ABSTRACT
Writing about the evolution of serious writing on the Western as a film genre, David Lusted notes that prior to the 1950s and 1960s audiences for popular cinema “consisted largely of those who did not write for publication about their experiences and pleasures” (Lusted 2003, 16). Those writing about popular cinema before this period were usually writing from a rather elitist position that was “in ignorance of the regular experience” of cinema-going (ibid.). Lusted argues that this situation was only able to change after postWorld War II developments that broadened access to higher education for members of the lower social classes. This shift established “conditions in which fans of the Western might also become publishable critics of it” (ibid.). While popular music studies and cultural studies have undergone a different historical development, Lusted’s argument also provides an instructive starting point for assessing those academic fields. His writing reminds us that some people are more adequately positioned to reflect upon and articulate their experiences of fandom (or non-fandom) than others. As I will illustrate in this chapter, it is important for scholars to consider issues such as inequality of access because those issues can have a significant impact upon the kinds of fan-related activity that become the focus of academic accounts.
