fans in my sample cultivate the celebrity image as a place of comfort, enjoyment, and solace. This “being at home” with the celebrity image is something Sandvoss refers to as fandom as a homeland or Heimat or what Aden calls a “promised land” (1999). The conjuring of the notion of a promised land, for Aden, stems from the importance of place in fandom, yet Aden still refers to this place as one of spiritual significance, but replaces religious language with the notion of place (see Aden 1999, quoted in Sandvoss 2005, 60, 61, 63). Sandvoss, on the other hand, conceives of fandom as Heimat:
In this sense, I believe, fandom best compares to the emotional significance of the places we have grown to call …show more content…
I favour Heimat over promised land because promised land conceives of fandom as an idealized destination, rather than the more varied implications of Heimat or homeland, suggesting a place of retreat and enjoyment, but still real and imperfect. This retreat is intertwined, but never seamlessly, into broader narratives inherent in the celebrity figure, ones that speak to the individualized concerns of a given fan base. Consider this comment from, Mike, a Johnny Cash fan, and his insight into what Cash represents for him, personally, as well as the fan base as whole:
Amazingly, he reflects Americana. If you think of his past and battles with drugs right up until the 80s and 90s, America has this image of Johnny Cash that they believe and want him to be. And he provides that lone, powerful figure image, like Kristofferson referred to him as the father of our country. He provides that image people want to see and his voice resonates and has meaning. It had substance. And really, if you think about it, there are only a few singers that have been able to …show more content…
He is an atypical fan, and is representative of these types of fans fandom-as-religion scholars, such as Doss, focus on. Yet, Henry, as an admitted Johnny Cash fan, still tells us something important the material culture of his fandom. The silver cross delivered to him, by Cash, represents his most treasured object in his collection, but the narrative behind the object is even more insightful and compelling into the nature of Henry’s fan experience, and speaks to the “context bound” (Corrigan 2004) nature of how and what Henry collects . When fandom-as-religion scholars focus on fan practice and process they miss these individualized reasons behind why objects are important to fans and maintain a centrality in their life as well as the multi-dimensional aspect and life of these objects (see McDannell 1995; Morgan 2010). My point is that fandom is complex and the way Fandom-as-Religion literature presents it betrays this complexity and the autonomy of each fan to construct their own narrative. Fans have far more agency than for which scholars of fandom-as-religion give them credit. Fandom-as-religion portrays fans as homogenous, obsessive, and fanatic, players in the construction of the celebrity as a religious figure, and their normative fan emotion, sentiment, and action, as religious in nature. While I can write,