Taking Star Wars as a case study, this article analyzes action figures as complex media texts that are consumed through a diverse range of media beyond the actual tangible objects available in toy stores. While earlier discussions of action figures have predominantly explored the relationship between character toys and the narrative of a fictional text, this article foregrounds the mediation of toys as playthings through fiction and non-fiction fan productions—including fan-fic, videos, cosplay, production histories, guidebooks, and podcasts on the past, present, materiality, and playability of action figures. Based on the premise that “film has never been (just) film, nor has television ever been (just) television,” Jonathan Gray argues that “we need an ‘off-screen studies’ to make sense of the wealth of other entities that saturate the media, and that construct film and television.” [1] [#N1] Action figures have been popular objects of investigation in this scholarly turn off-screen. Gray himself has investigated action figures as paratexts, whilst others discussed them in relation to media convergence, participatory culture, franchising, transmedia, the media mix, collecting, play, customization, or mimetic fandom. [2] [#N2] Despite their heterogeneous approaches, these studies share a predominant interest in the relationship between toys and the narrative of a fictional text, comprehensively outlining how intangible storyworlds become tangible off-screen. What these studies neglect is the question of how the materiality of toys is represented across a wide range of media, such as advertisements, print and online publications, podcasts, videos, and others. This article argues that a better understanding of action figures and their role in contemporary media culture will remain incomplete without the recognition of their diverse mediation in what this article defines as action figure media. In this regard, the following argument is also a plea that the call for an off-screen studies needs to be accompanied with research on those media in which the action figures are shown as what they have been produced for: playthings. Action figure media contains non-fiction and fiction formats and genres. Since the emergence of early collectible guides on popular material culture in the 1950s, [3] [#N3] career and amateur historians have produced books, blogs, videos, documentaries, podcasts, museum exhibitions, and TV shows on action figures. These histories share a common interest in the materiality and playability of the toys. They highlight issues such as articulation, size, and accessories, and also feature biographies of designers and managers, production materials, molding techniques, packaging design, and prototyping. Moreover, these histories address unrealized toy concepts, distribution, advertisements, marketing, bootlegging, licensing contracts, region-specific variants between lines and national markets, as well as memories of play and the hobby of collecting. In terms of fiction, fans of toys pay homage to action figures across a wide range of practices usually associated with fandom of fictional texts; for example, by writing fan-fic starring playthings, producing toy stories set in domestic spaces, and performing in action figure cosplay at conventions. Even though these texts star media-themed playthings, they never lose their focus on the material culture of the toys. Together, non-fiction and fiction action figure media shine new light on the relationship between the textuality and materiality of toys and other merchandise that has found little acknowledgment in film and media studies with its concentration on the textual relationship of action figures to fictional storyworlds. This article focuses primarily on the mediation of action figures as playthings in fan-produced action figure media. Through Star Wars as a case study, action figures are shown to be complex media texts that are consumed beyond the actual tangible object available in toy stores. This article therefore introduces a new set of fiction and non-fiction texts and fan practices into scholarship on the “object/text ecosystem” of fandom. [4] [#N4] Drawing from previous research treating action figures and other toys as distinct objects of fandom, this article provides a more elaborate analysis of fans’ textual productivity of action figure media that has not been covered in as much detail as issues of collecting, customization, and play. [5] [#N5] The first section integrates action figure media into definitions of action figures, and explores fans’ interest in the wider material culture of the toys beyond the actual plaything and their mimetic and thematic connections to fiction texts. Fans stimulate and satisfy this interest, this section argues, through the consumption of media covering these aspects. The second section surveys a variety of fiction and non-fiction action figure media, dividing them into the categories of toys-come-to-life-as-toys stories and action figure histories. Moreover, the second section will address how action figure media has been recognized by the cultural industries, which have begun to produce, distribute, and market fiction and non-fiction action figure media to more mainstream audiences. Finally, the last section discusses action figure fans as a sub-community with their own hierarchies, skills, and knowledge that operate side by side and in relation to other fan groups coming together under the umbrella of the Star Wars franchise. The Mediation of Action Figures Action figures have been highly mediated toys with close ties to the media industries since their inception in the 1960s, long before the release of George Lucas’s Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977. [6] [#N6] The unprecedented success of Kenner’s action figure line, however, created a new boom in the production of media-themed toys. The synthesis of toy and media industries peaked when the Reagan administration abolished FCC regulations prohibiting product-based programming for children in 1983. Action figure lines like Masters of the Universe and Transformers were released alongside commissioned television shows that advertise the toys to children in addition to conventional marketing campaigns. [7] [#N7] Many scholars have approached with ambivalence the increasing synergy of media and toy industries, and the consequential narrativization of playthings, throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The few scholars who take an optimistic perspective consider mimetic toys as opportunities for children to access, adapt, and expand themes addressed in fictional storyworlds through the three-dimensional materialization of otherwise two-dimensional images. [8] [#N8] The larger camp of pessimistic critics framed media-themed toys as mere promoters and symptoms of a mindless consumer culture. [9] [#N9] In film and media studies, similar conceptions reduce toys and other merchandise to tangible afterthoughts, produced for the benefit of a “parasitic industry” that does not possess any creative agency of their own. [10] [#N10] More recent research has provided alternative readings of toys, moving the discussion from how media influences play to questions of how toys impact or change the interpretations of a film or show. Gray’s study of paratexts has been one of the most influential in this regard, claiming that “toys [...] have never merely been ‘secondary’ spinoffs or coincidental: they have played a vital role in, and thus have become a vital part of, the primary text and its unrivalled success.” [11] [#N11] Also using the Star Wars franchise as an example, Gray argues that the toys refined and accentuated certain themes and meanings of the films. Through play, children were able to develop their own narrative using marginal characters in the text that were available as action figures. [12] [#N12] At the same time, the popularity of certain action figures also had an impact on the development of the films’ diegesis. According to Gray, the rare and popular action figure of Boba Fett contributed to the bounty hunter’s cult status among many fans, and the character’s central role in the prequel trilogy can be attributed to this embodiment as a plaything. [13] [#N13] However, the conception of toys as paratexts does not extend to action figure media that are self-referential rather than reliant upon Lucas’s storyworld. Just as action figures challenge such binaries between film and merchandise, action figure media challenge the notion of “primary” and “secondary” texts with regards to action figures as texts. Toy scholars also focus on connections to fictional texts and tend to exclude the mediation of toys as playthings in their definitions of action figures. So, then, non-fiction productions like the fan-made documentary Plastic Galaxy: The Story of Star Wars Toys (Brian Stillman 2014), reviews of new releases published on video channels like Analog Toys, specialized fan-magazines like Action Figure Resource, or the recent Netflix production The Toys That Made Us (2017-present) are overlooked. Consider Sharon M. Scott’s definition of action figures as: miniature toys made to represent living individuals and fictional characters. They are made of plastic and have articulated body parts such as arms that bend and heads that turn. The action figure usually functions within a larger narrative in which a number of other characters have specific roles. Within these fictions, which are provided by comic books, television, and real life drama, the figures are likely divided into groups of heroes and villains who reenact the battle between Good and Evil. [14] [#N14] Although Star Wars action figures cannot be wholly separated from the fictional texts they are based on, their presentation as miniature plastic toys with articulated body parts in action figure media operates at one remove, or at least is not strictly dependent upon the narrative “mothership” of the Star Wars stor

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在文本性和物质性之间：狂热与动作人物的中介

本文以《星球大战》为案例研究，将人偶分析为复杂的媒体文本，这些文本通过各种媒体进行消费，超出了玩具店中可用的实际有形物品。虽然早期对动作人偶的讨论主要探讨了角色玩具与虚构文本叙事之间的关系，但本文通过小说和非小说粉丝制作（包括同人小说、视频、角色扮演、制作）突出了玩具作为玩具的中介作用。关于动作人物的过去、现在、重要性和可玩性的历史、指南和播客。基于“电影从来都不是（只是）电影，电视也从来不是（只是）电视”的前提，乔纳森·格雷认为，“我们需要一个‘屏幕外研究’来理解其他实体的财富。使媒体饱和，以及构建电影和电视。” [1] [#N1] 在这个学术性的镜头外，人偶一直是受欢迎的调查对象。格雷本人曾将动作人物作为副文本进行研究，而其他人则将它们与媒体融合、参与式文化、特许经营、跨媒体、媒体组合、收集、游戏、定制或模仿狂热进行了讨论。[2] [#N2] 尽管采用了不同的方法，但这些研究对玩具与虚构文本叙事之间的关系有着共同的兴趣，全面概述了无形的故事世界如何在屏幕外变得有形。这些研究忽略了玩具的重要性如何在广告、印刷和在线出版物、播客、视频等广泛的媒体中表现出来的问题。本文认为，如果不承认动作人物媒体在本文定义为动作人物媒体中的多样化中介，则对动作人物及其在当代媒体文化中的作用的更好理解将是不完整的。在这方面，以下论点也是一种请求，即在呼吁进行屏幕外研究的同时，还需要对那些将人偶展示为它们的制作对象的媒体进行研究：玩具。动作人物媒体包含非小说和小说格式和流派。自从 1950 年代关于流行物质文化的早期收藏指南出现以来，[3] [#N3] 职业和业余历史学家已经制作了关于动作人物的书籍、博客、视频、纪录片、播客、博物馆展览和电视节目。这些历史对玩具的重要性和可玩性有着共同的兴趣。它们突出了诸如清晰度、尺寸和配件等问题，还包括设计师和经理的传记、生产材料、成型技术、包装设计和原型制作。此外，这些历史涉及未实现的玩具概念、分销、广告、营销、盗版、许可合同、线路和国家市场之间的特定区域变体，以及游戏记忆和收藏爱好。就小说而言，玩具迷们通过广泛的实践向动作人物致敬，这些实践通常与虚构文本的狂热相关；例如，通过写同人小说主演的玩具，制作以家庭空间为背景的玩具故事，以及在大会上表演可动人偶角色扮演。即使这些文字以媒体为主题的玩具明星，他们也从未失去对玩具物质文化的关注。非小说和虚构的动作人偶媒体一起为玩具和其他商品的文本性和物质性之间的关系提供了新的思路，电影和媒体研究很少承认这些关系，因为它专注于动作人偶与虚构故事世界的文本关系。本文主要关注动作人偶在粉丝制作的动作人偶媒体中作为玩物的中介。通过星球大战作为案例研究，人偶被证明是复杂的媒体文本，超出了玩具店中可用的实际有形物品的消费范围。因此，本文将一组新的小说和非小说文本以及粉丝实践引入关于粉丝“对象/文本生态系统”的学术研究中。[4] [#N4] 根据之前将人偶和其他玩具视为同人圈不同对象的研究，本文对粉丝在人偶媒体中的文本生产力进行了更详细的分析，这些分析没有像问题那样详细收集、定制和播放。[5] [#N5] 第一部分将动作人偶媒体整合到动作人偶的定义中，并探讨了粉丝对超越实际玩具的更广泛的玩具物质文化的兴趣及其与小说文本的模仿和主题联系。本节认为，粉丝通过消费媒体来激发和满足这种兴趣。第二部分调查了各种小说和非小说动作人偶媒体，将它们分为玩具-栩栩如生的玩具故事和动作人偶历史两大类。此外，第二部分将讨论动作人偶媒体如何被文化产业认可，文化产业已开始向更多主流受众制作、发行和营销小说和非小说类动作人偶媒体。最后，最后一部分将动作人偶粉丝作为一个子社区进行讨论，他们拥有自己的等级、技能和知识，这些粉丝并肩运作，并与在《星球大战》系列的保护伞下聚集在一起的其他粉丝团体相关联。自 1960 年代成立以来，动作人偶的中介作用一直是高度中介化的玩具，与媒体行业有着密切的联系，早在 1977 年乔治·卢卡斯的《星球大战：新希望》上映之前很久。 [6] [#N6] 然而，肯纳的动作人偶系列的空前成功创造了媒体主题玩具生产的新热潮。当里根政府于 1983 年废除禁止为儿童进行基于产品的节目的 FCC 规定时，玩具和媒体行业的综合体达到顶峰。 宇宙大师和变形金刚等可动人偶系列与委托电视节目一起发布，这些电视节目除了向儿童宣传玩具外传统的营销活动。[7] [#N7] 在整个 1980 年代和 1990 年代，许多学者对媒体和玩具行业日益增强的协同作用以及随之而来的玩具叙事化持矛盾态度。少数持乐观态度的学者认为，模仿玩具是儿童通过二维图像的三维物化来获取、适应和扩展虚构故事世界中主题的机会。[8] [#N8] 更大的悲观批评者阵营将媒体主题玩具视为无意识消费文化的单纯推动者和症状。[9] [#N9] 在电影和媒体研究中，类似的概念将玩具和其他商品减少为有形的事后想法，其生产是为了一个没有任何创意机构的“寄生产业”的利益。[10] [#N10] 最近的研究提供了对玩具的替代解读，将讨论从媒体如何影响游戏转移到玩具如何影响或改变电影或节目的解释的问题上。格雷对副文本的研究是这方面最有影响力的研究之一，他声称“玩具 [...] 从来都不是‘次要’衍生品或巧合：它们在其中发挥了至关重要的作用，因此已成为至关重要的一部分。的，主要文本及其无与伦比的成功。” [11] [#N11] 同样以《星球大战》系列为例，格雷认为这些玩具提炼并突出了电影的某些主题和意义。通过游戏，孩子们能够使用文本中可用作动作人物的边缘字符来发展自己的叙事。[12] [#N12] 同时，某些动作人物的流行也对电影叙事的发展产生了影响。根据格雷的说法，波巴费特这个罕见而受欢迎的动作人物促成了赏金猎人在众多粉丝中的崇拜地位，角色在前传三部曲中的核心作用可以归因于这个作为玩具的体现。[13] [#N13] 然而，玩具作为副文本的概念并没有扩展到自我参照而不是依赖于卢卡斯的故事世界的动作人物媒体。正如动作人偶挑战电影和商品之间的这种二元性一样，动作人偶媒体也挑战“主要”和“次要”文本的概念，将动作人偶视为文本。玩具学者还关注与虚构文本的联系，并倾向于在他们对动作人物的定义中排除玩具作为玩具的中介。因此，非虚构作品，如粉丝制作的纪录片《塑料银河：星球大战玩具的故事》（Brian Stillman 2014），对在 Analog Toys 等视频频道上发布的新版本的评论，专门的粉丝杂志，如 Action Figure Resource，或最近的 Netflix 制作 The Toys That Made Us（2017 年至今）被忽视了。考虑一下 Sharon M. Scott 对动作人偶的定义：为代表活着的人和虚构人物而制作的微型玩具。它们由塑料制成，并具有铰接的身体部位，例如弯曲的手臂和转动的头部。动作人物通常在更大的叙事中起作用，其中许多其他角色扮演特定角色。在这些由漫画书、电视和现实生活戏剧提供的小说中，人物很可能被分成几组英雄和反派，他们重演了善恶之间的战斗。[14] [#N14] 虽然星球大战的动作人物不能与它们所基于的虚构文本完全分开，