ABSTRACT
Cult film has become an established part of academic analysis, often linked to a “subcultural ideology” of fan distinctions. This chapter considers the aca-fan case in more detail next, before addressing the fantrepreneur’s situation. It argues for the need to do more than read the careers of professionalised cult fans as simple success stories and “labours of love”. Scholar-fandom has typically been viewed as a useful melding of scholarly frameworks and fan knowledge, but such a stance has generally treated fandom and academia monolithically, validating aca-fan work. I. Q. Hunter’s attack on fan studies hinges on his discursive displacement of fandom via cinephilia, as if this means that he is no longer a “fan”. Fans-turned-producers have been previously theorised in fan/audience studies, but the position of the cult “fantrepreneur” has been explored in depth most recently by Oliver Carter.
