Orphan Black's Clone Club: Redefining the Audience

The Canadian show Orphan Black is stuck somewhere between a cult-show and a global hit. Though it is widely watched in North-America and recently became available on Netflix in the Netherlands, it’s a show that will get you a lot of “I don’t know it, what is it about?” However, trying to explain the show is not so easily done, as the plot is complicated and dense. It is a little bit of sci-fi, mixed with feminism, sexuality, societal pressure and biology. But giving away too much of the plot will ruin the surprise. Orphan Black is a show that you need to watch in order to understand it. And it may be exactly that mystery, which leads Orphan Black into the cult corner. Only if you have seen it, you understand it. Almost like an elite.

An elite that outs itself through a fiercely devoted (online) movement, titled Clone Club. And now we’ll ruin it for you, but in order to understand this essay you need to know: the main characters, all girls, are clones. This blog will look at how Orphan Black challenges traditional audience-text relations in which the  audience as a receiver is the end-point of a message. It will examine how Orphan Black is defined through its fan community and how this community confirms the thesis that cultural scholar Jack Z. Bratich poses in an article called From Audiences to Media Subjectivities: Mutants in the Interregnum, namely that relations between consumers and producers of media texts are being challenged, and thus currently in limbo. Or as Bratich calls it, the interregnum.  

#savedelphine: Audiences as Producers & Gatekeepers

To say passive audiences do no longer exist might be too forward, but as Shayla Thiel-Stern argues in her essay Exploring New Media Audiences and the Limits of Cultural Production, audiences are no longer just audiences.[1] The interactive nature of new media has paved the way for audience interaction, causing them to turn into producers and gatekeepers (deciding what the public sees) next to being consumers.[2] The Orphan Black community provides an excellent example.  

It's crazy, there's such a movement of fans online. They have a community and find a voice to express themselves. I don't think we'd have a show or a second season if not for the fans. They force their parents to watch it; force their friends to watch it. There's fan art on Tumblr. I keep up with it — it's amazing.[3]

Here, Orphan Black’s leading lady Tatiana Maslany points out the role of audiences both as active producers of fan art, but also as gatekeepers for the show. An example of this is that at the end of season two it becomes clear that the show is introducing male clones, something that stirred online uprising from the community who had built their fandom around the face of Tatiana Maslany (who plays all the clones) and were afraid that the introduction of male clones would mean a decline in Maslany-clones. Currently the show is in production for its fourth season, but creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett ended season three with a huge cliffhanger, which triggered the popular hashtag movement #savedelphine. The character of Delphine is a definite fan-favorite. One of the reasons for this is her key role in the subjects the show is acclaimed for: sexuality and feminism. She is a female scientist who’s supposedly straight but falls for a girl, realizing sexuality may be fluid. The show’s large and loyal (LGBT) following obviously feel that the show’s narrative will change for the worst if she were to be killed off. Even though they have no idea about the overarching narrative the writers are aiming for.

Fanart & Clonecast: The Audience has an Audience

Orphan Black’s online community shows a very interesting dynamic of what Thiel-Stern described as the audience having an audience, and being aware of that audience.[4] The Clone Club is very active on Tumblr, posting anything from fan-videos, stories, artworks, or they blog about theories and discuss possible outcomes. As Thiel-Stern said, in their production the Clone Clubbers are aware of their audience (fellow Clone Clubbers) and they will conform to their online identity as being part of the Clone Club. Bratich defined fans as being motivated through minor rewards such as social status and recognition,[5] but the motivation of Clone Club goes beyond the awareness and recognition of their peers. They know that those that are responsible for the show are potentially watching them. As Maslany said about fan art “I keep up with it – it’s amazing.” Orphan Black has its own podcast called Clonecast. Clonecast not only recaps and discusses the narrative of the show, but regularly features the show’s actors and producers and always has a segment that is focused on fan art. Next to that, actors and creatives on the show regularly show their awareness and involvement with the fan community by talking about the fan contributions, or engaging with fans on social media. The appreciation by those that create Orphan Black not only adds an extra dimension to the audience being aware of their own audience, but also makes the creators into an audience, because they are viewing fanart and following what is going on within the fandom. It forms an interesting dynamic to think about the fact that the audience of Orphan Black consciously produces content in the realm of the fandom and that this fandom is viewed by the creators of the show, who then are aware of the fandom when producing the show. This forms a vicious circle, in which audiences are inspired by other audiences.

This is an interesting phenomenon when looking at the idea of audiences becoming producers and gatekeepers. In a way, as Tatiana Maslany describes in the video, she becomes a producer by taking ideas and drawing inspiration from the fanart, but she’s also a gatekeeper by continuing to play these characters to which audiences react by producing fan-texts.

The #savedelphine Problematic

As mentioned before, the cliffhanger of season three triggered an online movement against the death of a major character. A website was launched, a petition was started (and got almost 2,500 supporters), and #savedelphine still gets daily mentions on social network platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. It is here that the audience can be reviewed as “an object of concern, […] a ‘problem’ or threat, […] a source of anxiety.”[7] Because the power/knowledge relations have shifted due to online presence and the engagement of the show’s producers with the audience, the audience feels as if they have agency. In other words, the fans feel as if they have a say in the continuation of the show’s narrative, simply because of their (albeit significant) role in the online community. It is almost as if fans feel like they know what is best for the show because they are so passionate about it. And this feeling is fueled by the show’s creatives constantly reaffirming the importance of the Clone Club. We can link this phenomenon back to Bratich’s argument of the interregnum. In his description of fans, Bratich said that, “the ambivalence of fans as media subjects involves the tension between resistance and conformity,”[8] and that there are several types of possible antagonisms between the fan and the creators of the show. He argues that, because fans are depended upon the show’s existence to produce their content, creators keep the agency. But the voice of Clone Club after the season-finale of Orphan Black proves an important point Bratich tries to makes, namely that we are currently in an in-between, or interregnum, in which the relations between producer and the “people formerly known as the audience,”[9] are uncertain and in need of redefinition. And, just like all those waiting for season four of Orphan Black, we’ll just have to see where it goes.

Tweet: Go wild and speculate. Based on Orphan Black's Clone Club, what exactly is the role of the 'audience'? 

EH, DL, NS, LD, KH 

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[1] Shayla Thiel-Stern, “Beyond the Active Audience: Exploring New Media Audiences and the Limits of Cultural Production,” The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies Volume 6 (Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2013), 2.

[2] Shayla Thiel-Stern, “Beyond the Active Audience: Exploring New Media Audiences and the Limits of Cultural Production,” 2.

[3] David Marchese, “Tatiana Maslany Talks Prepping for Orphan Black Season 2,” Rolling Stone, April 15, 2014, accessed November 14, 2015,  http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/tatiana-maslany-talks-prepping-for-orphan-black-season-two-20140415#ixzz3rP1y2Lna

[4] Shayla Thiel-Stern, “Beyond the Active Audience: Exploring New Media Audiences and the Limits of Cultural Production,” 2.

[5] Jack Z. Bratich, “From Audiences to Media Subjectivities: Mutants in the Interregnum,” The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies Volume 6 (Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2013), 19.

[6] Ibid, 15

[7] Jack Z. Bratich, “From Audiences to Media Subjectivities: Mutants in the Interregnum,”2.

[8] Ibid, 19.

[9] Ibid, 2.