The TV Cult Meme Revisited and Quibbled Over by a TV slut

[shadowkat]

Regarding that meme on TV Guide's top 30 Cult TV Shows? Have a few quibbles regarding their definition of cult, which reminds me of a lengthy lunch debate I had with a guy I dated a few years back at Evil Company. He said that only fantasy and sci-fi shows were *cult*. I said, no, a sci-fi show might not be cult. X-Files for example had jumped out of cult status. Cult - I informed him - was a tv series, film or book that was not liked by the *mainstream* or not a *best-seller* - it had a specific niche or fringe audience. People adored it, but they didn't talk about it in public and it wasn't something you saw in the Neilson ratings. It's the sort of thing - that someone will hesistantly admit to in an elevator and you'll stop and say cool! ME too!

In short - a show like The Sopranos was NOT cult. While Buffy the Vampire Slayer definitely was. Cult was not the same as *excellent* or *horrid* - what it meant was a show that may or may not be loved by critics, was often dismissed, and never taken seriously by the powers that be - the best seller lists, Nielsen's, EW's and mainstream media - and you have to hunt on your tv dial - because it appears at weird times, jumps channels, and well is hard to find. CULT is a show or book or film you discover through your friends. Not the media. It's not advertised. It's not well marketed. Until after we've discovered it - long after. Yet, at the same time, CULT is also something that has a certain quality or lasting resonance. Something that scholars will obsess over. CULT is an artwork people OBSESS over. Not easily dismissed by its fans.

Cult often has a weird title. Like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's just left of center. Off the beaten track. Cult never gets awards except from fringe groups. And often has obsessive fans who go to conventions to celebrate it or late night viewings or who collect everything associated with it. They debate it vehemently but don't tell co-workers.

Course many people disagree with my definition. The guy I dated did. We ended up calling a stalemate. (Or he just shut-up and let me win.)

Shows that I don't believe can be cult because they are celebrated by the mainstream and consider pop= Lost, Heroes, Six Feet Under, Sopranoes, Seinfield, MASH, Hill Street Blues, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, Star Wars (although it does have weird obsessive fans, but they aren't quite the same as cult fans) and Harry Potter. (Note the difference - Pop = popular items. CULT = those things that live under the wire.)

Here's my list of CULT TV shows that I know about, in no particular order:

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Star Trek (the original one)
3. Voyager
4. Deep Space Nine
5. Angel
6. Dark Angel
7. American Gothic
8. Highlander
9. Xenia
10. Space Above and Beyond
11. Firefly
12. Wonderfalls
13. Dead Like Me
14. Doctor Who
15. BattleStar Galatica2
16. Jericho
17. HEx
18. Forever Knight
19. Supernatural
20. Star Gate
21. Farscape
22. Mystery Theater 2000
23. Veronica Mars
24. Strangers with Candy
25. Rosewell
26. BlackAdder
27. Monty Python
28. Arrested Development
29. Profit
30. H&R PuffnStuff
31. Twin Peaks...which jumped sort of to the mainstream
32. Smallville
33. Tru Calling

Cult's the shows that you worry about getting renewed. That you have to hunt down. And you keep trying to get people to like, or you keep to yourself. They aren't water cooler chatter.

They are things like Rocky Horror Picture Show, Tremors...buried at the bottom of the video store. Not in wide release. On late at night. OR out of print.

What do you think?

Agree? Disagree?

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

And these definitions can be fluid

Yes. Agreed.

On the fence about this - is cult something before it gets hot? Or something that just has a huge underground following and may or may not get hot = popular?

For example - is Seinfield, Cheers, Hill Street Blues, and St. Elsewhere truly cult shows? OR "cool" shows that got hot?

X-Files - hits cult, you have conventions on it.
And while it did hit mainstream, it is also outside of it. People tend to advertise less about it.

You can tell co-workers you lovvve Seinfield, but less likely to mention X-Files. Although back in the day, when it was hard to find - it was cultish, sort of like the comedy central series - It's Always Sunny in Philadephia.

I like to go by how video stores define it - those films that people adore, but you can never find. Have late night sing-a-longs to in grungy theaters? Things like American Gothic, BTVS...

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Hey, now. You can tell people you like Seinfeld. Tell people you loooovvvvee it. OTOH. That's probably one of the big distinctions isn't it?

On the fence about this - is cult something before it gets hot? Or something that just has a huge underground following and may or may not get hot = popular?

Seinfeld might be an odd example - it wasn't merely unnoticed in early years and then "hot" later. Seinfeld, in it's first seasons, was a show that people mostly hated. And even at it's height, most Seinfeld fans hadn't seen those episodes and wouldn't have liked them if they did.

Possibly Unrepresentative Anecdote Alert:

I distinctly remember, back in college when everybody got together to watch Friends & Seinfeld (the first season of Friends) one of my buddies saying "anybody who claims to have liked this show from the beginning is lying" -- and that's the sort of fan a cult show has. Friends in contrast, people were always "this show is pretty okay" about from the get-go.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

But that's true about numerous shows.

Hill Street Blues
St. Elsewhere
Cheers
Seinfield
The Office
My Name is Earl
Married with Children
The Simpsons

So, no, I don't think you can call those *cult*.

Cult isn't a show people hated and you liked.

Cult is a show that lives below the radar. Like Arrested Development.
Or Veronica Mars. Shows that don't make network. Or if they do, don't last.

And I don't think you can call something cult just because people didn't notice it until later.

A good example is well Farscape. No one knows about it - but the die-hard fans. Another cult hit - is David Chappell - which few people know about.
SCTV was cult. As was Guys in the Hall.

I was one of those people who preferred the early seasons of Seinfield to the latter ones. I loved the first three or four seasons, got bored with it once it caught on. And followed it when it hopped about. But I wouldn't call it cult. Any more than I'd have called Cheers cult - a show I also loved in the first two seasons, when no one seemed to watch it but me.

Fame - is an example of a cult tv series. Few people watched it. It was left of center.

So, no, I don't you can call Seinfield cult - just because people loved or hated it. That's not cult in my opinion.

I think cjl actually nails the definition below.