ABSTRACT
In Richard Linklater’s recent film Boyhood, the director’s daughter plays a “tweenage”
girl character called Samantha. Like many children she shares a bedroom with her
younger brother. In an early scene, Samantha performs a song and dance routine that
apes Britney Spears’s 1998 debut smash “ . . . Baby One More Time.” The scene is
everyday, not like something from a musical. There is no audible music or implication
of fantasy. Instead, Samantha’s dance routine is deliberately performed to annoy her
younger brother and to show that she is not really listening to him. Although
Samantha is a fictional character, viewers can easily deduce that she is a Britney fan.
No ordinary person would be committed enough to practice the dance routine over
and over and repeat the song’s words without being passionately committed. Fans are,
of course, human beings and, as everyone knows, we do things. So what does it mean
to be a practicing fan? The term implies some kind of activity, rehearsal, art or craft,
competency-the fan as practitioner.
