Spice Girls som mallar

Abstract

This is an ethnographic and cultural-analytic study of the pre-adolescent Finnish fandom of the Spice Girls in late 1990s. The research material was collected for the Folklore Archives of the Finnish Literature Society in 1998. The field material introduces a media-ethnographic perspective on the subject — media culture is studied as the experiences, acts and narratives of viewers and listeners. Some of the embodied practices of the fandom described include children's play, singing and dancing along to the music, dancing to a set choreography in mimed Spice Girls shows, dressing and making-up in the style of the idols and consuming. The stereotyped image of a "horde of fans" is reinforced but it also gains facets and nuances when I describe the activities of groups of friends among girls and their significance for fandom. The narrator of the play and dances of the girls is typically a first person plural "we" narrator, which points to the collective nature of the fans and the peer groups of pre-adolescent girls. I also describe differences among friends, the differentiation of individuals and the breaking points of collectivity. The "reckless consumer" is given the counter-image of a consumer with a pastime, studying to be a citizen of the consumer society. The performer roles and narrator voices of fandom are techniques the appropriation and use of which construct a multidimensional girl actor in fandom. They are micropolitical practices of experience in which the fanlike style in particular is playful and carnivalistic.

Keywords

• fandom
• girls
• children's play and games
• textual ethnography
• Spice Girls