Zusammenfassung
Dieser Aufsatz will zeigen, wie Futurama (1999-2013), ein Beispiel einer animierten Serie, Gegen-Narrative des Heroischen konstruiert, in denen Helden auf eine bestimmte Weise erscheinen und verschwinden. Die Gegen-Narrative werden kreiert, indem Meistererzählungen des Heroischen intertextuell evoziert und durch Fandom-Praktiken und Verfremdungseffekte umgedeutet werden. Figuren des Shows erscheinen als heroische Figuren nach Mustern aus der populären Kultur und verschwinden, wenn ihre heroischen Anforderungen oder Erscheinungen auf vielerlei Weisen zurückgenommen werden. Zur gleichen Zeit versucht der Show das Publikum in diesem sinnstiftenden Prozess heroischer Vermittlung durch die ständige Verwertung des Fandom-Diskurses zu mobilisieren. Dieser Aufsatz zeigt, wie derartige Shows versuchen, aktiv auf den Diskurs und Begriff von Heroismen und deren kulturellen Impakt Einfluss zu nehmen.
Abstract
The paper aims to show how Futurama (1999-2013), as one example of animated television shows, creates counter-narratives of the heroic within which heroes appear and disappear in a specific fashion. The counter-narratives are created by evoking master narratives of the heroic through an intertextual discourse and re-purposing them by means of fandom practices and defamiliarisation. Characters of the show are thereby made to appear as heroic figures after models from popular culture and disappear when their heroic ambitions or semblances are stripped away in various ways.
At the same time, the show continuously tries to engage the audience in this meaning- making process of negotiating heroic concepts through its pervasive use of fandom language. Thus, this paper demonstrates how such shows actively attempt to influence the discourse and understanding of heroisms and their cultural impact.
.
Jochen A
ntoniDisappearing Heroes in Animated Television Shows.
A Case Study of Futurama
To quote this article:
Jochen Antoni «Disappearing Heroes in Animated Television Shows. A Case Study of Futurama», in: Interférences littéraires/Literaire interferenties, 22, « Un-Fading the Hero.
Reconfiguring Ancient and Premodern Heroic Templates in Modern and Contemporary
Sascha bRu (Ku leuven) Geneviève FAbRy (UCL)
Agnès GuideRdoni (FNRS – UCL) Ortwin de GRAeF (Ku leuven) Jan heRmAn (KU Leuven) Guido lAtRé (UCL) Nadia lie (KU Leuven)
Michel lisse (FNRS – UCL) Anneleen mAsschelein (KU Leuven) Christophe meuRée (FNRS – UCL) Reine meylAeRts (KU Leuven) Stéphanie VAnAsten (FNRS – UCL) Bart VAnden bosche (KU Leuven) Marc VAn VAecK (KU Leuven)
Olivier AmmouR-mAyeuR (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle -–
Paris III & Université Toulouse II – Le Mirail) Ingo beRensmeyeR (Universität Giessen)
Lars beRnAeRts (Universiteit Gent & Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Faith bincKes (Worcester College – Oxford)
Philiep bossieR (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) Franca bRueRA (Università di Torino)
Àlvaro cebAllos ViRo (Université de Liège) Christian chelebouRG (Université de Lorraine) Edoardo costAduRA (Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena) Nicola cReiGhton (Queen’s University Belfast) William M. decKeR (Oklahoma State University) Ben de bRuyn (Maastricht University) Dirk delAbAstitA (Université de Namur) Michel delVille (Université de Liège)
César dominGuez (Universidad de Santiago de Compostella
& King’s College)
Gillis doRleijn (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) Ute heidmAnn (Université de Lausanne)
Klaus H. KieFeR (Ludwig Maxilimians Universität München) Michael KolhAueR (Université de Savoie)
Isabelle KRzywKowsKi (Université Stendhal-Grenoble III) Mathilde lAbbé (Université Paris Sorbonne)
Sofiane lAGhouAti (Musée Royal de Mariemont) François leceRcle (Université Paris Sorbonne) Ilse loGie (Universiteit Gent)
Marc mAuFoRt (Université Libre de Bruxelles) Isabelle meuRet (Université Libre de Bruxelles) Christina moRin (University of Limerick) Miguel noRbARtubARRi (Universiteit Antwerpen) Andréa obeRhubeR (Université de Montréal)
Jan oosteRholt (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg) Maïté snAuwAeRt (University of Alberta – Edmonton) Pieter VeRstRAeten ((Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
ConseilderédACtion – redACtierAAd
Anke Gilleir (KU Leuven) – Rédacteur en chef - Hoofdredacteur
Beatrijs Vanacker (KU Leuven) – Secrétaire de rédaction - Redactiesecretaris Elke d’hoKeR (KU Leuven)
Lieven d’hulst (KU Leuven – Kortrijk) david mARtens (Ku leuven)
Hubert RolAnd (FNRS – UCL)
Matthieu seRGieR ((UCL & Factultés Universitaires Saint-Louis) Myriam wAtthee-delmotte (FNRS – UCL)
Interférences littéraires / Literaire interferenties KU Leuven – Faculteit Letteren Blijde-Inkomststraat 21 – Bus 3331
B 3000 Leuven (Belgium)
ComitésCientifique – WetensChAppelijkComité
(Dis)appearing Heroes in Animated Television Shows
A Case Study of «Futurama»
Animated television shows, especially since the wave of adult-oriented cartoons in the 1990s, display a particular tendency to feature deconstructed and disappearing heroes. They do so by creating counter-narratives of the heroic through an intertextual discourse with which they evoke and re-purpose models of heroism from a wide variety of popular culture texts, stretching across all media and genres. Examples of such shows include The Simpsons (1989–present), South Park (1997–present), Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (2000–2007), Drawn Together (2004–2007), American Dad! (2005–present), Archer (2009–present), Rick and Morty (2013–present), and many more. The specific potential of animated shows for the cultural negotiation of the heroic lies in how they interweave intertextual elements with fandom language. It is at this intersection that they productively engage with heroic models and concepts, mostly from popular culture, to challenge their master narrative status. For this paper, I have chosen to examine the show Futurama (1999–
2013), since it is rather less subtle and more barefaced than other shows in regard to its intertextual discourse. This makes it an ideal subject for investigating the processes of emergence and disappearance of heroes. As will become apparent in the following study, the show is also very provocative and conspicuous in its self-reflexivity, thus making it possible to elucidate the representational mechanics of the counter-narrative(s). Lastly, Futurama also engages very strongly in fandom language, which sets it apart from most other animated shows where fandom is perhaps a more implicit and subtle aspect.
Futurama is both a science fiction parody and a workplace comedy. 1 It revolves around Philip J. Fry, a nobody pizza delivery boy, who is cryogenically frozen by accident in 1999 and wakes up in the year 3000. The series follows his exploits as an intergalactic delivery boy working for Planet Express, the delivery company of his 160-year-old lone relative, Professor Farnsworth. Together with his one-eyed spaceship captain Leela, the alcoholic robot Bender and other minor characters, Fry regularly encounters situations which call for heroic action. Although he is not the only character with heroic ambitions, I will focus on his heroisation
1. Futurama. Season 1-4. Perf. Billy west, Katey sAGAl, John dimAGGio, and Tress mAcneille. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC, 2013. DVD. In this paper, I use only examples from the first four seasons of Futurama, before its first cancellation. Later revivals display significant changes in writing and production and are therefore less interesting for my examination. Single episodes are cited here using their title and the respective time code in the following format: aa:bb (a=minutes, b=seconds).
and deheroisation, as he is not only the protagonist of the series, but is also used to act out the process of meaning-making within the counter-narrative.2
The appearance and disappearance of the hero in Futurama mostly depends on two key features, which I will attempt to illuminate in this paper. Firstly, Futurama’s mode of representation as an animated show enables the intertextual discourse and its processes of defamiliarisation and re-purposing. Secondly, the show’s use of intertextuality, enabled by its mode of representation, goes beyond television’s inherently intertextual nature to re-purpose the intertexts for a counter-narrative of the heroic. These two aspects are linked together through the tongue-in-cheek language of fandom that pervades the whole show, at once establishing the logic of the counter-narrative and its foundation in pop culture knowledge. What is more, these appropriations of fandom form an inflection of the hero’s community of admirers,3 which constitutes a mirror surface for the audience’s involvement. On this theoretical basis, I will analyse two examples of appearances of the hero that are brought on by intertextual appropriation of pop culture texts, such as Star Wars and Armageddon, before I will juxtapose these with the respective disappearances.
This is meant to exemplify the deconstruction of pop culture notions of essentialist heroism within the counter-narratives of Futurama.
Lastly, it needs to be noted that this paper will not primarily focus on the construction of the initial heroic meta narratives and the specific aspects of heroism in the re-purposed pop culture texts. The heroic is one salient example of how such counter-narratives are created, and to some extent may be used to explain how they function. Nonetheless, this can also lead to a better understanding of the heroic in current television, as these counter-narratives represent new and alternative, yet popular and constant voices in popular culture, which may even be gaining in reach due to the shift in broadcasting and consumption patterns from scheduled television to streaming.
Heroism and Heroes
This paper shall be rooted within a basic analytical framework of the heroic, outlined by von den Hoff et al. According to them, heroes are broadly defined as “agonal, exceptional and often times transgressive”, but also (in some form) admired and displaying a “charismatic impact”.4 Hence, the hero as a figure only exists within a relational structure. What is more, these traits are always ascriptions and the hero, thus, a cultural construct.5 Characters or figures are, thus, heroised by attributing certain traits to them and actively constructing them as heroes through
2. The other characters, I would argue, are each mostly linked to one type of hero, Captain Zapp Brannigan representing the decorated war hero, for example. Leela is the only other character who often plays a bigger role and is herself heroised and deheroised. Yet, all potential heroic figures in Futurama are broken in similar ways as will be shown for Fry. His transformations, however, are more fluid and varied, and they therefore highlight the aspects of appearance and disappearance most saliently.
3. For an extensive study of the heroes’ reliance on and relation to their admirers see Ronald Asch & Michael butteR (eds.), Bewunderer, Verehrer, Zuschauer: Die Helden und ihr Publikum, Würzburg, Ergon, 2016.
4. Ralf Von den hoFF [et al.], „Helden - Heroisierungen - Heroismen. Transformationen und Konjunkturen von der Antike bis zur Moderne. Konzeptionelle Ausgangspunkte des Sonderforschungsbereichs 948“, in: helden. heroes. héros 1.1 (2013): 7–14, 8.
5. Ibidem.
narratives. Most importantly, the authors define the term “heroism” as a “communal alignment with heroic models” and, thus, as an internalised pattern, which is geared towards self-assurance through the act of mimicking and adopting heroic behaviour.6 Consequently, Futurama’s counter-narratives can be said to re-purpose certain heroisms of pop culture, in that they lay bare their patterns of alignment by mimicking the act of mimicking heroic behaviour itself, as will become apparent in the exemplary analysis below.
To be able to not only describe and analyse the appearance but also the disappearance of heroes, Ulrich Bröckling’s typology of negations of the heroic is a useful complement. In delineating four dimensions of the heroic, namely “morally regulated deviation, worship, (agonal) agency and a readiness to make sacrifices”, which can be negated in three ways, he offers the possibility to describe a variety of figures that are not heroes, yet somehow remain relevant for the heroism in question.7 This relevance can be explained in terms of what Bröckling calls a “force field of the heroic”.8 Understood not unlike a gravitational field, it is generated by some call to heroic action and affects all figures within its reach, not necessarily to align with it, but to position themselves towards it.9 In narratives, such force fields of the heroic are usually created through naratives devices, which, in the case of popular culture, are conventionalised and therefore become common knowledge.
Futurama not only displays deheroisation of its characters along the lines of Bröckling’s typology, but also initialises a more comprehensive deheroisation by deflating the whole heroic force field. For example, the initial call to action may be a disaster that turns out to be benign or otherwise irrelevant to heroic action,10 or the call may be ignored and therefore lose its appellative power. Thus, again, Futurama re-purposes heroic models both on the level of characters as well as overarching narratives and consequent plot devices, to create counter-narratives of the heroic that are intended to challenge dominant narratives and heroisms.
Animated Representation
In his work Understanding Animation, Paul Wells explains how the ‘acting’ of an animated character is preconfigured by the animator, essentially imitating a real- life actor or actress.11 Therefore, “the character may be understood through its costume or construction […] and the associative aspects of its design.”12 Futurama’s protagonist Fry principally wears a white t-shirt, baggy blue jeans and a red wind- breaker – all cheap clothes signifying his low social status in the twentieth century.
His outfit is thus part of the essential characterisation of Fry as a loser and a nobody who not only underachieves in his job, but also in his social and love life.
Furthermore, the audience is continuously reminded of his apparent anachronism in
6. Ibid., 8–9.
7. Ulrich bRöcKlinG, “Negationen Des Heroischen - Ein Typologischer Versuch”, in: helden.
heroes. héros. 3.1 (2015): 9–13, 10–11.
8. Ibid., 9.
9. Ibidem.
10. Cf. Jochen Antoni, „Catastrophic future(s): Counter-Narratives of the Heroic and Catastrophes in the Animated Television Show Futurama“, in: helden. heroes. héros 5.1 (2017), 81–88.
11. Paul wells. Understanding Animation. London and New York, Routledge, 1999, 104–105.
12. Ibid. 105.
the thirty-first century by his being visually displaced and marginalised. The limited animation technique used in Futurama foregrounds the static iconic quality of his
‘costume’, thus turning his body into a projection surface onto which different layers of iconic clothing can be superimposed. With every change in ‘costume’, the initial signification is disrupted and new processes of meaning making can be initialised.
Because of the sheer limitless malleability of animation, such visual queues form the basis of the show’s counter-narrative(s) as well as its strong self-reflexivity and thus, also, enable a meta-commentary on the artificiality of its own structure. To invoke just one example, in the episode “Roswell That Ends Well”, Fry is sent to sneak into the military base at Roswell, New Mexico. He literally sprays on a uniform, using “All Purpose Spray”, thus slipping into the generic character of a war film.
The self-conscious act of painting Fry differently thereby highlights the episode’s contrived plot development, in which Fry attempts to save his grandfather, only to accidentally cause him to be killed and take his place, eventually becoming his own grandfather.
What is more, the show’s playful visual integration of the science fiction genre betrays a strong nostalgic vein, which constitutes the foundation of its fandom-language discourse. For example, cars are depicted as hovering, and hence futuristic, versions of 1950s cars such as the Chevrolet Impala, most obviously in the episode “Put Your Head On My Shoulder”. Likewise, the Planet Express spaceship is equipped with portholes on the side and suction pads for landing. It therefore resembles depictions of spaceships from the ‘golden age’ of science fiction in the 1930s and ‘40s. In this sense, its mode of representation is a throwback to older forms of science fiction, especially to comic books and novels, and thus adds a certain contradictory air of glorification or idealisation to the otherwise subversive tone. The (visual) nostalgic undercurrent resonates throughout the show, and, as will become clearer in the following section, it also ties in with the protagonist’s science fiction fandom, with the effect of blurring and ultimately dissolving the boundaries between fiction and meta-fiction.
Futurama’s mode of representation thus has a strong influence on how audiences watch animation. John Fiske (1997) refers to different modalities in television that denote the “apparent distance between the text and the real”.13 Using this as a basis, he argues that the audience is capable of differentiating between the modality of, say, cartoons and the news: “Cartoons are a mode of low modality,” which “operate in the conditional mode of the world of the ‘as if ’.”14 Animation, thus, offers its audiences the ability to freely try out almost any fantasy.
In Futurama, in addition to imagining or extrapolating a distant future, the various heroic concepts are also constantly negotiated and ‘lived out’ through Fry. The show thereby carries its self-consciousness over into the narrative: Through the eyes of Fry – the twentieth-century anachronism in this thirty-first century world – the audience constantly perceives his surroundings as fictional, as Fry himself often cannot tell reality and (television) fiction apart. Upon approaching the door to Leela’s office in the show’s pilot episode (“Space Pilot 3000”), for example, the door slides upwards and Fry remarks that this looks “just like in Star Trek”.15 It is precisely
13. John FisKe, Television Culture, London & New York, Routledge, 1997, 76.
14. Ibidem.
15. “Space Pilot 3000”, 04:00–04:04.
here that Futurama adds a self-reflexive twist to its counter-narrative, forcing the audience to acknowledge their own position as viewers and possible fans. In this way, the show holds up a mirror to society as consumers and fans, blurring the boundaries between popular culture products and fan texts and therefore breaking an unspoken pact with the audience.
Intertextuality and Fandom
To understand the specific function of intertextual elements in animated television shows like Futurama, it is necessary to first concede the fact that television, as an essentially post-modern medium, is inherently intertextual. Animated shows, however, differ from other television genres in the way they use intertextuality and hence create specific intertextual devices. Put simply, in contrast to live action television of any genre – such as sitcoms, dramas, etc. – animated TV shows are able to radically change settings, characters’ appearances, or even the style of animation freely, based on the mode of representation discussed above. As a result, intertextual allusions can be made much more obvious and striking, while the suddenness of such changes and possible resulting disruptions in perception are glossed over, or at least condoned more readily by the audience. With regard to the representation of the heroic, this radical intertextuality has the effect of suggesting a certain interchangeability and superficiality of the intertexts and their heroic concepts.
In their extensive essay on “post-modern animated discourse”, Lindvall and Melton point out the special capacity of animated cartoons, “particularly that of the comic genre”,16 for postmodern self-reflexivity and the concurrent deconstruction of codes and norms, or what they call the discourse of the genre: “It comically renders transparent the workings of the text, providing a Brechtian distance from the work and upending the dominant classical narrative style to revitalise traditional pleasure in the act of viewing.”17 Self-reflexivity and intertextuality thus go hand in hand, enabling the show to self-consciously appropriate other texts, negotiating their narrative strategies, heroic concepts and underlying myths. In this way, the connection to the show’s humorous tone becomes clear as well, for the “emulation and repurposing of a model [text]”18 is exactly what lends Futurama its parodic effect. According to Margaret Rose, in parodies the new context in which a model is embedded creates a certain gap that can undermine the expectations of the audience.19 This gap, however, also opens up spaces for new processes of meaning making insofar as the new context creates new connotations and readings. In the words of Beth E. Bonnstetter, we can also add that “parody calls attention to the very fact that a textual element is a generic convention – something created by people to tell a story”.20 This narrative construction of heroism is therefore
16. Terrance R. lindVAll & J. Matthew melton, “Towards a Post-Modern Animated Discourse: Bakhtin, Intertextuality and the Cartoon Carnival”, in: Jayne PillinG (ed.), A Reader in Animation Studies, London [et al.], John Libbey, 1997, 203–220, 203.
17. Ibid. 204.
18. Margaret A. Rose, Parodie, Intertextualität, Interbildlichkeit. Bielefeld, Aisthesis, 2006, 18.
19. See ibidem.
20. Beth E. bonnstetteR, “Of Structures, Stories, and Spaceballs: Parody as Criticism of Genre Film and Myth”, in: David whitt & John PeRlich (eds.), Sith, Slayers, Stargates, and Cyborgs:
Modern Mythology in the New Millennium, New York [et al.], Lang, 2008, 190–210, 195.
especially interesting in regard to how it relates to a community of admirers. Ronald Asch and Michael Butter, for example, state that:
As much as heroes do not exist without a narrative, they do not exist without an audience. Every heroic figure needs an interpretive community, within which narratives of the heroic can resonate and for which they function as heroes. A hero is always a hero to someone and needs a wide audience to be (even reluctantly) accepted, if not admired or adored.21
Through narrative ‘enactment’22 – by others or by the heroes themselves – they are inscribed into a framework of expectations, which thus enables their heroisation. The lack of such a framework, on the other hand, will preclude successful heroisation.23 In this respect, Futurama’s highlighting of genre conventions as narrative conventions always also reveals this aspect of heroisation while indirectly pointing the audience to their own role within the process of making a hero.
Another effect of the intertextuality of Futurama is that “alluding to other texts and contexts beyond itself ” enables the show to “[ground] itself in reality”,24 especially as it positions itself in a fandom discourse, as mentioned in the previous section. In this context, Fiske speaks of “horizontal intertextuality”, which links primary texts “usually along the axes of genre, character, or content”. 25 He particularly emphasises conventions of genre, which are
so important in television because they are a prime way of both understanding and constructing this triangular relationship between producer, text, and audience. Conventions are the structural elements of genre that are shared between producers and audiences. They embody the crucial ideological concerns of the time in which they are popular and are central to the pleasures a genre offers its audience.26
Beyond the scope of parody, Futurama thus links itself to other science fiction (and other genre) texts: It not only comments on and criticises them; it also invokes certain conventions as a way to form an unspoken pact with the audience that can then be refracted and self-reflexively subverted.
As with its mode of representation, the show’s most salient moments of self-reflexivity are conveyed through its protagonist. Through the character of Fry, intertextual allusions are inextricably painted in the language of fandom, thus interrelating the two aspects. I would claim that this is exactly what generates the distinctive appeal – and hence added value for investigating heroisations – of animated shows and forms the basis of their counter-narratives. Fry perpetually preconfigures the audience’s perception of science fiction and other film and genre elements in that he interprets these in alignment with his own fandom. For
21. Ronald Asch & Michael butteR, “Verehrergemeinschaften und Regisseure des Charisma.
Heroische Figuren und ihr Publikum: Einleitung”, in: Ronald Asch & Michael butteR (eds.), Bewunderer, Verehrer, Zuschauer: Die Helden und ihr Publikum, Würzburg, Ergon, 2016, 9–21, 11.
German original: “Genauso nämlich wie Held(inn)en nicht ohne Erzählungen existieren, existieren sie nicht ohne Publikum. Jede heroische Figur benötigt eine Interpretationsgemeinschaft, in der Heldenerzählungen einen Resonanzraum finden und für die sie als Held(in) fungiert. Ein Held ist immer ein Held für jemanden und benötigt zumindest zur (vielleicht auch widerwilligen) Akzeptanz, wenn nicht sogar Bewunderung oder Verehrung ein breites Publikum.”
22. Asch and Butter speak of “Selbst- und Fremdinszenierung”, ibidem.
23. See ibidem.
24. Terrance R. lindVAll & J. Matthew melton, “Towards a Post-Modern Animated Discourse”, 209.
25. John FisKe, Television Culture, 108.
26. Ibid., 110.
example, when Fry meets the preserved head of Leonard Nimoy in the “Head Museum” in the episode “Space Pilot 3000”, he asks him to “do the thing”,27 by which he means the ‘Vulcan salute’, which is well known to fans and non-fans alike.
In this short encounter, Fry as the epitome of a science fiction fan, mirrors and reaffirms the audience’s response to the appearance of such pop culture references that immediately elicit a reaction of fandom, or at least activate specific contexts of general pop culture knowledge. At the same time, however, this scene indicates the fact that Fry’s notion of science fiction is obsolete and fades into the void of anachronistic meanginglessness. In the year 3000, Fry’s conceptual horizon in terms of science fiction is revealed as nostalgia – in other words, the opposite of the typical futuristic extrapolation. To put Fry’s point of view in perspective, the show frequently employs other characters, especially Leela. In the episode “Raging Bender” for example, she denies Fry’s request to see a film called “Galaxy Wars”, the poster of which shown in the scene resembles a promotional poster for Star Wars.
She replies by saying that she is “not in the mood for a historical documentary”.
28 As indicated earlier, the visual nostalgic elements in the show are linked with a distinct nostalgia in the narrative that may serve to mitigate the otherwise subversive parody, while also deepening the emotional investment of the audience. Facets of intertextuality, self-reflexivity, fandom and nostalgia are thus interlinked to create a counter-narrative, which defiantly marks the heroic as an artificially contrived, narrative construct.
The aspect of fandom is especially fruitful for analysing Futurama’s strategies of deheroisation, because it offers an additional approach to the aspect of a hero’s community of admirers. Jenkins observes that “what fandom offers is a community not defined in traditional terms of race, religion, gender, region, politics, or profession, but rather a community of consumers defined through their common relationship with shared texts.”29 In cultural studies, the term “active audience” denotes the understanding that the audience of a pop culture text always inhabits a position of participation and negotiation, “producing meanings and pleasures […] out of the products of the cultural industry”.30 In comparison, the productivity of fandom, according to Fiske, goes beyond a purely semiotic, and as such interior, productivity.
Fans, in their social formations, also engage in ‘enunciative’ and textual productivity in that they communally share the interior meaning making and sometimes even transpose these processes into new texts. Their productivity, however, “is not limited to the production of new texts: it also participates in the construction of the original text and thus turns the commercial narrative or performance into popular culture.”31 Therefore, “fan cultural knowledge differs from official cultural knowledge in that it is used to enhance the fan’s power over, and participation in, the original, industrial text.”32 While this approach to fandom has been criticised and
27. “Space Pilot 3000”, 11:46.
28. “Raging Bender”, 01:33–01:38.
29. Henry jenKins, “‘Strangers No More, We Sing’: Filking and the Social Construction of the Science Fiction Fan Community”, in: Lisa A. lewis (ed.), The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, London & New York, Routledge, 1992, 208–236, 213.
30. John FisKe, “The Cultural Economy of Fandom”, in: Lisa A. lewis (ed.), The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, London & New York, Routledge, 1992, 30–49, 30.
31. Ibid. 40.
32. Ibid. 43.
embedded in much larger contexts in more recent studies,33 the idea at the heart of the concept is still relevant for the study of Futurama, especially since its approach to fandom is strongly linked to such communities as the Trekkers (self-description of fans of Star Trek). This is made clear through Fry’s behaviour, which is mocked or even maligned when it is likened to juvenility, while also being praised for its productivity – for example, in the episode “When Aliens Attack”, which will be discussed in the following section. In this context, Futurama can be read as an interesting, seemingly paradoxical example of a fan text born out of the industry.
Through Fry, the show markedly utters judgements of taste on other primary text and actively uses them as source material to create its own narratives.
In this light, I argue that the evoked heroic models can even be read as cosplay on Fry’s part. This specific fandom practice involves fans dressing up as their favourite characters, sometimes acting out fan fiction as a way of continuing or filling in the blanks in their favourite text’s narrative.34 In Futurama, this takes the form of more generalised commentary, by which I mean that the show does not necessarily continue any specific text. However, there are quite a number of episodes in which the basic plot is reminiscent of Star Trek episodes or other science fiction texts.
What is important is that Futurama thereby retains the appropriating and subversive power of fandom practices. Read this way, the intertextual allusions in Futurama negotiate not only the heroic concepts themselves, but also and especially the audience’s relationship to these, thereby subverting their seemingly unquestioned admiration and adoration. That is, Fry as a ‘bistable figure’ constantly oscillates between hero and admirer (or more specifically, a fan) and consequently blurs the boundaries between the two states. Hence, his own admiration for and adoration of ‘his’ heroes interferes with his own heroisation, while pointing to his lack of a community of admirers. Even though his actions may sometimes be redemptive for society, they are neither recognised nor heroised. Coming full circle, this is, thus, where the audience is forced to acknowledge their own participation, enabling them to identify and question the underlying assumptions and processes of the pop culture heroism in which they participate.
Exemplary Analysis
To illustrate the foregoing reflections, I have chosen examples that incorporate all of the aforementioned features of the counter-narratives, while also referring to very popular and well-known pop culture texts. They are thus hopefully easier to relate to for a wider audience. My first example is taken from the episode “When Aliens Attack”, the twelfth episode of the first production season. When earth is threatened with destruction35 by a race of giant green lizard-like aliens, all spaceship
33. See for example the introduction to Jonathan GRAy, Cornel sAndVoss & c. Lee hARRinGton (eds.), Fandom. Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, New York [et al.], New York University Press, 2007, 1–10.
34. A classic study of fan practices by established writers and the publication processes of fan fiction is offered by Camille Bacon-Smith, Science Fiction Culture, Philadelphia, University of Philadelphia Press, 2000. She does not, however, discuss fan fiction in the same way I am discussing here – namely, that it is itself becoming mainstream popular culture.
35. This is hilariously introduced by the aliens’ destruction of a collection of international monuments and symbolic buildings at “Monument Beach”, conjuring up images of science fiction disaster films, such as Independence Day (1996) or Planet of the Apes (1968). The fact that all these
crews are conscripted to battle the alien spaceships in the orbit around earth.
Naturally, the Planet Express crew are also flying in the requisite all-out, last-stand attack against a seemingly superior enemy and the appearance of Fry as the hero is constructed as follows. The mode of representation of this fight scene evokes the heroic imaginary of science fiction culture. Fry, who is manning the cannon of the spaceship, is (suddenly) wearing a helmet like those worn by the rebel pilots in the original Star Wars trilogy. Furthermore, the ensuing battle scene is also likened to the epic scene of the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars, complete with corresponding cinematographic techniques, such as high-speed tracking shots of the spaceships accompanied by a bombastic soundtrack. The effect produced evokes certain expectations in the audience: As the hero, Fry will fire the decisive shot that will destroy the enemy’s spaceship and save the day. Futurama, however, subverts these expectations in a twofold manner. Firstly, the ‘realistic’ mise-en-scène is already disrupted precisely because of the displacement of the initial reference.
The Planet Express delivery ship is re-purposed as a fighter spaceship and the loser/nobody Fry takes on the role of the ‘Chosen One’.36 In combination with the animation technique, this displacement is doubly effective in highlighting not only its own constructed-ness, but also the artificiality of the ‘original’ scene. In other words, the space battle is revealed as a science fiction trope in that the animated representation highlights how interchangeable the hero (and his weapon, etc.) is.
Finally, the show also derives its humour from such exaggerated artificiality, as when the explosion of the alien ship hurls a car tire into space, effectively blending in and ridiculing another action film trope.
This formal disruption is also carried over into the narrative, when the audience is again reminded of the artificiality of the scene in a short dialogue between Fry and Leela:
Fry: I’m gonna be a science fiction hero, just like Uhura, or Captain Janeway, or Xena!37
Leela: Fry, this isn’t TV, it’s real life. Can’t you tell the difference?
Fry: Sure, I just like TV better. [He makes gunfire noises.]38
The audience is thus forced to reposition themselves when their initially evoked expectations become mirrored through Fry, and once again the boundaries between fiction and meta-fiction are blurred. Consequently, Fry’s seemingly juvenile behaviour not only breaks the fourth wall; it also subverts the immediacy and affective power of the battle scene.
Through these manifold layers of defamiliarisation – from the mode of representation to the self-conscious reminder that we are watching a television
monuments, as symbols of humanity’s greatest achievements, are reduced to a tourist attraction at a public beach already calls attention to the arbitrariness and artificiality of this genre ploy.
36. Although it needs to be conceded that the spaceship is actually piloted by Leela, the bulk of heroic agency clearly lies with Fry, who gets to shout the battle cry “This is for Bender’s cocktail!”
(referring to the spilling of Bender’s drink as the direst casualty of the battle). Fry also fires the decisive shots that lead to the explosion of the alleged alien mothership. The fact that Leela, despite her obvious skill and disposition as a heroine, is denied heroisation runs like a common thread through the whole show. A further discussion of this aspect would unfortunately surpass the scope of this paper.
37. The more initiated fans will recognise that Fry exclusively references heroines, thus subtly gendering his own claim to heroism. While this may be considered a minor detail, in the strategies of gendering of the whole episode, it gains some relevance, as will become clear with the ending.
38. “When Aliens Attack”, 11:36–11:52.
show – all heroic associations are thus slowly faded out. In the end, the revelation that they actually destroyed the Hubble Space Telescope instead of the alien mothership instantaneously erases all heroic ambitions. Even when looking at the bigger picture of the entire episode, this erosion of heroism is always tied to a subversion of audience expectations by displacing (iconic) genre conventions and highlighting their artificiality. In this vein, as the audience later discovers, the aliens only attacked the earth to finish watching the end of an interrupted television broadcast of “Single Female Lawyer”, a parody of Ally McBeal (1997–2002).39 As a result, and with references to exaggerated stereotypes of “Single Female Lawyer”‘s female audience, the aliens are egregiously gendered and thus stripped of their earlier menacing aura. Fry then indeed saves earth by filming a new last episode of “Single Female Lawyer”, thereby gaining agency through his knowledge of television conventions and how to manipulate the audience: “TV audiences don’t want anything original. They wanna see the same thing they’ve seen a thousand times before.”40 Through the different variations of the show’s permutation of writer and audience, original text and fan fiction, Fry takes the place of the creator and as such embodies the fan-turned-author. His fandom is thus turned into output, foregrounding the show’s status of a fan text while maintaining the tone of wish fulfilment. Because it is so benign and born out of Fry’s obsession with television, this redemptive act is nonetheless not heroic. Not only is Fry’s solution lacking in all four dimensions of the heroic (creating a cheaply produced television show is neither transgressive or agonal, nor does Fry do it with special agency or through sacrifice), but the force field of the heroic itself has been deflated, by ridiculing and belittling the alien threat. Therefore, the evoked heroism is shown to be artificial and inadequate and in its place the counter-narrative suggests a communal and common-sense approach to problem solving that effectively negates the master narrative of the hero as saviour.
The second example is from the very first scene of the episode “The Why Of Fry” from the fourth production season in which Fry is shown wearing a spacesuit similar to the ones worn by Bruce Willis and the other astronauts in the film Armageddon (1998). Again, the solemn soundtrack and camera angle showing Fry in a hero shot immediately evoke associations with the heroes of Armageddon, raising the audience’s expectations of seeing Fry involved in an important mission to save the earth. He himself underscores this with his military-style announcement:
“Delivery boy Philip J. Fry, reporting for duty.”41 This dramatic build-up, however, is immediately subverted when he is greeted by his alien co-worker from a bathtub:
“Dr. Zoidberg, soaking in brine.”42 Fry’s attempt to keep up the game is thus quickly exposed as just that. Asking for the “mission profile” and the “mission bag”,43 Fry is presented with a lenticular postcard and a toy surprise in his lunch bag, juxtaposing his serious and almost pompous demeanour with his actual immature character. As in the first example, his juvenile behaviour and the toy equipment disappoint the audience’s initial expectations, portraying his “mission” as child’s
39. Ibid., 00:16.
40. Ibid., 19:18–19:23.
41. “The Why Of Fry”, 00:43–00:44.
42. Ibid., 00:45–00:47.
43. Ibid., 00:57–01:06.
play and the evoked heroism as mere adolescent wish-fulfilment. The return of his fellow crew members from the delivery he should have been on finally negates the evoked concept completely. While Fry is still raging about how he “[is] the mission”, Leela and Bender walk out of the parked spaceship and announce they are “back from the mission” revealing that they have received medals for their work and did not, in fact, need Fry at all.44 Again, his self-ascription is exposed as flawed mimicry of heroic behaviour and the show juxtaposes it with apparent team effort (“Good work, team! We really pulled together on this one.”45) to highlight the invalidity of the heroic model. The knowing audience is therefore presented with its own alignment with the evoked pop culture heroism, as the whole joke relies on the cognition of certain expectations. As in the first example, this episode, too, shows Fry eventually saving the whole universe from destruction, this time from flying super brains. The Nibblonians, an ancient intergalactic race of cute, cat-like beings, are presented as the sole adequate opponents of the brainspawn and employ Fry as “the last hope of the universe”46, because of his immunity to the brains’ powers.
They take him to their secret and magnificent planet to reveal his destiny, which they do in a grave and ceremonious manner. Their dark robes and the chamber in which they welcome him are reminiscent of the Grey Council from Babylon 5, and because of their miniature statues they also resemble the character of Yoda in Star Wars. This intertextual allusion is further enhanced by the similarity of the brains’ “Infosphere” with the Death Star from Star Wars. In this way, the episode evokes the pattern of the chosen one and its concomitant heroism, making Fry therefore appear as the hero. This is visually reinforced by the space suit he wears while on his mission. However, the heroisation is immediately subverted by the explanation of his ‘super-power’, since his immunity stems from an earlier time- travel misadventure in which he became his own great-grandfather:47 his brain is actually defective and therefore cannot be manipulated; that is, he is too stupid to be made any stupider by the brainspawn. Not only that, but his agency is likewise undercut, since he is ordered and almost pushed around by the tiny Nibblonians, who giggle and make fun of Fry and his stupidity and hand him a children’s toy as his means of transportation.48 His heroisation is thus ambivalent and remains in flux, therefore upholding the allusion to the pop culture heroism while undermining its efficacy. Despite his shortcomings, Fry manages to infiltrate the brains’ headquarter and set off a bomb to destroy it in an apparent act of self-sacrifice. Again, this is immediately subverted when Fry lets himself be convinced to travel back in time and prevent his coming to the future, so that he would “have [his] life back and [the brains] will succeed in [their] plan to understand and destroy the universe”49, to which he answers: “Everybody wins!”50 Through his conspicuous inability to comprehend the situation, his self-sacrifice is revealed to be a reflex, acting on the internalised patterns of his pop culture knowledge. The final deheroisation happens when, after destroying the Infosphere in a second attempt, without sacrificing himself this time,
44. Ibid., 01:17–01:30.
45. Ibid., 01:35–01:38.
46. Ibid., 08:04–08:06.
47. Cf. the episode “Roswell That Ends Well”.
48. Ibid., 09:11.
49. Ibid., 15:32 – 15:39.
50. Ibid., 15:40.
Fry’s memory of his heroic deed is erased by Nibbler, the Nibblonian stationed on earth, with a device reminiscent of the Neuralyzer from Men in Black. In this last act, the agency has clearly shifted to Nibbler and Fry is revealed to be a pawn, whose heroism has been given and taken away by the Nibblonians. Furthermore, because nobody will ever know about his actions, he is refused admiration and is therefore entirely deheroised. The show’s counter-narrative once again uses this deconstruction of heroism to shift the focus on what is deemed more constructive and important. The episode ends on a brief and innocent romantic moment between Fry and Leela, which leaves Fry happy and content, thereby diminishing the importance of the ‘lost’ heroism. While this ostensibly satisfies expectations of common plot structures, I maintain that it contains subversive power exactly because of the earlier deheroisation. Fry experiences affection from Leela not for being a hero, but simply for being kind towards her.
These examples elucidate the ways in which Futurama applies intertextual allusions to negotiate the possible heroisation of the protagonist Fry, especially in regard to ‘typical’ notions of heroism. It is not important how exactly the ‘original’
heroes are defined; rather, the show focusses on the audience’s trained expectations.
Fry is thus necessarily characterised in stark contrast to any such notions of ‘typical’
heroism. In some sense, he is still represented as the common man, but always below average. He is devoid of charisma, a fact which is emphasised by the dismal failure of his love life. He lacks drive and agency, as well as physical strength and intellect, appearing more like a man-child. It is then exactly this notion of an original, inherent or essentialist heroism that Futurama undermines with its heroisation and deheroisation of Fry. Fading out the heroic models allows for the gradual revelation of the underlying patterns, as the layers of heroic connotation are peeled away one by one. Thus, the ‘failure’ of Fry’s cosplay points to the absence of a supposed original, as he is unable to appropriate the inherent heroic qualities of the respective model. Any essentialist heroism is thereby negated and the superimposed layers of the heroic are revealed to be nothing more than costume and ‘coating’. In the end, Fry remains in his fan state, and all heroic ambitions are dissolved in his fandom practices of dress-up and games. Yet, the transformative power of these practices offers a new perspective: instead of a reliance on traditional master narratives and patterns of heroism, the counter-narratives promote common sense as a means of emancipation from these patterns.
Conclusion
As I have attempted to show in this paper, animated television shows like Futurama employ a particular mode of representation, much self-reflexivity, an intertextual discourse and pervasive fandom language to create counter-narratives of the heroic. In this way, Futurama is able to manipulate and to hold up a mirror to the audience in order to highlight their involvement in the process of heroisation.
The show does not necessarily challenge specific heroic concepts, but rather evokes them in order to paradigmatically subvert any notions of essentialist heroism. That is, the superimposition of heroic templates upon the character of Fry, which I have analysed as a form of cosplay, negates any essential features that make him heroic and insists that heroism is necessarily a form of ascription and therefore
artificial. The protagonist acts out heroic ambitions to elucidate the audience’s expectations, created in and through pop culture, thereby exposing the artificiality of pop culture’s heroism and encouraging audiences to question their adoration of heroes. As a community of admirers, the audience is forced to reposition themselves and question their biases and cultural assumptions. The specific, parodic fandom language of this process enables the TV show to both celebrate and question, or even subvert, popular texts and their general notions of heroism. As a consequence, underlying patterns of heroism, for example Joseph Campbell’s “monomyth”, which was an inspiration for Star Wars,51 can be brought to light, thereby inviting audiences to question such cultural mechanisms. By this I mean not only how the processes of meaning making rely on master narratives, but also how such patterns are proliferated through the admirative force of heroic figures and heroisms. The meta-heroic potential of animated shows such as Futurama therefore lies not only in their compelling and forceful examination of how the audience relates to heroes, but also in their unmasking of the artificiality of heroisms in popular culture.
Jochen Antoni University of Freiburg
51. Star Wars, [online], <http://www.starwars.com/news/mythic-discovery-within-the-inner- reaches-of-outer-space-joseph-campbell-meets-george-lucas-part-i>.
