Cult Television Analysis: Veronica Mars VS RuPaul's Drag Race

Cult television is defined by the ways in which they're appropriated by specific groups, rather than any feature shared by the programs themselves. Furthermore, there is no single quality that characterized a cult television program; rather they're are defined through a process in which programs are positioned in opposition to the mainstream (Pearson, 2011). As evidenced by the recent proliferation of fan conventions, television show boxed sets, and collectible character figurines, cult television programs have arguably become the most vital and interesting programming on television. The once-marginal genre manifests itself in a remarkable variety of programs, including dramas, fantasies, and comedies (Abbott, 2010). Moreover, these types of programs attract a following or small group of highly dedicated fans that share an emotional attachment towards the television program, often identifying themselves and other fans as members of a community, such as 'Trekkies' (Star Trek franchise), 'Whovians' (Dr Who, 1963-present) and 'Browncoats' (Firefly, 2002). With this in mind, this essay will analyse the television programs RuPaul's Drag Race (2009-present) and Veronica Mars (2004-2007) and consider how they manifest aspects of continuity and change with regards to the modes of television (television as an audience market, a content market, and a public good) and the kinds of television experiences they make available to its popular audiences.

RuPaul's Drag Race is a reality program that has aired on Logo TV since 2009 and has so far consisted of eight seasons. Hosted by RuPaul, the program features a group of drag queens who compete to be crowned as "America's Next Drag Superstar". Each week, the competitors engage in numerous entertainment, lip-sync, or fashion-related challenges, with the weakest performer being eliminated until a winner is announced at the end of the season. Despite a low budget and Logo TV's limited reach, Drag Race and the featured queens have developed a "dedicated fanbase" around the world (TVTropes.org, 2015). On the other hand, Veronica Mars is a teen noir drama series that aired on UPN (2004-05) and The CW (2007). Starring Kristen Bell as the eponymous characters, the program was set in the fictional town of Neptune, California, and followed Mars as she progressed from high school to college while moonlighting as a private investigator. The program attracted a loyal and dedicated fanbase, often referring to themselves as 'Cloud Watchers' and, more recently, 'Marshmallows' (Hughes, 2014).

Regarding audience market, fans of Drag Race are considered to be a part of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community due to the program's content and Logo TV's focus on that particular demographic (Collins, 2002). Despite an early criticism of fandoms, scholars now recognize the potential of "active, creative, 'producerly' engagement with the media text for the purpose of building new forms of community". Additionally, fandom activity is "productive and participatory within an overall context of inequality and institutional marginalization" (Grindstaff, 2014). Knowing this, Drag Race has created a community atmosphere for its audience and its contestants, with the competing queens referring to themselves as "sisters" and with RuPaul referring to the viewers as "a part of the Drag Race family" (Holden, 2015). This "family" dynamic and cult following was evident in 2014 when fans petitioned for a seventh season by helping the program's Facebook page to reach 1 million 'likes' through promotion and word-of-mouth (Nichols, 2014). Furthermore, a contributing factor towards a program's cult status is the degree to which its "language" and catchphrases enter its audience's vocabulary (Pearson, 2011). Idioms and phrases such as "You Better Work!", "Sashay Away" and "Shade" have become a part of Drag Race audience's everyday language, as well as making their way into mainstream culture (Layton, 2014).

Nowadays, Drag Race's audience has expanded to include a wider viewership with the fifth season's premiere garnering over 1.3 million viewers - the most for any program on Logo TV (Abad-Santos, 2015). Furthermore, former contestant Adore Delano spoke about the program's growing audience, stating that "we have kids that come to our shows, we have straight couples, we have older people [...] and it's so neat to see that,". Delano also added that the audience has developed into "a cult following because [the program] is not shown on the main [networks], so people go out of their way to seek it out" (Holden, 2015). Knowing this, Drag Race is a combination of TV2 (cable era) and TV3 (digital era), as the program features primarily on cable networks around the world as well as on the digital platform Netflix. Because cable networks and digital platforms cater to niche markets and require frequent payments, audiences, particularly international, are prone to illegally downloading the program, with former contestant Bianca Del Rio stating that "[international fans] download [the program] all illegally, which is crazy [...] They're super diehard fans!" (Tracer, 2015). Moreover, like numerous cult television programs, several LGBT facilities promote and hold viewing parties when new episodes premiere - many of which are hosted by current and previous contestants (Schneider, 2010).

Conversely, Veronica Mars was aimed towards a young-adult audience market, particularly the high school and college age demographic. However, like most cult television programs, Veronica Mars was not a ratings success and was cancelled after three seasons (Peterson, 2006). The program aired during the cable era (TV2), with the first two seasons broadcasted on UPN and the final season airing on The CW. With this in mind, some commentators have implied the "tiny" UPN network was to blame for the program's low ratings (Hughes, 2014), whilst others attributed the program's cancellation to it "complex storylines" and the inability to define it's genre (Osterndorf, 2014). However, the Veronica Mars fanbase has proven to be "more powerful than anyone would have thought", particularly on the internet (Osterndorf, 2014). This strong cult following is largely due to the relatable characterization of Mar as an "outcast". In his review for The Atlantic, Nolan Feeney wrote, "a big part of the show's appeal was that Veronica was the patron saint of high school misfits, the sworn protectors of every oddball, outcast, or otherwise disempowered teen who felt he or she didn't belong," (2014). Unlike other cult followings, such as 'Trekkies' or 'Whovians', where fans would meet at viewing parties or at conventions (Abbott, 2010), Veronica Mars new-age fans would take the opportunity to go on the internet and identify with a community of like-minded individuals and make themselves heard (Osterndorf. 2014).

Studies of fandoms have found that cult followings often create and sustain self-consciously identified communities and subcultures (Grindstaff, 2014). Cast and crew members of the program, as well as the media, have come to refer to fans as 'Marshmallows' after Mars is likened to a marshmallow by one of the characters in the pilot episode due to her "mushy" interior underneath an "angry young women shell" (Hayner, 2015). Throughout the program's run, a group known as the 'Cloud Watchers' organized several campaigns to aid the series in attracting more viewers to ensure its continuation. These acts included hiring a plane to fly over The CW offices with a banner reading "Renew Veronica Mars", hiring street teams to distribute 30 000 fliers advertising the series, raising $50 000 in donations and through the sale of Veronica Mars merchandise, and sending over ten thousand Mars Bars to The CW after the series was cancelled (Storm, 2007). Furthermore, another component of cult television is fan fiction which "fills the need [...] for fictional narratives that expand the boundary of the official source products offered" (Bacon-Smith, 2000). After the series' cancellation, fans took to the internet to write stories about Mars' family and friends, her day-to-day life, and her romantic relationships with other characters (Tvtropes.org, 2015).

When considering content markets, cult television followings are incredibly passionate about the programs they engage with which is why creating new content to be embraced by these fandoms plays a crucial role in the cult-status of these series' (Fyson, 2013). The Drag Race franchise has expanded to include numerous other spin-off series' including Untucked (a web series that looks that follows the backstage antics of the contestants), RuPaul's Drag U (a series where women compete to discover and develop their female potential through drag), Beyond Belief (a series centred around former contestant Alyssa Edwards and his dance company), and RuPaul's Drag Race UK (a remake of the US program) (Ben Lee, 2015). With this in mind, RuPaul and the production company World of Wonder launched 'RuPaul's DragCon', a two-day convention in Los Angeles that sold-out within days of its announcement. Fan conventions are events organized for commercial and profit purposes that also cater to fans by allowing them to interact with "experts, famous personalities and each other" (Coppa, 2006). With over 14 000 attendees, Drag Race's fanbase were given the opportunity to watch panels, participate in photo booths, and engage with many of the program's past and present contestants (Framke, 2015).

As previously mentioned, previous and current Drag Race contestants often develop devoted followings due to their personalities, their 'look' or their "relatable storyline" during their time on the program (Holden, 2015). Because of this, the contestants often employ numerous branding schemes to expand into the content market including merchandise, music endeavors (videos, singles and albums), wig, makeup and jewelry lines, online content (blogs, web series), games (iPhone apps) and television programs (2013's Drag My Dinner Party) (Abad-Santos, 2015). Similarly to fans attending 'DragCon', the program's following are also given to chance to watch their favourite contestants during national and worldwide tours, such as the "Condrgaulations UK Tour" and the "Battle of the Seasons World Tour" (Podell, 2015). Once again, fans will pay to engage with their favourite queens and watch them perform whether it be comedy routines, theater productions, live music shows or dance routines. From these tours, the contestants are able to continue selling their merchandise to the fans, therefore continuing the content that is produced by Drag Race.

On the other hand, television producers have always used data, holding previews for focus groups and logging the results, but as technology progresses networks and organizations can now produce and distribute content to consumers with little to be concerned about (Carr, 2013). In the case of Veronica Mars, following the series' cancellation, creator Rob Thomas wrote a feature film script continuing the storyline, but Warner Bros. opted not to fund the project at the time. However in 2013, Thomas and star Kristen Bell launched a fundraising campaign to produce the film through Kickstarter, offering various incentives to the fans who donated. Due to the Veronica Mars fandom's strong internet presence, the campaign reached its $2 million goal in less than 10 hours and eventually went on to raise over $5.5 million to become the most backed project on Kickstarter (Hicken, 2013). The film was released in March 2014 to critical and fan acclaim, with The Daily Dot's Chris Osterndorf noting television fandom as reaching "a fever pitch in the last few years, with loyal devotees rallying around their favourite shows more fervently than ever, using the Internet to amplify what they have to say," (2014).

After the Veronicas Mars' fan-funded film release, a series of novels written by Thomas and Jennifer Graham continued the story after the events of the film. The novels saw the return of several characters from the program, however Thomas has revealed that the novels "are canon, and won't be negated by a future film," (Jensen, 2014). Furthermore, in January 2014, a digital spin-off of Veronica Mars aired on CW Seed in eight episode installments with a length of 8-10 minutes per episode. The premise featured a metafictional concept that saw actor Ryan Hansen portray himself in an attempt to make a spin-off based on his character in the original series. Other cast members, including Bell, guest starred on the program as themselves and as their Veronica Mars' characters (Holman, 2014). Furthermore, cult and quality television tend to be over-represented categories within DVD release patterns, as they typically reinforce discourses of television auteurism by operating as cultural and textual elevations. With this in mind, the Veronica Mars DVD boxset, and the film DVD, represent a sense of "completeness and collectability" to the fans (Hills, 2007).

With regards to a public good and value in television, the program maker provides a legislative framework for television and, sometimes, a regulatory body that – formed under statute – may have responsibilities in respect of media ownership, structure and content. This act will influence what the audience of the program will feel as well as challenge or assert their pre-existing views (Harvey, 2005). According to numerous media commentators, Drag Race has bought "drag queen and gay culture" to the mainstream as well as educating those who're unfamiliar with the LGBT community. Keeping in mind that Logo TV caters for an LGBT audience, Drag Race "has become a place where people can turn to find out more about the [LGBT] community" as well as make "[viewers] respect drag queens as artists" (Holden, 2015). On top of this, many of the contestants have revealed to the audience their struggles and tribulation they've experienced including adversary from their families, bullying, medical conditions and mental health. When asked about the program and how it's aided the LGBT community with finding public acceptance, RuPaul stated, "we're dealing with people who've been shunned by society and have made a life regardless of what anyone thinks of them have decided. It shows the tenacity of the human spirit, which each of us watching relates to," (Rogers, 2014). As previously mentioned, the characterization of Veronica Mars allows audiences to identify with her 'outcast' and 'refusal to conform' persona. A huge part of the program's appeal was that Mars became a role model or hero for the viewers who identified as "oddballs, outcasts, or otherwise disempowered teen who felt he or she didn't belong," (Osterndorf, 2014). Furthermore, Veronica Mars has been credited for its forward-thinking and positive portrayal of women and feminism. Her characterization of a complex, smart and independent young women has drawn praise from several feminist outlets as well as the program's depictions of sexual assault, self-empowerment and positive female relationships (Donahue, 2014).

In conclusion, this essay has analyzed the critical components of cult television by dissecting and examining the programs RuPaul's Drag Race and Veronica Mars. Not only were the modes of television and the kinds of television experiences evaluated, but also the general character of television with regards to their different modes of apprehension and experience by audiences. The programs were accessed further by their televisuality, textuality, expressiveness, kinds of engagement, and the pleasures and entertainment they afford.

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