Popular Culture

The year 2024 was marked by intensifying global crises, including armed conflicts, escalating global trade wars, and disruptions caused by an increasing focus on AI technologies across various areas, from the job market to the educational sector. This was accompanied by the rise of far-right populist movements that fuelled a backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion in corporate, educational, and governmental institutions. In such a context, it becomes necessary to ask how individual disciplines, including fan and audience studies, are equipped to respond to these challenges. Popular culture has historically been mobilized as a site of geopolitical messaging, but in today’s globalized mediascape, fandom communities themselves have become central spaces for political discourse, education, and organizing. This review considers three recent publications that bring intersectional approaches to bear on the study of fandom and politics, focusing on the themes of politics and identity, disability, and racialization. While fan studies has long highlighted the potential of fandom as a space for progressive activism, particularly for marginalized youth, scholarship has also turned towards understanding fandom’s entanglements with reactionary movements. However, these two strands of analysis are often framed as distinct and oppositional, flattening the complex ways in which identity markers such as race, gender, sexuality, xenophobia, and ableism intersect in fan spaces. By examining how these three publications challenge such binaries, this review argues that intersectional methodologies offer a more nuanced account of the potentials and pitfalls of fandom as a site of political discussion and organizing, and of its role in shaping broader cultural and political movements.