Hey, Mr. Spelling, Look What We've Done to Your 90210!

An Ethnographic Study of the Audience of Beverly Hills 90210

by Rosella Tursi

The television show, Beverly Hills 90210, has gained immense popularity since its North America debut in September 1990. It is now telecast in many different countries all over the world, including Canada, Italy, France, Japan and South Africa. The Fox Broadcasting Co. has also licensed the manufacturing of products donning the smiling faces of Shannen Doherty (Brenda), Jason Priestly (Brandon), Luke Perry (Dylan), Jennie Garth (Kelly), Tori Spelling (Donna), and the rest of the famous cast. Paraphernalia include: lunch boxes, trading cards, action figure dolls, calendars, books, stationary, lip gloss, the list goes on and on. The Beverly Hills 90210 Fan Club is swamped with members from all over the United States and Canada. In short, it is safe to say that Beverly Hills 90210 has captivated an enormous following.

This research project is, however, not an examination of the effectiveness of the programme's moral goals on the pre-teen viewers that make up the majority of its audience, rather it is an analysis of the growing sub-audience composed of young adults who, because of their shared cultural orientation, view the show differently. My method for gathering data concerning this audience included distributing a questionnaire asking the respondents questions pertaining to their habits of viewing the show as well as whatever other social practices they might indulge in concerning the programme and their viewing experiences. In all thirty people were polled: 14 heterosexual women, 3 heterosexual men and 10 gay men. (I was unable to find any gay female viewers and few straight male viewers.) I also sat in with groups while viewing the programme and participated in and observed their interaction with the text. I also conducted some interviews with die-hard 90210 viewers.

The audience that I have surveyed share enough socio-demographic factors that they may be categorized into a specific culture group: university students (studying disciplines such as media studies, sociology, semiotics, or literature) and some well-educated full-time workers. Most prefer a marginal lifestyle, the use of recreational drugs, and an active social night life in bars and clubs. Like Madonna, Beverly Hills 90210, has amassed a substantial gay following consisting of a large majority of gay men. Interestingly the programme's heterosexual audience is largely female.

This "alternative" audience of Beverly Hills 90210 reads the text from a different social position than that of its targeted pre-teen audience, in other words, the text itself is re-appropriated and fundamentally changed. David Morley in his book, Audiences and Cultural Studies, raises the question of audience participation in his chapter entitled Interpreting Television: Class, Ideology and Interpretation. "If we raise the question of audience interpretation of messages, we are already rejecting the assumption that the media are institutions, whose messages automatically have an effect on us as their audience."

If the producers of Beverly Hills 90210 targeted their programme at a pre-teen audience then they made the assumption that their message would be received by a specific group in a specific way. So what happens when viewers in their early to late twenties start tuning in and reading the text from a different cultural environment? This audience reads against the "grain" and extracts from the text the messages that address them, as a sub-culture. They laugh at the lines that are funny to them and their responses differ from those of the targeted audience; the text, therefore, acquires an entirely different meaning.

Michel de Certeau's theories of The Practice of Everyday Life, are helpful when examining the politics of "textual reading". De Certeau concluded that the subordinate are in constant struggle with dominant institutions (media, the state etc.), norms and practices. The viewers, then, (the subordinate) move throughout the television "space" as though it were a terrain to be explored. For as de Certeau observed, in his chapter Making Do: Uses and Tactics, "It is less a matter of a liquid circulating in the interstices of a solid than of different movements making use of the elements of the terrain." A viewer, whether conscious of it or not, has the ability to move throughout the fictional terrain of television and the route that is taken depends upon the interest of the viewer.

Since one of the factors surrounding the members of the audience is their higher level of education and their deeper understanding of media messages, then these older, wiser readers often actively deconstruct the programme, finding different meanings and pleasures than their pre-teen counterparts. One gay man polled, for example, said that the programme was fun to watch because of its, "hysterical representations of normalcy especially when they deal with the reality of real issues like sex and drugs." When asked how she felt about the content of the programme, a straight woman responded, "I'm an oppositional reader. I deconstruct it. I laugh at the kitschy and campy aspect of the programme and how ridiculous it is." Another response to the content of the show, by a drag queen, was, "We are the content." Many of the respondents said they watched the show for its bad acting. One woman said of the characters, "They're like the sleuthing Scooby-Doo gang who drive the Mystery Van. They're cartoons."

The Problem with Fandom

The label "fan" immediately conjures many negative connotations. Fans are thought of as crazed, immature, cultural dupes. The respondents to the questionnaire I distributed were also weary of the word. Only two of the thirty respondents referred to themselves as fans. Many said they loved the show but most were quick to add that they loved it because it was so "bad." One woman said, "I have to defend why I'm watching it. My friends laugh at me, they think I'm a cultural dupe for watching it."

The fact that the persons polled all had achieved higher education and came mostly from middle-class backgrounds might contradict their "taste" for such low art. The respondents, however, share a knowledge of the media and high arts, indeed most could be considered intellectuals. Their love of the programme is, therefore, a rejection of the traditional concepts of intellect. In his book, Textual Poachers, Henry Jenkins states; fans cannot as a group be dismissed as intellectually inferior, they often are highly educated, articulated people who come from the middle classes, people who should `know better' than to spend their time constructing elaborate interpretations of television programmes. The popular embrace of television can thus be read as a conscious repudiation of high culture or at least of the traditional boundaries between high culture and popular culture." (p.18) Thus, audience members do not identify themselves within that elitist group of people condescend mass culture and their fans. As I have noted, the sub-culture that was polled prefer a marginal lifestyle and are indicative only of a specific group who willfully take part in the consumption of popular culture, claiming it for their own, as a territory that they can roam freely within and re-appropriate to suit their wants. In short, they let loose and have a damned good time with it.

The "I Hate Brenda" Phenomenon

Brenda Walsh. The mere mention of this 90210 character elicits passionate response from the B.H. connoisseur. Some fans love Brenda (played by actress Shannen Doherty), others hate, no DESPISE Brenda Walsh. No other character on the show has sparked the interest of its fans like Brenda has. Most fans find little to distinguish the character of Brenda and the real life actress behind her.

One of the questions included in my survey was, "Do you hate Brenda?" The response was, not surprisingly, quite passionate. Interestingly all gay men polled said they loved Brenda. A Brenda-look-a-like drag queen said, "Brenda can be bitchy but who wouldn't be with parents like Jim and Cindy?" He went on to mention that he loved to see close-ups of her breast implants. Most of the straight women polled said they hated Brenda and some had rather harsh words. A 22-year-old travel agent had this to say: "She's just a little bitch! One eye is higher than the other and I can't stand to look at her!" A journalism student said, "Yes, I hate her because her personality in real life is so offensive and she's so spoiled." Some of the straight women, however said they felt sympathy for her. A 25-year-old Communications student said, "Everyone should just leave her alone, or help her, she's troubled." A large majority of straight men said that they hated Brenda too. A 24-year-old artist said, "Brenda? Yeah, I hate her but it's because of her bad acting and that bland, whiny, snooty little voice. And she has no sex appeal."

Beyond the television space, the characters of 90210 become almost real. By discussing the characters over and over again amongst each other, the fans elaborate on the characteristics that appear on the screen. When I went to visit Kiwi and Todd, two drag queens who dress like Kelly and Brenda respectively, we discussed the characters as though we were referring to people we really knew. Kiwi and Todd would argue, "We do really know them! We are them!" In his chapter, How Texts Become Real, Morley remarks on this exact point: "The text is drawn close not so that the fan can be possessed by it but rather so that the fan may fully possess it. Only by integrating media content back into their everyday lives, only by close engagement with its meanings and materials, can fans fully consume the fiction and make it an active resource." (p. 62)

Why do they do it?

In the tradition of the audiences in the pit of the pre-Burlesque theatres in America and later The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the audience of Beverly Hills 90210 respond to what they are seeing - they voice their reaction towards the screen. The way in which this might differ from ordinary television viewing is in what the fans do with the text later, the way in which they control it for their own enjoyment. But the question remains: why? What is it that they see in the show that is so appealing? When asked directly why they watched the show, the responses revealed the group's awareness of the programme's gender representation. The gay men and straight women, in particular, showed a strong personal interest in gender narratives. I am not insinuating here that straight men aren't personally interested in gendered stereotypes, since this would be a gross generalization; rather, the straight men fans of the show tend to watch it in the company of women. (I have yet to encounter a group of straight men who watch the programme together, exclusive of female presence.) Of the three straight men who answered the questionnaire, one confessed that his girlfriend and her female friends got him hooked and the other two mentioned that their fellow fans were women.

Most gay men watched the show for its manifestation of what they consider comic sexual representation: the show's exaggerated feminine and masculine stereotypes. The women watched the show for similar reasons which they voiced somewhat differently. One woman said, "Really, the only enjoyment I get, perverse as it is, is finding and pointing out anti-feminist, pro-dominant patriarchal messages." The women often mentioned having been offended on certain occasions; even though they watched the show with the expectation of seeing a specific representation of women, they felt that sometimes it was difficult to laugh it off.

For the most part, however, the programme makes a concerted effort to portray the characters as positive role models: they don't drink, they don't do drugs and they respect their parents. When any of the characters do fall from grace - albeit momentarily - their punishments are severe. When Donna got drunk, for instance, she almost fails to graduate with the rest of the 90210 bunch.

Sex is, however, acceptable: all the characters are sexually active, save Donna and David (the only remaining virgins). The sexual elements of the show are, consequently, a great source of humour for the older audience members. Furthermore, several of the questionnaire respondents admitted to the use of recreational drugs and alcohol to enhance this comical pleasure. One such respondent wrote: "Being high and watching Donna get drunk on three glasses of champagne was one of the funniest moments of my life. My friends and I almost died of laughter!"

There is no doubt that Beverly Hills 90210 is a contemporary cultural phenomenon on as grand a scale as Star Trek, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Prisoner. Whether, as a phenomenon, 90210 diminishes in importance or continues to grow in the world of fandom remains to be seen. For now, however, it does prosper and its fans continue to watch, mold and posses it in their daily lives.

de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984.

Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers. New York, London, Routledge, 1992.

Morley, David. Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies. London, New York, Routledge, 1992.