Needs major revision: Cult Classic

The page stipulates that a Cult Classic must have a measurable following in the absence of widespread current popular acclaim. There are a lot of examples that are still popular and well-regarded today, to the point of still bing mainstream, ie; The Shining, Nightmare On Elm Street, and Highlander.

It's an interesting point - sometimes "the Avant-Garde becomes just plain Garde," as I dimly remember as a quote from one of the original writers on Saturday Night Live. And SNL indeed did start as a Cult Classic, but became utterly mainstream over time. (Arguably in terms of its "attitude," but certainly in terms of now being a "network institution" and such.)

And glancing over the page, there do seem to be a lot of questionable examples. It's tough, for instance, to say Watchmen, the highest-selling graphic novel of all time (and by several orders of magnitude over #2, I believe, is "cult."

Jet-a-Reeno!

Also, I find this description of Anime and Manga a bit suspect:

The medium as a whole everywhere except Japan (especially in North America).

^ Given that a cult following of anything in pop culture is generally defined by both a small but very passionate fanbase and a lack of interest among other facets of society from which to build up a mass audience, that line would apply to Anime & Manga, exactly as it's written.

In Japan, Anime & Manga is a part of mainstream entertainment. Everywhere else in the world, it's mostly enjoyed on the subculture fringes, gaining a type appeal that would most accurately be called "cult."

edited 5th Apr '11 10:42:56 AM by SeanMurrayI

Maybe it should be internally split into what currently counts as a cult classic (for example, I imagine Rocky Horror Pictureshow still counts), and what was a cult classic but has moved into the mainstream (Saturday Night Live being a perfect example).

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

With no citations required, there will never be a way to separate valid and non-valid examples. Almost every example is going to be contested, as this thread has proven, because "cult" and "classic" are subjective.

We should either throw the page in Sugar Wiki*

and remove all its wicks, or cut it entirely.

edited 5th Apr '11 10:52:31 AM by Redhead

The new It Just Bugs Me!

Now, I wouldn't call "cult" subjective. "A work or creator having a small but passionate following that can best be recognized as a subcultural phenomena" I see as something we can objectively realize. The word "classic", on the other hand, is much more subjective, suggesting that this page is about definitive or standout cases of works and other things having devout followings.

However, the objective concept of a work having a cult following by itself is not exactly much to trope or list examples alongside, anyway. At best, it should be treated as a Fan Speak term.

The mentality on the page seems to be that if it's not mainstream in America, it's a cult classic (Monty Python? Seriously?)

And Doctor Who (with an explanation of the difference between the US and the UK).

Apart from that, it's difficult to work out what's cult and what's mainstream. Many works are on the border (there's at least one page on this wiki which uses the phrase 'cult mainstream'). No examples?

edited 6th Apr '11 3:02:16 PM by halfmillennium

^^ That wouldn't actually be entirely wrong (at least, not for American editors).

Beyond the issue already pointed out about some things with cult followings becoming more widely known or popular through the passage of time and ultimately cease to have a cult status, the real problem here is that works gaining cult followings isn't an uncommon occurrence and isn't very notable. This is virtually akin to listing examples of Fandom.

edited 6th Apr '11 5:51:02 PM by SeanMurrayI

Is there even a real difference?

I say this would best define the term, without examples, as some people will argue about what and what isn't mainstream. Some people even insist Star Wars is cult, not mainstream (I swear, I've seen this a few places).

edited 6th Apr '11 6:03:12 PM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

That'll work, but what about wicks to the page? We can't throw them into YMMV, since calling something a "classic" is judging the work's quality, which isn't allowed on a work's page.

edited 7th Apr '11 5:58:54 AM by Redhead

The new It Just Bugs Me!

On the whole, I believe the word "classic" in this instance says more about a work having a definitive cult following than it does say anything about a work's quality.

I would have to strenuously disagree about cutting examples. The page has been carefully curated by several people of late to weed out stuff like Star Wars etc. I'm one of them. I am sure we'd be happy to weed out more.

I'm a pretty tolerant editor but I prefer strenuous editing to content elimination in the name of seeking that elusive goal of perfect objectivity.

There is an objective definition of "cult", and the word "cult classic" is merely a common expression for it. Saying a work has a fandom is not the same as saying it has a "cult" fandom. Saying it is a "classic" does not imply anything about quality here.

More to the point, this is actually considered a genre in most instances, for instance, many or most of the film examples are actually filed in the "cult" section of video stores. It would be silly for us to refuse to recognize that.

The main issue is how do you deal with stuff like Anime where the claim is being made on the page that the entire set of works is cult outside of the country of origin.

If a work that was once cult is now mainstream, it probably falls under Vindicated by Cable.

But yeah, I agree with Sean Murray I that this is no more subjective than a lot of things dealing with fiction. As the article notes, many of the works on the page explicitly go after the label as a genre in the way they are crafted. I would say it's a meta-genre, like Low Fantasy.

edited 14th Apr '11 6:10:55 AM by berr

^ An objective definition of the word "cult" does not mean that Cult Classic is objective.

On the whole, given the definitions of these words, the phrase Cult Classic should imply "a work with a cult following that meets a definitive high standard for cult works." We should only be focusing on the cult works (if that); whether or not a cult work is a "classic" example of a work having a cult following is irrelevant to us and too difficult for us to objectively measure.

Cult Classic is just a buzzword phrase marketers slap on the back of DVD boxes of The Rocky Horror Picture Show to get people to buy it; it's not a universal term to refer to something with a Cult Following.

edited 14th Apr '11 6:24:57 AM by SeanMurrayI

We can't base this on what a shop puts in the 'cult' section (if it has a cult section), because that and how it chooses those franchises is up to it, not a globally recognised list.

Is there another way we could check?

edited 14th Apr '11 6:26:35 AM by halfmillennium

A number of the examples that don't belong on the page were added due to a recent push to list examples by creator, which really has nothing to do with the trope on its merits and has more to do with entry pimping.

For instance, every work by Kubrick is listed on the grounds that a couple of works were originally listed and then filed under Kubrick. The definition we're working with arguably excludes Kubrick, as he's a prime example of a series of classic works that have a devoted fanbase "among people who are fans of classic works in general." If there are one or two films of Kubrick that are cult, I'd like to hear an argument for it.

But there needs to be a sentence in the description that a cult work has to be cult in its own right, i.e. the cult is built around the work not the author.

One way to do this would be to spin off a Cult Creators page for the subjectives, e.g. where the cult factor is based on expectation of a preexisting fandom. Fandom and cult really have two different meanings.

Fandom is the supertrope, of course, but broadly speaking, if a work has an organized fandom that is widespread enough to transcend meetups and "psychotronic movie nights" it is no longer considered cult.

Exceptions could be made for works that retained their cult status and their mainstream popularity specifically grew out of that, like Rocky Horror and MST 3 K.

But how do we check whether or not something has a cult following?

Sean, I appreciate what you are saying but Cult Classic is not a marketing buzzword, at least not here in the US. In fact, it's the equivalent of calling a house a "classic fixer-upper" — not a term marketers seek out (good luck finding it on any DVD label, except of course for the definitive examples of the genre that are marketed as nothing but, like Rocky Horror or Attack of the Killer Tomatoes — where the term is even more often objectively applied to the work in question by critics). The term is an idiom that has a more specific meaning than "Cult Following", and one that critics have extensively parsed and sparred about over the years. While it is true that some critics disagree over what is objectively cult, we're talking about a term that critics argue over what is and is not cult because they consider it to have an objective meaning, and like Low Fantasy, the real disagreement is over the stuff on the margins. It's not just a fan speak term either, it's the subject of extensive critical analysis, books, compendiums, that sort of thing.

Perhaps this is simplifying it a bit, but critics also argue over whether a work can be thought of as 'good'.

Yeah, one meaning "something that meets a definitive high standard for cult works."

Cult Following or Cult Film or Cult Work or whatever are all broader terms than Cult Classic... but they remain entirely objective. Cult Classic limits the scope of all these things through a subjective criteria of whatever defines a "classic."

edited 14th Apr '11 6:45:27 AM by SeanMurrayI

halfmillenium: One good way to check would be critical consensus. If a wide variety of reviews label it as cult, especially in retrospectives, then that is a good standard. Critical response shouldn't be ignored in the name of objectivity. It's not strictly about audience reaction, because some of these works play off of their "cult" nature within the context of the work.

The easiest way to define cult is to take the broad spectrum of works that have been touted as cult and weed out those that don't fit the definition commonly cited by critics (who promote the use of the term as an objectively definable term, let's not forget).

Current definition we've been using goes slightly farther, so as to prevent Trope Decay. It excludes:

• Works that have a huge and widespread franchise built around them.

• Works that have a small but rabid following because they are old but generally revered as classics by anyone who is a fan of the genre. These are currently excluded; e.g. Marx Brothers, Looney Toons classics.

• Works that were merely unpopular when they opened, but gradually became more and more influential and well-known. This is the fuzzy boundary of the trope that is more audience-dependent (if the trope were a four-sided square, it's only one side, though). The page doesn't currently state the following: but we can drop these into two baskets.

1. Vindicated by History and its cousin Vindicated by Cable: These works (for the most part) never aspired to be cult, and were picked up by the mainstream later. There's some overlap with #2, but this is already its own trope, so anything that falls here and not under #2 can be excluded and put on that page instead.

2. Sleeper Hit: a subjective page for works that are, well, Exactly What It Says on the Tin. This is also a commonly defined critical term which has a more specific definition and covers just about everything in the nebulous area between Cult and non-Cult; covers most of the borderline examples we're worried about here that do not fall under the above.

edited 14th Apr '11 7:21:32 AM by berr

Usually, I'd completely disagree that critics shouldn't be ignored to avoid bias, but there doesn't seem to be any other way to check. We'd have to make sure we were only basing that on critics who aren't biased.

So, using those guidelines, the likes of Doctor Who are out?

edited 14th Apr '11 6:58:09 AM by halfmillennium

^^^ Every dictionary definition I can find lists cult classic as an idiomatic phrase that is used for this trope and nothing more specific. Has little to do with the meaning of the word "classic", except in the same sense of the word as "a classic fixer-upper", i.e. a mere intensifier.

Meaning the word "classic" is used as exemplary only in the sense that it is "exemplary of the trope", like a "classic fixer-upper" is used to mean "exemplary of the type of house that is a gigantic money pit", or "classic" in the sense that it has "come to be seen as cult", in the classic sense of the term (as used in the phrase "the classic sense"), which fits the trope because it's one of those things that is usually decided on retrospectively by audience and critical consensus. Not classic in the sense of Casablanca.

In fact, that was the exact purpose of the term originally, as a Real Life euphemism for a class of works that used to be looked down upon, like Space Opera.

So we need to make sure the definition is written to make that clear. In fact the definition probably doesn't need to rattle off "classic" works that "may technically be called" "classic" works that have a devoted following because they don't fit the actual usage. (In fact, I think Roger Ebert — a major critic, anyhow — wrote an article fuming about the literal interpretation of the phrase inviting trope decay).

Point being, it's a real-life english language phrase whose meaning is identical to "Cult Film", but not medium-specific. So I don't see much value in changing it since that's the term the language uses. I agree it could be misinterpreted, but "Cult" is the operative word here so broadly stating we can look at the grey zones:

1. Works that really aren't cult, but are considered classic. These don't belong and we can simply write the trope definition to make sure that the word classic is merely a commonly used English Phrase and that stuff like Star Wars etc. really don't apply at all. These are right out.

2. Works like Doctor Who as mentioned above — if there's widespread critical disagreement about whether they can "no longer be considered cult" then perhaps we should put those examples under a separate, much more subjective page entitled something like... Vindicated By Cult.

I know the Princess Bride is one example that is the subject of real life debate over whether or not it is cult. But it's also worth noting that if its putative cult status is one of the most argued-about things about a work, then it's probably worth listing on the grounds of Emeritus status.

edited 14th Apr '11 7:32:50 AM by berr