Learning from kaijū fans: Genrifying, cultural value and the ethics of citing fan scholarship

This article explores questions of the value of fan scholarship in academia. Taking a look at the labour of anonymous and named kaijū fans, the article examines the place of fan scholarship in academic work and the composition and identities of many kaijū fan-scholars. It considers how the study of seemingly ‘trash’ cinema remains marginal in terms of its acceptance in academic study, but also how fans have tended to reject the work of scholars of their favourite films and TV shows, dismissing it either as too highbrow or as condescending of those films and their own identities. Most problematically, though, such work has been accused of overlooking, or sidelining, the contributions of fan-scholars to wider discussions about the giant monster film. Hence, this article considers how fan scholarship can or must, from an ethical standpoint, contribute to processes of knowledge production. Furthermore, it examines questions of fan labour and genrification in the construction of the kaijū canon online and how this relates to cultural value within academia and beyond. This questions dynamics of insider/outsiderhood in relation to both academia and fandom and the labour of both in understanding their subjects.