Black Mirror is science fiction. Les Revenants is horror. Both shows are very different from one another. Yet both of them are 'cult'. Cult media is something that provokes a fervent response in an audience. Cult audiences have an almost religious response to media products, and may do specific things with the products. Cult audiences are fans. This is basically another word for fandom. But how do TV shows (and films) encourage a cult following?
- Cult TV 'speaks to' and positions a niche or marginalised audience
- Cult TV uses hermeneutics to drive narratives, which keeps audiences asking questions (often to other audience members)
- Cult TV uses complex narratives, that encourages watching and more importantly re-watching episodes to get the most out of it
Analysing fan trailers of 90s cult television
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| This is what fake teenagers looked like in the 90s |
The following analyses use fan trailers to give you a brief rundown of the show and its content. However, the fact that fan trailers for all of these shows are so easy to find is a great example of fandom, and active audiences engaging with shows that actively encourage such engagement!
Task: watch each of these trailers, and then comment on the following:
- How does this show position a niche or even marginalised audience?
- How does this show use hermeneutic codes to engage it’s audiences?
- How does this show encourage audiences to re-watch the show, and to engage with other audience members?
The X Files
Twin Peaks
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Conclusions
While there had been cult shows before (Star Trek and The Twilight Zone, for example), targeting niche and participatory audiences was rare until the onslaught of cult TV in the 1990s. What is fascinating about the shows above is that their target audience is NOT 'just anyone watching TV', but nerds, geeks and outcasts. Once TV producers discovered it was profitable to target cult audiences, the momentum never stopped, and now the highest grossing films of all time explicitly target participatory audiences of comic book fans.
Far from being totally original, both Black Mirror and Les Revenants pay significant debt to a range of cult TV shows from The Twilight Zone to Twin Peaks. Targeting a niche yet highly involved target audience can be highly lucrative, and all the shows listed above have been massive successes, both financially, but also culturally.