Fantasies and Fangirls: Gender and Sexuality in Robert Altman’s Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

This chapter explores representations of fandom, gender, and sexuality in Robert Altman's Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), an adaptation of Ed Graczyk’s play about an all-female James Dean fan club that reunites in McCarthy, Texas in 1975. As a means of contextualizing the film within Altman’s larger oeuvre, the chapter considers production contexts, concentrating on Altman’s adaptation of the 1976 Broadway play and the film’s release in art house cinemas across the United States. With a particular focus on female fandom, the stereotype of female fans as passive consumers is addressed and reimagined. Finally, the chapter analyzes how the film represents gender and sexuality, as well as how the film was received, as a means of further exploring the film’s construction of fantasies, fangirls, and fandom. This chapter draws attention to how female and gay male fans gain access to James Dean as a fantasy and as a star text. Altman’s use of physical and metaphorical windows and mirrors into the past to portray the characters’ personal histories and memories enables a visual reimagining of cinematic time as well as a reconstruction of the characters and their genders.