"In 2007, while giving a book talk, Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling revealed an interesting fact about beloved character Albus Dumbledore's love life. "Dumbledore is gay, actually," she said as the audience erupted in cheers. She added: "I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy." Though most fans initially praised the announcement, LGBTQ fans in particular questioned why the author chose to make it informally, while never actually writing explicitly gay characters into the storylines. As it turns out, this type of bait-and-switch is fairly common between fans and creators; there's even a term for it: "queerbaiting." In this first comprehensive examination of queerbaiting, fan studies scholar Joseph Brennan and his contributors examine cases like Rowling's to shed light on the exploitative industry practice of teasing homoerotic possibilities that, while hinted at, never materialize in the program narratives. Looking at everything from popular TV series to video games to children's programs, and more, these essayists--some of the biggest names in the emerging field of fan studies--explore the consequences of the misleading practice, both for fans and creators. The result is a first-of-its-kind collection that is sure to appeal equally to fan, queer, and media studies students and scholars"--

CLAIRE is a sixteen-year-old fangirl obsessed with the show Demon Heart. FOREST is an actor on Demon Heart who dreams of bigger roles. When the two meet at a local Comic-Con panel, it's a dream come true for Claire. Until the Q&A, that is, when Forest laughs off Claire's assertion that his character is gay. Claire is devastated. After all, every last word of her super-popular fanfic revolves around the romance between Forest's character and his male frenemy. She can't believe her hero turned out to be a closed-minded jerk. Forest is mostly confused that anyone would think his character is gay. Because he's not. Definitely not. Unfortunately for Demon Heart, when the video of the disastrous Q&A goes viral, the producers have a PR nightmare on their hands. In order to help bolster their image within the LGBTQ+ community—as well as with their fans—they hire Claire to join the cast for the rest of their publicity tour. What ensues is a series of colorful Comic-Con clashes between the fans and the show that lead Forest to question his assumptions about sexuality and help Claire come out of her shell. But how far will Claire go to make her ship canon? To what lengths will Forest go to stop her and protect his career? And will Claire ever get the guts to make a move on Tess, the very cute, extremely cool fanartist she keeps running into? Ship It is a funny, tender, and honest look at all the feels that come with being a fan.

Fandom has been celebrated both as a harmonious, tolerant space and as apolitical and detached from reality. Yet fandom is neither harmonious nor apolitical. Throughout the past century, fandom has been shaped by recurring controversies and sparked by the emergence of new circles, platforms and discourses. Since the earliest days of science-fiction fandom, fans have conceived of their communities as quasi-political bodies, and of themselves as public actors in discursive spaces. They are concerned with the organizational structures, norms, and borders of fandom as well as their own position within it all. This latter concern has moved to the forefront as fan practices and platforms have been coopted by the entertainment industry and by political actors, forcing fans to situate their fannish and political identities in relation to both sprawling transmedia franchises and right-wing groups exploiting fannish formations for political ends. Through case studies of Glee and The Hunger Games fandoms as well as events such as Gamergate, RaceFail '09 and the Hugo Awards controversies, this book explores the complexities of political fandom.

THE HOTLY ANTICIPATED SEQUEL TO THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER CARRY ON Simon Snow is back and he's coming to America! The story is supposed to be over. Simon Snow did everything he was supposed to do. He beat the villain. He won the war. He even fell in love. Now comes the good part, right? Now comes the happily ever after... So why can’t Simon Snow get off the couch? What he needs, according to his best friend, is a change of scenery. He just needs to see himself in a new light. That’s how Simon and Penny and Baz end up in a vintage convertible, tearing across the American West. They find trouble, of course. (Dragons, vampires, skunk-headed things with shotguns.) And they get lost. They get so lost, they start to wonder whether they ever knew where they were headed in the first place. With Wayward Son, Rainbow Rowell has written a book for everyone who ever wondered what happened to the Chosen One after he saved the day. And a book for everyone who was ever more curious about the second kiss than the first. It’s another helping of sour cherry scones with an absolutely decadent amount of butter. Come on, Simon Snow. Your hero’s journey might be over – but your life has just begun.

Since the 1997 publication of the first Harry Potter novel, the "Potterverse" has seen the addition of eight feature films (with a ninth in production), the creation of the interactive Pottermore© website, the release of myriad video games, the construction of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, several companion books (such as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), critical essays and analyses, and the 2016 debut of the original stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. This collection of new essays interprets the Wizarding World beyond the books and films through the lens of convergence culture. Contributors explore how online communities tackle Sorting and games like the Quidditch Cup and the Triwizard Tournament, and analyze how Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are changing fandom and the canon alike.

The Aesthetics of Nostalgia TV explores the aesthetic politics of nostalgia for 1950s and 60s America on contemporary television. Specifically, it looks at how nostalgic TV production design shapes and is shaped by larger historical discourses on gender and technological change, and America's perceived decline as a global power. Alex Bevan argues that the aesthetics of nostalgic TV tell stories of their own about historical decline and progress, and the place of the baby boomer television suburb in American national memory. She contests theories on nostalgia that see it as stagnating, regressive, or a reversion to outdated gender and racial politics, and the technophobic longing for a bygone era; and, instead, argues nostalgia is an important form of historical memory and vehicle for negotiating periods of historical transition. The book addresses how and why the shows construct the boomer era as a placeholder for gender, racial, technological, and declensionist discourses of the present. The book uses Mad Men (AMC, 2007-2015), Ugly Betty (ABC, 2006-2010), Desperate Housewives (ABC, 2004-2012), and film remakes of 1950s and 60s family sitcoms as primary case studies.

"This study is about ardent Korean female fans of gay representation in the media, their status in contemporary Korean society, their relationship with other groups such as gay men, and, above all, their contribution to reshaping the media's portrayal of gay people, as well as the public attitude toward sexually marginalized groups. Kwon calls the female fandom of gay portrayals "FANtasy culture" and argues that it enables the present growing visibility of the gay body in Korean mainstream media. She also argues that fandom has functioned as a catalyst to ameliorate a harsh reality for a marginalized group. The FANtasy subculture started forming around text-based media, such as yaoi (or "boys' love" manga, a Japanese genre), fan fiction, and U.S. gay-themed dramas, and has been influenced by diverse social, political, and economic conditions, such as the democratization of Korea, an open policy toward foreign media and cultural products, the diffusion of consumerism, government investment in Korean culture, the Hollywoodization of the film industry, and the popularity of Korean culture abroad. While much scholarly attention has been paid to the female fans of homoerotic cultural texts in other countries, Kwon explores both the understudied Korean case and another aspect of the subculture that has been relatively neglected: its location in and influence on the society at large"--