‘Just like us’?

Investigating how LGBTQ Australians read celebrity media

Lucy Watson

A thesis submitted to fulfil requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

The University of Sydney

2019 Statement of originality

This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis is my own work.

This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. A version of Chapter Nine appears in the book Gender and Australian Celebrity Culture (forthcoming), edited by Anthea Taylor and Joanna McIntyre.

I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged.

Lucy Watson

25th September 2019

i Abstract

In the 21st century, celebrity culture is increasingly pervasive. Existing research on how people

(particularly women) read celebrity indicates that celebrity media is consumed for pleasure, as a way to engage in ‘safe’ gossip amongst imagined, as well as real, communities about standards of morality, and as a way to understand and debate social and cultural behavioural standards. The celebrities we read about engage us in a process of cultural identity formation, as we identify and disidentify with those whom we consume. Celebrities are, as the adage goes, ‘just like us’ – only richer, more talented, or perhaps better looking.

But what about when celebrities are not ‘just like us’? Despite relatively recent changes in the representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) life in the media, the world of celebrity is an overwhelmingly heterosexual one. Queer media studies indicate that it is common for queer readers to subvert understandings of media, and seek out a subtext, by appropriating mainstream texts to read them as if created for a minority audience. Where

LGBTQ life is represented in the media, studies have critiqued it for being overly normative, or placed affective value on the normativity of this media.

This research, then, places qualitative audience research in conversation with theories of affect in order to understand how LGBTQ people read celebrity media, and to discover to what extent, for LGBTQ people, celebrities are ‘just like us’.

ii Acknowledgements

This thesis would not have been possible without my supervisor, Dr Megan Le Masurier. She’s the reason I have taken this career trajectory. Her confidence in me and my abilities, her guidance, and her complete dedication to my work has been indispensable throughout this process.

I’d also like to thank my associate supervisor, Professor Annamarie Jagose for her advice and feedback at crucial moments, and staff in the Media and Communications department, particularly Dr Penny O’Donnell, Dr Benedetta Brevini, Dr Jonathon Hutchinson, Professor

Gerard Goggin, and Dr Fiona Giles.

A big thank you to my 61 participants, without whom this thesis would not have been possible.

My fellow PhD friends have provided me with so much support over the last few years, in particular Dr Grace Sharkey, who has been my best cheerleader, and Dr Rafi Alam, for listening to my rants. Also thanks to Pat Horton, Dr Jaya Keaney, and Sam Sperring, for learning with me along the way.

Thanks to my parents for their support in this process, and especially my brother, Tom, for beating me to the Dr Watson title, and for proofreading at the eleventh hour. To my friends:

Alex, Annie, Avani, Bebe, Bec, Bryant, Frankie, Hannah, Lara, Liz, Mariana, Matilda, Max, Nick,

Nina, and especially Liv and Lucy. Thank you for your moral support and emotional labour in putting up with me over the last few years.

Finally, to Kristen Stewart.

iii Table of contents

Statement of originality i

Abstract ii

Acknowledgements iii

Chapter One: Introduction 1

Chapter Two: Literature review 13

Chapter Three: Methodology 70

Part One: Queerly reading celebrity 86

Chapter Four: “If Britney can make it through 2007, I can make it through today”:

The camp/melodramatic reading of celebrity 87

Chapter Five: “She’s unapologetically human, and sexual, and queer, and disgusting”:

Celebrity transgression, apology, and the de/attachment of shame 115

Chapter Six: “She’s too funny to be straight”:

Speculation, subtext, and gossip 133

Part Two: Reading queer celebrity 169

Chapter Seven: “Wow, I’m actually reading about a celebrity who is in a relationship

with, or dating, a woman”:

LGBTQ celebrities, representation, and belonging 170

Chapter Eight: “You’re probably only five make-out links away from a really famous

queer person”:

LGBTQ micro-celebrity and the intimate micro-public 208

iv Chapter Nine: “It was nice for me watching that, because she was very calming”:

Affective responses to celebrity marriage equality activism 231

Chapter Ten: Conclusion 252

References 259

Appendices 283

v Chapter One

Introduction

In 2010, while grappling with my own sexuality, I attended a Sydney Film Festival screening of

The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, who have a notable kiss scene in the film. Enamoured by this kind of queer representation that was explicit, but inconclusive (were they just friends who drunkenly pashed? Were they in love with each other? Did they have sex after that, in between the kiss scene and the subsequent ‘morning after’ scene?) I left the cinema wanting more (as, I’m sure, was writer/director Floria Sigismondi’s intention). Desperate to seek out more of this brief, alluring (alluding) moment of queer representation, I turned to the film’s paratexts, especially press interviews with Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, to find out more.

I turned particularly to Tumblr, where fan-made paratexts were in abundance. These fan-made paratexts included supercuts of press interviews, highlighting every instance of flirtatious tension between the two co-stars, and gifs that turned passing flirty moments into eternally replaying events, imbuing them with more significance as the viewer watched Kristen look at Dakota, over, and over, and over again. I consumed these paratexts at great length, and while I knew

Kristen Stewart was confirmed to be dating her Twilight (2008) co-star, Robert Pattinson, these paratexts helped to create a reality in my mind that told me Kristen Stewart was queer. Closeted or bi, but there was something queer here.

Later, in 2012, news broke of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson breaking up, because

Kristen Stewart had been caught cheating on him with the director of her latest film, Rupert

Sanders. I recall at the time gossiping about this incident with a straight friend of mine, who expressed dismay at the cheating. I, on the other hand, was not convinced that cheating had really occurred. In my mind, this media storm was a publicist-driven event to deter from

1 rumours of Kristen Stewart’s queerness. Playfully convinced of a Hollywood Golden Age style studio cover-up, where one scandal (an affair) was ‘leaked’ to replace the far more damaging one

(queerness), I told my friend my theory. She was utterly bewildered. Despite having seen The

Runaways (2010), that scene didn’t have nearly the same effect on her, and so she hadn’t delved deep into the paratexts as I had, searching for the queerness I so desperately wanted to see.

Years later, when Kristen Stewart confirmed her relationship with Alicia Cargile, I received a text message from this same friend that simply read: “You were right.”

This story was one of the motivations for undertaking this research. I wanted to see if other queer people developed theories similar to the one I had (with the help of fan-made paratexts) for Kristen Stewart. I wanted to find out how other queer people reacted when celebrities they always ‘knew’ were gay came out, how they felt about openly gay celebrities, if they cared about other celebrities, and why. So I developed an audience research project that set out to answer the central question, how do queer people read celebrity media?

Theoretical backgrounds

When asked to think about queer people and celebrity media, you might jump to gay men and diva worship: depending on your age and context, you might think Judy Garland, Joan Crawford,

Whitney Houston, Madonna, or Lady Gaga. But you might also have thought of Ellen

DeGeneres, Elton John, or Laverne Cox. Gay people, and men in particular, have a long cultural history with celebrity and star fascinations, from Judy Garland and gay men as ‘friends of

Dorothy’ to the contemporary moment, where divas earn their stripes through engaging in gay rights activism (Draper, 2017). But as well as divas, we now have our own lesbian, gay, bisexual,

2 transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)1 icons: being out in Hollywood isn’t as hard as it used to be.

So which celebrities do we care about, and why?

In How to be Gay (2012), Halperin suggests that there are two versions of gay culture in contemporary society: the original, pre-Stonewall2 culture of a characteristic way of decoding objects from mainstream culture and appropriating them through queering or resignifying their meaning; and the more contemporary explicit ‘identity art’, that is, cultural objects that are produced by and for gay people. He distinguishes these practices by calling the explicit mode

‘culture’ and the implicit a ‘subculture’. Halperin suggests that gay culture is rooted in gay identity, while the subculture is rooted in identification with non-gay subjects or cultural forms.

In distinguishing between the two, he asks his readers, “Would you rather listen to Rufus

Wainwright or Judy Garland?” (p. 417). Halperin admits that the emergence of an explicit gay culture was “a kind of epistemic breakthrough” for him – the importance of being explicitly visible in a text is something he does not understate (p. 425). His decision to focus his book almost solely on gay subculture, however, or the implicit readings rooted in identification, is because “the latter [subculture] is mysterious in ways that the former [culture] is not. It is abundantly obvious why gay men produce and consume a culture that consists in representations of gay men and of gay male experience” (p. 426). What Halperin finds unexpected about this gay subculture is its persistence; the fact that queerly reading and decoding still exists alongside

1 Throughout this thesis, I use LGBTQ to refer to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community more generally. I also use queer as an umbrella term to refer to a broad coalition of marginalised sexual identities, discussed further in the Literature review (Jagose, 1996). I have chosen the acronym LGBTQ because it reflects my participants, who identified as LGBT and queer. When I am not using LGBTQ, it is because in that particular context, another, more specific or different acronym was used. 2 By ‘pre-Stonewall’, Halperin means the culture of gay men before gay liberation. The Stonewall riots of June 1969 are widely considered the birth of the modern gay rights movement in the US, and the years after Stonewall were characterised by a claiming of gay identity by men and women, coming out of the closet, and becoming visible (Halperin, 2012). The pre-Stonewall culture, therefore, was seen as closeted, a “secret handshake” and no longer necessary in the context of heightened visibility (Harris, 1996). Halperin’s book seeks to critique the notion that this pre-Stonewall culture should only exist in the closeted past, investigating its persistence into the present.

3 explicit queer representation. The reason, he argues, is that contemporary gay life is not fully liberated, and thus, the need for the queer fantasy created by this gay subculture persists.

While Halperin’s book is preoccupied with the question of the persistence of this gay subculture

– of which diva worship forms a large part – in asking how queer people read celebrity media I am interested in both the culture and subculture. The answer to the question Rufus Wainwright or Judy Garland is ‘both, for different reasons’. Halperin’s distinction between gay culture and subculture allows for a clear way to structure this thesis: Part One is concerned with the persistence of a gay subculture that reads non-gay forms in queer ways, and Part Two is concerned with the importance of gay-authored ‘identity art’. In the context of celebrity, I have divided this into implicit and explicit reading strategies, where Part One considers the way in which audiences might relate to non-gay celebrities, while Part Two is concerned with participant reactions to explicit representation of LGBTQ life in celebrity media.

A great deal of scholarly literature within media and cultural studies that consider audience responses to media texts are concerned with the media and its relationship to ideology, hegemony, and power. They’re concerned with how the audience responds to media, whether they are duped by its power, or able to resist it. These are important questions. But they are also not the only questions worth answering. In his recent work on celebrity, Redmond (2019) puts forth the concept of the circuit of affect within celebrity culture, as an interpretive schema that operates alongside the circuit of culture. This concept is explained in greater detail in the

Literature review, but for Redmond, while the circuit of culture and its preoccupation with tensions of hegemony and counter-hegemony is a “wonderfully skilled model which allows us to examine celebrity through all the facets that make it meaningful in everyday life” the circuit of affect “attempts to give definition and visibility” to the “lost, emotive tones” that are neglected by the circuit of culture (p. 15). For Redmond, celebrities are sensed, felt, experienced, and

4 embodied, and not simply semiotic signs, discourse and ideology (p. 16; see also Redmond,

2013). Celebrity culture, then, is an “affective machine” (Redmond, 2019, p. 17).

In Reading Women’s Magazines (1995), a classic example of feminist media studies, Hermes undertakes an audience study of consumers of women’s magazines, including celebrity gossip, focusing especially on women and gay male readers of celebrity gossip. She theorises the ‘fallacy of meaningfulness’ to caution against scholarly interventions that take too seriously the meaning, function, and interpretation of popular media texts, which their audiences may well find meaningless. For Hermes, the content of the text was less important than its place in her audience’s everyday life. Hermes found that reading magazines generates pleasure, allows for emotional learning, and connects readers in an intimate, common world.

A lot of research within queer media studies is concerned with the interpretive schema, often dismissing popular media texts and LGBTQ representation as “grossly normative”, and therefore in service of dominant forms of ideology or power (Griffin, 2016, p. 15). In his work on gay and lesbian media forms, Griffin (2016) argues that to dismiss media forms as normative is to “miscalculate their use-value to the people who consume them” (p. 2). Griffin argues for a shift away from debates of normativity, towards the affective experience of consumption of media texts, and argues for a queer criticism of media that primarily considers its affective value.

Like Hermes, who suggests that what is feminist about her research is a focus on women and the value of popular media to them and their everyday lives, what is queer about Griffin’s research of gay and lesbian media forms is its focus on the production of queer feelings among gay and lesbian people. He suggests that gay and lesbian media forms are shaped by their provision of feelings of belonging, freedom, and of normativity. He uses Berlant’s (2008) concept of the intimate public to explore the “pleasures of normativity” that consuming this form of media

5 brings its readers, even as they have conflicting responses to the representations in the text

(Griffin, 2018, p. 167).

In The Female Complaint, Berlant (2008) focuses particularly on consumers of women’s commodity culture as forming an intimate public. The intimate public, she writes, “flourishes as a porous, affective scene of identification among strangers that promises a certain experience of belonging and provides a complex of consolation, confirmation, discipline, and discussion about how to live” as a member of a nondominant group of people (p. viii). The intimate public represents a site of collective feeling, where its members are people with a shared worldview, reflecting on their experiences of living in the world. The intimate public provides its members – through “emotional contact” – feelings of belonging and survival, a fantasy of normativity

(Berlant, 2008, p. viii). The concept of the intimate public is explored in greater detail in the

Literature review, but this thesis argues that LGBTQ consumers of celebrity culture form an intimate public, and as a result, through reading celebrity, consumers of this culture are provided a space to experience feelings of belonging, survival, and normality. In doing so, like Griffin, I argue that the affective value of celebrity media, through its production of an intimate public, cannot be discounted.

Research questions

This thesis, then, is interested in the affective value of celebrity media for participants. While celebrities do provide space for the negotiation of dominant ideologies, they are also, as

Redmond argues, experienced affectively. Halperin (2012) suggests that the subversive, decoding reading strategies of gay subculture – while they certainly negotiate dominant meanings within mainstream culture – are motivated by queer feelings and queer desire. While Halperin uses this as a motivation to think of its political value, throughout this thesis, I think of the consumption

6 of celebrity media as “juxtapolitical”, occurring within the intimate public (Berlant, 2008, p. x).

Berlant defines juxtapolitical as operating adjacent to the political – what is juxtapolitical can occasionally ‘do’ politics and have political value, but more often than not, takes the affective bonds formed between members of an intimate public of consumers of a commodity culture as

“achievement enough” (p. x). Griffin (2016) argues that the use-value of gay and lesbian media forms, in their provision of feelings of belonging for gay and lesbian audiences similarly favours the value of the juxtapolitical. Both Halperin and Griffin are concerned, at some level, with queer feelings, but neither of these works employ audience research methods of focus groups and interviews.

In my research I found that the use-value of celebrity media, for queer people, lies in its production of an intimate public of queer readers of celebrity culture, whether that’s an interpretive community who adopt subversive reading strategies or a community of readers consuming explicit representation of LGBTQ life in celebrity media. Like Halperin, I discovered that queer people still care about non-gay celebrities, like the divas they worshipped before gay liberation. But I also found that explicit representation was also important; Rufus matters, and so does Judy. And they matter because of the way they shape a community, a culture, an intimate public. Reading about celebrities becomes a way to connect with queerness, and queer people.

My interest in celebrity studies and its relationship to queer lives stems from the way that celebrity is primarily a discourse of identification and individualism, it is a system of representation that reflects what it means to live in contemporary society (Dyer, 2004; Marshall,

2006). And yet so often, I found my own life absent from celebrity representation, or only scandalised in the pages of a trashy gossip magazine. The celebrity was supposed to be ‘just like us’, but I couldn’t see me anywhere, except in Ellen DeGeneres, who I found disappointing. But in recent years, I noticed this started to change. In the same way that gay life had been absent

7 from mainstream media forms, and suddenly found increasing representation over the 90s and

2000s (Gross, 2001), gay life started to be represented in celebrity media, as Western society became more ‘accepting’ of it, and as celebrity culture proliferated and expanded beyond the confines of mainstream media and its gatekeepers. ‘Anyone’ could be a celebrity in the 21st century, and that included gay people.

I wanted to conduct an audience study, not only because I wanted to see if other people felt a certain way about Kristen Stewart, as I did, but also because audience research seemed conspicuously absent from recent work on gay and lesbian media and queer reading strategies, and LGBTQ people were underrepresented in work on celebrity audiences.3 In answering how do queer people read celebrity media? I set out to answer a few smaller research questions, to break this overarching question down. They are:

• How do queer people respond to non-queer celebrity?

• How do they respond to queer celebrity?

• How does celebrity media reflect queer life (or not)?

• How do participants relate to celebrities?

• How does celebrity gossip produce community among queer readers?

While I had some ideas of what would come up, based on the work in celebrity and queer media studies, my focus groups and interviews began with celebrities that participants chose to discuss, and continued in a semi-structured manner. As a result, this research was largely participant led and what follows in the body chapters of this thesis are observations from the participant data.

3 Audience studies that have considered queer consumers of celebrity at some level are discussed in the Literature review, and include Dhoest and Simons (2012), Gomillion and Giuliano (2011), Hermes (1995), and Shiau (2014).

8 Absent from this thesis is discussion of sexual desire, or the celebrities that participants found attractive, because it was rarely discussed. Redmond (2019) notes that celebrities are first and foremost “embodied individuals” that we engage with through “sensorial-based aesthetics” (p.

118). They are, put simply, objects of “beauty, pleasure, delight” (Dyer, 1998, p. 162). Perhaps the reason this was largely absent from discussion was that it was all too obvious: celebrities are attractive, and part of our interest in them is motivated in this way. It wasn’t worth discussing.

As I found, it rarely came up, and I didn’t press participants on the topic.

Halperin’s work on gay culture, and much of the work on diva worship among queer audiences more generally, focuses specifically on gay men. Halperin does this to home in on the particular specificities of gay male attachment to cultural forms, but I have chosen to expand my research to consider a broader coalition of LGBTQ readers of celebrity media for a few reasons: to reflect the collectivity of this coalition, and the value in recognising the ways in which we are similar (as well as our differences); to include audiences that have historically been absent from these questions, including lesbian, bisexual and transgender people; and to reflect the fluidity of these identity categories, and the people within them (two participants self-selected multiple sexual orientations for themselves, for example). The result is a more heterogeneous collection of reading strategies. This research is not quantitative, it makes no attempt to find a definitive answer to how all queer people read celebrity media; instead, it presents a qualitative audience study that reflects the views and reading strategies of only my participants, and in doing so, presents an inquiry into queer reading strategies of celebrity media and an answer to how some queer people read celebrity media.

9 Chapter outlines

This thesis is divided into two parts, inspired by Halperin’s division of gay culture into culture and subculture. Part One, Queerly reading celebrity, interrogates different aspects of how my participants read queerness into celebrity media. Part Two, Reading queer celebrity, explores how my participants responded to overtly queer celebrity. Before Part One and Two are the

Literature review and the Methodology, outlining the fields of research and the parameters of the study, respectively.

Chapter Four, the first chapter of Part One, investigates the ongoing interest participants had in troubled or scorned celebrities, akin to the tragic diva figure who has been investigated in much scholarly literature about queer and camp reading strategies (Doty, 2007; Dyer, 2004; Halperin,

2012; Harris, 1996; Kates, 2001). Chapter Four finds that participants adopted a camp/melodramatic reading as a way to affectively identify with these tragic figures that seeks to subvert the tragedy and resist its dominant meaning. This reading strategy produces moral community and an intimate public, through its production of feelings of survival.

Chapter Five argues that queer people enact a reading strategy of celebrity media that is structured by shame. In analysing participant responses to celebrity transgression and apology, this chapter finds that participants could identify with the way celebrities were made to feel shame in these instances in particularly queer ways. It also investigates the way in which these readings would generate a critique of the norms produced by the representation of celebrity transgression, as well as an intimate public structured by the shared affect of shame.

Chapter Six investigates the type of reading I conducted of Kristen Stewart – the speculative or subtextual reading of celebrity. It explores how participants would read queerness onto a

10 celebrity who had not disclosed a queer sexuality. It investigates how this happens, and why, as well as the relationship of these readings to gossip and the recent phenomenon of queerbaiting.

It finds that while this kind of reading strategy is no longer politically necessary, given the explicit representation of gay life in celebrity media, it is still playfully adopted by participants as a way of identifying with celebrity, and producing feelings of belonging within heteronormative celebrity forms, as well as forms of pleasure.

Chapter Seven, the first chapter of Part Two, examines how participants consumed mainstream

LGBTQ celebrities. It explores the way in which this representation was useful for identity construction and visibility, as well as parsing out feelings of being ‘normal’. It also explores the way in which these celebrities are (sometimes) disappointing – in much the same way I personally felt about Ellen DeGeneres, or Halperin (2012) suggests gay men felt about representations of themselves (p. 429). This chapter argues, like Griffin and Redmond, for a shift in focus away from the representational schema to the affective use-value of LGBTQ celebrity, especially via its production of an intimate public.

Chapter Eight similarly considers the affective value of media representation, focusing instead on

LGBTQ micro-celebrity. It argues that the fragmentation of the celebrity media public into many celebrity media publics, as a result of the fragmentation produced by new media and micro- celebrity, produces many of what I call intimate micro-publics of consumers of LGBTQ micro- celebrity. These intimate micro-publics are produced through the particular propensity of micro- celebrity to produce more ordinary, authentic, and intimate celebrity narratives, thus better reflecting the ‘just like us’ adage and further presenting the opportunity to experience feelings of belonging within media consumption by participants. They are also produced by the possibility of multisocial interaction, and emotional contact produced by interaction between audiences and celebrity, and other audience members. This chapter also considers the adoption of micro-

11 celebrity strategies by participants to explore the way in which micro-celebrity acts as a form of mediated intimacy, and the affective value of this.

Chapter Nine argues for the affective value of celebrity activism, using a case study of activism by celebrities during the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey in 2017. It argues that scholarly literature concerned with the traditional paradigm of celebrity activism and advocacy has overlooked the affective use-value of such activism, and instead suggests the value of celebrity activism in the context of marriage equality lies in the way it makes participants feel. The final chapter of this thesis, Chapter Ten, concludes the research with some final thoughts and suggestions for future research directions.

12 Chapter Two

Literature review

The Introduction outlined some of the key concepts used in this thesis to understand my participants’ responses to celebrity media, including Halperin’s (2012) argument for the enduring value of gay subculture, Berlant’s (2008) concept of the intimate public, Griffin’s (2016) argument for the value of the intimate public of readers of gay and lesbian mainstream media, and Redmond’s (2019) argument for the necessity to understand celebrity through an affective lens. The Literature review will explore these concepts in greater detail, as well as survey the theoretical background that these works arise from.

The first section of the Literature review explores the fields of celebrity studies and queer theory.

It first defines celebrity as it is understood within celebrity studies, and how this definition has developed over time, from notions of the ‘star’ to the micro-celebrity. It then explores the mediation of celebrity, particularly through gossip, as it is only through mediation that audiences can consume celebrity. The celebrity audience, and the cultural function of celebrity for its audience, is then explored, as it is within this field that my research resides.

Section two of this Literature review explores the meaning of ‘queer’, queer theory and queer media studies. It also looks at subversive reading strategies and the place of audience research within queer media studies. In doing so, this section outlines a gap in the field this research fills.

The third section explores the discursive construction of sexuality, especially through Foucault’s

(1978) work on the will to knowledge and Sedgwick’s (1990) work on the closet. These concepts are defined, and used to explain how sexuality is not a fixed and stable entity, but rather, is

13 produced discursively and exploited as “the secret” (Foucault, 1978, p. 35). This idea of “the secret” is then applied to the way in which celebrity is constituted discursively, as a constant interplay between public and private, driven by our desire for knowledge of the celebrity, our desire to uncover their secrets and expose their privacy. This theoretical work lays the foundation for the participant responses analysed particularly in Chapter Six.

Section four looks at the particular relationship queer theory has to the production of norms, and how the concept of norms has been taken up within celebrity studies. It looks at the way in which norms are produced by establishing the subordinated abnormal, and how these norms are in a constant state of fluidity as our conception of the abnormal changes. It considers queer theory’s critique of normativity as a category requiring destabilisation. This section then looks at the way in which celebrity scandal and celebrity media more generally produces normative behaviour by highlighting transgression and framing it as such. It lays the foundation for analysis of participant responses to celebrity transgression in Chapter Five. It also demonstrates the way in which theories of normativity operate as a launch point for studies of affect, establishing the importance of the shift from debates over normativity and its relationship to power to debates over normativity’s affective capacities, explored in more detail in Chapter Seven.

Section five outlines theories of affect, the production of queer feelings, and how affect applies to celebrity. It first defines affect and how it used throughout this thesis, before considering how theories of affect have produced the concept of queer feelings, the subject of Chapters Five and

Nine, and how affect produces queer identity and has a role in identification. This section then looks at the place of theories of affect within celebrity studies, exploring in greater detail

Redmond’s (2019) argument for the necessity of the circuit of affect within celebrity culture, a central concern of this thesis.

14 Section six explores the intimate public in greater detail. It first defines Berlant’s concept, before arguing the case for how Halperin’s concept of gay subculture could be considered part of an intimate public, and finally how celebrity culture could similarly be considered the ‘stuff’ of an intimate public. As the Introduction outlined, the notion of the intimate public is a key concept used within this thesis because of the way Berlant uses it to understand minority audiences of popular culture, and therefore its relevance in understanding the motivations of queer readers of celebrity culture. This section, then, establishes the key concept of this thesis that seeks to link queer people to celebrity culture, as well as its relationship to the affective capacity of normativity, which is a focus of Part Two.

1. Explorations: Celebrity, gossip, audiences, identification

The thesis broadly sits within celebrity studies and queer media studies, using some key concepts from queer theory in order to understand how queer people respond to celebrity media. This section aims to outline the theoretical background of celebrity before the next section defines queer theory and queer media studies.

There is much scholarly debate over the origins of celebrity, and what constitutes a celebrity.4

Turner (2014) takes Boorstin’s (1971) definition of the celebrity as a starting point: “the celebrity is a person who is well-known for their well-knownness” (p. 58). For Turner, the celebrity is someone whose private life is more interesting to audiences than their public life. More broadly though, the phenomenon of celebrity is not something that can be attributed to any one individual, but rather, is constituted discursively (Turner, Bonner & Marshall, 2000, p 11). This thesis draws on the influential work of Dyer (1998, 2004), who suggests that stars are cultural

4 For a good overview of these debates, see Turner’s book (2014) Understanding Celebrity.

15 texts, semiotic signs that are produced within discourse and ideology, able to be read in a variety of ways, and deconstructed and decoded (Hall, 1980; Meyers, 2009). As signs, Dyer (2004) argues, “stars articulate what it is to be a human being in contemporary society,” that is, stars produce a semiotic and discursive system of “the promise and the difficulty” of individuality (p.

7). Conceptually, for Dyer, stars have a clear and distinct on/off stage presence (for example, an actor such as George Clooney or Julia Roberts), but celebrity has a more ambiguous meaning in academic and popular discourse. Turner (2014) uses the word ‘personality’ to refer to those with a less distinct on/off screen persona, and celebrity to refer to both stars’ and personalities’ fame and influence. In any case, Holmes (2005b) argues that “in studying the phenomenon of celebrity and fame at any one moment, we are essentially studying traces of how it is written about” (p. 10, emphasis in original) and therefore, because “contemporary celebrity texts rarely respect these conceptual divisions” (p. 9), these divisions are of lesser importance when considering the phenomenon of celebrity in contemporary landscapes. As a result, this thesis adopts Holmes’s approach and uses the word ‘celebrity’ to describe “the system of representation – its conventions, structures and circulation – within which the celebrity self resonates within the public sphere” (p. 10, emphasis in original). It is because the phenomenon of celebrity is a system of representation that we can explore a range of theoretical concepts through the celebrity.

These conceptual divisions and definitional tensions are particularly apparent in the contemporary celebrity landscape that has seen the rise of the ‘ordinary’ celebrity (Gamson,

2011), and a shift that Marshall (2006) describes as a move from a representational to a presentational regime within the phenomenon of celebrity. Rojek (2001) differentiates between the ascribed celebrity, where “status typically follows from bloodline”, the achieved celebrity, derived from the “accomplishments of the individual in an open competition” and the attributed celebrity, “the result of the concentrated representation of an individual as noteworthy or

16 exceptional by cultural intermediaries” (pp. 17-18). The rise of the attributed celebrity typically begins with what Gamson (2011) labels “the decisive turn toward the ordinary” (pp 1061-1062).

Gamson sees this as the most prominent development in celebrity in the 21st century, and considers the role of the internet and new media in this shift. Turner (2010) sees this turn to the ordinary in more traditional forms of media as well, tracing what he calls “the demotic turn” – where more citizens are able to participate in the phenomenon of celebrity – back to reality TV.

Where the ordinary person was given space in traditional media formats through programming such as reality TV, new media allows for broader participation in the celebrity phenomenon across a range of users, what Hartley (2009) calls DIY (do it yourself) or DIWO (do it with others). These DIY celebrities are able to bypass traditional media gatekeepers, and build followings themselves. As Gamson (2011) writes:

Internet celebrity culture has, then, made it easy for ordinary people to build an audience,

bypassing the traditional celebrity industry; elevated the role of fans or audiences, turning

them into powerful producers of celebrities, hyperaware of their star-making capacity; and

moved to the forefront new celebrity characters and narratives that seem to defy the

traditional celebrity system. (p. 1067)

Turner (2016) argues that online participation can be seen to dissolve the binaries between

“production and consumption, the celebrity and the fan, and the traditional celebrity and the

‘ordinary’ or micro-celebrity” (p. 90). Marshall (2006) locates this shift in celebrity culture as moving (at least partly) from a representational to a presentational regime (p. 637). For Marshall, the representative potential of the celebrity has, through new media, shifted to a public presentation of the self. Where once we looked to celebrities to understand our selves and identities, we can now individually employ celebrity strategies via new media as a form of constructing the self. He writes: “celebrity becomes more than just a show and provider of

17 points of identification; celebrity provides the guide for the contemporary condition of exposure of the self” (Marshall, 2016, p. 514).

In 2008, Senft first coined the term ‘micro-celebrity’ to refer to “a new style of online performance that involves people ‘amping up’ their popularity over the Web using technologies like videos, blogs, and social networking sites” (p. 25). This definition and concept has been taken up by many in the celebrity studies field. Abidin (2018), in her book Internet Celebrity explains some of the key differences between ‘traditional’ and ‘micro’ celebrity:

Where traditional celebrities practice a sense of separation and distance from their

audiences, microcelebrities have their popularity premised on feelings of connection and

interactive responsiveness with their audiences; where traditional celebrities may be known

for their performance craft and skills, microcelebrities are expected to display themselves

unedited as “real” people with “real” issues; and where traditional celebrities may have

extensive fame among a large global audience, microcelebrities exercise a popularity that

while narrower in breadth is far deeper. Further, microcelebrities hold a stronger

obligation to their audiences than traditional celebrities, as the fame of the former is co-

constructed through a community of interested viewers on the internet rather than by the

mere mechanisms of the traditional entertainment industry. (pp. 11-12)

Marwick and boyd (2011) extend the work on micro-celebrity to argue that it signals a shift from celebrity as something you are, to something you do: “We conceptualize celebrity as an organic and ever-changing performative practice rather than a set of intrinsic personal characteristics or external labels” (p. 140). Micro-celebrity, for Marwick (2013b), is two things: being famous on a small scale, and the practice of celebrity, including presentational techniques drawn from

‘traditional’ celebrity, among everyday people and interactions online. In this thesis, I use the

18 term micro-celebrity to describe both the celebrity who is famous on a smaller, more micro scale, and the celebrity who has developed their fame within networked contexts following the turn to the ordinary (Marwick, 2013b, 2016; Senft, 2008; Turner, 2016). The two concepts are related: micro-celebrities (in terms of scale) still typically practice micro-celebrity strategies by extending and continuing their fame in networked contexts, and communicating with their audience via social media as they have limited access to mainstream or mass media forms. As Turner (2016) notes, ‘micro-celebrity’ becomes a question of scale, and a question of what ‘public’ the celebrity is addressing. The proliferation of micro-celebrities, or people who are famous to a small group of people, Turner argues, is indicative of the fragmentation of media. The micro-celebrity, in its nature of only addressing a micro-audience, has echoed this fragmentation and movement away from the very existence of a mass audience. As a result, the micro-celebrity can be conceived as a celebrity for a micro or niche audience. A person who is well-known for their well-knownness among a niche audience, therefore, is a micro-celebrity. The LGBTQ micro-celebrity, in both scale and strategy, is discussed in Chapter Eight of this thesis. This kind of celebrity is occasionally referred to as ‘subcultural’ because they attain cult status and relevance for a smaller group of people (Hills, 2006). I have chosen to refer to these celebrities as micro rather than subcultural to avoid confusion with Halperin’s (2012) use of the term subculture to refer to the strategies of resignification that gay men adopt when consuming non-gay cultural artefacts

(discussed in further detail in the section of this Literature review on queer media studies). This thesis is more broadly concerned with the phenomenon of celebrity (as this was the primary interest of my participants), rather than micro-celebrity, except in Chapter Eight, which takes the

LGBTQ micro-celebrity as its primary focus. The rest of this Literature review will therefore refer to celebrity, rather than micro-celebrity, unless explicitly specified.5

5 Celebrities can adopt micro-celebrity strategies, as Marwick & boyd (2011) argue with regard to celebrity practice on Twitter. Thus, arbitrarily distinguishing such concepts may produce unnecessary confusion.

19 Of primary concern to the study of celebrity, as a system of representation, is how it is mediated, and subsequently received. Coverage of celebrity has increased dramatically over the past few decades, partly due to the processes of tabloidisation of news media (Bird, 2009; Turner, 2014) which has contributed to the increase in focus on the ‘human interest’ story, and a tendency “to base stories around individuals, particularly celebrities, and to emphasise the personal and emotive impact of a given issue, at the expense of examining the broader structural context”

(Lumby, 1999, p. 17). As Turner (2014) notes, tabloid news is “utterly personalised and dominated by reports on the actions of well-known people” (p. 83). The tabloid media context has therefore allowed for the proliferation of the mediated celebrity, because the intense focus of tabloid media on the individual has meant a flourishing of the system that is primarily concerned with articulating individuality. As a result, much scholarly work is concerned with how celebrity is depicted in the media, and especially within the context of celebrity gossip.6

Celebrity gossip is a central concern of this thesis because it represents the way in which celebrity is both mediated, and received and discussed. As a study based on audience research, this thesis seeks to discuss celebrity and its mediation with participants, in effect not just talking about, but practicing, celebrity gossip. Gossip has many scholarly definitions, but most amount to discussion that is intimate and personal (Adkins, 2017; Bergmann, 1993; Bird, 1992; Jones, 1980;

Meyer Spacks, 1985). Gossip can be a source of cultural learning, and a place to evaluate moral and social codes (Adkins, 2017; Johansson, 2015; Jones, 1980; Meyer Spacks 1985). As Turner

(2014) puts it, gossip is “an important process through which relationships, identity, and social and cultural norms are debated, evaluated, modified and shared” (p. 27). Despite this label as an important process, gossip is typically denigrated as idle talk, frivolous, malicious, “an empty and useless waste of time” (Bergmann, 1993, p. 1; Meyer Spacks, 1985). Scholarship that seeks to

6 See, for example, Feasey (2008), Gamson (1994), Hermes (1995), Holmes (2005a), Johansson (2006), Marshall (1997), McDonnell (2014), Turner (2014), Turner, Bonner and Marshall (2000).

20 defend gossip as worthy of attention (see, for example, Adkins; 2017; Bergmann 1993; Meyer

Spacks, 1985) is quick to acknowledge the reasons it is denigrated, as well as its positive aspects, those that turn it from frivolous to an important process. Indeed, as Bergmann (1993) writes,

“the socialising function of gossip is impossible without its social disdain. It is only as something bad gossip can be something good” (p. 153). It is because gossip is criticised, and people seldom admit to participating in it, that it can have value (Adkins, 2017). Because gossip is seen to be a denigrated form of communication, it must be done in private. And because it is done in private, it produces intimacy among gossipers, creating the intimate space that allows for gossip’s important processes of debating social and cultural norms and creating spaces of collective belonging (Bergmann, 1993). Gossip about celebrities, according to Gamson (1994), “is a much freer realm, much more game-like than acquaintance gossip: there are no repercussions and there is no accountability” (p. 176). Gossip about celebrities may still be labelled frivolous, and therefore disdained, but is a way to produce intimate talk without consequence, in comparison to acquaintance gossip. Celebrity gossip is a way for audiences to negotiate moral codes in an intimate way with friends, and is thus a key way that audiences interact with the phenomenon of celebrity and its cultural functions.

The audience of the celebrity has been a focus within celebrity studies, especially scholarship concerned with the cultural function of celebrity.7 This thesis focuses on the everyday audience of celebrity, as opposed to fans, as it is concerned with everyday responses to celebrity media.

The cultural functions of the system of the celebrity depend on the ways in which audiences consume celebrity and generate intimacy with celebrity (Marshall, 1997). Gamson (1994) distinguishes between five types of celebrity ‘watcher’: the traditional, second-order traditional,

7 See, for example, Ashton and Feasey (2014), Feasey (2008), Gamson (1994), Gorin and Dubied (2011), Hermes (1995), Holmes, Ralph and Barker (2016), Johansson (2006, 2015), McDonnell (2014), Qiu (2012), Shiau (2014), Stacey (1994), Van den Bulck and Claessens (2014).

21 postmodernist, and two types of game player, the gossiper and the detective (p. 146). Each of these different types of watcher interpret celebrity with varying degrees of belief and level of awareness of the production of celebrity, where traditional watchers tend to believe everything with little awareness of the production, while post-modernist and game playing watchers have a level of disbelief and a high awareness of the production of celebrity. In considering the function of celebrity for its audience, Turner, Bonner and Marshall (2000) note that the factual status of much celebrity gossip is immaterial (p. 139). Hermes (1995) identifies readers of celebrity gossip as ‘serious’ and ‘non-serious’. The serious readers consume celebrity gossip within two main repertoires: the extended family and melodrama repertoires, while the non-serious readers for her were gay men engaged in camp readings of celebrity gossip. The extended family repertoire

“helps readers to live in a larger world than in real life…it engenders a highly personal form of address in which solidarity and connectedness resound” (pp. 126-127). The melodrama repertoire “focuses on misery, drama, sentimentalism, sensation, and paying for daring to rise above other people… the sense of injustice that is at the heart of the repertoire of melodrama also points at a more collective sense of social inequality” (pp. 127-128). In both of these repertoires, the collective that is generated by reading gossip is highlighted. The ‘non-serious’ reading of celebrity, argues Hermes, constitutes a camp interpretation of these same repertoires, whereby tactics of parody and exaggeration are employed as a form of “protest against prevailing norms and values” (p. 141). All of these readings constitute fantasies of belonging, which is discussed further in the section on the intimate public. Reading celebrity gossip serves the same functions of oral gossip, it is a “resource for the subordinated: it can be a means of self- expression and solidarity… it can be a means of sharing judgement of an unequal society as well as a source of sentimental enjoyment” (pp. 141-142). The function of celebrity gossip for subordinated audiences cannot be underestimated and is worthy of study as the response to a

“taste culture in its own right” (Hermes, 1995, p. 142). Hermes’s work on the function of gossip is an important foundation of this thesis. Her study of gay male responses to celebrity gossip also

22 constitutes one of the few studies on the response of LGBTQ people to celebrity media,8 and therefore provides a launch point for this kind of research.

A key feature of the discursive construction of the celebrity is the extraordinary/ordinary paradox (Dyer, 1998; Ellis, 1992). The figure of the star or celebrity is simultaneously ordinary, or like us, and extraordinary, or not like us at all. As celebrity is a discourse of identification

(Marshall, 2006) the extraordinary/ordinary paradox invites the audience to find ways in which they can identify with a celebrity, despite the extreme and obvious differences (in, for example, wealth, success, or talent). By discovering what is ‘ordinary’ about the celebrity, the intimacy of the celebrity-audience relationship is produced through identification with the aspects of the celebrity the audience can relate to, or through disdain (Clarke, 1987; Gamson, 2011). While in more recent celebrity media, exactly what is extraordinary about the celebrity is increasingly more ambiguous, typically what is extraordinary about the celebrity is aspects of their ‘public’ persona

– their wealth, success, talent, beauty (Holmes, 2005a). As celebrity increasingly turns to the ordinary, Holmes (2005a) suggests that the extraordinary aspects are increasingly related to wealth and lifestyle. The ordinary aspects of the celebrity are derived from their ‘private’ lives, and thus, audiences are invited to identify with celebrities by discovering what they’re “really” like, by uncovering their private lives to locate the ‘ordinary’ (Dyer, 2004, p. 2; Gamson, 2011).

The extraordinary/ordinary paradox establishes another of the cultural functions of celebrity: its place as a discourse of identity, identification, and identity construction. Celebrity as a tool for identification, disidentification, and identity formation has been well documented in celebrity

8 A few other studies exist like this, such as Shiau’s (2014), but the limited focus on LGBTQ people in audience celebrity studies is indicative of the [relative] lack of audiences studies of LGBTQ media more generally (Haslop, 2009). This is explored in more detail in the section on queer media studies.

23 scholarship,9 and is a theme throughout this thesis. Identification, for Halperin (2012) refers to

“the feeling of closeness to, or affinity with, other people—with anything and everything that is not oneself. Identification, too, expresses desire: a desire to bring oneself into relation with someone or something that is different from oneself” (p. 122). Sedgwick (1990) similarly argues that identification involves multiple processes of identifying with, and identifications against.

Fuss (1995) suggests that identification is “the detour through the other that defines a self”, similarly noting its play of difference and similitude (p. 2). In his work on disidentification,

Muñoz (1999) notes that identification “is never a simple project” and often involves counteridentifying or partially identifying (p.8). He theorises ‘disidentification’ as a process of negotiation of identification within dominant ideology, as a process of “working on and against”

(p. 11) ideologies and cultural forms, that is, seeking structural change to these forms while also valuing everyday scenes of survival within such ideological forms. For Muñoz, disidentification is a process that contributes to the function of a counterpublic sphere (p. 7), defined by Warner

(2002) as a subordinate group of people that seek to oppose or transform the systems and structures that have dominated them. The role, then, of identification and disidentification within celebrity culture is useful to think about with regard to subordinate populations, such as

LGBTQ people. It is through identification that individuals shape their identity (J. Cohen, 2001).

Rojek (2001) calls this the process of celebrification within society, where “ordinary identity formation and general forms of social interaction are patterned and inflected by the styles, embodied attitudes and conversational flow developed through celebrity culture. Celebrities simultaneously embody social types and provide role models” (p. 16). While Turner (2014) notes that the role of celebrity in identity construction is not always as crude as role-modelling, Hermes

(1999) argues for a way in which celebrity can be used as a tool for cultural citizenship. While the

9 See, for example, Cashmore (2014), Johansson, (2006), Johnson (2006), Turner (2014), Turner et al. (2000), Hermes (1999), Hermes and Kooijman (2016), Marshall (1997, 2006), Qiu (2012), Redmond (2019), Rojek (2001, 2016b).

24 respondents in her research did not particularly identify with the celebrities they read about, they instead used celebrities as tools to establish connections with others and cultural citizenship through social interaction – by gossiping about the celebrities they consumed (p. 3). Later, in her work with Kooijman, celebrities are described as “social objects, means of exchange in and between communities” and as “useful resources in the always ongoing work of identity construction” (Hermes & Kooijman, 2016, p. 493, p. 483). Celebrity, then, as the articulation of individuality within contemporary commodity culture, invites identification and encourages the negotiation of identity, operating as a pedagogical site for identity construction. This thesis is particularly concerned with LGBTQ identification with celebrity and identity formation.

Celebrity, therefore, is a system of representation that serves particular cultural functions, especially in the representation of individuality, and the construction of identity. It serves these functions through its mediation and interpretation. As a system of representation, celebrity can be used as a text that can be analysed in a variety of ways to understand its cultural functions through a range of frameworks, as subsequent sections of this Literature review demonstrate.

2. Queer: Definitions, media studies, reading strategies, audiences

The word queer has a definitional elasticity, and therefore a multiplicity of meanings across different contexts (Jagose, 1996, p. 1). Practically, queer, as slang for homosexual, was used as a homophobic slur, but has now come to be used as an umbrella term to describe a coalition of diverse and marginalised self-expressions of gender and sexuality, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people (LGBTI) or sometimes as a more politically radical, anti- assimilationist sexual identity (Doty, 1993; Jagose, 1996). Alternatively, ‘queer theory’ refers to a broad body of scholarship that developed out of more traditional gay and lesbian studies.

According to Spargo (1999), “queer theory is not a singular or systematic conceptual or

25 methodological framework, but a collection of intellectual engagements with the relations between sex, gender and sexual desire” (p. 9). Queer theory emerged as a body of scholarship in the 1990s, and seeks to understand the ways in which sexuality is produced discursively, where sexual identities are not fixed, or innate, but rather, are socially constructed (Haslop, 2009). As

Warner (1992) suggests, “almost everything that would be called queer theory is about ways in which texts – either literature or mass culture or language – shape sexuality” (p. 19). In looking to the origins of the theory, Jagose (2015) credits de Lauretis with coining the term in 1991, and argues that some key consolidations of the theory are its resistance to dominant knowledge formations, its intersectional concerns, and its investment in the potential of queer futures

(Jagose, 2015, p. 31). Queer theory emerges from the post-structuralist view of identity as provisional and contingent (Jagose, 1996, p. 77). It, therefore, loosely refers to the body of scholarship that seeks to destabilise or deconstruct fixed categories, of gender or sexual identity, and of other categories more broadly, in order to question or disrupt these categories’ relationships to power. Queer theory has, historically, been concerned with anti-normativity, an opposition to the normalising forces that seek to render homosexuality as subordinate (Wiegman

& Wilson, 2015).

Within this thesis, ‘queer theory’ refers to this body of scholarship studying the disruption of sexual categories. ‘Queer’ itself refers to a sexual category, one that around one third of my participants self-selected to describe themselves. This raises interesting tensions between queer as a theory and queer as an identity category. While queer has long been used to refer to people of a diverse sexuality or gender expression, queer theory champions the fluidity of such categories, refusing a fixed or innate labelling. In The History of Sexuality, Foucault (1978) writes about the way that discourses of sex turned homosexuality into an identity. Prior to the 19th century, “sodomy was a category of forbidden acts; their perpetrator was nothing more than the juridical subject of them. The 19th century homosexual became a personage” and this

26 homosexual identity was now “everywhere present in him” (p. 43). The production of homosexuality as an identity category, discursively produced rather than a series of sexual acts of biological origin is a central concern of queer theory and sexuality studies (Spargo, 1999).

Foucault’s work on sexual identity, Jagose (1996) writes, has helped to shape the idea that

“within post-structuralism, the very notion of identity as a coherent and abiding sense of self is perceived as a cultural fantasy rather than a demonstrable fact” and this work has reshaped gay and lesbian, as well as queer studies (p. 82).

While they might be considered a theoretical cultural fantasy, identities still have practical value, especially in their creation of collectives. Gamson (1995) argues that the “queer dilemma” is that the deconstructive strategies of queer theory “remain quite deaf and blind to the very concrete and institutional forms to which the most logical answer is resistance in and through a particular collective identity” (p. 400). In labelling identity as a “necessary fiction”, Weeks (2003) argues that identities are “less about expressing an essential truth about our sexual being; they are more about mapping out different values: the values of autonomy, relationships, of belonging, of difference and diversity” (p. 130). In this way, then, it is through understanding identity as a

“necessary fiction”, that we can begin to negotiate the tension between queer as a practical collective identity, and queer as a movement that seeks to destabilise identity. Jagose (1996) notes that queer “is not outside the magnetic field of identity” (p. 132), instead suggesting the possibility of queer as a way of pointing ahead, an idea taken up further by Halperin (1995) and

Muñoz (2009). One particular way that queer, as identity, and critique of identity, can look forward is through studying its affective potential, as Muñoz does with regard to the utopic value of queer. Griffin (2016) similarly looks to the queer potential of the affects produced by identity.

He writes:

27 If identity is a necessary fiction for politics and a convenient fiction of the marketplace, it

is also a comforting fiction that helps people feel connected to others and make sense of

the everyday. As an anchoring narrative, identity provides a sense of connection to both

intimates and strangers. (p. 1)

Griffin’s work seeks to understand how gay and lesbian media, frequently dismissed as normative because of the rigidity of its identity categories and assimilationist projects, can be considered queer through its production of queer feelings. Queer media studies is a broad field informed by queer theory, and concerned largely with questions of LGBTQ representation within, and in response to, media forms. For Griffin (2018), queer media studies is informed by feminist media studies in its focus on “the fantasies that media culture makes available to people” (p. 168).10

Early work in queer media studies (Creekmur & Doty, 1995; Doty, 1993; Dyer, 2002; D.A.

Miller, 1990; Russo, 1987; Whatling, 1997) focuses on the necessity of reading queerly, in place of genuine, positive representation of LGBTQ people in the media, as a way to challenge the heteronormativity of mainstream media (Gross, 1991b; Slagle, 2003). These reading strategies allowed for the possibility of an implicitly queer text, in place of explicit media representation.

Doty (1993) argued against calling these queer readings ‘subtextual’, as that maintains a heterocentrist paradigm that turns such readings into “pathetic and delusional attempts to see something that isn’t there” (p. xii). Instead, Doty sees these reading practices as always present and possible in mainstream culture; a valid method of reading or decoding mainstream culture, a method of reading differently rather than merely a fringe, ‘sub’ practice (Doty, 1993; Ng, 2017).

10 For a more comprehensive overview of the field of queer media studies, see, for example, Griffin (2016, 2018), Pullen (2014) and Sender, (2012).

28 These sorts of reading strategies involve the active reading11 of a text, creating connoted meanings through a practice of detection, or looking for ‘clues’ to establish an implicit meaning

(D.A. Miller, 1990). Much has changed in terms of LGBTQ representation in mainstream media in the last 26 years, since Doty’s work. The increase in textual representation has had implications for subtextual readings, including relegating them to the domain of subtext, which is how I will refer to them, despite Doty’s argument. These subtextual, implicit reading strategies constitute part of what Halperin (2012) considers gay subculture, which is distinct from explicit gay culture.

Halperin’s work explores the ongoing value of this gay subculture – what he simply terms

‘culture’ throughout his book because, for Halperin, subculture is an “unlovely, compound term”

(p. 423) – which he defines as the practices that involve resisting the dominant culture through

“appropriating, decoding, recoding, and queering” elements of the dominant culture (p. 418).

For clarity I will use Halperin’s term ‘subculture’ to refer to implicit queer readings, despite his reservations. Also, in using ‘subtext’, I am not creating these readings as less than, as Doty suggests, but merely a part of the ‘subculture’.

Halperin seeks to understand why this form of gay subculture, this relation to non-gay forms, persists in the context of an open, explicit, gay-authored culture. He suggests that the ongoing value is because these subcultural readings act as vehicles for queer feeling through identification, they spring “less from gay existence than from gay desire” (p. 427). For Halperin, gay men relate to non-gay media forms, like female divas and melodrama, as a form of identification. This form of identification captures feelings of desire in ways that “identity art” – explicit representations of gay culture – can’t, and thus, retains its value. As Berger (2010) notes, re-imagining texts no longer carries the political necessity it once did before explicit representation of LGBTQ people

11 Active reading, as a concept, developed from cultural studies and its recognition of the audience’s ability to decode ideological meanings within objects of mass culture (see, for example, Ang, 1985; Brennan, 2018c; Fiske, 2011; Hall, 1980; Harley, 1999; Jenkins, 1992; Morley, 1980, Radway, 1984).

29 in media was possible, and can now be more of a playful gesture, while still retaining its importance for identity construction via identification (Lipton, 2008). By reading a text subversively, those excluded from mainstream media forms are finding ways to identify with the text. These reading strategies have been especially considered in queer media studies with regard to camp reading strategies, and the practice of diva worship.

Camp has a wide variety of meanings and usages in scholarship and popular culture, but as a reading strategy, it is typically defined by its relationship to parody, excess, irony, and failure

(Halperin, 2012; Hermes, 1995; Sontag, 1966). Dyer (2004) defines camp as a “characteristically gay way of handling the values, images and products of the dominant culture through irony, exaggeration, trivialisation, theatricalisation and an ambivalent making fun of and out of the serious and respectable” (p. 176). As a reading strategy, camp both embodies the intensities of the text being read, while simultaneously satirising it. Halperin (2012) notes that camp allows gay men to laugh at tragedy, but “camp doesn’t evade the reality of the suffering that gives rise to tragedy. If anything, camp is a tribute to its intensity” (p. 200). Similarly, Sender (2012) argues that “camp offers strategies that welcome a sustained engagement with trauma, shame, and bad feelings” (p. 222). Camp does this through the identification it allows. Halperin (2012) distinguishes camp from irony in the way that camp “allows no possibility for difference or disidentification” (p. 396). Camp, then, is a reading strategy that entails an identification with the intense emotion of a text, in order to parody its excess. One key site of the embodiment of camp reading strategies, as well as the intersection of queer media studies and celebrity studies is diva worship.12 For Halperin, diva worship and the identification with femininity it entails is where

12 The role of the diva within gay male culture has been explored in scholarship by, for example, Doty (2007, 2008), Draper (2017), Dyer (2004), Farmer (2007), Halperin (2012), Harris (1996), C. Jackson (2007), Jennex (2013), O’Neill (2007), and Perez (2008).

30 the opposing values of gay subculture, beauty and camp, collide (p. 211). Camp and diva worship are explored in greater detail in Chapter Four.

While Griffin (2018) argues that queer media studies is indebted to feminist media studies in many ways, a key departure from feminist media studies is queer media studies’ relative dearth of audience research. Feminist media studies has had a strong focus on the audience, considering the role that a particular type of media has in people’s lives, the pleasure it brings, its place in the everyday experience of being a woman (Ang, 1985; Bird, 1992; Hermes, 1995; Radway, 1984).

This sort of audience research also shifts from previous audience theories within cultural studies, calling for a focus on the context of a text rather than necessarily the meaning of the text – what’s important is not how the audience decodes the text’s meaning, but the role of the text in their everyday lives (Hermes, 1995). Haslop (2009) attributes the lack of audience research in queer media studies to the difficulty of identifying a fixed audience to study as queer theory focuses on the socially constructed, fluid aspects of sexual identity, and resists strict categorisation. He writes: “when the queer audience research should have flourished, the birth of queer theory and the rise of poststructuralism and its mistrust of empiricism further discouraged gay and lesbian academics from conducting new audience research” (Haslop, 2009, p. 9; see also

Kern, 2012; Scanlon & Lewis, 2017). Gamson (2000) similarly addresses this difficulty. He writes: “if ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ are provisional, discursively produced, unstable, performative, and decidedly partial identities – if they are forever in quotation marks – how does one go about studying sexuality and sexually identified populations?” (p. 357). The post-structural nature of queer theory, however, has not diminished the value of the “necessary fiction” of identity, and thus, while these identities might be discursively produced and inherently unstable, they have still produced identifiable collectives, and so Haslop argues for the importance of undertaking audience research within queer media studies.

31 Despite Haslop’s observations about its relative dearth, some research within queer media studies has indeed focused on the audience, with often conflicting results. Dhoest and Simons

(2012) conducted a study into LGB responses to LGB media content, including celebrity media.

They found that, contrary to academic ideas of queering and subverting media, LGB audiences tend to adopt a normalising approach to media, preferring explicit representation in the media to the kind of subversive reading strategies outlined by Doty (1993) and others. Conversely,

Scanlon and Lewis (2017) found that their participants frequently adopted subversive reading strategies, and were suspicious of explicit representation, which they thought to be stereotypical and therefore limited. With regard to celebrities, Dhoest and Simons note: “there was also a large consensus on the importance of out LGB celebrities as role models, in particular ‘normal’ (i.e. not overly flamboyant, effeminate, or masculine) television personalities” (p. 271). 90 per cent of their study participants felt that ‘out’ celebrities were good role models (p. 269). These findings are reflected by Gomillion and Giuliano (2011), who focused on ‘media role models’ in their quantitative study of GLB people, finding that the availability of GLB media role models (such as Ellen DeGeneres) may positively influence GLB identity construction, acting as pedagogical models for such identities. In his work on tabloid television, Gamson (1998) explores the paradox of visibility that representation of LGBTQ identities on talk shows produces, through a study of talk show production and its reception by audiences. The paradox of visibility is addressed in more detail with regard to celebrity in Chapter Seven. In his study of LGBTQ media audiences, Cavalcante (2018) places qualitative audience research in conversation with theories of affect. He argues that audience research has been preoccupied with ideology, but

“media are clearly more than ideological battlegrounds” (p. 1190). Cavalcante’s work highlights the importance of considering affective responses to LGBTQ media, as well as ideological. The limited amount of audience research, and in particular, audience research in the affective domain, demonstrates a gap in the field of queer media studies that this thesis situates itself within.

32 3. The will to knowledge: Discourse, the closet and celebrity

Early work in sexuality studies, such as that of Foucault (1978) and Sedgwick (1990) are concerned with the preoccupation Western society and its systems of knowledge has with sexuality. This section outlines this preoccupation, and how it can be applied to the idea of exposing the celebrity, laying the foundation particularly for Chapter Six and its discussion of participants speculating about celebrities’ sexualities.

In the first volume of The History of Sexuality, Foucault (1978) is concerned with the discursive production of sexuality, and how this informs theories of power, norms, and knowledge. He takes up the notion of the repressive hypothesis, the idea that modern capitalist societies encouraged sexual repression (McHoul & Grace, 1993). Foucault rejects this hypothesis, instead arguing that “what is peculiar about modern societies, in fact, is not that they consigned sex to a shadow existence, but that they dedicated themselves to speaking of it ad infinitum, while exploiting it as the secret” (p. 35, emphasis in original). Rather than censorship of sex and sexuality, Foucault argues, the modern age encouraged an “incitement to discourse” which exploited notions of secrets, truth, and confession (p. 34), and turned sex into “a secret whose discovery is imperative”, that is, sexuality became the imperative thing to disclose about oneself

– now experienced as the process of ‘coming out’ (p. 35) – and thus closely linked to one’s entire self-identity (p. 43). In this section I look at how constructions of sexuality as an identity and its subsequent incitement to discourse through disclosure of the ‘secret’ of sexuality, create implications for our theories of knowledge, something that has been taken up particularly by

Sedgwick (1990) in her book Epistemology of the Closet.

Sedgwick famously argues that a critical analysis of the homo/heterosexual binarism is essential to understandings of Western culture. This binarism is inherently unstable and asymmetrical

33 (where heterosexuality is privileged and homosexuality othered, yet heterosexuality is only discursively produced precisely through its opposition to homosexuality), yet central to modern culture because of the way it has affected and destabilised other binarisms, including public/private, secrecy/disclosure, in/out, knowledge/ignorance, amongst others (p. 11). These binarisms relate to each other in the way that one produces the other, and therefore as one changes, so too must the other, thus producing instability. Heterosexuality, for example, is only produced through its opposition to homosexuality, whereby homosexuality is the category that was created in order to be disparaged or pathologised, and heterosexuality therefore reified as the invisible ‘normalised’ category. Homosexuality is the ‘open secret’ that needs to be disclosed, the

‘love that dare not speak its name’, yet is only distinctly knowable through discourse (Sedgwick,

1990). The closet produces a specific structural binary of in/out. As Butler (1991) writes: “being

‘out’ always depends to some extent on being ‘in’; it gains its meaning only within that polarity.

Hence, being ‘out’ must produce the closet again and again in order to maintain itself as ‘out’”

(p. 16). Sedgwick (1990) argues that the homo/heterosexual binarism is structured by the metaphor of the closet, whereby homosexuality is given special attention – publicity – despite its private status, and it is produced repeatedly in order to situate its opposite – heterosexuality. The closet conceals as it exposes (Hardie, 2010). Despite homosexuality’s ‘silence’, it plays a central role in discourse, specifically by being silent, connoted rather than denoted. Closetedness, for

Sedgwick, is a performativity of silence, because of the way in which homosexuality is discursively produced (through coming out of the closet) (see also Sedgwick, 1993, p. 11). She writes: “‘closeted-ness’ itself is a performance initiated as such by the speech act of silence—not a particular silence, but a silence that accrues particularity by fits and starts, in relation to the discourse that surrounds and differentially constitutes it” (Sedgwick, 1990, p. 3). Because of the role of the homo/hetero binarism in Western culture more broadly, the closet, Sedgwick argues, has a shaping presence in lives beyond simply homosexual people, because of the way it is

34 central to the production of knowledge itself. It is thus also central to the production of knowledge about celebrity.

Discourses of sexuality and the associated theories of knowledge are useful for thinking through ideas of connotation and subtextual representations of sexuality. Closet epistemologies, as

Sedgwick argues, shape a broad variety of theories of knowledge, but are able to be explicitly examined with regard to sexuality and its media representations. For Doty (1993), the lack of explicit representation of homosexuality in mass culture is a form of closetedness, whereby notions of connotation, or subtextual readings that seek out ‘clues’ of homosexuality, deploy heterocentrist ideas of concealing sexuality, while at the same time exposing them through a discourse of silence. Connotation, D.A. Miller (1990) writes, excites a desire for proof, and thus turns every signifier into a clue, or proof of what is being connoted. This produces the closet epistemologies where what is hidden is felt through its silence, it is both a spectacle and a secret at the same time. Scholars have also considered the ways in which the epistemology of the closet can relate uniquely to the question of celebrity sexuality. Brady (2011) considers the case of

Adam Lambert’s coming out and the normative production of identity that the discursive rhetoric of the closet produces; Draper (2012) similarly considers the way in which media representations of Adam Lambert imposed a “lens of detection” that sought to reduce his sexuality to a series of connotated “clues”, rather than his own, undisclosed “queerly ambiguous” identity (pp. 202-203); Joyrich (2006, 2008) has argued that the logic of the closet and its destabilisation of binaries like private and public can structure both star fascinations and televisual culture; Lovelock (2017) has considered how disclosure narratives of coming out uniquely relate to celebrity authenticity and feed into the commercial logic of stardom; Snorton

(2014) argues that the ‘glass closet’ surrounding black sexuality and celebrity rumours creates a hyper-visibility of a sexuality supposedly ‘on the down low’; Wallace (2015) considers the way in which the contradictory logics of homosexuality as the open secret can apply to photography

35 and the visibility/invisibility of the relationship between Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz.

While theories of the closet can relate particularly and explicitly to media representations of sexuality and celebrity sexuality, as well as connotation and subtext, the discursive production of sexuality also impacts the production of celebrity and theories of knowledge around celebrity, including celebrity gossip, the celebrity confessional, celebrity authenticity and celebrity privacy.

Turner et al. (2000) have argued that “celebrity is not a property of specific individuals. Rather, it is constituted discursively” (p. 11). The discursive regime of celebrity is defined by a number of elements, but particularly, it represents “the disintegration of the distinction between the private and the public” (Marshall, 1997, p. 247; Turner, 2014). Celebrity is predicated on our desire to know more, to learn what they’re “really” like, and to know more about their private activities

(Dyer, 2004, p. 2; Turner, 2014). Indeed, as Marshall (1997) writes, echoing Foucault’s “the will to knowledge”, “celebrities are the production locale for an elaborate discourse on the individual and individuality that is organised around the will to uncover a hidden truth” (p. 4). Celebrity as constituted discursively, rather than a quality of any particular individual, means that celebrities are intertextual signs, built from a series of representations across a range of media forms (Dyer,

2004; Marshall, 1997; Meyers, 2009). These representations build the relationship between readers and celebrity. Marshall writes:

The relationship that the audience builds with the film celebrity is configured through a

tension between the possibility and impossibility of knowing the authentic individual. The

various mediated constructions of the film celebrity ensure that whatever intimacy is

permitted between the audience and the star is purely at the discursive level. (p. 90)

36 The discursive construction of celebrity, therefore, excites our desire to know more about a celebrity, while ensuring the impossibility of this, because the individual is mediated and produced intertextually.

A crucial component of celebrity discourse is its production of intimacy between celebrity and audience. One way this intimacy is produced is through the celebrity sign’s destabilisation of the binarism of secrecy/disclosure, which Redmond (2008, 2019) explores particularly with regard to the celebrity confessional. The confession, for Foucault (1978) is a key way in which the ‘truth’ of sex produces an “incitement to discourse” grounded in power relations (p. 34). In the confession, secret behaviours must be disclosed in order for their power over the individual to be released, but the fact that these behaviours were worthy of secrecy in the first place is what makes them necessary to disclose. In constructing sex discursively as the secret to be discovered, confession creates a dynamic whereby one is forced to speak to what was silent, to disclose the secrets, and in doing so, produce the power that the secret is able to hold. Similarly, the celebrity confessional, Redmond (2008, 2019) argues, acts as an affective space to produce connections between the confessing celebrity and its consumer through the revelation of private material that places the celebrity in a vulnerable position, where they are made to feel shame (discussed particularly in Chapter Five). It is through the disclosure of previously secret information that this vulnerability, and therefore intimacy, is produced, and thus the mechanism of contemporary celebrity is sustained. A key appeal of celebrity journalism, more broadly than just the celebrity confession, is its revelation “of the scandalous, the bizarre, the pathetic, the phony, the disturbing and the gross” (Turner, 2014, p. 53), or, a revelation of something deemed worthy of revealing. What is worthy of such disclosure is that which should be kept secret, but by exposing it, becomes public information. The effects of such an incitement to discourse surrounding, for

Foucault, sex, and for celebrity, “the scandalous, the bizarre, the pathetic, the phony, the disturbing and the gross” (of which sex is many of these things) has particular effects for the

37 regulation of individuals through the production and circulation of norms, discussed in the next section.

The destabilisation of the secrecy/disclosure binarism relates closely to the relationship celebrity has to the disintegration of the boundary between public/private, another of the binarisms

Sedgwick (1990) suggests is tied to the crisis of homo/hetero definition. The discursive regime of celebrity relies on the destabilisation of this binarism, because the mediation of celebrity functions through the revelation of ‘private’ information into the public sphere. The only way an audience can have access to a celebrity’s ‘private’ life, in order to produce the intimacy that is key to the celebrity-audience relationship, is if it is mediated, presented publicly, for it to become part of the performance of the celebrity persona. Otherwise it is part of what Rojek (2001) calls the

‘veridical self’, the self you consider yourself to be, as opposed to the self that others perceive (p.

11). Scholars such as Marshall (2010) and Marwick and boyd (2011) have theorised about celebrity using Goffman’s (1959) work on the presentation of the self through dramaturgical analogies of frontstage and backstage. Marwick and boyd (2011) suggest that celebrity practice on Twitter involves a performance of ‘backstage’ access, access to a celebrity’s private, intimate world. Similarly, Marshall (2010) suggests that celebrity use of presentational media (such as social media) allows for a widening of the ‘public’ self, bringing more of Goffman’s ‘backstage’ self into the frontstage.13 It is our desire for intimacy with a celebrity, our desire to know about their private lives that drives the celebrity’s performance of a private self, which is both real in the sense that the ‘front’ of a self is still the self, and artificial in the sense that celebrities deliberately construct personas for public consumption (Goffman, 1959; Marshall, 2010). By

13 This is not to suggest a clear distinction between what is ‘front’ and ‘back’ stage; as Goffman (1959) suggests, these areas operate in tandem, along with the audience, to create the self and its reception. One cannot exist without the other.

38 rendering supposedly private information public, the celebrity drives their relationship with the audience.

Whether or not an audience can know something about a celebrity relates to how ‘authentic’ or believable their persona and their performance of a ‘backstage’ self is. Questions of celebrity authenticity have been the subject of celebrity studies since its inception, as have questions of how audiences read celebrity, whether they approach celebrity narratives with scepticism, or whether they are cultural dupes (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1972/1944). In particular, Gamson

(1994) differentiated between celebrity ‘watchers’ who believed in the reality of the celebrity persona wholeheartedly, those who saw it as completely fictional, those who took pleasure in celebrity watching as a game of detection, sorting fact from fiction, and those completely cynical about the whole process. For Gamson, awareness of the production of the celebrity can contribute to the gamification, and pleasure, of celebrity interpretive strategies. Similarly, Meyers

(2009) suggests that awareness of the construction of the celebrity sign allows for a pleasure in deconstructing these images. In the age of social media and reality TV, awareness of the artifice of celebrity has grown since Gamson’s writing in 1994 (Johansson, 2015; Turner, 2014).

Although Gamson noted that the gullible ‘traditional’ believers (and their extreme opposite, the complete cynic and non-believer) in celebrity artifice were the “least common by far” (p. 148), the awareness of the artifice would suggest that completely gullible audiences are even harder to find today.

Audiences are increasingly aware of the production of the celebrity self, and contemporary celebrity consumption operates on this backdrop. Either, as Gamson (1994) notes, the quest for the truth is cast aside, and the functions of celebrity (such as gossip, the production of social and cultural values, and the negotiation of norms, as discussed in the next section) operate anyway, or, the consumption of celebrity becomes a game of detecting celebrity production. The

39 discourse of celebrity therefore operates consistently through a backdrop of scepticism, of awareness of the artifice, but can function as a form of pseudo-knowledge for the purposes of maintaining the cultural functions of celebrity. In these contexts, then, it seems as though the authenticity of the celebrity persona is unimportant when it comes to the function of celebrity for its audience.

For Foucault, the will to knowledge about sex and sexuality exists because of the way that it is exploited as “the secret”. The celebrity similarly encourages a “will to knowledge” not necessarily about only their sexuality (though this is a central component and is discussed in scholarship and by audiences alike, and taken up in Chapter Six), but about their private lives and secrets more generally. Thus, the discourse of celebrity, like the discourse of sexuality, destabilises these binarisms (of public/private, secrecy/disclosure) by exposing their inextricable and uneven relationship.

4. Norms, queer theory and celebrity

A key concept in the field of celebrity studies is the way in which celebrities act as semiotic systems that produce norms about what it means to be an individual in society – celebrity media informs the social and cultural functions of the individual in everyday life, and is a site of negotiation of social and moral norms and values (Dyer, 1998; Gorin & Dubied, 2011;

Johansson, 2006; Marshall, 1997; Rojek, 2001; Turner, 2014). Queer theory has been concerned with the critique of norms (and more recently, a critique of critiquing norms). This section seeks to explore the role of the production and critique of norms as it has existed in both queer theory and celebrity studies in order to examine how these theories intersect, and subsequently the value of a queer perspective on celebrity media, one which informs my analysis of how my queer participants use celebrity in their own lives.

40 The role of norms and heteronormativity is foundational to queer theory. Yep and Lescure

(2015) distinguish norms, normalisation and normativity in the following way:

Norms operate in our social practices through normalization – the process through which

norms are made commonsensical and unquestionable in the social domain. Normativity is

sustained through the creation of ‘others’, that is, what is normal in a social system is

maintained through the ongoing marking and vilification of what is considered abnormal.

(p. 93)

It is through norms, Foucault (1979) argues, that a population is homogenised, measured and classified (p. 184). Foucault examines the power of the imposing of normalising judgment in its ability to regulate individuals, as well as differentiate them, according to a specific hierarchy (p.

184; see also Valocchi, 2005). Butler (1997) also argues that the “regulatory power” of social norms creates a process of subordination (pp. 19-20). This subordination can come to be resisted, as is explored in Chapter Four using Foucault’s (1978) notion of “reverse” discourse.

With regard to homosexuality, Foucault explains that the formation of a “reverse” discourse occurred when “homosexuality began to speak in its own behalf… often in the same vocabulary, using the same categories by which it was medically disqualified” (p. 101). By claiming the terms through which the ‘abnormal’ is regulated and subordinated, a resistance to these norms is produced.

Warner (1999) notes that norms have the ability to adapt and change over time. As norms are defined in opposition, they can be considered unstable, reliant upon an ever-changing idea of

“abnormal” or “pathological” (Canguilhem 1989), similar to the way in which Sedgwick (1990) posits the instability of the binarisms of homo/hetero, or public/private, and so on. Butler

(2002) argues “a norm does not have to be static in order to last; in fact, it cannot be static if it is

41 to last” (p. 37, emphasis in original), suggesting that norms need to be unstable in order to maintain their power. Queer theory has sought to destabilise and deconstruct norms in order to oppose their ideological power. The instability of norms results in the struggle over “where to draw the line” (Rubin, 1984, p. 282). Rubin’s (1984) sex hierarchy identifies what she calls

“good”, “bad” and “contested” sex (p. 282). Using an illustration of fences (p. 282, Figure 1), she argues that while there is a clear delineation of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, there is a major area of contest in between these two binaries. Rubin’s hierarchy remains useful, not in considering the particular behaviours – as time and context, including intersectional analysis (Ho, 2006) have changed this hierarchy – but in considering the way in which there could be different lines between ‘good’ and

‘bad’, as illustrated by the multiple ‘fences’ in her illustration. ‘Bad’ or abnormal behaviours have typically attracted shame and stigma, in order to reify ‘good’ behaviours as the norm (Warner,

1999).

Figure 1: Rubin’s (1984) sex hierarchy (p. 282)

Queer theory has been particularly preoccupied with heteronormativity, defined, according to

Berlant and Warner (1998), as a “sense of rightness” embedded not just in sex, but “produced in

42 almost every aspect of the forms and arrangements of social life” (p. 555). Heteronormativity is the set of norms that privileges heterosexuality above all other sexualities, placing it at the top of

Rubin’s (1984) hierarchy of sexualities, and allowing for it to be unmarked, synonymous with

“general culture” (Berlant & Warner, 1995, p. 349; see also Valocchi, 2005). Heterosexuality becomes, through heteronormativity, “the template for all forms of meaningful social organization” (Jagose, 2012, p. 48). Although based on a culture of heterosexuality, heteronormativity is not just about sex. C. J. Cohen (2004) describes heteronormativity as a

“normative moral super structure” that reinforces the institutional role of typical gender roles and the nuclear family (p. 29). Warner (1993) claims “het culture14 thinks of itself as the elemental form of human association” that “testifies to the depth of the culture’s assurance

(read: insistence) that humanity and heterosexuality are synonymous” (p. xxi, p. xxiii).

Heteronormativity, then, can be described as the ideological code that ensures the future of life itself, because at its core lies normal people engaged in reproductive sex (Warner, 1999; Jagose,

2012).

Heteronormativity is also predicated on an uneven relationship between public and private for different individuals, where certain behaviours are deemed privileged and private, while others are ‘public’ because of their pathologisation, something Foucault (1978) refers to with regard to his rejection of the repressive hypothesis. In their essay “Sex in Public”, Berlant and Warner

(1998) detail how zones of privacy have privileged married heterosexuality, by protecting it from the “spectacular demonization of any represented sex” (p. 550). Subordinate sexualities, write

Bell and Binnie (2004), are not afforded the privilege of privacy and thus are forced into public realms. As the previous section found, celebrity is particularly preoccupied with the binarism of public/private, and therefore, heteronormativity’s privileging of privacy is particularly relevant to

14 “Het culture” is Warner’s colloquial style of referring broadly to heteronormativity.

43 celebrity gossip and its treatment of norms, transgression, and scandal. Although heteronormativity is borne out of the dominance of heterosexuality, its reliance on normativity, and its privileging of a specific kind of heterosexuality, has meant that a lot of behaviours that have seemingly little relation to heterosexuality have come to be seen as (hetero)normative, and are thus used to regulate the behaviours of others.15 Included among this are behaviours considered homonormative. Homonormativity, widely credited to Duggan (2002), refers to the

“incorporative logics” through which gay and lesbian agendas have sought to be included within the institutions that have long been “considered the core of a heteronormative culture”

(Wiegman & Wilson, 2015, p. 8; see also Warner, 1999). Homonormative agendas seek to find ways to include gay people within normative projects, such as marriage.

The dominance of the scholarly discussion of normativity within queer theory has been the subject of much debate over the past few years, notably in the special issue of differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (2015, Vol. 26, No. 1), titled “Queer Theory Without Antinormativity”.

This issue seeks to discover what else queer theory can be, if it is not reliant on antinormativity.

In the introduction to this issue, Wiegman and Wilson (2015) note that one of the main directions of queer studies today is the study of affect, which they suggest is still indebted to the field’s commitment to normativity and antinormativity. This is demonstrated in Yep and

Lescure’s (2015) work on the affect of normativities, which explores how normativity is felt in everyday life. Affect and its place within queer and celebrity studies is discussed in greater detail in the next section, but is also taken up by Griffin (2016) with regard to the production of norms in gay and lesbian media in his book Feeling Normal. While the affective experience of watching gay and lesbian media is normative, argues Griffin, in the way it produces a sense of belonging, a

15 Queer theory has been used to show how many social minorities are oppressed by heteronormativity, including racial minorities (C.J. Cohen, 2004, 2013; Dawson, 2006), and people with disabilities (McRuer, 2006).

44 representation that sees gay and lesbians lives as ‘normal’ and unmarked, Griffin argues that

“feeling normal” is “unsalvageably queer” in the way it requires positive feelings about subaltern sexualities (pp. 3-4). These forms of media could be considered ‘homonormative’ in the way in which they seek to include gay people within normative mainstream media forms and institutions, but he suggests that dismissing the production of these affects as homonormative fails to account for the way in which people are invested in homonormativity as a mode of politics, despite its criticisms. Griffin uses the work of Berlant to describe how the homonormative investment in such media produces a sense of hope and belonging that should not be dismissed simply because of its normative investments. This is explored in greater detail in the section on the intimate public, and is a tension throughout this thesis. While queer people have typically been rendered ‘other’ by normative regimes, discourses, and subsequently, media representations, this thesis explores the tension of resisting and resignifying a media form that has excluded them (explored in Part One), and the sense of hope and comfort produced by being included within such normative media forms (explored in Part Two).

While queer theory has sought to destabilise the norms and normative regimes and institutions that have othered deviant behaviours, the relationship of celebrity to normative ideologies is less explicitly deconstructive. Scholars such as Dyer (1998), Marshall (1997), Turner, (2014) and

Redmond (2019) have all explored the relationship of celebrity to ideology. Redmond describes this as a negotiation of hegemony and counter-hegemony. He writes:

On the one hand, it is clear that celebrity culture is very often heterosexist, patriarchal,

racist and beauty and diet obsessed. On the other, it promotes bodies that resist and forms

of fandom and consumption which are not simply agents of and for neo-liberal ideologies.

(p. 305)

45 This negotiation of hegemony and counter-hegemony is evident in much scholarly work on celebrity, and tabloid and popular media more generally within media and cultural studies,16 and is particularly demonstrable in a survey of the field’s analysis of celebrity media’s representation of norms, particularly through its obsession with scandal.

As Turner (2014) has suggested, celebrity journalism is predicated on its revelation of scandalous, lurid information about celebrities (p. 53). In this way, celebrity media is in the business of exposing ‘bad’ behaviour, and thus, thrusting such behaviour into the public eye.

However, this is often a tool to ‘mark’ such behaviours as abnormal. Our obsession with celebrity ‘scandal’, and the news values that promote such stories, means that the normal, unmarked, unpublicised behaviour is simply not newsworthy. As a result, celebrity media tends to adopt a conservative position, in order to thrust more behaviours into the domain of scandal and thus generate interest. In their study of social values in celebrity news, Gorin and Dubied

(2011) found:

The media adopt an increasingly critical position towards errant behaviour. They adopt,

often with an ironical twist, a very normative position toward what is legally forbidden

(alcohol or drug addictions), or morally reprehensible (coarse attitudes, past sexual

episodes, a lack of social graces) or disorderly living (escapades, too many parties, violence,

loss of self-control, exhaustion, greediness). (p. 614)

In order to render such behaviour more newsworthy, the gossip media is increasingly critical of celebrity behaviours.

16 See, for example, Bird (1992), Dyer (1998, 2004), Feasey (2008), Fiske (2010, 2011), Gamson (1998), Gorin and Dubied (2011), Glynn (2000), Hartley (1999), Hermes (1995), Lumby (1999), Petersen (2011), Radway (1984), Turner (2014).

46 Some scholars suggest that the representation of scandals and bad behaviours allows for the negotiation of such moral codes, a disruption to the status quo. Turner (2014) notes that celebrity gossip allows for the negotiation of social and moral norms (see also Hermes, 1995), and Bird (2000) similarly says that coverage of scandals, “offer[s] an entry point to everyday discussions of morality, boundaries, and appropriate behaviour” (pp. 223-224). Feasey’s (2008) participants often used coverage of celebrity scandals as a way to reflect on their own behaviours and considerations of what is morally acceptable (p. 693). Audiences, argue Feasey, Hermes

(1995), and McDonnell (2014), are aware of the way that coverage of celebrity and celebrity scandal often promotes negative attitudes toward ‘bad’ behaviour, and are thus able to resist such representations. McDonnell (2014) suggests her participants read celebrity gossip with a conflicting sense of pleasure and guilt, aware of the hegemonic mechanisms within the folds of the magazine. Glynn (2000), Petersen (2011) and McLean (2001) have lauded scandalous coverage of celebrities, arguing that by exposing these transgressions, the norms that produce them as such are inherently destabilised. They also argue that this kind of coverage challenges the status quo and forces the questioning of dominant moralities, via such negotiations among audiences, and within media discourses. Scholarly work such as these examples suggest the possibility for the scandal to destabilise the norms that produced the scandal. Outside of scandal and celebrity gossip more generally, some scholarly work has lauded the potential for specific celebrities to resist norms and normative ideologies, for example Lady Gaga (Guzmán, 2012;

Halberstam, 2012; Deflem, 2017), Madonna (Schwichtenberg, 1993), and Miley Cyrus (Cinque &

Redmond, 2017; Mendenhall, 2017; Qiu, 2012).

Scholarship on celebrity within the field of queer media studies presents the hegemony/counter- hegemony tension in explicitly normative terms. In some scholarship, the ‘homonormative’ work of these representations is praised. For example, Shiau (2014) found that representation of celebrity scandals relating to sexuality in Taiwan helped queer audience members normalise their

47 identities with their families. In this work, then, the media revelation of behaviour as scandalous served to render it ‘normal’. Scholarship on Ellen DeGeneres praises her homonormative or assimilative representation as presenting a positive role model (Gomillion & Giuliano, 2011), and as resisting gendered norms (while lacking an explicit representation of desire) (Reed, 2005).

Conversely, others critique DeGeneres’s mediation as assimilationist and heteronormative

(Cobb, 2015; A. McCarthy, 2001). Both Draper (2012) and Brady’s (2011) work on the mediation of Adam Lambert suggest that through coming out, Lambert is forced to come into a normative regime of what being gay ‘should’ look like. Similarly, Duguay and Lovelock are both concerned with the normative aspects of LGBTQ micro-celebrity. Duguay (2016) argues that Ruby Rose’s

Instagram reflects “post-gay” aspirations with assimilative outcomes (p. 4). Lovelock (2017) suggests that popular YouTube coming out videos (and the stars of such videos) enact a form of

“proto-homonormativity” because of the way in which these videos present a particular narrative of homosexuality, and, crucially, the way in which the stars of these clips are “inextricably bound to neoliberal ideals of individualized, entrepreneurial labour” (p. 91). Lovelock argues that

YouTube in particular (though the logic could apply to other media channels) allows gay and lesbian micro-celebrities to thrive, partly because, he argues, “mediated coming out narratives fit squarely within the logic of YouTube fame as an economy of self-branding through revelations of the authentic self” reflecting the way in which discourse of celebrity intersects with the discursive production of sexuality (through disclosure) (p. 93), and thus enacts the normativity that Foucault (1978) suggests this kind of discourse produces. Conversely, other work on

LGBTQ micro-celebrity suggests the potential for it to resist normativity, for example, J. F.

Miller (2019) suggests that YouTube has a great potential to present a multiplicity of transgender narratives, and can act as a site of counternarratives to transnormativity, by allowing many transgender people to share their stories.

48 The tension between hegemony and counter-hegemony reflected in debates over celebrities and their ability to inscribe or destabilise norms reflects an ongoing debate within scholarship of celebrity and in media studies more broadly. This thesis notes the importance of these debates, and contributes to them briefly in Chapter Five in my discussion of participant responses to celebrity transgression. This thesis also seeks to look beyond these debates to see how normativity is experienced affectively.

5. Affect, queer feelings, and celebrity

Recent work in queer theory has a made a turn to the affective, but this is still indebted to queer theory’s focus on normativity (Wiegman & Wilson, 2015). Within queer media studies, normativity has been a key focus within research that explores explicit representation of LGBTQ identities. Most work on representation agrees that the visibility of LGBTQ identities is valuable in the production and promotion of more diverse media narratives, despite its tendency to promote homonormative stereotypes (Avila-Saavedra, 2009). This visibility leads to increased acceptance among mainstream (heterosexual) populations (S. Jackson & Gilbertson, 2009;

McLaughlin & Rodriguez, 2017), or for a better understanding for LGBTQ people of their own experiences and identity, the kind of “epistemic breakthrough” Halperin (2012) describes (p.

425; see also Dhoest & Simons, 2012; Gauntlett, 2008; Gomillion & Giuliano, 2011; Griffin,

2016; Gross, 1991b, 2001; Scanlon & Lewis, 2017). This visibility is of course made more possible within new media, and the proliferation of media narratives outside of mainstream media forms and mainstream media gatekeepers (Duguay, 2016; Fox & Ralston, 2016; Lovelock,

2017; J. F. Miller, 2019; Raun, 2018; Sender, 2012; Wuest, 2014). While acknowledging the value of this kind of media representation for LGBTQ people, a key scholarly focus on representative media is its production of normativity (Avila-Saavedra, 2009; Brady, 2011; Brookey &

Westerfelhaus, 2001; Gross, 2007; Lovelock, 2017; A. McCarthy, 2001). In his book Feeling

49 Normal, Griffin (2016) seeks to move the analysis of explicit media representation beyond the confines of critiques of normativity, by using theories of affect. Griffin’s work is concerned with understanding the way in which normative responses to gay and lesbian media can be considered queer, through their production of queer feelings. Griffin’s work is indicative of a shift in queer media studies toward theories of affect. This section will define affect and queer feelings, before exploring its place within celebrity culture, and its relationship to media representation.

Affect studies finds its origins in psychoanalysis but has been taken up in cultural studies and queer theory, among other disciplines, as a way to develop new insights into the potential of the body and its ability to respond to stimuli (Seigworth & Gregg, 2010). Affects can attach themselves to people and objects, they are thoroughly embodied, but they differ from a ‘drive system’ of desire in the sense that they are less constrained, and are able to move more freely between the objects they attach to (Sedgwick, 2003). Affect is often used interchangeably with concepts such as feelings and emotion, though, as Shouse (2005) explains, affect typically refers to a “non-conscious experience of intensity”, a bodily reaction outside of consciousness, while feelings can be personally (consciously) labelled, and emotions socially experienced (para. 5). The three terms relate closely but affect is the “prepersonal” intensity that is unconsciously experienced (para. 2). Once it becomes conscious, or personal, it is a feeling, it is identifiable and so can be labelled. Finally, an emotion is the projection or the display of the feeling (Shouse,

2005). The debate over the distinction between these terms is ongoing (Ahmed, 2014), but for the purposes of this thesis, I follow the work of Griffin (2016) who suggests that affect, feeling and emotion are difficult to isolate within media culture, and while they can be separated in scholarly work, in practice they tend to “slide together” (p. 3). This slippage forms a collective of sensations built around desire and sociality (Griffin, 2016), which Ahmed (2014) labels “queer feelings”, the bodily response to inhabiting a heteronormative world (p. 146). As an audience study, I incorporate the emotive and felt responses of participants, their ‘queer feelings’ given

50 that the affective is technically abstract and difficult to articulate through language (Griffin, 2016;

Shouse, 2005). These responses have emotive tones, and generate what Redmond (2019) describes as a “culture of impressions” upon the senses (p. 15).

Affect theory reflects a shift toward “the stuff that goes on beneath, beyond, even parallel to signification” (O’Sullivan, 2001, p. 126). This shift reflects the importance of signification and ideas of deconstruction and representation, while also analysing beyond these concepts. Queer work on affect similarly moves away from and around such ideas, toward notions of ‘queer feelings’ such as those presented by Ahmed (2014). In her work on emotion, Ahmed considers how affect interacts with norms in order to examine the concept of queer feelings. She focuses particularly on notions of (dis)comfort, arguing that “normativity is comfortable for those who can inhabit it” (p. 147). Being queer is predicated on an almost constant sense of discomfort, experienced as a result of repeated interpellation of a failure to live up to heterosexual norms and ideals. She writes: “heteronormativity functions as a form of public comfort by allowing bodies to extend into spaces that have already taken their shape” (p. 148). Queer discomfort is a result of not quite fitting within these shapes and spaces created by heteronormativity. Ahmed uses the notion of (dis)comfort to emphasise the importance of queer theory’s opposition to normativity.

She suggests that discomfort is not about assimilating or resisting norms, but about inhabiting them in different ways, and as a result, she suggests an embrace of the discomfort within queer feelings, as a sign of “working on the (hetero)normative” (p. 155, emphasis in original). Griffin

(2016) takes up Ahmed’s concept of queer feelings to argue that gay and lesbian media produces queer feelings by offering the potential to inhabit norms differently, and a conflicted sense of comfort. He writes of gay and lesbian media forms: “many gay and lesbian people find great hope and comfort in this representational schema, even as many of them recognize the limitations of the terms by which those feelings of freedom and belonging can be realized” (p. 5).

Here, Griffin demonstrates the way in which a form of compromised comfort can be

51 experienced by viewing this kind of media. Such queer feelings of (dis)comfort and its relationship to norms, as well as affect and its relationship to representational media, are explored particularly in Part Two of this thesis.

As well as (dis)comfort, shame also has a place within understandings of queer feelings. Shame is a particularly queer affect because of the way it adheres to non-conformity and social alienation

(Moon, 2009). Shame is categorised as one of Tomkins’ (1963, as cited in Sedgwick, 2003)

‘negative affects’, though Probyn (2005) notes that shame’s place as an emotion or affect is contested. Ahmed (2014) suggests that shame is “bound up with how the self feels about itself”

(p. 103), while Sedgwick (2003) similarly suggests that shame is bound to who someone is, while guilt attaches to what someone does. As a result, shame is seen as both an exposure, and an attempt to hide, categorised by bodily reactions such as a blush, and an aversion of the eyes

(Ahmed, 2014; Probyn, 2005; Sedgwick, 2003). Shame both interrupts identification and creates identity, through the way it is both “peculiarly contagious and peculiarly individuating”

(Sedgwick, 2003, p. 36). Sedgwick argues that shame is performance, it combines introversion and extroversion. Consequently, Sedgwick relates shame to notions of ‘queer performativity’, a

“strategy for the production of meaning and being, in relation to the affect shame and to the later and related fact of stigma” (p. 61). Shame, then, has a unique relationship to the production of queer identity through performativity.

Affects have an effect on the production of identity. With regard to shame, Ahmed (2014) suggests it creates subjects through their failure to adhere to a social ideal, thus, queer identities, in their non-normativity and their rejection of the social ideal of heteronormativity, are a shameful identity (Ahmed, 2014). Similarly, Probyn (2005) suggests that shame polices morality, creating a form of power that can subordinate individuals perceived to be shamed. It is through a rejection or refusal of such shame that pathologised or stigmatised homosexuals reverse the

52 discourse, and creates them as out, proud LGBTQ people (Foucault, 1978; Munt, 2000).

Sedgwick (2003) suggests that shame can be transformative, it has the ability to turn, as

Halberstam (2005) writes, “abjection, isolation, and rejection into legibility, community, and love” (p. 221). The creation of a ‘proud’ community through a refusal of shame has been the subject of recent critique, which suggests that pride normalises LGBTQ identities, and hence, a return to shame is necessary to disrupt the normalising force of ‘pride’ (see, for example,

Halperin & Traub, 2009). Indeed, Ahmed (2014) rejects the notion of converting shame into pride, instead suggesting that ‘queer moments’ happen when the negativity of shame is enjoyed.

Love (2007) and Needham (2010) similarly argue for the importance of taking up and inhabiting negative affects, as does Sender (2012) with particular regard to GLBT media representations.

Halperin (2009) does not completely reject gay pride in favour of taking up negative affects, but does suggest that shame is inherently a part of pride. He writes: “the only kind of gay pride that is endurable is a gay pride that does not forget its origins in shame, that is still powered by the transformative energies that spring from experiences of shame” (p. 44). Shame is therefore a structuring aspect of the ‘proud’ LGBTQ individual, because the two affects are irrevocably paired.

As well as its role in the production of identity, affect has a central role in identification, a concept taken up particularly in Part One of this thesis, and a central concept in Halperin’s

(2012) How to be Gay. Like affect, identification finds its roots in psychoanalysis, as a

“nonconscious imaginative process” (Freud, 1940/1989, p. 76, as cited in J. Cohen, 2001, p.

247). Identification was defined earlier in this Literature review, but recall that identification and the related, yet distinct, disidentification, articulate complex processes of desire that can be considered in affective ways. J. Cohen (2001) suggests that identification “requires extreme absorption in the text and involves an intense emotional experience” alluding to its affective qualities (p. 253). Griffin (2016), in producing a queer criticism of television, suggests that rather

53 than considering the value of a television program through political or financial metrics, a queer criticism of television should consider its affective value. He suggests that programs like Ellen

DeGeneres’s eponymous sitcom are highly normative, but it is because of their normativity that they produce affective space for identification, creating a meaningful fantasy that should not be overlooked. Key to a program’s affective value, argues Griffin, is the identification it enables for viewers, thus making explicit the role of affect in identification.

In 1997, Marshall suggested that “the concept of affect is central for understanding the meaning and power of the celebrity in contemporary culture” (p. 73). In the introduction to the revised edition of Celebrity and Power (2014), Marshall acknowledges that since this early contention, the study of affect, and accordingly its place within celebrity studies has “blossomed” (p. xxiv).17 A key figure in the work of celebrity affect is Redmond (2006, 2008, 2014, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c,

2019). Redmond (2019) argues that celebrity studies has been preoccupied with discourse and ideology, but by centring theories of affect a freer analysis of the emotive functions of celebrity is enabled. At the heart of the affect of celebrity is identification: as Marshall (2006) writes, celebrity culture is a discourse of identification, and therefore “the celebrity’s power is its capacity to embody an audience and more specifically the ‘affective investment’ of an audience”

(p. 635). Marshall (1997) argues for the importance of analysing celebrity through the affective economy, as opposed to a representational one, as this is where the celebrity generates power and political value. Redmond (2019) proposes that celebrity culture is both an ideological mechanism, and an affective regime, where the affective regime complements, intersects, and sometimes competes with these ideological functions (p. 29). He proposes that alongside the circuit of celebrity culture, a circuit of celebrity affect needs to be considered.

17 See, for example, Graefer (2014), Hirdman (2017), Kanai (2015), Nunn and Biressi (2010), Raun (2018), Redmond (2006, 2008, 2014, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2019), Rojek (2016a).

54 Redmond’s (2019) circuit of celebrity culture is drawn from the circuit of culture model as produced by scholars within British Cultural Studies and sociology academics from the Open

University. He writes: “the circuit of culture model is an intersecting, analytical schema that allows one to explore a cultural artefact, form, or phenomena across five dynamically ‘charged’ nodes or points” (p. 1). The five nodes on the circuit of celebrity culture are representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation. Redmond argues that this circuit marginalises affective relations, and “fails to account for the way experience is not always in the pay master of ideology. To fully understand the impact of celebrity, one needs to have a complimentary, intersecting and sometimes competing model in reverberating circulation” (p. 14). This is the circuit of celebrity affect, which, like the circuit of celebrity culture, has five nodes: affect, embodiment, texturality, agency, and disruption. These five nodes correspond to the five nodes of the circuit of celebrity culture, and thus have intersecting relationships with their corresponding node, where affect and representation correspond with one another. The relationship between affect and representation within celebrity culture is explored in Chapter

Seven. Through understanding the relationship of the circuit of celebrity culture to the circuit of celebrity affect, one can re-address common areas of celebrity scholarship, and particularly the relationship between celebrity and consumer, within parasocial relations and gossip.

Within celebrity studies broadly, the idea of the parasocial relationship is often critical (Rojek,

2012; Turner, 2014). The concept dates back to 1956, with the work of Horton and Wohl, and refers to the illusion of a relationship, in this instance, between a consumer and a celebrity. Such early work focuses on the pathologisation of these illusions, but the value of such interactions has been reassessed in more recent criticism (Hills, 2016; Jenson, 1992). Turner (2014) takes issue with the concept of the parasocial relationship, arguing that it does not fully encapsulate the emotive and collective relationship that audiences develop with celebrities. He uses the example of the collective outpouring of grief at Princess Diana’s death to suggest that the concept of

55 parasocial relationship does not encapsulate such a collective display of emotion (see also

Johnson, 2006). Turner’s argument points toward affect studies, like Cvetkovich’s (2012) on

‘public feelings’, and thus establishes the potential for a re-evaluation of the celebrity-fan relationship through an affective lens, as Redmond (2014, 2019) does. He argues that “celebrities are first and foremost embodied individuals, intense molecular manifestations, and one of the key ways they affectively engage with fans and audiences is through the primary senses activated by sensorial-based aesthetics” (Redmond, 2019, p. 118). He characterises this celebrity-fan relationship as celebaesthetic: where the celebrity and fan “communicate with one another in and through the activation of powerful emotions and senses” (Redmond, 2014, p. 14). This relationship involves identification through what Redmond calls “sensing celebrities” and the way in which celebrity allows for its consumers to escape through, in, and within them. The celebaesthetic celebrity-fan relationship is inextricably tied to affect, repositioning this kind of interaction from one of ‘second-order’ intimacy (Rojek, 2012), to an affective relationship predicated on reversibility and reciprocity (Redmond, 2014). Thus, by shifting toward the affective, the celebrity-fan relationship is recharacterised in ways that seek to capture the

“emotive tones” of celebrity culture, allowing for new understandings and analyses of this dynamic (Redmond, 2019, p. 15).

Redmond (2019) further proposes a reframing of celebrity gossip through an affective analysis.

Celebrity gossip’s ideological functions have been analysed in much work on celebrity,18 but by focusing on the affective function of such intimate talk, Redmond further suggests the multi- dimensional value of gossip. Some of the affective value of gossip lies in its ability to produce intimate common worlds among readers (Hermes, 1995). Thus, by refocusing existing debates within celebrity studies, the circuit of affect allows for a multi-dimensional analysis of key aspects

18 See, for example, Cinque and Redmond (2017), Gamson (1994), Fairclough (2012), Feasey (2008), Feeley (2012), Hermes (1995), McDonnell (2014), Turner (2014), Wilson (2010).

56 of celebrity culture, including gossip. This shift toward the affective allows for a richer analysis of queer readings of celebrity media, through an understanding of queer feelings. The next section of this Literature review explores the notion of the intimate public, its relationship to the affective, and to queer readings of celebrity media.

6. The intimate public, gay subculture, celebrity culture and the (juxta)political

In her series of works The Anatomy of National Fantasy (1991), The Queen of America Goes to

Washington City (1997), The Female Complaint (2008) and Cruel Optimism (2011), Berlant considers the affective components of the public sphere (Berlant, 2011, p. 3). In The Female Complaint particularly, Berlant focuses on the concept of the intimate public. The Introduction briefly outlined the concept of the intimate public, but recall it is a space where members of a non- dominant group of people connect emotionally in order to shape a sense of belonging. People who already share a worldview and emotional knowledge form an intimate public when they connect over recognition and reflection of what it’s like to live in the world as members of that group as they consume elements of a commodity culture. Berlant considers the intimate public of women, but suggests that other nondominant populations, like queer people, could also be considered an intimate public. She claims that the intimate public is like the “undefinedness” of belonging to a community but becomes intimate “when it foregrounds affective and emotional attachments located in fantasies of the common, the everyday, and a sense of ordinariness”

(Berlant, 2008, p. 10). The intimate public generates a sense of inclusion and belonging, a normative fantasy of attachment, by producing emotional contact through participation in a commodity culture and its fantasy that consumers of this culture aren’t alone in their experiences of what it’s like to live in the world as a member of a subordinate or non-dominant group of people. As a normative fantasy, the intimate public is less about explicit resistance to norms, and

57 instead of marking members of a nondominant group of people as other, it seeks to remind them they are not alone.

Crucially, then, for Berlant (2008), commodity cultures that produce intimate publics are

“juxtapolitical”, that is, “in proximity to the political, occasionally crossing over in political alliance, even more occasionally doing some politics, but most often not, acting as a critical chorus that sees the expression of emotional response and conceptual recalibration as achievement enough” (p. x). The collectivity of the intimate public produces a sense of a common world for those who have been subordinated, without being explicitly political, and instead, Berlant argues, “generates relief from the political” (p. 10). Intimate publics, therefore, provide space for its members to feel central without detaching from the desire for normativity that typically subordinates them (Kanai, 2017). There is the possibility of these spaces to be political, though, as Berlant suggests. Michaelsen (2017) argues that the political potential of the intimate public lies in its possibility to generate collective agency. While a counterpublic (Fraser,

1990; Warner, 2002) of a dominated group of people collectivises and seeks to reorganise the systems and structures that have dominated them, the intimate public is not as explicitly political, as they are organised through fantasies of reshaping such structures or “historical conditions”

(Berlant, 2008, p. 8). This is why Berlant labels them juxtapolitical, for while they may occasionally do the political work that is suggestive of the counterpublic, the intimate public primarily seeks emotional contact through creating a collective shaped by a common experience of living in the world, and consuming the “stuff” of a corresponding commodity culture

(Berlant, 2008, p. viii).

The ‘stuff’ of Berlant’s intimate public is works within ‘women’s culture’, and these works “enact a fantasy that my life is not just mine, but an experience understood by other women, even when it is not shared by many or any” (p. x). These works are commodified genres of intimacy: chick

58 lit, chat shows, melodramatic film and literature. All these genres of commodity culture produce a fantasy of connection to other women, even when the experience demonstrated is not one actually lived by any women within the intimate public. In the years since Berlant’s work, the intimate public has been taken up by media scholars to propose that consumers of gay and lesbian media (Griffin, 2016), Tumblr blogs (Kanai, 2017), and the ‘It Gets Better’ project

(Michaelsen, 2017) produce an intimate public of users of these kinds of media, through the affective fantasy of belonging these spaces produce. While this fantasy may be normative, its value for minority audiences should not be dismissed (Griffin, 2016). The concept of the intimate public, therefore, goes beyond debates of normativity to understand the affective value the fantasy of normativity can produce.

One of the goals of this thesis is to demonstrate how queer consumers of celebrity culture (both explicitly LGBTQ celebrity culture and not) can produce an intimate public, but in order to do so, I will first demonstrate how the gay subculture presented in Halperin’s (2012) How to be Gay could be considered the ‘stuff’ of an intimate public.

The Introduction and the Literature review outlined what Halperin means by gay subculture,19 but broadly, he suggests that it is “a characteristic way of receiving, reinterpreting, and reusing mainstream culture, of decoding and recoding the heterosexual or heteronormative meanings already encoded in that culture, so that they come to function as vehicles of gay or queer meaning” (Halperin, 2012, p. 12). The objects of gay subculture, such as divas, opera, musicals,

Hollywood melodrama, then, are the objects of heterosexual culture, redefined for a queer audience. Gay life is not explicitly represented, a crucial difference from Berlant’s women’s culture, which she argues produces a genre of femininity and with it, a conventional expectation

19 Recall that I am referring to Halperin’s gay culture as gay subculture, despite his semantic equivocation.

59 of this identity. But Halperin’s central contention is that the resignification of these cultural artefacts occurs through an identification with these figures, an identification that, he suggests, captures a sense of desire, fantasy, and queer feelings in ways that explicit gay representation cannot. He argues this because of the persistence of such a gay subculture of reappropriation, despite the proliferation of explicit forms of gay culture. He writes:

The open and explicit gay male culture produced by gay liberation has not been able to

supplant a gay male subculture, grounded in gay identification with non-gay forms…The

impetus driving much gay cultural production still springs less from gay existence than

from gay desire. (Halperin, 2012, p. 427)

By identifying with non-gay forms, Halperin argues that a form of gay desire is produced, and the dominant meaning of these non-gay forms are subsequently appropriated for a gay audience.

Despite the lack of explicit representation of gay life, the fact that this form of identification is shared among a collective of gay men, presents the possibility of this kind of subculture producing an intimate public. Berlant (2008) states that the intimate public is a site for affective scenes of identification, and Halperin (2012) suggests that the gay attachment to divas is a

“cultural identification with or attraction to particular gendered modes of feeling and expression” (p. 338). This identification is affective in the way it produces queer feelings, and in the way this kind of subculture “is a way of coping with powerlessness, of neutralizing pain, of transcending grief” (Halperin, 2012, pp. 218-219). These affective scenes of identification reflect the intimate public in the sense that texts of the intimate public “cultivate fantasies of vague belonging as an alleviation of what is hard to manage in the lived real—social antagonisms, exploitation, compromised intimacies, the attrition of life” (Berlant, 2008, p. 5). The intimate public is deliberately vague in its cultivation of belonging, generated more through fantasy than a

60 reality of life. Berlant proposes that within an intimate public, people “may share nothing of the particular worlds” that are represented, but continue to participate in the promise of belonging

(p. ix). That identification with female divas, for example, produces a collective site of coping with the powerlessness of gay life presents the possibility that by identifying with these texts, gay subculture is producing an intimate public that helps to negotiate what it means to be gay in contemporary society.

Halperin (2012) is explicit about the political potential of this kind of identification and resignification. In writing about its endurance, he states: “it is clear that traditional gay male

[sub]culture… continues to provide queers of all sorts with emotional, aesthetic, even political resources that turn out to be potent, necessary, and irreplaceable” (p. 427). He argues that gay subculture, in claiming feminised media forms, initiates a process of resignification and reversal, claiming the inexorable position in order to turn it around. The explicitly political nature of this kind of relationship to power is developed in Chapter Four, but here I wish to suggest that despite its explicitly political aims, gay subculture can continue to be conceived of as within the

‘juxtapolitical’ intimate public sphere. Berlant (2008) suggests that intimate public spheres are juxtapolitical in that they exist in proximity to the political. She writes that “the intimate public’s relation to the political and to politics is extremely uneven and complex” (p. viii), but that the intimate public can indeed occasionally ‘do’ politics, and therefore has some amount of political potential. Berlant’s (2008) frustration with the intimate public stems from “the difficulty of inducing structural transformations out of shifts in collective feeling” (p. xii), but political work is not entirely impossible in these publics. The intimate public, for Berlant (2008) exists within a realm of political potentiality, where “utopianism is in the air” but is felt through normative aspirations to belonging (p. 5). In his work on utopia, Muñoz (2009) emphasises the political potentiality of queerness – it is only possible when viewed on the horizon, as a collective political becoming. For Muñoz, ‘queer’ does not have to be anti-relational, but needs to be understood as

61 a collectivity, where a rejection (or resistance) to the “here and now” is predicated on a hope for a collective, a potentiality for another world (p. 11). Using Muñoz’s conception of utopia and its collective potentiality, as well as Michaelsen’s (2017) emphasis on the political potential that the intimate public’s collective agency may facilitate, the political potential of Halperin’s gay subculture can be read as the political potential of the intimate public, which seeks first to instil collective feeling, and second (if at all), the political potential of this collective feeling. I have earlier outlined how gay subculture produces collective feeling, and so, in this sense, it produces an intimate public, but one that Halperin would suggest is more political than simply juxtapolitical.

Melodrama is a genre present within Halperin’s gay subculture, and Berlant’s women’s culture.

Halperin (2012) argues that melodrama is a form of performed, and therefore, inauthentic tragedy; a staging of intense, excessive emotion. Similarly, Ang (1985) suggests that “melodrama is failed tragedy: the plot is so exaggerated and overdone that the story becomes ridiculous and bereft of any credibility and sensibility” (p. 62). Melodrama has an intense focus on the domestic, with women and the family often at the centre of such narratives, and a focus on the powerlessness and banality of everyday life (Ang, 1985; Joyrich, 1988; Mulvey, 1986). As a result, melodrama thrives in contemporary media forms that are consumed in the home, like soap operas (Ang, 1985; Joyrich, 1988; Needham, 2010). Melodrama’s emotional register gives it mythic status – as Mulvey (1986) argues, “characters represent forces rather than people” (p. 93), in the same way that celebrities act as a representation of a personality, rather than their own person (see also Ang, 1985; Marshall, 1997). Melodramatic narratives lend themselves to the creation of broader moral codes (Joyrich, 1988). As a commodified genre of intimacy, Berlant suggests that melodrama typifies ‘women’s culture’ and its associated intimate public.

62 Gay subculture’s attachment to melodrama, argues Halperin (2012), is inherently camp, because melodrama has a camp quality. Camp was defined in an earlier section of the Literature review, but Sontag (1966) notes that camp is a “seriousness that fails” (p. 283), and, as both Ang (1985) and Halperin (2012) suggest, melodrama is failed tragedy. Halperin qualifies this by suggesting that melodrama is only camp when applied to oneself (p. 279), that is, when readers identify with the suffering of melodramatic characters and narratives. He writes:

Taking up a position in which we are inexorably situated is not to consolidate it, nor is it to

accept the adverse conditions under which we accede to representation. It is the beginning

of a process of reversal and resignification: it is a way of claiming ownership of our

situation with the specific purpose of turning it around, or at least trying to turn it to our

account. (p. 380)

This camping of melodrama through identification gives it ‘political’ potential, through reversal and resignification, as well as the recognition of a collective – “our situation”. Berlant (2008) suggests that the intimate public operates as a site where “the power of emotion” is harnessed to

“change what is structural in the world” in often uneven and contradictory ways, where juxtapolitical is in fact occasionally political (p. 12). The camping of this identification places it at an ironic distance, because of the lack of explicit representation of gay life within such texts.

Halperin (2012) writes of this kind of identification:

It is necessarily accompanied by a significant degree of dis-identification and distance…

‘dis-identification’ here is precisely not the opposite of ‘identification’: it is not a refusal or

a repudiation of identification. What we are dealing with, once again, is a complex play of

identity and difference. (p. 265)

63 Halperin calls on Muñoz’s (1999) concept of disidentification to argue for the necessary distance often involved in these forms of identification. However, as the consumption of this kind of media involves a process of identification that seeks to cultivate a fantasy of belonging to a collective, melodrama produces an intimate public for gay audiences as well as women. Hermes

(1995) in her discussion of camp responses to celebrity gossip, suggests that these readings produce community among gay men, as a “means of sharing judgement of an unequal society as well as a source of sentimental enjoyment” thus reiterating some of the key features of the intimate public in terms of its creation of an affective space for connection among nondominant people within this camp interpretation of celebrity gossip (p. 141).

Despite its attachment to cultural forms that don’t explicitly represent gay life, but because of its connection to collective scenes of identification and their production of queer feelings that aid in coping with the everyday reality of gay life, I propose that Halperin’s gay subculture could be considered an intimate public. This is helpful to understand the way in which non-gay celebrity culture can produce an intimate public of queer readers, which I argue in Part One of this thesis.

Consumption of celebrity culture could also form an intimate public for a few reasons, notably in its production of intimacy and emotion through its creation of affective scenes of identification within a commodity culture (Berlant, 2008). Marshall (1997) argues that the celebrity is “instrumental in the organisation of an affective economy” because of the way in which celebrities represent the disintegration of the boundary between the public and private sphere, allowing for the manifestation of public action as being driven by private experience (p.

247). Berlant (2008) suggests that commodified genres of intimacy typify women’s culture, of which celebrity, as a site where private and public merge as “marketable commodity[ies]”, could be considered an example (Marshall, 1997, p. x). In their work on the emotion of celebrity, Nunn and Biressi (2010) use the concept of the intimate public to describe the emotional contact

64 celebrities produce. They suggest that the public intimacy that sustains celebrity relies on a form of emotional contact that can be identification, disidentification, “and all manner of emotional and psychic associations in between” (p. 59). Thus, identification with celebrities produces an emotional contact that sustains an intimate public.

Celebrity culture also produces intimacy between readers of celebrity through the social functions of gossip. This is where gossip intersects with the intimate public – celebrity gossip produces intimate common worlds and a sense of belonging (Hermes, 1995, 1999). Gossip is particularly important for marginalised communities. As Adkins (2017) notes: “because gossip thrives at the nexus between public and private, and often criticizes or debunks power, it can function in very different ways for the powerless and the powerful” (p.4). Hermes and Kooijman

(2016) call gossip a “double-edged practice” that “is both normalizing, in a Foucauldian sense, and an important social power mechanism and a means of connecting with others by getting to know their sense of the world and expectations of life” (p. 492). In this “double-edged” practice, we can begin to see the contradictions of the intimate public, which at once promotes a normative fantasy that “attends to everyday situations while imagining conditions of flourishing within and beyond them” (Berlant, 2008, p. 5). By creating a site for collective understanding of the world and its expectations, gossip both imposes a normative regime on its readers, while also allowing them a space to collectivise, in much the same way Berlant suggests the intimate public does. Furthermore, Berlant (2011) argues that “informal networks of knowledge sharing are central to the endurance and vitality of any intimate public” and gossip is often categorised as an informal network of knowledge sharing (p. 57). Celebrity gossip can and should be considered the ‘stuff’ of an intimate public, because of the sense of belonging it can produce, as well as the commodified intimacy it generates.

65 A central question in considering celebrity culture’s production of an intimate public here is its relationship to the (juxta)political, the subject especially of Part Two of this thesis. There is no doubt among scholars that involvement of celebrities in activism, advocacy, and politics is widespread.20 Much of the work on celebrity involvement in politics has outlined the negative or minimal impacts that celebrities have on particular issues or causes.21 Wheeler (2013) describes this as the “traditional paradigm” (p. 10) because of its support from a range of celebrity and political science scholars, including Couldry and Markham (2007), Rojek (2001), Turner (2014), and going as far back as Lowenthal (1944). Scholars in support of the traditional paradigm have simultaneously discussed the ineffectuality of celebrity advocacy because of its interference with, and its commodification and simplification of, political processes, and because of its minimal impact on both the media and audiences. Wheeler (2013), however, challenges this “normative position”, arguing that the traditional paradigm oversimplifies political processes and the passivity of audiences, and overlooks new forms of political engagement made possible in the

21st century world of participatory media (p. 10). Even so, he does not “unconditionally accept the validity of celebrity politicians or political celebrities, as their democratic worth remains contested” (Wheeler, 2013, p. 170). While suggesting that celebrity advocacy has limited ability to effect change and is difficult to measure, Brockington and Henson (2015) also note that “there is clearly a widespread belief in the power of celebrity advocacy. Most people think that other people are swayed by celebrity” (p. 438). These debates around the traditional paradigm are indicative of the juxtapolitical power of celebrity: while they may occasionally have political value, the contested nature of this value suggests that celebrity advocacy tends to operate in a more juxtapolitical way.

20 See, for example, Brockington and Henson (2015), Chouliaraki (2012), Littler (2008), T. Markham (2015), Thrall et al. (2008), Wheeler (2013). 21 See, for example, Brockington and Henson (2015), Couldry and Markham (2007), Littler (2008), T. Markham (2015), Thrall et al. (2008), Tsaliki (2016).

66 Dyer (2004) argues for the political importance of the star and its relationship to the individual and society especially in light of:

A recognition of the failure of traditional left politics to think hard and feelingly enough

about the human person, resulting in a tendency to lurch between a mushy humanism and

the inhumanity of most communist regimes; and on the other hand, the growth of feminist

and gay politics that have put directly on to the political agenda questions of emotions,

sexuality, everyday life and more generally what being a person is and can be. (p. ix)

For Dyer, it is the failure of traditional politics to think “feelingly enough” about the individual that makes the star a useful political tool. Dyer’s conception of politics here reflects the juxtapolitical in the sense that it privileges emotions, and everyday life. What we then do with these questions of emotion and everyday life is what gives the juxtapolitical the scope to be political. Fraser (2001) labels identity-based political philosophies as a form of recognition politics, where the goal is to seek recognition and visibility for those in minority categories, such as racial or sexual minorities. Forms of identity politics that prioritise the personal have contributed to what Berlant (1997) sees as the transformation of the U.S. political public sphere into an intimate public sphere. Brown (1993) is critical of identity politics chiefly because of the ways in which its “wounded attachment” to subjugated categories reinscribes oppression and subordination. These ideas reflect the intimate public, where the “expression of emotional response” to being subordinate is seen as “achievement enough”, and where the fantasy of belonging often supersedes seeking out structural transformation (Berlant, 2008, p. x). Despite critiques, identity politics movements are popular within a neoliberal contemporary capitalism that thrives on individualisation. Given their attachment to capitalism, it’s unsurprising that celebrities are often associated with identity politics movements, especially in campaigns surrounding recognition or visibility. Molina-Guzmán (2012), for example, explores the

67 complexities of identity-based “commodity activism” in great detail with regard to Salma Hayek, while Ellcessor (2018) uses the example of Marlee Matlin’s Deaf activism to argue that identity- based advocacy is particularly relevant in connected celebrity activism, especially on social media platforms, which rely on a construction of the persona and the perception of intimacy with the individual (Marwick & boyd, 2011). Celebrity is a productive location to think through tensions of visibility and the recognition that identity politics seeks to achieve, because of its location at the nexus of public and private lives, explored especially in Part Two.

As a form of commodified intimacy that produces identification, normative fantasies of belonging, and collectives of nondominant people, celebrity culture could thus be considered the

‘stuff’ of an intimate public. The pessimism surrounding the political value of celebrity advocacy suggests that even when celebrity culture is trying to be political, it’s better described as juxtapolitical. Much of the work used here to provide the evidence of celebrity culture as an intimate public has focused on women readers of celebrity media, because of the way melodrama

(as a repertoire of celebrity gossip) is a distinctly feminised genre, and gossip a feminised form of communication (Byars, 1991; Meyer Spacks, 1985). A central contention of this thesis is that as well as producing an intimate public of female consumers, celebrity media also produces an intimate public of LGBTQ consumers. Because of the way in which texts of the intimate public seek to remind its members that “you are not alone”, LGBTQ celebrity culture, the subject of

Part Two of this thesis, could readily be considered to circulate an intimate public of LGBTQ consumers (Berlant, 2008, p. ix). Representations of LGBTQ celebrity provide an “affective scene of identification among strangers that promises a certain experience of belonging and provides a complex of consolation, confirmation, discipline, and discussion about how to live” as an LGBTQ person (Berlant, 2008, p. viii). But Part One of this thesis also contends that mainstream forms of celebrity culture can also constitute the ‘stuff’ of an intimate public of

LGBTQ consumers. Chapters Four, Five and Six use concepts of identification, affect, and

68 gossip to demonstrate this, as well as the understanding of how Halperin’s (2012) gay subculture could also be considered an intimate public.

Conclusion

This chapter has outlined the key concepts within celebrity studies, queer theory, and queer media studies that informed the analysis of my participant responses. The next chapter, the

Methodology, explains how the research was conducted and analysed, but briefly, the analysis of the data collected during this study was both exploratory and confirmatory (Guest, MacQueen &

Namey, 2012). This meant that while the participant responses drive the direction of the research, making it exploratory, the study was also formed with an understanding of the fields it is situated within, and seeks to test some of the theories already established within the literature in these fields.

69 Chapter Three

Methodology

This thesis uses a qualitative approach to answer the main research question: how do queer people read celebrity media? Both physical and virtual focus groups were employed, as well as some interviews, in order to conduct a thorough audience study. While the sample size for the study is too small to generalise results, by answering the research question, this thesis aims to provide a snapshot of some of the alternative readings of celebrity media, and some possibilities for how celebrity is used by the queer community.

Background

Qualitative audience studies have been lacking within queer media studies, and queer studies more generally. Haslop (2009) has pointed out the need for more audience research in queer media studies, a field saturated by textual queer media research, including some of the core works I draw on this thesis, such as Berlant (2008), Griffin (2016), and Halperin (2012).

Cavalcante (2018) highlights a dearth of qualitative audience research that employ theories of affect, arguing for the value of placing such research in conversation with these theories, particularly with regard to LGBTQ media audiences. This study adapts and updates some of the methods used in earlier audience studies conducted by feminist media and cultural studies academics (Ang, 1985; Bird, 1992; Hermes, 1995; McDonnell, 2014; Radway, 1984) in order to provide a qualitative perspective on queer audiences of celebrity media, that, like Cavalcante, puts these perspectives in conversation with theories of affect.

70 While celebrity studies has commonly employed audience research (see, for example, Gamson,

1994; Hermes, 1995; Feasey, 2008; Johansson, 2006, 2015; McDonnell, 2014), since Hermes’s work on camp readings of celebrity gossip there has been a limited focus on LGBTQ audiences of celebrity media, and so this study aims to fill that gap.22 My methodology more closely resembles Hermes’s study of everyday practices, rather than the practices of fans, as was Ang and Radway’s approach. This has practical implications for the recruitment of participants, discussed in the next section.

Analyses of how people read celebrity and tabloid media have been conducted in several different contexts. Most useful for my choice of focus group methodology based in peer groups is the work of Gamson, Johansson, Feasey, and McDonnell.

Gamson’s 1994 book Claims to Fame studied celebrity through its audience, producers, and the texts themselves. As well as analysing the texts and interviewing the producers, he conducted focus groups with 73 consumers of celebrity media. Gamson’s consumers were regular readers, but not devout fans. Groups had four or five participants, and typically consisted of acquaintances, in order to “more closely approximate the makeup of typical discussions” (p.

212). Gamson’s focus groups would begin with discussion of participants’ favourite celebrities, as well as discussion of the magazines he provided to the group. Johansson’s (2006) study into responses to celebrity in tabloid media established the ways in which celebrity gossip constructs community, and helps to negotiate social norms. Her study involved 55 regular readers of The

Sun or The Daily Mirror engaged in interviews and ‘naturally’ occurring focus groups of three to six people. Feasey’s (2008) research into readers of the British celebrity gossip magazine heat also

22 There have been some LGBTQ celebrity audience studies. For example, Shiau (2014) studied queer audiences of celebrity scandals, Gomillion and Giuliano (2011) focused on ‘media role models’ in their quantitative study of LGB people, and Brennan (2017, 2018a), Draper (2017) and Franco (2006) studied comments in online gay and lesbian forums about celebrities. Dhoest and Simons (2012) featured some work on celebrity in their broader study on LGB audiences of LGB media more generally.

71 used focus groups, notably because she felt that audiences “routinely come to conclusions about particular texts after conversing with friends, family and like-minded acquaintances” (p. 688).

Like Gamson, McDonnell’s (2014) study into celebrity gossip combined audience analysis with an analysis of both the content of the celebrity magazine and interviews with producers of these magazines. McDonnell conducted focus groups and individual interviews with 11 women who worked together, to understand the group process involved in their reading of celebrity.

Feminist media studies, as outlined by Hermes (1995), should be grounded in respect for audience’s reading practices and choices, rather than concern about their reading choices. I have chosen to emulate this approach, foregrounding the audience and their reading strategies where possible, without seeking to criticise their choices.

The scope of this study

Participants

This research involves Australian adults (18+) who self-identify as queer or LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender). They responded to a call-out seeking “queer and LGBT” participants, and thus recognised themselves as eligible based on that criteria.

I aimed to have between 30-60 participants engaged in both physical and virtual focus groups, ideally across a broad spectrum of age, gender, and ethnicity, as well as hailing from both regional and urban locations. This spectrum was aimed for, not to be able to make representative claims across demographic groups (impossible given the small sample size), but rather, to aim for a heterogeneous sample and therefore, a diversity of responses. I limited the scope to Australia, as international travel was beyond the budgetary and time constraints of this thesis. Restricting to

72 Australia also helped to geographically contextualise and anchor the participants. In total, I spoke to 61 people in 16 focus groups and five interviews. Participants were aged between 21-55, located across Australia in largely urban locations, with a spread of genders and sexualities: 38 identified as female, 17 as male, with a further one person each responding ‘womanish’, ‘queer’,

‘agender’, ‘non-conforming’, ‘trans’ and ‘other’; 20 identified as queer, 13 bisexual, 12 gay, nine lesbian, two homosexual, one bicurious, one gaaaayyy, one pansexual, one lesbian/queer, and one queer/gay. In terms of ethnicity, participants had varied ways to identify themselves: 12 identified as Caucasian, 10 as Australian, six as white, two as mixed race, one Aboriginal, one

Aboriginal/Tongan, one Anglo Saxon, one Anglo/Croatian, one British Australian, one

Caucasian/Australian, one Caucasian/white, one Cuban-American, one Cypriot/Anglo

Australian, one English, Irish, Scotland, Latvia, Germany, one Eurasian, one European, one

Greek Australian, one Half-Australian/Half South American, one Hispanic, one Italian-

Australian, one Jewish, one Malaysian/Chinese, one white Australian, with 12 ‘prefer not to say’.

An appendix of participants is provided at the end of the thesis. I have chosen to refer to participants collectively as “LGBTQ”, as this acronym largely reflects their identities.

Throughout the thesis, I provide participants’ age and sexuality, and, where it is specifically discussed, their ethnicity, to contextualise their remarks.

The study sought only queer and LGBT participants because, importantly, this research is not a comparison study. Existing research into audiences of celebrity media generally focus on the typical target audience of celebrity – women (see Feasey, 2008; Hermes, 1995; McDonnell, 2014), and celebrity media focuses overwhelmingly on heteronormative relationship structures (Van den Bulck & Claessens, 2014). Given the assumed heterosexuality of celebrity, a queer audience is not often the target of mainstream forms of this media or its scholarship. This research seeks to discover how a generally non-targeted audience uses this kind of media, and thereby address a

73 gap in celebrity research so far, which has neglected minority readings by people who are othered by the text in question.

Another key reason this is not a comparison study is that comparisons tends to posit the binary distinction between queer and non-queer people in a more pronounced way. Queer theorists have identified the ways in which these sorts of binaries create hierarchies, and are more asymmetrical than the binary opposition often connotes (Sedgwick, 1990; Seidman, 1995).

Halperin’s (2012) work, in its insistence of the ongoing importance of gay subculture’s appropriation of non-gay cultural forms, argues that it is heterosexuality’s dominance within society and media forms that encourages queer forms of inquiry and prevents heterosexuals from doing the same (p. 454). While neither Halperin nor I suggest that queer readings are only possible by queer people, it makes sense to limit the study in this way in order to focus on, and prioritise a group typically subordinated by mainstream cultural forms.

Media

This research provides a snapshot of how queer people read celebrity media. For that reason, the limitation in the study is placed on the people, not on the media. The celebrity media studied encompasses a broad range of media platforms, as dictated by the participants themselves.

Allowing the participants to decide the types or genres of media is a practice also undertaken by

Hermes (1995) as a method of redressing the power imbalance between the researcher and the participants. Allowing the participant to dictate what constitutes a celebrity, and what constitutes celebrity media simultaneously gives the participants more ownership over the discussion, but also allows for an interesting insight into the contested nature of the word ‘celebrity’ (Turner,

2014).

74 Recruiting participants

After Human Ethics Approval was obtained from the University’s Human Research Ethics

Committee,23 a call-out was disseminated among many LGBTQ organisations around Australia24 as a way of approaching participants. Potential participants completed an expression of interest form, indicating their willingness to participate, as well as key demographic details. An example of recruitment material and a copy of the expression of interest form are provided in the

Appendices. This research then used snowball recruitment tactics to seek out further participants who may not be connected to these channels, and instead discovered the research project through their peers (M. King et al., 2003). Participants were anonymous and chose their own pseudonyms, with their sexuality and age used to contextualise their responses. Other identifying characteristics – such as the participants’ gender, race, or location – were used when specifically relevant to the discussion.

Research methods

Focus groups

Focus groups have been a common method for audience research, and cultural and media studies more generally, for some time. As this study discusses everyday media consumption, focus groups are particularly useful given the role of conversation in the everyday production of meaning (Lunt & Livingstone, 1996).

23 Project number 2016/144. 24 Organisations included LGBTQ outreach like ACON, Twenty10, the Victorian AIDS Council, and Black Rainbow; University queer collectives; party promoters like Heaps Gay, Snatch and Grab, and Mardi Gras; media such as SameSame, Archer magazine, and Out in Perth; sporting organisations like the Sydney Convicts, Sydney Rangers, The Flying Bats, and the Perth White Pointers.

75

Like Johansson and McDonnell’s studies, this research incorporated ‘naturally’ occurring groups, in order to better emulate the typical environments in which people discuss celebrity. As gossip about celebrities has been identified as a way of developing community bonds (whether real or imagined), it makes sense to discuss celebrities among existing peer groups to see how these bonds are formed (Feasey, 2008; Hermes, 1995). A further reason for using ‘naturally’ occurring groupings is identified by Kitzinger (1994). She notes, with regard to her own study, that “friends and colleagues could relate each other’s comments to actual incidents in their shared daily lives.

They often challenged each other on contradictions between what they were professing to believe and how they actually behaved” (p.105).

This approach was necessary in a study about celebrity, which is typically seen as a form of ‘low culture’ or a ‘guilty pleasure’ (Feasey, 2008; Hermes, 1995; Johansson, 2006). Because of this status, participants were occasionally reticent to admit to their reading practices, so it was useful to have their peers present in order to hold them to account.

Finally, naturally occurring groups help to further negate the uneven power balance between participants and the researcher. Kamberelis and Dimitriadis (2011) note that focus groups help participants feel comfortable, decentre the role of the researcher, and help to facilitate democratisation of the research process. Using existing social groups helps to make participants even more comfortable.

As previous audience research indicates, it is imperative to give agency to the audiences studied, and thus recognise their fundamental role in the process (Hermes, 1995; Radway, 1984). By speaking to peer groups, I intended to facilitate this process. Additionally, it is important to acknowledge the insider/outsider dual relationship of the researcher, and the impact this has on

76 the research (Gorman-Murray, Johnston & Waitt, 2010). In her study, Radway (1984) read the books her participants discussed, in order to be more familiar with their discussions, and be a part of the group rather than merely the ‘outside’ researcher. As a queer woman who consumes celebrity media, I have that ‘insider’ understanding with my participants, which helped them feel at ease. Gorman-Murray, Johnston and Waitt (2010) have discussed the usefulness of ‘insider’ status, particularly when conducting research with LGBTQ participants, provided that the ways in which the participants’ experiences differ from the researcher’s are also acknowledged, which

I did when conducting my focus groups. The ‘insider’ status invites a reflexive approach to ethnographic material, such as focus groups. In feminist methods, reflexive approaches are seen as a way to promote a more ethical approach to social scientific research, when the researcher shares commonalities with those being studied (Wasserfall, 1993). At times throughout this thesis (most obviously in the Introduction), I have taken a reflexive approach to celebrity media, to reveal my own interest in the topic, and the common interests I share with my participants. By being reflexive about my own interest toward celebrities, both in the thesis itself, but also in the focus groups, I hoped to give more agency to participants by demonstrating my insider status as a queer woman with shared interests.

I conducted 16 focus groups, each with two to seven participants, following Lunt and

Livingstone’s (1996) guidance that “one should continue to run new groups until the last group has nothing new to add but merely repeats previous contributions” (p. 7). The smaller than usual focus groups, borrowed from Johansson’s (2006) study, as well as the size of Hermes’s (1995) group interviews, made it easier to find willing peer groups, as well as offering the chance for more in-depth discussion. Participants were given a participant information statement, as well as a consent form, to prepare them for what was to come. These are both provided in the

Appendices. In consenting to the research, participants were made aware that they could withdraw comments made in an individual setting, but would not be able to alter comments

77 made in the context of a group discussion. They were aware they would not have the opportunity to see or alter statements attributed to their pseudonym in the thesis.

Each focus group ran for approximately two hours. They began with stimulus material: pieces of celebrity media that participants discussed, aided by prompts from me as the researcher.

Discussion aids such as this helped to facilitate conversation and prompted interactions between participants (Stewart, Shamdasani & Rook, 2007). I asked participants to find a piece of celebrity media they had read recently, or particularly wanted to share. I reminded participants of the answers they listed on their expression of interest form to questions about which celebrities they regularly read about, and where they regularly read celebrity media.

The groups were conducted in a semi-structured manner, where conversation would occasionally veer off topic, but remained moderated by the researcher (Stewart et al., 2007). A series of questions acted as prompts for discussion. The semi-structured nature of the focus groups meant that conversations would often take unexpected directions. Prior to conducting the focus groups, I had not anticipated the emotive and felt responses that would arise. Throughout the process of transcribing, it became clear that the affective response to celebrity media was a clear theme in the responses. Participants often spoke about how celebrity made them feel, and because in practice, affect, emotion and feeling tend to be hard to distinguish (Griffin, 2016) this meant that in my analysis, like Cavalcante (2018), I placed my participants’ responses in conversation with theories of affect. This also echoes the strategy of Baden, McIntyre and

Homberg (2019) who asked participants how they felt in order to garner affective responses to news.

The focus groups were conducted at universities or community venues around the country. This was to ensure safety, and because these spaces typically acted as central and convenient locations

78 for participants. Settings for these discussions were as informal as possible, and while universities were unfamiliar and uncomfortable to some participants, every effort was made to ensure these spaces were friendly and accessible (Stewart et al., 2007). Where possible, comfortable chairs, tables to lean on, casual rooms, and the provision of snacks, were used to ease participants, also aided by the familiarity of being in their own peer group.

Interviews

While focus groups, for the reasons outlined above, were the preferred method of discussion, where respondents to the expression of interest form were individuals, without a peer grouping of LGBTQ people, interviews were necessary. The interviews were as informal as possible, in order to ensure participants felt comfortable, and equal (Hermes, 1995; Kamberelis &

Dimitriadis, 2011). The questions were the same as those for the focus groups. I conducted five interviews in total.

The interviews took around one to two hours, and, like the focus groups, were conducted in a university or community setting, for accessibility and safety reasons.

Virtual focus group

In addition to the physical focus groups, one large virtual focus group, consisting of willing participants from the physical focus groups, was conducted via a private Facebook group. The virtual focus group increased participants’ agency in the research, as well as provided a further space for the collection of research data, in a different but complementary setting, and provided scope for different interactions.

79 Researchers have outlined the convenience factors associated with virtual focus groups

(Moloney, Dietrich, Strickland & Myerburg, 2003; Sweet, 2001). Beyond simple convenience, the virtual focus group acts as a fundamental supplement to the physical focus group when it comes to understanding patterns of media consumption in our increasingly digital world. As Press and

Livingstone (2006) argue, audience research in the age of new media requires an understanding of the ways in which audiences are created online, and how this is different to audiences of old media formats.

In the participant consent form disseminated at physical focus groups, participants were given the option to consent to participating in a virtual focus group, conducted on Facebook.

Participants were told what to expect of the group on this and the information statement.

According to the Association of Internet Researchers, a key ethical consideration in collecting online data is participant consent (A. Markham & Buchanan, 2012). Ensuring that explicit, written consent is obtained gives participants awareness over what this data is being used for.

After the physical focus groups were complete, I added participants to the private Facebook group. The group was not searchable, and did not appear on participants’ profiles. This ensures their privacy was protected. I posted articles, and comments, inviting participants to contribute their thoughts on the topics shared, two examples of which are provided in the Appendices. The group, like other Facebook interaction, was casual, and ongoing. I published a new post in the group about once a fortnight, until the data collection phase of the research was complete

(approximately six months).

Another ethical consideration with this type of research is data ownership. While Facebook owns the data in this instance, I took screenshots of all material to store, in case anything was removed by Facebook. In the participant consent form, participants were reminded of Facebook’s terms

80 and conditions (to which they, as existing Facebook users, had already agreed to) with regard to content they post, and how that content is stored and used by Facebook.

Facebook as the site of this focus group was fundamental for several reasons. Firstly, social media has become a major site of celebrity media, and news organisations are increasingly distributing their content via these channels (Marwick & boyd, 2011; Schulte, 2009). Conducting the group on Facebook brings the research closer to the site of their consumption of celebrity, and discussing celebrity on this platform was more likely to emulate their patterns of everyday consumption than the physical setting, thus allowing for ‘natural’ responses.

Online spaces have also proved crucial for the negotiation of identity and community. Hanckel and Morris (2014) outline the ways in which an online community aids queer Australian youth in developing their understandings of their identities. Thus, any research that seeks to explore the ways in which patterns of media consumption affect the construction of community and identity is incomplete without a negotiation of virtual settings as well as physical. Press and Livingstone

(2006) outline the ways in which audience research in the age of new media takes on new forms.

Given the different methods of consuming media, they argue that audience research in this era must consist of studying both online and face-to-face responses and discussions. With 15 million active Facebook users in Australia as of January 2019, all research participants bar one were already members of the Facebook community (Cowling, 2019). Conducting the research in a setting that participants were already familiar with helped in providing an everyday environment to contextualise the research, particularly given the constraints that the physical focus groups had in this area.

The familiarity of the virtual setting also gave agency to participants in determining their level of contribution to the research. Participants were not asked to log on at particular times or

81 contribute in particular ways, but rather, had the freedom to participate in a way that best reflects their Facebook usage – whether they were weekly, daily, or hourly users of the site. Further, content from the group would appear in participants’ news feeds, and thus further slot into the context of their everyday Facebook usage. Participants were also free to post content to the group if they chose (subject to researcher moderation), thus further democratising the research process, as preferred by much audience research. I posted comments on this content, which encouraged this mode of participation. My comments were neutral so as not to influence other participants towards a particular way of thinking.

In total, 42 participants agreed to be involved in the virtual focus group. Given the length of the data collection period (approximately one and a half years), I decided to email participants who were involved earlier in the collection period to again seek their explicit consent to be added to the Facebook group, as some participants had signed the consent form more than a year prior.

While every participant (except one, who did not have Facebook) agreed to be in the Facebook group initially, the disparity in actual numbers reflects the lack of responses to my email. Those who did not reply were not added. This further reflects the efficacy of the Facebook group.

While at times it generated enthusiastic discussion, and was a fruitful opportunity for participants to reflect on their perspectives on celebrity, in general it was difficult to involve participants in the research. It seemed as though the Facebook group was too much of a commitment for most participants, who were not incentivised to participate. Where it did solicit contributions, they were valuable additions to the research, but future studies would do well to reassess the process of such a method.

82

Thematic textual analysis

A thematic textual analysis was used to analyse the focus group and interview transcripts, and material from the Facebook group. According to Braun and Clarke (2006), “thematic analysis involves the searching across a data set… to find repeated patterns of meaning” (p. 86, emphasis in original). These patterns (themes) were then analysed for “underlying ideas, assumptions and conceptualizations – and ideologies – that are theorized as shaping or informing the semantic content of the data” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 84).

This thematic textual analysis was both exploratory and confirmatory (Guest et al., 2012). It sought to confirm hypotheses drawn from established studies, while also exploring potentially new patterns and themes in understanding celebrity media. As a result, the analysis was conducted multiple times; first, seeking out the established themes, and second, seeking out new themes that might be unique to this data set. The results informed the two clear parts of this thesis: the appropriation of non-gay cultural artefacts that Halperin (2012) argues for structures the implicit readings of Part One, while the second part focuses on more explicit reading strategies, like those present in responses to gay ‘identity art’ (Halperin, 2012). The analysis also sought to find out the extent to which existing themes in reading celebrity media, such as

Hermes’s (1995) repertoires of camp and melodrama (discussed in Chapter Four), and themes of moral community, belonging, identification and identity construction (Feasey, 2008; Holmes &

Redmond, 2006) were present within the dataset. Throughout the analysis stage, the affective responses of participants became a clear theme, such as the response to shame, and the emotional response to marriage equality activism.

83 Thematic textual analysis was chosen because of its similarities with Hermes’s (1995) repertoire analysis. She notes that her analysis recognised “how recurrent themes related to underlying structures in the material”, thus linking the themes in her interviews to “practical ideologies”, or repertoires of understanding (p. 204). Like textual analysis, repertoire analysis helps to understand latent structures of underlying meaning (Fürsich, 2009; Hermes, 1995).

Understanding meaningful structures present in a text or transcript is a common method in cultural studies, which aims to uncover wider social and cultural implications present. Thematic textual analysis, unlike repertoire analysis, explores a text using broad themes, rather than specific repertoires of understanding culture.

Conclusion

Qualitative research methods, such as those employed in this research, are generally not representative, or able to be replicated (Hermes, 1995, p. 206). Instead, this kind of research is meant to develop theories to understand social phenomena, and offer new ideas around previously unresearched areas (Hermes, 1995). The aim of my research is to offer some theories that answer my broad research question, how do queer people read celebrity media? and to offer some alternatives to existing knowledge about the process of reading celebrity media.

This kind of research mitigates the researcher’s influence as a mode of quality control, by positing them as an insider, and by giving the participants agency, thus elevating their status

(Gorman-Murray et al., 2010). Further methods of quality control include ensuring as broad a sample as possible in the small sample size, by interviewing different groups of people, as well as employing a method of analysis that reads and re-reads material, seeking recurring themes that could be generalised across the sample (Hermes, 1995). Thematic textual analysis is one such method, and by asking participants for personal information such as their age, gender, ethnicity

84 and education, I sought to create a sample that is as broad as qualitative research can possibly achieve within the time constraints of this project.

This research recognises, like other audience studies, that the ways of reading and interpreting media are multiple and often unpredictable (Gamson, 1994; Hermes, 1995). Thus, qualitative research is the ideal method for this kind of audience research, in order to offer theories for understanding how queer people might read celebrity media, rather than attempting to generalise and make universal statements for such a broad and diverse audience and media. In his defence of autoethnography as a method for researching celebrity, Redmond (2019) argues that researchers should be interested in “the ‘micro’ stories that emerge from the consumption of celebrity culture; made in the moment of the lived experience” as a way to understand celebrity affect (p. 63). While I have not used autoethnography as an approach, I sought stories of celebrity consumption from my focus group participants. This research contributes to the growing fields of audience research, celebrity, media and cultural studies, and queer media studies, and replicates some of the methods employed in these fields.

85 Part One

Queerly reading celebrity

The first part of this thesis is concerned with the ongoing persistence of the appropriation of mainstream cultural artefacts by gay subculture, as Halperin (2012) conceives it,25 focusing specifically on the resignification of celebrity. For Halperin, the queer importance of standard cultural forms lie in their ability to suggest a gay subjectivity, a queer feeling. Appropriating mainstream culture, Halperin argues, depends on an identificatory loop, in which gay men relate to or feel an affinity for mainstream cultural forms that ostensibly have nothing in common with them, such as female divas (p. 122). Identification with non-gay figures recasts the dominant meaning of such cultural artefacts. Halperin posits the defining feature of gay subculture is this kind of appropriation. The first part of this thesis then considers the way in which participants would identify with non-gay celebrities and produce implicitly queer readings of celebrity media.

Chapter Four argues that participants produced a camp/melodramatic reading of troubled and scorned female celebrities by identifying with these downtrodden women. Chapter Five argues that participant reactions to the celebrity transgression and apology are structured by the queer affect of shame. Chapter Six presents the ways in which participants would produce a sexual subtext for celebrities as a way to identify with these figures by finding a similarity to themselves, and the subsequent articulation of this speculation in the form of gossip. The thesis as a whole is concerned with the place of celebrity within queer culture, and subsequently, the place of celebrity within a queer intimate public. Part One explores the queer intimate public through these implicit readings and their production of scenes of belonging and survival.

25 Recall that while Halperin (2012) refers to this as gay culture, I am using gay subculture to explicitly delineate it from the “identity-based” gay culture Halperin also refers to (p. 120).

86 Chapter Four

“If Britney can make it through 2007, I can make it through today”: The

camp/melodramatic reading of celebrity

This chapter seeks to understand the ongoing connection participants had to troubled and scorned celebrities, those whose celebrity narrative often reflects melodramatic generic conventions. ‘Troubled’ celebrities describes those celebrities who experience hardship around whom the media has created a tragic narrative. ‘Scorned’ celebrities, by comparison, are those whom the media has treated poorly and have adopted a critical perspective of their behaviour.

The chapter draws on the work of Dyer (2004) on the relationship gay men had to Judy Garland, and Halperin (2012) on the role of identification with Joan Crawford in gay subculture, as well as the broad binary of power/vulnerability that Halperin suggests structures the identification with these figures. It ultimately argues that the ongoing relationship LGBTQ people have to troubled celebrity creates a new mode of reading celebrity that straddles Hermes’s (1995) serious and non- serious readings of celebrity gossip. The combination of these readings of celebrity gossip reinforce Halperin’s contention that gay subculture combines passion with irony through its camp attachment to melodrama. The serious/non-serious celebrity reading can therefore be conceived as a camp/melodramatic reading. It is a reading that resignifies the dominant meaning of the celebrity, while still operating in an affective register that allows for the formation of an intimate public around this form of queer culture.

The relationship I explore in this chapter between LGBTQ people and troubled public figures is not a new phenomenon. In 1986, Dyer dedicated a chapter of his book, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society to the relationship between Judy Garland and gay men. In the second edition, Dyer

(2004) noted that Garland had “a special relationship to suffering, ordinariness, normality, and it

87 is this relationship that structures much of the gay reading of Garland” (p. 138). It was Garland’s survival in the face of suffering that appealed to gay men, particularly after 1969 – the year of

Garland’s death and the Stonewall riots, often considered in American contexts to be the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Dyer (2004) suggests that writings about Garland and gay men prior to an awareness of gay liberation politics refers to gay men in distancing terms like ‘they’, and that the connection to Garland was because of her neuroses and hysteria (p. 141).

This is reflective of the political context of the time, in which even homophile movements sought to label homosexuality as abnormal (Jagose, 1996). In later writings on Garland’s relationship to gay men, the register moved from ‘them’ to ‘us’, an outward and explicit claiming of gay identity that typified gay liberation. It was her ability to survive through suffering that gay men felt reflected the resilience of their own oppression:

They say we loved her because she mirrored the anguish and loneliness of our own lives.

Crap. My parents were straight . . . They were the most anguished and lonely people I ever

knew. No. We do not have a monopoly in the anguish and loneliness department. I loved

her because no matter how they put her down, she survived. When they said she couldn’t

sing; when they said she was drunk; when they said she was drugged; when they said she

couldn’t keep a man . . . When they said she was fat; when they said she was thin; when

they said she’d fallen flat on her face. People are falling on their faces every day. She got

up. (quoted in Dyer, 2004, p. 142)

Now, 33 years after Dyer was writing, and 50 years after Garland’s death, this relationship to contemporary troubled celebrity continues to resonate with many of my participants, despite the vastly changed context and the progression of gay rights. For Halperin (2012), readings grounded in identification with mainstream cultural artefacts will always be necessary because the dominance of heteronormativity means that “straight culture will always be our first culture, and

88 what we do with it will always establish a certain template for later, queer relations to standard cultural forms” (p. 457). He writes of Dyer’s work on Garland and his own investigation into

Joan Crawford:

Richard Dyer’s classic essay “Judy Garland and Gay Men” highlights her “combination of

strength and suffering,” identifying it as a source of her gay appeal. That gripping

combination would seem to correspond in certain ways to the combination of glamour

and abjection that distinguishes Joan Crawford’s screen persona and that accounts, at least

in part, for the power she exercises over her gay male fans. Both strength/suffering and

glamour/abjection could be reduced to a more basic formula, a general equation, an

underlying structure defined by the binary of power and vulnerability. (p. 405, emphasis in

original)

It is this binary that structures the camp/melodramatic reading of celebrity. This chapter does not argue that identifying with troubled celebrity is unique to queer people, or is universal to all queer people, but rather, suggests that queer culture can produce modes of reading celebrity that can be both serious and non-serious, or camp/melodramatic.

In her foundational work on reading celebrity gossip magazines, Hermes (1995) distinguishes between ‘serious’ and ‘non-serious’ readings of such gossip. The Literature review explored these in more detail, but recall that she suggests there are two repertoires of serious readings: the extended family and melodrama repertoires. At the heart of melodrama, Hermes argues, is a collective sense of social inequality; celebrity gossip in the melodramatic repertoire seeks to create a moral community based on shared values of injustice. In this repertoire, readers displace their own suffering by revelling in that of the celebrity’s.

89 The Literature review also demonstrated that melodrama as a genre lends itself to the formation of broader moral codes (Joyrich, 1988), and has a place within the intimate public of women’s culture and gay subculture. The decoding, or subverting, of such moral codes allows for strategies of resistance, as many media and cultural studies scholars suggest is the case with many popular culture forms (see Fiske, 2011; Hall, 1980; Marshall, 1997). Needham (2010) argues melodrama has a political efficacy with regard to its subversive use in Brokeback Mountain (2005),

Joyrich (1988) suggests possibilities for resistance with regard to feminist readings of melodrama, and Halperin (2012) proposes a resignification of melodrama in gay subculture’s camp attachment to it. These readings imbue the historically denigrated genre with a possibility of power through resistance, parody, or subversion (Byars, 1991). They reinforce the binary of power and vulnerability that Halperin argues structures gay readings of female divas, and echo the notion of popular culture as a site of struggle between power and resistance, as well as a juxtapolitical site of ambivalence, which both constitute a scene of everyday survival (Berlant,

2008).

Hermes’s non-serious reading of celebrity gossip is labelled ‘camp’. The Literature review explored camp as a reading strategy, but broadly, camp is an aesthetic of exaggeration, irony, and excess long associated with gay culture (Halperin, 2012; Sontag, 1966). The camp readings of celebrity gossip, Hermes suggests, are a form of protest against prevailing norms and values, and thus operate similarly to the more serious readings of gossip, in that they both allow for the production of a form of moral community. She notes that both modes of reading “recognize and confirm the realness of drama and sorrow as part of the everyday. Camp talk uses the same repertoires as serious gossip readers use, though in a more exaggerated and parodying fashion”

(Hermes, 1995, p. 141). Hermes (1999) later notes that her readers did not identify with the figures they read about, despite common assumptions to the contrary (Turner et al., 2000).

Turner et al. (2000) argue that the idea that female readers have a fantasy identification with

90 celebrity figures is borne out of “misogynist conceptions of a passive, gullible female reader” (p.

153). Halperin (2012) argues that melodrama becomes camp when applied to oneself, or identified with, in a practice of resignifying the dominant reading – where one is supposed to distance themselves from melodramatic suffering. In this chapter, I suggest that rather than being a passive or gullible practice, identifying with troubled or scorned celebrities produces a camping of melodrama, the camp/melodramatic reading of celebrity.

It is no coincidence that every celebrity discussed in this chapter is a woman. Melodrama is a distinctly feminised form of popular culture, one that centres on female suffering and heightened feminine emotion. It is certainly not impossible for melodrama to centre on men. Needham

(2010), for example, suggests that Brokeback Mountain (2005) is a queer form of melodrama. As a genre that privileges passivity, heightened emotion, and failure, however, melodrama has an inherently feminised, and therefore subordinated, position in popular culture (Griffin, 2016;

McRobbie, 1991; Radway, 1984). Celebrity gossip also lends itself particularly well to the melodramatic imagination, as argued by Beer and Penfold-Mounce (2009) and Hermes (1995).

The camp attachment to melodrama relies on a complex interplay of power dynamics between power and vulnerability, recasting the powerless figure through an identification with, or an occupation of, that subject position. It follows, therefore, that the object of the camp/melodramatic reading of celebrity gossip needs to be a subordinated figure: often the tragic – troubled or scorned – woman. Each of the female celebrities featured in this chapter reflect some element of the melodramatic narrative of female suffering: Britney Spears’s breakdown; Schapelle Corby’s arrest and imprisonment; Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse and

Anna Nicole Smith’s deaths. Indeed, as Halperin (2012) argues with regard to the female suffering and heightened emotion that is typical of melodrama, “the spectacle of women ‘losing it’ conveys not powerlessness but the frightening power of the downtrodden, when they finally snap under the burden of intolerable oppression” (p. 251).

91 The homosexual has been produced or coded through discourse in ways that seek to render him in the feminine, subordinated position – the passive receiver (Butler, 1993; Foucault, 1978;

Sedgwick, 1990). Halperin accounts for gay male identification with female figures by suggesting that it is because gay men are men that they are able to identify with melodramatic women in camp ways, because of the necessary distance as well as the similarity of being the passive or subordinated figure: “Gay men can certainly identify with Mildred Pierce, but, being men, they cannot do it straightforwardly or unironically… for female spectators an ironic response to the movie is not pre-destined or inescapable” (pp. 265-266; see also O’Neill, 2007). Female participants in my study, however, were able to identify with celebrities like Britney Spears or

Amy Winehouse ironically – in camp/melodramatic ways – because their [queer] sexualities create that distance that Halperin argues is one reason for the identification of gay men with female figures. Instead of distance being created through disparate genders, with female participants, it is rendered through disparate sexualities. In her work on Judy Garland, Pellegrini

(2007) suggests the lesbian affinity for Garland may be through a complex play of identification and distance, as well as the ‘in-betweenness’ of her gender and sexuality that Dyer (2004) suggests is part of her appeal to gay men. The failed or suffering female figure therefore bears relevance to queer people more broadly than just gay men.

This obsession with female suffering forms part of the long-established history of gay men and diva worship. The particular role and function of divas for gay men is critically contested, but crucial to such worship is its camp appeal (Halperin, 2012; Harris, 1996; Kates, 2001). Broadly, the camp appeal of the female figure to gay men is explained by Halperin’s binary of power and vulnerability. Scholars who write about diva worship use similar terms, occasionally also framed in binaries: Dyer (2004) and the strength/suffering of Garland; C. Jackson (2007) and Courtney

Love’s tragic self-destruction/artistry; Doty (2007) and the convention/transgression of the diva more generally; Farmer (2007) and Julie Andrews’s “transformational empowerment” (p. 145);

92 and Harris (1996) and the star’s “pathos, suffering, vulnerability, glamor, or sexiness” (p. 176) to give a few examples. It’s the diva’s crossing of these binaries that makes her available for queer attachment: as Doty (2007) writes, divas “really aren’t about categories— they are about troubling and breaking out of their ‘proper’ culturally assigned sex, gender, sexuality, class, national, ethnic, and racial spaces” (p. 4). Divas can be men, suggests Doty, but the ability to

“fight back” and lay claim to a power once denied them is a position more readily attainable for the subordinate female figure (Harris, 1996, p. 171). Crucial to diva worship, then, is the ability to survive, to find power in a vulnerable position, typically the vulnerable position of the woman

(Farmer, 2007; Halperin, 2012). Diva worship is about something else, too. It’s also about the connection to other gay diva worshippers:

The answer to the proverbial question ‘why did gay men like Judy Garland so much?’ is

that they liked, not her, so much as her audience, the hordes of other gay men who

gathered in her name to hear her poignant renditions of old torch songs which reduced

sniffling queens to floods of self-pitying tears. (Harris, 1996, p. 176)

The diva, then, produces not only a scene of identification with the suffering woman (and her survival or empowerment) but also an intimate public around her worship, through emotional contact. This reflects Redmond’s (2019) suggestion that identification with celebrities is affective and provides a space for activating our own intensive registers. There are definitional tensions

(see Doty, 2007) around the diva, and while I don’t suggest that every celebrity in this chapter is a diva, the identification with these publicly luminous figures is certainly reminiscent of the queer affective attachment to the power and vulnerability of the diva, and similarly produces an intimate public.

93 Like the power/vulnerability of the diva more generally, Halperin (2012) suggests it is Joan

Crawford’s specific position as the glamorous/abject that allows for a particular camp attachment to melodrama. Kristeva (1982), in her work on the abject, suggests its liminality: the in-between, the ambiguous, that which disturbs identity, system or order (p. 4). Butler (1993) suggests that ‘abject’ homosexuality is at the heart of heterosexual identification – an identification with the abject, before a subsequent disavowal. In order to identify as heterosexual, argues Butler, one must first understand the homosexual position as abject, refuse it, and take up the heterosexual position. But claiming a space within the abject – rather than disavowing it – and the glamorous simultaneously creates a resignification of the melodramatic figure: it ‘camps’ her, thus resisting the dominant reading. I argue here that in identifying with the female celebrity’s vulnerability (or abjection), participants were able to create a camp/melodramatic reading of the troubled or scorned celebrity, thus abjecting the serious/non-serious readings of celebrity gossip by producing a reading that occupies the liminal spaces between these two repertoires. The camp/melodramatic reading is liminal in the way it occupies the space between the serious (melodrama) and non-serious (camp) readings of celebrity gossip. Rather than displacing the melodrama of the suffering female celebrity, which is what Hermes (1995) argues for the melodrama repertoire, the camp/melodramatic reading identifies with it, camping it, and resignifying its subordination.

It is through identifying with the vulnerable, the suffering, that the subordinated position is subverted. The ‘power’ in the power/vulnerability binarism that is held by many of these troubled celebrities – the “frightening power of the downtrodden” (Halperin, 2012, p. 251) – reflects the resignification of power that Foucault (1978) suggests constitutes “reverse” discourse. He argues that while discourses of homosexuality in the 19th century produced a form of social control over this “subspecies”, they also made possible a “reverse” discourse where

“homosexuality began to speak in its own behalf… often in the same vocabulary, using the

94 same categories by which it was medically disqualified” (p. 101). Butler (1997) clarifies Foucault’s work by stating: “in Foucault, the possibility of subversion or resistance appears… in the course of a subjectivation that exceeds the normalizing aims by which it is mobilized, for example in

‘reverse discourse’” (pp. 92-93). By identifying with or claiming the perverse or subordinated position, a recasting of power is made possible. Butler argues that the subject is formed through its submission to power, referring to Foucault’s (1979) work on the prisoner as individual formed discursively through its relation to the regulation of such an identity, and Althusser’s

(1971) work on the subject as formed through interpellation; through being ‘hailed’ by an authoritative voice, the subject is subordinated. Butler (1997) goes on to suggest that “the most injurious interpellations could also be the site of radical reoccupation and resignification” (p.

104) a “reversing” of the discourse by occupying it in ways that exceed its “normalizing aims”.

Thus, by occupying these terms, claiming the subordinate position, a form of resistance to power is made possible, producing the “frightening power of the downtrodden”.

This type of resistance to power recalls work of cultural studies scholars on subordinated audiences of popular culture. Marshall (1997) investigates these forms of power in the celebrity, suggesting that the celebrity is a site for processes of hegemony, particularly in an affective domain. He writes: “The celebrity offers a discursive focus for the discussion of realms that are considered outside the bounds of public debate in the most public fashion. The celebrity system is a way in which the sphere of the irrational, emotional, personal, and affective is contained and negotiated in contemporary culture” (Marshall, 1997, pp. 72-73). Marshall likens the negotiation of hegemony of the celebrity to that of sexuality, by suggesting that both allow “for the configuration, positioning and proliferation of certain discourses about the individual and individuality in contemporary culture” (p. 72). A queer audience’s renegotiation of the suffering female celebrity, through identifying with it, is a form of resistance to power in the negotiation of the subject position, and through decoding the dominant reading of this kind of celebrity media.

95 The subordinated position of female suffering is thus necessary to produce the camp/melodramatic reading, because it is through identifying with and occupying the subject position of the abjected, subordinated figure – the troubled or scorned woman – that the resistance to such a categorisation is produced, and the melodrama becomes camp/melodrama

(Halperin, 2012). It is the cultural overdetermination of subordination as feminine that explains why all the celebrities in this chapter are women.

The troubled celebrity

The theme of resilience and survival, strength through suffering, power in vulnerability persists, and was evident in my focus groups. Arlo (23, gay) discussed his own idolisation of what he labelled ‘tragic’ female figures:

Lucy: What is it about the tragedy [that appeals to you]?

Arlo: Because, I think like, there is inherently a strong amount of tragedy involved in gay

life still. Obviously it’s gotten better, but like at least for me growing up, there was the

alienation of being gay and being in the closet and having to go through the coming out

process. And like, the issues with intimacy and all that. Like I think tragedy just strongly

appeals to a community which has high instances of every problem. Mental health

problems, nicotine addiction, blah blah blah. But also like, it’s tragedy and I think triumph.

The comeback of the tragic popstar or something like that is also so important.

Like, they’re stories of liberation, being down there, getting up here, which is what a lot of

people with gay lives want to follow. The pain of like being the outsider and then getting

out of that.

Lucy: Can you think of an example?

96 Arlo: I mean, they all follow it in really weird, different ways, right. Like, Britney Spears’s

comeback, but that was at the expense of her now being on very strong bipolar

medication, and being a bit dead behind the eyes. Madonna’s constant comebacks, yes,

Kylie’s cancer. Like, Whitney died, that was, like, – Judy Garland, A Star is Born, and then

she’s like, back on top but then Liza Minelli. It’s just, those sorts of people, right. Your top

line gay icons.

The appeal of the tragic figure to Arlo was their subsequent triumph, their survival. His slide from personal to universalising language – from “at least for me growing up” to “a lot of people with gay lives” indicates he is familiar with the collective subjectivity of gay culture, the culture that, as Halperin (2012) argues, reflects the broader practices developed by gay people. Arlo describes his own alienation, and the feeling of being an outsider as symptomatic of gay life more generally. It is through this relationship to the triumph over tragedy, the reclaiming of power from a vulnerable position that Arlo envisions a collective belonging to a queer subjectivity. Arlo’s universalising language reflects the idea that gay identity isn’t produced in isolation, but rather, is founded in a discursive subject position reflected by others around us.

Foucault (1978) argued that the homosexual is a modern category, produced by discourses to subjugate the individual with same-sex desires, and much of the work in gay and lesbian studies and queer theory, as well as identity politics more generally, has sought to understand, and deconstruct, this categorisation further. Arlo describes these stories of liberation as belonging to

“your top line gay icons”, clearly aware of the role of diva worship within gay subculture, providing evidence for Halperin’s (2012) point that homosexuality is a cultural, as well as sexual, orientation or categorisation (p. 12).

This awareness figured in other groups as well. Powpowindamow (PP, 55, queer) and

Skuirrelmoose (SM, 47, queer) had this conversation:

97 Lucy: So when these celebrities are having those meltdowns, their controversies, how do

you feel about those? How did you feel about Britney’s meltdown?

PP: Entertained.

SM: It was about, what’s she gonna do next? It’s like watching car crashes.

PP: The whole thing about – so, we all saw what Amy Winehouse was like before she died.

We got pictures of her every week on the magazines. Her legs were that thin, and her arms

were that thin. Her and her boyfriend looked so trashed and wasted. They were in there

every week, and yet people just eat that up.

SM: They love her even more now that she’s dead, because it’s the martyr thing.

PP: Whitney Houston, another one. Let’s just sit there and watch the decline of somebody

like this, you know? Let’s just watch her and Bobby Brown fuck everything up.

Lucy: Did you feel sympathy?

PP: For Whitney? A great deal. Because at the end of the day, you know what it is?

SM: Amazing voice.

PP: It’s A Star is Born. It’s the old one with Judy Garland. People love it. It’s like opera.

SM: Yes, it is exactly like opera. It’s the tragic, you know? The tragic death of the talent.

PP: How could we let it happen to her?

SM: She will always be immortalised.

PP: She is the Lady Di of music.

SB: Too good for this world. Too troubled.

PP admits to feeling entertained by celebrity meltdowns, while still feeling a “great deal” of sympathy for the tragic, troubled talent. This conversation shifts from reading these celebrity meltdowns in non-serious ways, to a more serious, sympathetic register. By relating these narratives to A Star is Born (1954) and to opera, it’s clear PP and SM are aware of the gay cultural context of Judy Garland and opera (Halperin, 2012). Later, when I asked them about Judy

98 Garland, SM suggested that the gay appeal of Garland is her “beautiful failure”, and PP called her a “dove with a broken wing”, echoing the broad power/vulnerability binarism.

In the conversation with PP and SM, identification is less pertinent than a reflection on gay culture more generally. Other conversations, however, presented a form of identification in clearer terms, such as that with Arlo and Enoch (22, gay). While Arlo noted the “top line gay icons” have an existing presence within gay culture, his and Enoch’s relationships to these figures and their tragedy creates the camp/melodramatic reading:

Enoch: You identify with the celebrities who are sort of living it [their lives] in a public eye

where you get to be like, oh yeah, I stand for her because she’s a queen. She’s overcome all

of this. But like, it’s more just like a reflection of something you’re going through, like

celebrity is sort of just holding up a mirror to yourself, yeah, I dunno.

Arlo: Like, for example, in the closet right, I think fantasy becomes a huge thing. So, like

dealing with the pain of that, or the pain and complexities of being gay, through a celebrity

avatar, right. Like, if Britney can make it through 2007, I can make it through today, right.

Like, I think you have to project a lot, or once I’m out of the closet I’m moving to the city,

I’ll be famous even. I’ll be somebody. Like, the quest to – gay people want validation. It’s

harder for them to get than straight people. These people have gotten validation on a mass

scale.

For Enoch, celebrity can act as a mirror to reflect one’s own personal struggles. Arlo argues that a coping mechanism of the closet is to adopt a “celebrity avatar” or to “project” certain fantasies of your life. The celebrity’s struggles are taken on by the individual in order to understand and reframe their own. Arlo states, “if Britney can make it through 2007, I can make it through

99 today”.26 By relating to Britney Spears’s tragedy, there is a process of resignification and reversal at play, one that returns a type of power to the melodramatic narrative of Spears’s meltdown, what Redmond (2006, 2008) terms a clear example of “fame damage”, that brings strength to her suffering, occupying that space between the melodramatic and camp readings of celebrity. The damage of fame, argues Redmond (2006), allows for a form of identification with celebrities, drawing people closer to the injured celebrity, and offering up the potential for resistant behaviour. For Redmond, the relationship with the damaged celebrity opposes the dominant ideology of fame. Thus, through relating to Spears’s suffering, participants are resignifying these dominant readings of celebrity.

This process of resignification and reversal is made possible, Halperin (2012) argues, through the distance at which this kind of identification operates. Such a distance is a reason for gay men’s camp identification with women. He writes that this identification “is necessarily accompanied by a significant degree of dis-identification and distance, and it is inevitably filtered by irony… a complex play of identity and difference, an oscillating ironic doubleness—the very kind of ironic doubleness that is essential to camp sensibility” (p. 265). Later, in the Facebook group, Enoch

(22, gay, Aboriginal/Tongan) noted the level of racialised detachment in identifying with women of colour. They wrote:

The reason a lot yt [white] queers gravitate to the trauma and tragedy of famous black

women is bc [because] there will always be a distance between experience. Like I mean

isn’t it cooked that yt queers literally use the lived experiences of black women in the

industry to understand themselves?

26 Britney Spears appeared to have a mental breakdown in 2007, culminating in stints in rehab, and the now infamous shaving of her head in February 2007. The phrase “if Britney can make it through 2007, I can make it through today” or similar, has become a meme – a piece of culture widely circulated on social media and other online platforms (Marwick, 2013a).

100

Enoch refers to this distance in racial terms instead of (or as well as, because of the ungendered

‘queer’ in this statement) gendered terms. Enoch’s criticism of white queers stemmed from a discussion about the troubled figure in celebrity media, which included Rihanna and Whitney

Houston. The ability of white queers to maintain a distance from black celebrity because of the racialised oppression of the black community was what Enoch labelled “cooked”,27 but also produces the kind of complex play of identity and difference that Halperin suggests is part of a camp reading of celebrity. The melodrama of Whitney Houston’s death is made into a camp narrative through the white queer subject’s distance from Houston and their ability to

“understand themselves” through her narrative, regardless of this difference.

Britney Spears’s 2007 breakdown was discussed in several focus groups, serving as a good example through which to understand this interplay between identification and distance that produces the camp/melodramatic reading. In his focus group, Hortense Mueller (32, queer) described Britney Spears as being personally influential to him:

Hortense Mueller: Growing up as a teenager, especially, again, in the whole dynamic of

being a post-pubescent boy in a regional town, well, to be heteronormative you had to hate

her and her music. Like, sexualise her, certainly, but hate her creative output… That

continued unbridled for a while. And then it got to kind of, maybe 2013 and you could

look back on the breakdown in 2007 and it all made sense. Because from the beginning,

she was a Mouseketeer. And the grooming and the childhood image, like, it all began from

there, and it was repetitious – the way in which she was managed basically. Has a

27 “Cooked” in this instance refers to something troubling or disconcerting.

101 breakdown, and then spends the next few years trying to get back on her own two feet, on

her own terms.

I can identify with that. And thus becomes the mantra, if Britney made it through 2007,

you could make it through today. Not for any reason that people would be encouraging to,

not for her music, or for her creative output or anything like that, but just that underlying,

her as a human being, what she’s gone through.

Jezebel: Her tenacity.

Hortense: Yeah, exactly.

Peggy: What I found interesting and it’s probably not much relevant to what we’re

discussing, but by shaving her head, Britney consciously made herself, conventionally

speaking, undesirable.

Hortense: That was part of the breakdown, yeah.

Jezebel: That was part of the reason I did it. I wanted to make myself ugly. I was sick of

being objectified.

Hortense’s identification with Spears comes not from her music or creative output, but from her

“as a human being”, or her “tenacity” – this identification operates more in an emotional register than a material one as he relates to her as a person rather than a creative producer. He relates to

Spears in ways that people would not encourage, thus echoing the disparaging position in which melodrama is often placed. Peggy (25, queer) makes a point of referring to Spears’s undesirability, despite its seeming irrelevance to the conversation, but also the agency of Spears in this moment, thus reading power into her moment of vulnerability and abjection. By referring to the way in which Spears “consciously” created a form of “undesirable” – or abject – femininity, Jezebel (32, queer) especially could relate to the power in occupying this position.

102 Warren (26, queer), Leia (25, bisexual), and Carol (26, lesbian) also discussed Spears’s meltdown.

In particular, Warren identified his own struggles with mental health, claiming that this position of identification with Spears and her own problems with mental health sustains his interest in reading about her, and his ongoing happiness for the success of her career. Empathising with

Spears’s mental health struggles was something Emily (32, queer) and Slaytina (24, bisexual) keenly felt as well. In their focus group, Emily said:

What I find really interesting is when people do recaps of 10 years ago, and my perspective

now, as a 32-year-old, and my understanding of mental health, and my understanding of

celebrity culture is so much greater than it was 10 years ago, when I was 22, and the way

that I engaged with the Britney Spears’s narrative then, to the way that I look at it now,

and my heart just, kind of, breaks for the fact that she was going through hell, and it was

fodder.

Emily attributes this development in her empathy to age, but later in their focus group, Vern (28, queer) emphasised:

Whenever I read media stuff about celebrities, if I read it queerly, if I wasn’t queer, I

wouldn’t have the understanding, perspective of class and all oppression structures that I

have, and, so, that affects everything I read, and I read everything through that sort of a

lens that I wouldn’t have.

Emily and Slaytina agreed with this statement. In part, their queerness is inherently tied to their ability to relate to other struggles of oppression and power, suggesting that it is their mutual subordination that allows for an identification with the suffering figure. This is especially

103 important in considering the scorned celebrity, who is made subordinate by their media narrative.

One final example of the troubled celebrity highlights the camp/melodramatic reading of surviving tragedy, of strength through suffering. Beverly (26, gay) and Lou (27, gay) were happy to see Fran Drescher on a recent episode of television show Broad City (2014-2019):

Lou: She’s iconic, I think.

Lucy: How?

Beverly: She’s been through a lot.

Lou: Her backstory is incredible.

Beverly: She was raped and had cancer.

Lucy: Jesus.

Lou: She was held at gunpoint and raped, wasn’t she?

Lucy: Wow, when?

Beverly: Before The Nanny.

Lou: Yeah.

Lucy: Oh my god.

Lou: Yeah, and then she got cancer after The Nanny, or–

Beverly: Mm hmm.

…

Lou: Anyway, I think she’s just like, I dunno, obviously super funny, but she’s super

charismatic as well. I feel like I actually care about what she’s doing with her life, I don’t

care about a lot of other people… And it’s also kinda queer as well–

Beverly: Well, she’s camp.

Lou: Yeah, there’s that camp value.

104 Lucy: What is it about Fran Drescher that’s camp?

Beverly: The fashion, the voice, I mean, she’s a larger than life character.

At this point, we moved into a discussion of the camp aspects of The Nanny (1993-1999) more generally. In this conversation, rather than camp only being produced through an identification with the melodrama, Beverly and Lou are able to also articulate other camp aspects of Drescher’s persona. Her tragic narrative is the first reason Beverly and Lou provide for her “iconic” status, and a degree of affinity is demonstrated through Lou’s assertion that he cares more about her than other people as a result of this tragedy.

The preceding examples demonstrate the way in which participants would identify with tragic female celebrities, especially Britney Spears, but also Fran Drescher, Whitney Houston, and other “top line gay icons”. By identifying with melodramatic celebrity figures, and finding power in their vulnerability, participants are camping these figures, and thus producing the camp/melodramatic reading of celebrity that seeks to identify with celebrity melodrama, rather than observe it at a distance.

The scorned celebrity

The scorned celebrity is the celebrity who is treated poorly by the media. The coverage they are subject to could be likened to the insults Eribon (2004) argues gay people are subject to – because these figures are often denigrated or scorned by tabloid media (Williamson, 2010). This section will consider how identifying with the insulted celebrity begins a process of resignification that negotiates the power/vulnerability inherent in the camp/melodramatic reading of celebrity gossip. Eribon draws on the work of Althusser (1971) and Butler (1993,

105 1997) to understand the interpellation and hailing that is present within the relationship between gay identity and insult. He writes:

Thus ‘‘homosexuality’’ does not simply designate a class of individuals defined by sexual

preferences and practices. It is also a set of processes of ‘‘subjection,’’ processes as much

collective as individual to the extent that there is a common structure of inferiorization at

work, and it is all the stronger to the extent that it is the same for all, and yet at the same

time specific to each individual— who might even at moments in his or her life believe

that he or she is the sole victim. (p. 59)

While the insult may not actually occur, homosexually interpellated individuals “are nonetheless fully conscious of the fact that such a verbal attack is possible at any moment, that it is a threat forever present in their social life” (p. 46). The interpellation of insult necessarily creates a power dynamic in which there is, to use Eribon’s words, a “structure of inferiorization at work” that is both collectivised and individual. This speaks to the problem identified earlier, of Arlo’s statements reflecting a collective stereotype as well as his own personal experience. The process of ‘subjection’, Butler (1997) argues, “signifies the process of becoming subordinated by power as well as the process of becoming a subject” (p. 2). This subjection is made possible through the interpellation of insult – as Althusser (1971) suggests, the subject is formed through responding when ‘hailed’ – by responding to the insult, the subject is created as that insult. This creates the complex power dynamic Butler (1993) discusses with regard to processes of resignification. By becoming the inferior subject through interpellation, the subject then occupies the term, allowing for that term to become a site of resistance, enabling social and political resignification (Butler,

1993, p. 231). Peggy, Jezebel, Hortense and Kitt (28, queer), through identifying with Amy

Winehouse, also identify with the insulted position of Winehouse in the media that is critical of her, and as a result can enable a type of resistance in occupying this denigrated position:

106

Kitt: I feel like she [Amy Winehouse] always got destroyed by the media, like I’d buy stuff and pick it up and I’d be like, fuck you guys for saying this stuff about Amy. You don’t know anything. She’s having a tough time.

Lucy: Right, so you felt like you could sympathise with the person rather than the media representation?

Kitt: Yes, definitely, like, it was always in stark opposition. I felt like I knew Amy because I listened to her music.

Jezebel: Because the only way they ever portrayed her was pictures of her high or drunk, with her tattoos out looking really dishevelled, and just like, she was so beautiful. But that was the way that the media jumped on that, it’s like no, we’re just putting up her junkie pictures.

...

Kitt: They dumped on her to criticise her so, so, so, so much. And it’s like, any time I saw her, I saw a number of my friends in her. Kind of, people from our scenes, and I think I always visually engaged a lot with Amy.

Hortense: That’s fair.

…

Lucy: When you see the articles that were like: Amy Winehouse is a drunken tattooed mess, like, what’s your reaction to that?

Kitt: We’re all drunk and tattooed messes.

Jezebel: Fuckin’ A!

Kitt: I relate.

Jezebel: That’s the sort of girl I want to go out partying with.

Kitt: Well, it’s also the kind of thing that makes me feel like, if any of us were celebrities we’d be so screwed by now.

107 Peggy: For sure.

Kitt’s reaction was viscerally angry and defensive. This group found the negative coverage levelled at Winehouse personally insulting, from the way that Kitt claims to have seen a number of her friends in Winehouse’s persona, the personal response to the insults levelled at

Winehouse, and the way in which Jezebel enthusiastically voiced her agreement. The insults directed at Winehouse by the media were individualised, specifically targeting her own appearance and drug or alcohol dependency, taken on by the participants because of how they could relate to Winehouse and, subsequently, the insults. What is important here, as it is for

Eribon (2004), is not whether or not something could be deemed to be insulting, but rather, how it is taken up by the subject of the insult, in this case my participants who empathised with it.

The tabloids may have been accurate in calling Amy Winehouse “drunk” and “tattooed”, but this is done in such a way as to create a structure of power and inferiorisation, one couched in vulnerability, given the “tough time” Kitt feels she’s having. These participants see themselves in these remarks about Winehouse, and are thus hailed by them in a form of interpellation that places them alongside Winehouse in the insulted position. Kitt’s remark, “if any of us were celebrities we’d be so screwed by now” suggests that she relates herself and her friends directly to Winehouse’s scorned position. It is through recognising this position as insulted, and relating to or identifying with it anyway, that these participants can begin to subvert or resist the dominant meaning of these tabloid media forms that seek to insult Winehouse.

In another focus group, Beverly discussed his ‘obsession’ with Schapelle Corby.28

28 Schapelle Corby is an Australian woman who, in 2004, was arrested and subsequently convicted of smuggling cannabis into Indonesia. She was released in 2014, and was able to return to Australia in 2017. Her story was a media sensation and she continues to have a public profile. One may argue that Schapelle Corby is infamous rather than famous, and therefore not a celebrity. However, the enduring interest in Corby by tabloid media in Australia, and their distinct and obsessive fascination with her private life could classify her as a celebrity in Turner’s (2014) terms, especially because of what he has coined the ‘demotic turn’ toward the ordinary in celebrity discourse.

108

Lou: Beverly, you’ve been like, completely obsessed with Schapelle Corby.

Beverly: Oh, I love Schapelle. [laughs] I stan29 Schapelle. I’ve always loved Schapelle, I

took a day off school when she got convicted.

Lucy: Why? Do you know?

Beverly: A beautiful Australian, girl, young, beautician, I’ve always empathised with

women, like on a huge level, even like watching a game show or something, if there’s a

woman on it, I want her to win it. I don’t know what it is, but like, I’ve always cared more

about women doing well than men, like, I don’t get invested in men in the same way. So

people like Schapelle, it’s kinda fucked that I then didn’t really give a toss about the Bali

Nine. But Schapelle just played right into my hands as someone who was kind of

endearing, I dunno, I dunno what it was.

When put on the spot, Beverly had trouble articulating why he loves Corby, beyond his affinity with women, which recalls the gendered nature of this kind of celebrity reading, and the identification with difference Halperin (2012) suggests is a key feature of gay men’s relationship with women. In this particular instance, Corby reflects Halperin’s glamorous/abject binary typical of Joan Crawford. The first thing Beverly says about Corby is that she’s beautiful, and as a convicted criminal, Corby embodies the abject position that Kristeva (1982) argues crime occupies. Beverly’s inability to explain this affinity relates to the unconscious nature of some of this identification – it is felt affectively, rather than consciously. However, later, on the Facebook group, after some reflection, Beverly was able to add:

29 ‘Stan’ is used as a both a verb and a noun, and refers to an obsessive love of a celebrity. It is both a portmanteau of ‘stalker’ and ‘fan’, and a reference to the Eminem song of the same name about an obsessive fan of Eminem (named Stan) who kills his girlfriend and himself after the rapper doesn’t respond to his letters (Foley, 2015).

109 For me, Schapelle hit the newspapers during my highly vulnerable first year of high school,

which was coincidentally when I started buying the newspaper every day. I think I found

her a more sympathetic character than, say, male members of the Bali Nine, because my

friends and saviours had always been women, while men had beaten and bullied me. It was

also one of the first times I can recall being aware of the criminal justice system. I guess

her tears/position resonated because I cried a lot at the time and often felt

cornered/ganged up on. Plus it was a narrative outside of my own that I could follow each

day.

Corby’s pain resonated clearly and directly with Beverly’s personal circumstances of enduring bullying. In Corby’s tears, Beverly could see his experiences of the insult Eribon describes as quintessential to the gay identity. It was not necessarily Corby’s mistreatment by the media that

Beverly could identify with, but her position of pain, suffering, and crucially, vulnerability, made worse and visible by the tabloid obsession with her. The media narrative also provided Beverly with a partial escape from his own narrative of suffering, suggesting that this relationship to

Corby embodied the interplay of identification and distance Halperin suggests is typical of the gay attachment to women. By occupying the position of the insulted Corby, Beverly was able to resignify this position by beginning to see outside of it, thus recasting the vulnerable position.

The abuse of power and its relationship to identification with suffering of my participants was also apparent in the discussion of Britney Spears, who was figured as both a tragic figure, and a figure scorned by the media. Emily and Slaytina saw the injustice of power in the way Spears was treated. As discussed earlier, Emily felt more empathy for Spears’s mental health problems as she herself aged. She then tried to relate Spears’s situation to a more contemporary example:

110 Emily: But, then, I’m also like, “Am I just being really, kind of, maternalistic around it, and

not giving her enough credit?” You know, and just, but my perspective is so different, and,

so, when I see it now, and I’m trying to think of a parallel, to, say, Amanda Bynes and

Britney Spears, now, I don’t know what fall from grace that I can think of.

Slaytina: There’s no one having a break-down right now…Well, Harvey Weinstein.

Emily: Yeah.

Slaytina: But that’s earned.

…

Emily: Yeah, if we saw, If I saw a photo, right now, of Harvey Weinstein,

Slaytina: Wasted in a club.

Emily: Wasted in a club, at rock bottom, I would just feel like, “Fucking yes,” vindicated,

and that feels, yeah.

Lucy: And what’s the difference?

Emily: The difference is, I think, that he abused power, and I think the difference, whereas

Britney Spears, was abused by power… I think the fact that her career started as a young

child with Disney, and she was, money was made off her from a very young age.

Weinstein’s only ever made money off people. You know what I mean? No one’s ever

profited off Weinstein, but people profited off Britney, at every stage of her career,

whether it was the media, or Disney…

Here, Emily sees a distinct difference in scandal that involves an abuse of power, in comparison to a celebrity that uses their power to abuse others. That Spears was abused by power elaborates her vulnerable position, and the gendered element of the discussion (Spears vs Harvey

111 Weinstein) further suggests that participants were more likely to identify or empathise with the powerless subject position, especially because this discussion was sparked by earlier conversations around how Slaytina and Emily identified with the struggles of Spears and other celebrities in similar positions, such as Anna Nicole Smith. With regard to Smith, Slaytina later wrote on Facebook, “I have no idea where I’d be without Anna Nicole Smith… she’s the light of my life.” When asked to elaborate, she said: “She was chubby but sexy, smart but ridiculous, rich but trash, loved and reviled. Well before I consciously realised that I could celebrate the

‘negative’ sides of myself, she was doing exactly that.” These binaries Slaytina posits are emblematic of the glamorous/abject and power/vulnerability binarisms Halperin identifies. That

Smith helps Slaytina celebrate the ‘negative’ sides of herself suggests that it is the image of Smith that allows Slaytina to occupy the injurious/insulting terms that form her subjection, and thus recast them through celebrating them. The fact that Smith is dead further suggests a taking up of the abject position.

Smith, Winehouse, Corby, and Spears (at the time) were all portrayed by the media as figures of suffering, abused by power, while being ‘abused’ in some sense by the media itself. Their shared problems of drug abuse and addiction are represented as self-inflicted disorders and overwhelmingly seen as the fault of the individual (see, for example, Tiger, 2013). By identifying with the struggles and the mistreatment of these figures, participants provide evidence that construction of a gay identity is necessarily a process of subjection, subordination through becoming a subject, and in doing so, are able to begin to recast the subordinated subject position

(Butler, 1997; Eribon, 2004). The queer reading of celebrity is necessitated by the subjection of the gay identity: it is through this subjection that participants were able to identify with both sides of the power/vulnerability binarism, thus creating a camp/melodramatic reading of these celebrity figures. By recasting the abject, the vulnerable, into a position of power through

112 identifying with this position, readers occupied the liminal space between Hermes’s camp and melodrama repertoires, blurring them together.

Conclusion

This chapter reflected on the melodramatic – troubled, scorned – celebrity, and how participants responded to celebrity figures in this position. It found that through identifying with the vulnerable or abject position of these celebrities – ‘camping’ this position (Halperin, 2012) – participants were able to recast these readings and imbue them with a form of power through resignification, similar to the ‘empowering’ narrative that underlies diva worship (Farmer, 2007).

The binary of power/vulnerability enabled a camp/melodramatic reading of the celebrities’ narratives, thus allowing for a reading strategy that combines both serious and non-serious readings of celebrity gossip (Hermes, 1995). Through an analysis of my participants’ use of celebrity media representations, this chapter has uncovered a distinctly new mode of interpretation. This reading occupies the liminal space between Hermes’s (1995) repertoires, yet, unlike Hermes’s readings, relies on a degree of identification with celebrity figures. Identification with the vulnerable, the abject, the suffering celebrity, produces a resignification of the dominant or intended reading of that celebrity. As a result, by relating to the ‘insulted’ celebrity, the celebrity who is scorned by the media, participants were thus undertaking a camp/melodramatic reading of the celebrity, taking power by resignifying the vulnerable. Like the serious and non- serious readings of celebrity, the camp/melodramatic reading similarly works to produce moral community, through its formation of an intimate public by producing feelings of survival through an affective form of identification that is transgressive, that resists the dominant reading of the celebrity text. These feelings of survival are political in their resistant reading strategy, and juxtapolitical in their production of emotional contact. The emotional contact of this intimate public is one that finds strength in suffering. The next chapter continues to consider the outcast

113 celebrity figure, turning to readings of celebrity that are structured by shame, via an analysis of celebrity transgression and apology.

114 Chapter Five

“She’s unapologetically human, and sexual, and queer, and disgusting”: Celebrity

transgression, apology, and the de/attachment of shame

This chapter will consider how the queer subject’s relationship to shame structures a reading of celebrity transgression and the celebrity apology. This reading highlights the attachment and detachment that categorises shame’s contagious yet individuating affect, explored in more detail in the Literature review (Munt, 2016; Sedgwick, 2003). Probyn (2005) suggests, “women and queers have been made to feel ashamed and as a consequence have become more attuned to detecting the shame of others” (p. 87). This particularly queer attachment to shame was evident among my participants who were highly attuned to the shame of celebrities. Halperin (2012) suggests that the ‘subcultural’ kind of gay culture that reads queerness onto non-gay cultural forms, exists “to cope with the reality of suffering, to defy powerlessness, and to carve out a space of freedom within a social world acknowledged to be hostile and oppressive” and is thus incompatible with the normalising forces of gay pride (p. 219). My participants would feel indignant that celebrities were made to feel shame, and recast shameful behaviours, thus detaching from the affect. But they would also at times embrace celebrity shame, attaching themselves to the affect. This chapter will explore how participant responses to celebrity apologies and celebrity transgression are structured by an attachment/detachment to shame, and thus form an intimate public through the shared affect of shame.

Shame and the celebrity apology

The celebrity apology is used in this chapter as an occasion for exploring celebrity shame.

Affective disclosures – like the apology – can function as a site of identification and attachment

115 for the audience to the celebrity, akin to the affective celebaesthetic relationship Redmond (2014,

2019) argues is captured in the celebrity confessional. Similarly, Probyn (2005) suggests that the semiotic sign of the celebrity has long been a site for understanding and decoding emotional significance. In her work on shame, Ahmed (2014) looks particularly at the role of the apology in national pride/national shame, suggesting that to apologise is to speak shame (p. 110). The celebrity apology, then, is a highly functional way to examine shame as it is discursively produced and allows for an affective reading by the audience. The celebrity apology also reflects many of the binarisms that are structured by the closet (Sedgwick, 1990). The apology functions as an admission of wrongdoing, and occasionally, the disclosure of previously secret behaviour. It renders private behaviours public knowledge, and discursively references a moral code. By admitting to and expressing shame for such behaviour, the celebrity stigmatises that behaviour, creating a moral narrative around their failure to live up to a particular ideal (Ahmed, 2014).

While Rojek (2012) notes that the celebrity apology is particularly formulaic, Nunn and Biressi

(2010) suggest that even in its formulaic state, it creates the ‘emotional contact’ Berlant (2008) argues is necessary for the construction of an intimate public. The apology, and the related celebrity confession, are types of emotional expressivity that often produce a successful celebrity performance, one that is contingent on the authentic disclosure of private, intimate details in the public domain (Nunn & Biressi, 2010). The celebrity confession, Redmond (2019) notes, is full of melodramatic excess, and is thus an affective site of attachment to the celebrity. As a result, the celebrity apology functions as an efficacious site for considerations of the affective de/attachment to shame felt by my participants, through the ‘emotional contact’ they allow, which Nunn and Biressi suggest can be identification, disidentification, or a number of emotional associations within this spectrum. Through identifying with the shamed and transgressive celebrities, participants are therefore making the emotional contact of an intimate public produced by this celebrity performance.

116 One of my participants, Arlo (23, gay), found the celebrity apology to be particularly constructed:

Arlo: I really feel that celebrities have to be fake in how they respond to it [drug

possession]. I’ve made a big mistake, I’m so sorry. Usually, they’re getting caught with a

small amount of weed or pills or something like that, and they have to do the forced

contrition. I also think the same applies for the nude photo leaks, like Vanessa Hudgens.30

I found that incredibly unfair. It was really unfair that her pictures were leaked, but then

it’s also really unfair that there is so much shame around that.

Here, Arlo refers briefly to the ‘forced’ nature of the celebrity apology, suggesting that this apology was inauthentic, containing no expression of genuine shame. While the apology acts as a way to ‘speak shame’, it is also dependent on its reception – it can only ‘do something’ if its receiver is willing to hear it as an apology (Ahmed, 2014). Arlo’s refusal to read this apology as genuine implies his unwillingness to view this behaviour as shameful, or worthy of apology. He notes that the shame around nude photos is “unfair”, further distancing himself from the notion that this action is worthy of a shameful response. If shame is expressed at the failure to adhere to a social ideal (Ahmed, 2014), by suggesting that shame around nude photos is “unfair”, Arlo is critiquing that social ideal and implying a re-evaluation of the moral code produced by

Hudgens’s apology.

In their work on queer shame, Kulick and Klein (2009) suggest that scandals can only make sense within a framework of ‘shame’, but also act as a form of ‘micropolitics’ in which we can begin to challenge the structures that differentiate moral from immoral. In their discussions on

30 In 2007, nude photos of Disney star Vanessa Hudgens, then 18, were leaked to several gossip sites by a hacker. Hudgens apologised for the photo leak, despite having no responsibility for the photos becoming public. She later called it the “worst moment” of her career (J. Miller, 2013, para. 4).

117 Facebook, participants continued to focus on unnecessary or unwarranted celebrity apologies, and almost universally related to women apologising for their apparently ‘sexually deviant’ behaviour. In this context, Arlo again brought up Vanessa Hudgens: “Kristen Stewart apologising for a bit of light fun with her director: CURSED…Vanessa Hudgens deserved better after the nudes leak, so did Jamie Lynn [Spears] for her teen pregnancy!” When asked why he was particularly drawn to these sexual transgressions, Arlo responded: “I think sex scandals are so prevalent/obvious because scandal can contain/reflect cultural norms and expectations, so the poor things get sacrificed on that altar”. Here, Arlo is touching on the notion that celebrities can reflect social values, particularly in their failure to live up to such ideals, and thus need to

‘speak shame’ and apologise. By refusing to read scandal from a framework of shame, Arlo is challenging the moral codes present within these celebrity apologies.

When Slaytina (24, bisexual) brought up Janet Jackson’s apology for the “OG [original] wardrobe malfunction”,31 it was clear there is a gendered power imbalance at play with the celebrity apology. All of the examples discussed were instances where the female celebrity was in a vulnerable position, which again speaks to the gendered implications of the troubled and scorned celebrity discussed in the previous chapter. Hudgens’s private photos were leaked, Jackson’s exposed breast was a direct result of Justin Timberlake and the performance choreography,

Stewart’s affair was with an older man in a clear position of power over her as her director.

There is an inherent affinity with the subordinate, vulnerable celebrity who is made to feel shame for transgressing the dominant order. By refusing this shame, participants are identifying with the vulnerable, shamed celebrity, but refuting the terms which place them in a subordinate position. Participants are attaching themselves to the shamed figure, while detaching from the

31 The Superbowl performance with Justin Timberlake in 2004 in which Timberlake ripped Jackson’s outfit to reveal her breast.

118 shame itself, and in doing so, recasting the binary of power/vulnerability by resignifying the dominant, shamed reading of the celebrity.

The celebrity apology narrative also figures in discussions of celebrities who are ‘unapologetic’ about their transgressions. Jezebel (32, queer) and Kitt (28, queer) express an affinity for Brooke

Candy:32

Jezebel: Brooke Candy is unapologetically queer, sexual, and I just find her fascinating. I

think she is so utterly relevant for the current zeitgeist.

Kitt: Big fan of Brooke Candy. For someone who comes out and says, yeah, I was a

stripper, sex worker, what of it? Suck my big strap-on.

Jezebel: How good was that crystal strap-on?

Kitt: I want one. We can buy one and put crystals on it.

Jezebel: I have had many a crystal thing in my time, obviously. I find Brooke Candy being

one of the most sex-positive, queer positive role models that I have encountered in

modern celebrity culture. She’s not a big name, not by a long shot, goddamnit I hope she’ll

tour out here one day. She’s younger than I am… She’s unapologetically human, and

sexual, and queer, and disgusting, and rough, and junkie, and she is who she is.

This conversation arose after I asked the group about celebrities they find to be personally influential. There is tacit approval of Candy’s sexual transgressions (being a stripper, a sex worker, wearing a strap-on), and of her refusal to feel shame for this behaviour, because of her place as someone the participants found personally influential. There is an implicit suggestion of

‘pride’ within Candy’s persona as “unapologetically human”, in the sense that her refusal to be

32 Brooke Candy is an underground American rapper.

119 shamed could be seen as part of the project of pride to eradicate shame (Probyn, 2005). Kitt and

Jezebel attached themselves to Candy as a celebrity they saw as unapologetic: expressing pride, disavowing shame. This relationship to the unapologetic reflects the logic of the closet as the site of shame, and coming out as claiming a place in society built on pride (Munt, 2000). In these examples, the queer de/attachment to shame structures the readings of the (un)apologetic celebrity, producing an intimate public through the emotional contact of identification with these affective celebrity performances.

Male shame

Towards the tail end of my data collection period the Harvey Weinstein saga and the #MeToo movement was unfolding. Several focus groups saw Weinstein, Louis CK, and Kevin Spacey discussed frequently. Almost all of these discussions followed along the lines of Emily (32, queer) and Slaytina’s conversation detailed in Chapter Four: revulsion and disgust at these men’s behaviour, and personal vindication at their fall from grace (recall Emily’s statement, “If I saw a photo, right now, of Harvey Weinstein…Wasted in a club, at rock bottom, I would just feel like,

‘Fucking yes,’ vindicated”). Nay (27, queer/gay), for example, called Louis CK a “sack of shit”, and told me:

I was just like, obsessed with the Harvey [Weinstein] stuff… any time I could, I was just

consuming this stuff, even though it was probably not healthy to do so, [I] just became

really, really obsessed. It’s the car crash thing, you know what’s coming, you can’t look

away.

120 Nay acknowledged their negative reaction to the Weinstein story through their ‘unhealthy’ obsession. Similarly, Jezebel expressed her outrage at Kevin Spacey:

Fuck Kevin Spacey for using his denial of sexual assault and harassment to come out. How

dare he use his same-sex attraction or whatever the fuck he defines his sexuality as, as okay

or as a wall to hide behind for touching up people without their consent. Fuck that guy.

This was a stark contrast to the participants’ defence of other transgressive behaviour, like

Hudgens’s photo leak or Candy’s sex work. As noted in Chapter Four, it is also not surprising that all of the celebrities defended are women, while those critiqued are men, because these readings are contingent on identification with the subordinate; participants attach themselves to celebrities in a vulnerable position, in order to recast and reappropriate that position. Typically, then, participants seemed to attach themselves to the kind of celebrity shame that seeks to subordinate that celebrity, or place them in a vulnerable position.

One particular conversation around these incidents did not exactly follow this narrative. Alexis

(44, bisexual), in her focus group, said:

Alexis: Yeah. I mean, it’s very weird, because obviously very recently there was the whole

– the sexual misconduct thing with Harvey Weinstein, but particularly with Louis CK. It’s

really weird, ‘cause this is something that’s been troubling me for the last couple of weeks.

One, because up until recently, I used to really look up to Louis CK. He’s an incredibly

talented comedian, with insanely clever insights into people and funny things. But his

behaviour is deplorable, but it’s the same time as the whole #MeToo campaign.

But it’s very strange because I was born a man. I spent forty plus years living as a man. It

feels very strange, because I just – like, it makes me wonder whether I have a right to have

121 a stake in the conversation. I’m still trying to put it into words, but it’s very weird. Because,

you know, I’ll just admit, when I was a young – in my 20s, I didn’t do anything against the

law, but the behaviour of just this – I think every man goes through a phase where it’s like,

well, if I’m just really confident around women, if I just strike out with my intentions, then

maybe that is what they’re looking for.

You blunder through, make horrendous mistakes, and come off looking like a total dick.

I’m not trying to justify anybody’s actions, but, like, it’s weird. I can’t ignore who I used to

be in regards to that whole conversation. Especially since that conversation is writ large in

the media, and is in everyone’s consciousness at the moment. I’m sorry, a tangent there.

There is a degree of shame evident in Alexis’s statement here: her admission of bad (though not illegal) behaviour, her claim of making “horrendous mistakes” and looking “like a total dick”, while also saying “I’m not trying to justify anybody’s actions… I can’t ignore who I used to be”.

Alexis is ready to admit she has done things she regrets, and has shame for this behaviour. What is interesting about this type of shame, however, is that Alexis identifies with the powerful position of Weinstein, and Louis CK, and does so because of her perspective as someone who lived as a man prior to her transition. Alexis here expresses shame at her closeted self, but not the same shame Munt (2000) and Sedgwick (1990) write about with regard to the closet. The shame of the closet is attached to the inferiorised, socially subordinated person (Adam, 2009;

Probyn, 2005). Alexis, conversely, feels shame through her historical identification with the powerful position. Probyn (2005) suggests that the shame felt by women and queers puts them in a better position to shame others. As a transgender woman, Alexis occupies a ‘shame-prone’ identity, and thus shame can ‘flood’ her easily (Probyn, 2005; Sedgwick, 2003), creating shame now that might not have previously occupied her in the same way (as evidenced by her suggestion that she can’t ignore who she used to be). What’s particularly interesting in this example is that Alexis’s ‘shame-prone’ identity would be expected to be her identity as a

122 transgender woman, but rather than feeling shame for this identity in the way that Probyn argues women and queers have historically been made to feel, Alexis instead feels shame at her former male identity. In this case, she now feels the shame of her former self that she perhaps didn’t then. Alexis reflects the complexity and instability of the pride/shame binarism: ‘coming out’ and assuming a queer identity is supposed to reverse the discourse of the shamed, creating a proud identity (Munt, 2000, 2016). But coming into a queer identity requires an acknowledgement of shame (in order to feel pride), and the assuming of a socially subordinated subject position

(Adam, 2009; Halperin, 2009). So, by ‘proudly’ assuming a subordinated identity, one becomes irrevocably connected to shame, thus highlighting the de/attachment of shame – it sticks, even when one feels pride. In Alexis’s case, the shame has ‘stuck’ to her former identity.

Crossing the line: Recasting celebrity transgression

Shame is “crucial to moral development” where such moral development is bound up in the reproduction of social norms, particularly those around sexual conduct (Ahmed, 2014, p. 106).

Ahmed (2014) suggests that “shame can also be experienced as the affective cost of not following the scripts of normative existence” and argues that embracing the failure to reproduce norms, to enjoy the negativity of shame is a “queer moment” (p. 107, p. 146). Through this failure to reproduce social ideals, shame also produces stigma (Sedgwick, 2003). This section will consider the ways in which celebrity transgression is taken up by participants and read through a lens that seeks to recast stigmatised and shamed behaviours. By identifying with, or embracing, celebrity transgression, participants are reflecting an alternate moral code to the one proposed by celebrity media.

The Literature review explored in detail the typically conservative approach to norms by celebrity media, and the sex hierarchy of ‘good’, ‘bad’ and ‘contested’ sex, as proposed by Rubin (1984)

123 and illustrated through the sex hierarchy diagram demonstrating “the struggle over where to draw the line” (p. 282). This section will consider this struggle between more conservative celebrity media forms and queer audiences. Because of the way queer celebrity readings are structured by shame, this section argues that ‘the line’ is different for queer audiences, who are more likely to embrace shamed, stigmatised behaviour that might otherwise be considered

‘contested’ or ‘bad’ for a less stigmatised identity group or conservative media form. In many of these examples, participants were still able to identify a line, suggesting that readings structured by shame seek to embrace some shamed and stigmatised behaviours, while still casting others as

‘bad’.

Celebrity media typically adopts a critical position toward any kind of errant behaviours (Gorin

& Dubied, 2011). Participants in my study could relate to some of the celebrities whose behaviour the media was critical of, suggesting an indignation at the moral codes represented and reinforced by this kind of media. I have called this celebrity behaviour non-normative, to reflect the way it is in contrast to the behavioural norms celebrity media police. In general, participants were still able to indicate a ‘line’, albeit one further to the right than Rubin’s, suggesting a recasting of celebrity transgression, and an embracing of some of the behaviours stigmatised by celebrity media. In reframing what celebrity behaviours are considered transgressive, a reading structured by shame is produced, and in turn, produces an intimate public through creating an affective response to the transgressive celebrity.

In their focus group, Kitt, Hortense (32, queer), Peggy (25, queer) and Jezebel regularly mentioned certain celebrity behaviours they could identify with that caused outrage in the media.

They could relate, for example, to Amy Winehouse’s drunken behaviour, drug abuse, and tattoos, because they saw it in themselves and their friends. As Kitt said, with the agreement of her friends, “we’re all drunk and tattooed messes!... If any of us were celebrities, we’d be so

124 screwed right now.” Later, we discussed Angelina Jolie and some of her actions prior to her relationship with Brad Pitt. The scandal around Jolie and her ex-husband, Billy Bob Thornton, who wore vials of each other’s blood, they considered as blown way out of proportion by the media:

Peggy: It was this tiny little silly gesture.

Jezebel: As someone who does a lot of blood play, what the fuck?

Peggy: It became this huge thing.

Here, Jezebel identifies her personal connection to this incident, likening it to her own experiences with “blood play”.33 The behaviour is not seen as scandalous as the media has made it out to be because there is a personal connection to the act. This group also discussed Angelina

Jolie’s kiss with her brother on the red carpet for the 2000 Academy Awards. The media were quick to label this act as ‘incest’, and denounce it. Jezebel justified this behaviour by claiming:

Jezebel: There was no tongue in it, whatever. Quite frankly, I’m pretty sure her brother

prefers dudes anyway. Look at those cheekbones.

Peggy: Wog life. We’re all mouth kissers.

Jezebel: Fuck yes, absolutely. She’s fucking French.

Peggy: It’s cultural.

Jezebel indicates another line, where this act could be seen to stray into ‘bad’ behaviour: if there was tongue involved, and if Jolie’s brother was heterosexual. Peggy uses her cultural identity as a

“wog” to argue for the “cultural” nature of the exchange, suggesting that the media’s

33 Blood play is a type of fetish that involves the use of blood in sexual situations.

125 conservatism is born from an Anglo-centric take on social and moral norms, implying that a non-Anglo media may not draw the line at familial mouth kissing.

Alexis, Brody (39, bisexual) and Kage (36, queer) also had a brief discussion about the struggle over ‘the line’:

Lucy: Can you think of any other examples of times where you’ve perhaps read or seen

something where everyone else is going shock horror and you’re going, that’s pretty cool?

Alexis: I think lots of times – I’m trying to think of examples, but I know I’ve felt that

way. Just give it a rest. It’s not as outlandish or as crazy and weird as you think it is. It’s just

sensationalistic, because they know that there’s a demographic of their readership that are

prudes that will be–

Brody: Fergie’s toe-sucking incident.

Alexis: Yeah, yeah. That’s the weird thing.

Brody: It just got such massive headlines. I remember it from when I was a kid.

Alexis: I think it’s funny too, because I remember one of the most distinct moments of

being on the outside of the popular consensus… I was like, you’ve got your kink! You

shouldn’t be kink-shamed. It’s out there, but it’s kind of funny.

Here, Alexis recognises her measure of acceptable behaviour is different to what she calls

“popular consensus” based on how she viewed this particular scandal in comparison to the media. She noted that there were particular behaviours that were “not as outlandish or as crazy and weird” as the media made them out to be in order to shock their readership of “prudes”.

Alexis doesn’t identify a personal connection to this behaviour, but she does evidence a trend among participants to have a more liberal view of non-normative behaviour than the mainstream media and thus where they draw ‘the line’. This was echoed in other focus groups. When I asked

126 Dani (28, queer) and Rhian (23, queer) what they thought would be considered a celebrity scandal, they replied:

Dani: Like society’s view on scandal or what we would think would be a scandal?

Lucy: Good question.

Dani: I don’t know. I think scandals are more of a society view.

Rhian: Definitely. I find it hard to be scandalised.

Yvette’s (27, lesbian) perspective echoes the findings of Gorin and Dubied (2011), who suggest that the media adopt a critical perspective of behaviour in order to generate interest:

Yvette: At the end of the day they want to sell newspapers, sell magazines, they want to get

more clicks, so on the one hand I understand that anything that has like a lewd angle,

people are like, ooh what’s this person done that’s wrong or naughty, like, I’m going to

click on that, I mean I’m sure we’re all guilty of that.

Lucy: When you click on it, do you think it’s wrong or naughty?

Yvette: No and a lot of the time I can’t believe that someone actually wrote an article as if

this was a bad thing. Who gives a shit, that’s not remotely bad, or naughty or whatever.

The media framing of stories that Yvette identifies here is connected to the increasing conservatism of tabloids in order to generate more scandal (Gorin & Dubied, 2011; Lumby,

1999). In seeking to make headlines, celebrity media produces scandalised, stigmatised, and shamed behaviour where they might not otherwise exist. Adopting a view in opposition to the norms produced by celebrity media isn’t always necessarily queer. It is not the intention of this section to argue that only queer people can recast the stigma produced by celebrity media. Rather it is through a reading structured by shame that many queer people can and do adopt non-

127 normative positions that are largely informed by their perspectives as someone who is ‘othered’ by the normative standards generally produced in mainstream media, and stigmatised by the corresponding shame of being ‘othered’.34 These affective responses to transgression create the shared worldview and emotional knowledge that Berlant (2008) suggests is characteristic of an intimate public produced by elements of commodity culture, such as celebrity media. The othering in these examples are typically with regard to matters involving sexuality, but can also relate to other moral codes more generally. For example, Fox (29, gay) identifies his ‘line’ with regard to drug abuse as being different to that of the mainstream media:

Fox: I love a good drug scandal!

Beau: Yeah, a good drug scandal is good, like the Matthew Mitcham ice35 thing, I was all

over–

Fox: I don’t like an ice scandal, I love a–

Beau: Because it’s too real, or…?

Fox: I love a class B drug scandal, like, someone’s taken too many pingers,36 or like,

someone’s passed out on G37 in a beat, like that’s a good drug scandal, but like a 6-day ice

bender, ugh it’s dirty.

Lucy: So it’s kind of alongside your level of approval of the type of drug?

34 While others may disagree with the moral codes produced by mass media, it is also worth noting that these moral codes generally have a symbiotic relationship with the audience – where the mass media and society generally work in tandem to produce these moral codes. So, even though people who are not queer might disagree with these norms, if we consider ‘queer’ to be synonymous with ‘non-normative’ (itself a contested idea, but certainly one that has held traction for two decades), then perhaps the people who oppose these moral codes hold ‘queer’ views. 35 ‘Ice’ is a slang term for the illicit substance crystal methamphetamine. Matthew Mitcham is an openly gay Australian diver, famous for winning a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In 2012, he admitted to a crystal methamphetamine addiction that he overcame in 2011 (Snow, 2012). 36 ‘Pingers’ is a slang term for pills containing the illicit substance methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), also known as ecstasy. 37 ‘G’ is a slang term for the illicit substance gamma hydroxybutyrate, also known as GHB.

128 Fox: Yeah, I think it’s because it’s like what I do, like I would have too many pingers and

pass out somewhere, but I wouldn’t go on a 6 day ice bender, and if my friends did I’d be

like, [judging sounds].

Once again, personal identification with the behaviour recasts the stigmatised behaviour, producing a different ‘line’. Matilda (22, queer) discusses this with regard to Miley Cyrus’s drug habits, and her behaviour more generally. In our interview, she said:

Matilda: She [Miley Cyrus] is fascinating because that conventional child star rhetoric, it

doesn’t apply to her at all. Because I feel like she so calmly documented the classic coming

of age experiences we all have. Doing drugs. Drinking. Maybe experimenting with your

sexuality. Understanding what sexuality means in a broader sense. Understanding gender in

a broader sense. Becoming more politically conscious. All these things that every single

person goes through, and it’s nothing to do with her experience. It’s to do with the way

everyone seeks to perpetuate these awful stigmas about not being straight, or drug use as

recreational thing. Just continuing the idea that all of this stuff is taboo, when actually, it’s

so normal. And wouldn’t it be better to normalise it for young people to see it? That’s

what I love about her.

Here, Matilda refers explicitly to the way the media makes certain behaviours taboo, behaviours which, to Matilda are “so normal”. Scholars such as Rubin (1984) and Warner (1999) argue that the concept of ‘normal’ may reflect only a small portion of the population, but becomes a tool through which dominant groups can exert power over subordinate ones, often through shame at the failure to adhere to such ideals (Ahmed, 2014; Probyn, 2005). While Matilda believes that

Miley Cyrus’s behaviour is part of “the classic coming of age experiences we all have”, the

129 media’s treatment of this behaviour as ‘taboo’ indicates the way in which norms may not reflect reality, but instead, dictate the way in which society ‘should’ behave.

Some participants also spoke of these moral codes and norms and the ways in which they produce (and reproduce) power relations. Vern (28, queer), for example, could recognise that when what they termed “queer adjacent” stories were produced by “straight” media, there was a serious concern for how that sort of power imbalance would affect the queer community. They used the example of reporting around Charlie Sheen’s HIV diagnosis:

Vern: When I do engage with stuff that was written for straight people about queer, or

queer-adjacent issues, the lens through which I consume it is fearful and nervous about

how it’s gonna affect us, and how it’s gonna come back to us… When Charlie Sheen’s

HIV status was getting knocked around. I was really nervous about that. Had a fun

argument with my mother about it, actually, and it’s the one and only time that I ever

convinced her of something. She was freakin’ out that he had AIDS, and he was running

around, infecting people. I was like, “He doesn’t have AIDS.” and she was like, “He

does!” and I was like, “No, no. He has HIV.” and I told her that, it’s far safer to have

condomless sex with someone who has HIV, and is taking medication, than someone

who, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t think they have HIV.

Lucy: Yeah, it’s better to know your status.

Vern: Exactly… Whenever I engage with any, sort of, celebrity media, I view– if I wasn’t

queer, I wouldn’t have the same position or understanding of class structures, racial

structures, any and all power structures in the world, and, so, that’s the lens through which

I view everything.

130 Here, Vern illustrates their concern for the ways in which mass media (and their mother) might spread uninformed perspectives on HIV, and how that might “affect us” or “come back to us”.

The fear Vern demonstrates is indicative of the power imbalance at play that can be reinforced through, in this instance, stigmatisation of HIV/AIDS, an illness that disproportionately affects queer people in Australia and the West. Vern’s quick segue to how their queerness informs their understanding of intersectional power structures demonstrates how Vern’s queer perspective operates across systems of oppression produced by norms, and can be applied to moral codes produced by celebrity media across a broader system of identity structures.

These examples demonstrate the way in which participants adopted an alternative view of transgressive behaviour to that proposed by celebrity media. Participants would identify with the stigmatised behaviours, reject ‘the line’ as it is proposed by celebrity media, and recognise the power relations produced by tabloid media in casting these behaviours as morally repugnant. In recasting celebrity transgression, redrawing ‘the line’, participants are producing a reading of celebrity behaviour that is structured by the shame and stigma inherent in queer identity and its subordination. Such an affective reading is what allows for the production of an intimate public of queer readers of celebrity, through the shared emotional knowledge of shame and its influence on these reading strategies.

Conclusion

This chapter has presented a queer reading of celebrity that is structured by shame. The shame that ‘sticks’ to the queer person produces a de/attachment to the affect, and structures reading strategies of celebrity where shame might be present. The examples used in the chapter, that of the celebrity apology and celebrity transgression, reflect sites of shame and stigma, and the attachment to these transgressive celebrities exhibited by participants suggest a reading of

131 celebrity that is structured by the stickiness and the de/attachment of shame. The affective nature of such a celebrity reading produces an intimate public. The next chapter will consider a different type of queer reading of celebrity: the speculative reading that produces a queer subtext, and how this reading circulates within an intimate public through gossip. It will also consider the ethical consequences of when such a reading moves beyond the queer intimate public.

132 Chapter Six

“She’s too funny to be straight”: Speculation, subtext, and gossip

This chapter explores my participants’ desire to find queer identity where it might not outwardly exist – the production of LGBTQ identity in the absence of a declaration as such, a ‘coming out’. This is the kind of subtext produced in queer readings of media from Doty (1993) with regard to Laverne and Shirley (1976-1983), or Lipton (2008) with regard to Jughead from the Archie

(1942-2015) comics. It is also a common practice among fans, who engage in ‘slash’ practices in order to produce queerness between otherwise heterosexual characters (Brennan, 2017; Busse,

2006a, 2006b; Jenkins, 1992, 2003). ‘Slash’ is defined as a “genre of fan stories positing homoerotic affairs between series protagonists”, and is often practiced by non-queer fans, and especially women (Jenkins, 1992, p. 186). Rather than focusing on fans, this chapter explores the practice of speculation over a celebrity’s sexuality by my participants. This speculation is produced both through ‘slash’ style practices, where a relationship between two celebrities is imbued with homoerotic sexual subtext, and through queering an individual celebrity by reading a sexual subtext into their gestures, aesthetics and self-presentation.

Speculation around a ‘real’ person’s sexuality is more fraught terrain than reading a sexual subtext of a fictional character. Outing is typically regarded as ethically dubious and discussion of a person’s undisclosed sexuality runs the risk of straying into homophobic territory (Draper,

2012; Gross, 1991a; J. McCarthy, 1994; Roach, 2018). My participants differentiated between reading coded signs of queerness in a celebrity, and having that reading cause harm, like outing, homophobia, or harassment. For them, reading celebrities as queer was often more of a playful gesture of identification rather than anything malicious. By imagining a queer identity for celebrities, participants were making them ‘ordinary’, finding similarities to identify with the

133 celebrity, ways in which the celebrity was ‘like them’ (Clarke, 1987). The ‘ordinary’ of the celebrity refers to what makes them human, what brings the celestial being back down to Earth.

Tabloid media has long attempted to uncover the “real lives” of celebrities in order to reveal such ‘ordinary’ qualities (Gamson, 1992, p. 7). Where tabloid media usually uncovers forms of heterosexual domestic life (Van den Bulck & Claessens, 2014), participants have instead had to create queer narratives for these celebrities in order to invent ways that the celebrity’s real life might reflect their own. Even so, conversations were regularly fraught with contradiction: moving from openly discussing this speculation, to the perils of such conversations. In this chapter, I argue that this kind of playful identification has a home within an intimate public formed of queer consumers of celebrity culture, who “already share a worldview and emotional knowledge that they have derived from a broadly common historical experience” (Berlant, 2008, p. viii, emphasis in original). Conversations about celebrity then circulate among queer people with a shared worldview, but have broader implications if they are moved beyond the queer intimate public.

The ‘vibe’

Several focus groups discussed the possibility of certain celebrities being closeted. In the first examples, the ‘knowledge’ of whether or not a celebrity is queer is acquired by participants’

‘gaydar’, sometimes just called a ‘vibe’. This discussion was often presented in cases of celebrities who later came out, and thus vindicated participants’ speculation, and affirmed their ‘gaydar’. For example, Lara (28, lesbian), Siobhan (26, gaaaayyy), Elena (24, bisexual) and Lois (29, lesbian) discussed Ellen Page:

Lara: When she [Page] went public about her sexuality and you kind of went through that

journey with her. I always thought she was cute, I always knew she was gay, and when she

134 came out and now, I just read anything that is about her. I don’t know why, I just feel like

this connection with her.

Lucy: How did you always know she was gay?

Siobhan: Because you can tell.

(laughter)

Elena: That’s funny because she dated a really well-known actor for like two years right

before she came out.

Lara: I dunno, I think gaydar –

Lois: I just get gay vibes.

Lara: Gaydar is a thing, I really do believe in that. You just get a vibe.

Siobhan, Lara, and Lois all ‘knew’ Ellen Page was gay prior to her coming out, because of her

‘vibe’. They were unable to articulate any specifics of this vibe, just that “you can tell”. The ability to ‘tell’ is often referred to as gaydar, which has a long history in folk queer cultures, and is often heavily dependent on stereotypes, despite it being perceived as being something someone just ‘knows’, a ‘sixth sense’ (Cox, Devine, Bischmann & Hyde, 2016; Nicholas, 2004). Others had similar conversations, including Anne (39, queer), Hayley (30, gay) and Nessy (34, lesbian) with regard to Hugh Jackman’s wife (as Anne said, “she’s got a bit of lezza vibe about her”) and

John (26, homosexual), Carlos (28, bisexual) and Tina (27, lesbian/queer), with regard to Kristen

Stewart (John said, “you know when you just know that someone’s gay, she was just, gaaay. It was so much gay coming off that”). Tilly (23, queer), Rhian (23, queer) and Dani (28, queer) also discussed their gaydar regarding Ellen Page and Kristen Stewart:

Tilly: So many of those celebrities that you pick, like Ellen Page. The first time I ever saw

Juno I was like, she’s gay.

Rhian: Of course.

135 Tilly: I almost feel problematic to make assumptions about someone’s sexuality, but as a

gay person, you tend to have the gaydar.

Rhian: Yeah. Definitely.

Tilly: You can tell about these celebrities. I was obsessed with Kristen Stewart since she

was in Into the Wild. I got the biggest gay vibes from her, and how can you get gay vibes

from someone who’s on camera?

Lucy: Who’s acting a character.

Tilly: Exactly. But she’s still so gay. I don’t know how you get it, but you get these –

Rhian: I agree so much. I had that with Ellen Page so much.

Tilly: Yeah. And Dani said that she could tell Cara was gay, before – because you said you

saw a photo that she posted with bird poo.

Dani: Yeah. I was like, she’s too funny to be straight. She posted a photo on Instagram of

her with bird poo on her face. It was funny. She’s definitely not straight.

(laughter)

A straight girl model would never do that. Think about it. She has the best sense of

humour out of anyone. Just saying.

Tilly couldn’t explain Kristen Stewart’s “gay vibes”, even expressing confusion about her own ability to receive such vibes from someone on camera, further confirming the epistemological uncertainty that surrounds gaydar (Cox et al., 2016). The idea that one can glean Stewart’s sexuality as she performs a character also speaks to the slippage between actor and character that raises interesting questions surrounding the malleability of celebrity identity. The celebrity, or star, acts as a semiotic sign, where multiple readings (identities) may be produced, and a celebrity actor brings with them a particular context to any character, creating new interpretations of that character (Dyer, 1998; M. Quinn, 1990). In this way, the character is irrevocably changed by the presence of the celebrity. There is a symbiotic relationship between character and actor, as Hills

136 and Williams (2005) argue with regard to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) character Spike and the actor who plays him, James Marsters, where fans interpret the character Spike through their consumption of extratextual material involving the actor Marsters, and vice versa. The two exist in tandem, and cannot easily be separated. In this example, it is Stewart’s interpretation of the character Tracy that contributed to Tilly’s reading of Stewart’s identity, thus demonstrating this slippage between the celebrity sign and the character, and therefore the malleability of the celebrity identity. This malleability in part contributes to our desire to know more about the celebrity, to uncover more of their ‘real life’, because, as a semiotic sign, the ability to ‘know’ the celebrity is contingent on semiotic interpretations. The idea of whether or not we can ‘know’ someone’s sexuality, or anything about a celebrity, was explored in the Literature review, using scholarly debates over the discursive production of sexuality, and celebrity.

The Literature review also explored in detail the way in which celebrity media operates at the intersection of public and private life. This convergence recalls Sedgwick’s (1990) argument that the destabilisation of binarisms such as public/private is produced by the crisis of homo/heterosexual definition, and structured by the closet, thus locating the closeted celebrity as a crucial case for these kinds of investigations into the production of knowledge about celebrity. In these examples, participants claim to ‘know’ Kristen Stewart’s sexuality through a

‘vibe’. This claim to knowledge of her sexuality is produced through connotation, a second-order signification that is not explicit and therefore unable to be named beyond the ‘vibe’, yet continues to be valuable in allowing participants to identify with Stewart through reading queerness in her celebrity performance. Of course, this analysis can only prove fruitful because we now know of Stewart’s closetedness38 during this time – it is with the retrospective proof of

38 Stewart publicly announced that she was “so gay” on an episode of Saturday Night Live (1975-) in February 2017 (D.R. King, 2017). She had previously had public relationships with women, but had refused to comment on her private life until 2016, when she told Elle UK about her love for her girlfriend (Jeffs, 2016).

137 Stewart coming out that we can understand her ‘vibe’ – it is through her coming out that we can understand what it means for Stewart to be ‘in’, and therefore imbue her ‘vibe’ with closetedness and therefore concealed homosexuality. This is something Matilda (22, queer) talks about, in the context of a discussion about celebrities coming out:

Matilda: It’s a really tricky one, I think. I think it’s the case with coming out for anyone.

There is so much privilege surrounding being able to come out in the first place. I think

with celebrities, perhaps what I ground it in more is, for example, Kristen Stewart. She was

a notoriously awkward person in every way. In all of the interviews she gave, she was

closed off, and I think that was something that queer fans could read into. It was like, you

are not yourself here. You don’t feel relaxed. You don’t seem comfortable. Obviously,

you’re a talented actress. You’ve been doing it since you were a kid, so it must be what you

want to do.

But you’re not happy here. You’re not happy in this space, and why is that? And I think

people connected with that. Seeing her now, she publicly announced it that she was dating

Alicia Cargile, and she just seemed so much more at ease, and aware of who she is.

Matilda read a queerness into Kristen Stewart’s on-camera awkwardness. She identifies herself as part of a group of queer fans, labelling Stewart’s behaviour as “something queer fans could read into”. Matilda’s observations suggest a universality of the narrative that being in the closet means discomfort. The spectacle of the closet – as the subject of public scrutiny despite its private contents – is the ‘open’ secret. Closet epistemologies both conceal and expose at the same time

(Hardie, 2010). Eribon (2004) argues with regard to the closet: “the self-identified gay man is freer, less imprisoned by a homosexual identity than is the individual obliged to be attentive to every moment and every situation for fear of ‘betraying’ what he is to those around him” (p. 99).

By being closeted, the individual is hyper aware of not exposing themselves, creating a situation

138 where, by trying to hide it, homosexuality has more of a presence. For Matilda, it is the absence of an openly gay identity, and the ‘burden’ created by this absence, that sustains her queer reading of Stewart, and the connection queer fans have to a similar feeling. It is the scrutiny that

Stewart’s identity faces that makes it an open secret, that reveals the spectacle of the closet. Fans are hyper aware of her every move, and read a queerness into her awkwardness, because of the way closet epistemologies simultaneously conceal and expose. Matilda’s statement that Stewart is now more “at ease” suggests she is less imprisoned, the implication being that prior to being out she was “closed off” and uncomfortable. Despite being closeted, for Matilda, Stewart reveals her homosexuality by trying to hide it.

I want to return briefly now to the earlier conversation between Dani, Tilly, and Rhian, moving from Kristen Stewart to Cara Delevingne. Dani’s input in this conversation suggests an opportunity for reading a queer subtext into a celebrity that is less fuzzy than notions of a ‘vibe’.

For Dani, it was Cara Delevingne’s sense of humour that allowed her to read a queer subtext into Delevingne’s persona. The example of the ‘bird poo’ picture on Instagram, a social media platform that lends itself to depicting the glamorous aspects of users’ lives (Marwick, 2015) provides evidence for Dani’s claim that “a straight girl model would never do that”. Such an unglamorous moment is in stark contrast to the actions of other women on the platform, and through this contrast Dani reads Delevingne’s queerness. The subversion of established social or cultural norms becomes a ‘clue’ to someone’s queerness.

These subtexts suggest there are particular ways to be queer that aren’t just about sexual partners, which is the focus of Halperin’s (2012) study of gay subculture, and the focus of studies on queer identity (and its deconstruction) more generally. Foucault’s (1978) work suggests that homosexuality is produced by discourse, and then broadly defined by people and their claiming of a homosexual identity, rather than simply sexual acts. These subtexts further suggest evidence

139 of the existence of a gay subculture, characterised by a gravitation toward particular aesthetic forms (Halperin, 2012). In their focus group, Vern (28, queer) argued that reading a queer subtext is an integral part of gay culture:

Vern: Subtext is, kind of, our cultural history, because –

Slaytina: Saying, “I’m gay,” used to be a death sentence.

Vern: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Slaytina: Or, at least, a prison sentence.

Vern: And, so, we had things like the hanky code and Polari, a special secret language…

and just really subtle ways of hinting.

Slaytina: Flagging.

Vern: Yeah, flagging. Flagging to people that you’re gay without implicating yourself for

punishment.

…

Slaytina: ‘Cause there’s no law about putting a hankie in your back pocket.

Vern: Exactly.

…

Slaytina: It was a method of survival.

Vern: Yeah. And, so, it makes sense that we’re hyper-tuned to hints, when that’s

everything…That we have had.

For Vern and Slaytina (24, bisexual), this history of detecting coded aspects of queerness among peers and sexual partners leads queer people to adopting a “lens of detection” on their reading practices of popular culture, seeking to find ‘hints’ of queerness (Draper, 2012). For Draper, the

“lens of detection” is media-imposed, but here Vern and Slaytina suggest that queer readers might employ their own as well. Draper’s lens of detection, when media imposed, carries with it

140 an oppressive weight, like D.A. Miller’s (1990) suggestion that the connotation of homosexuality encourages a desire for proof, and this desire for proof is typically couched in terms of disgust or sympathy (p. 123). The exception to this oppressive weight, for D.A. Miller, is when the connotation is produced in gay-affirmative contexts, such as the coding Slaytina and Vern refer to. Eribon (2004) argues for the positive aspects of such closeted expressions of the self, that it allows for a freedom to resist normative injunctions. Coming out, or being out, Butler (1991) argues, needs to be framed by being ‘in’; it only makes sense within the polarity of out/in. Brady

(2011) argues that coming out limits queer possibilities for celebrity, because of the way that coming out imposes a particular way of being ‘out’, which is structured by a regime of normativity. In this way, reading queerness where it has not been produced by the act of ‘coming out’ produces readings of celebrity that allow for freer attachments of what is queer about them, evident in the range of ways celebrities could have queerness read into them by participants.

Homosociality/homosexuality: Slashing celebrity

Queer subtexts are often read when homosocial interactions are interpreted with a level of homoeroticism, thus moving them along Sedgwick’s homosocial/homosexual continuum further toward homosexuality than sociality (Brennan, 2018c; Sedgwick, 1985, 1990). Sedgwick (1985) suggests that homosociality and homosexuality are not generally perceived as existing on a continuum because of homophobia, and the power relations that structure male homosociality as valid, where homosexuality is not. She argues for the unbrokenness of such a continuum, suggesting that homosociality/homosexuality operate in the same realm of desire. By homoeroticising homosocial interactions, queer subtexts imbue homosocial interactions with homosexual undertones, creating less of a continuum between such interactions and more of a layering where the two blur into one another. McBean (2016) writes of the ‘gal pal’ epidemic in celebrity media, where gossip media would de-eroticise moments of same-sex interaction,

141 moving them along the homosexual-homosocial continuum toward homosociality. My participants would tend toward the opposite, imbuing homoeroticism into moments of

[supposed] homosociality, giving them a queer subtext. In her conversation with Amber (39, lesbian) and Angela (31, lesbian), Emma (32, bisexual) read a series of interactions between

Karlie Kloss39 and Taylor Swift as clear evidence of their homosexuality:

Emma: She’s totally in the closet anyway. Taylor.

Lucy: Taylor’s in the closet?

Amber: Is that your expert opinion?

Lucy: Why do you think that?

Emma: Her and Karlie Kloss were totally fucking. 100%. And then when everyone started

tweeting about it, they kind of started to distance themselves. It’s just very coincidental–

Amber: Very obvious.

Emma: Obvious. And they did that whole spread together, remember?!

Angela: They’re like going on a road trip, and they’re like in each other’s like–

Emma: They were like the best couple, non-couple ever.

Lucy: I read this article on AfterEllen about the Taylor Karlie Kloss thing, and the best

part of it was, you can tell they’re lesbians and they’re together because they went to a

basketball game and drank beer.

Emma: True! And they held hands after it! That was the best, and Taylor’s looking all like

smug holding Karlie’s hand after the game, and then there was that video of them making

out at the concert, and Karlie leaving Taylor’s place in the middle of the night. I mean

come on guys. Come on!

Amber: No. They were just over there you know–

39 Karlie Kloss is a model, well-known for her friendship with Taylor Swift.

142 Angela: I just remember this one where Taylor was, like her album, her last album came

out, and she invited a bunch of fans to like her house, and Karlie was there, she’s like yeah,

don’t mind her and she’s just like in the room cooking and doing whatever–

Emma: I’m telling you! They were totally together.

In this exchange, Emma identifies a series of moments that Kloss and Swift have presented as part of their friendship as evidence of their sexual relationship, thus enacting a homoerotic reading of the apparent homosociality of Kloss and Swift. Yvette (27, lesbian) offered a similar reading of a photo of Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman:

Yvette: I saw this photo–

Lucy: Is that Naomi Watts?

Yvette: It’s Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman and I was like, I ship40 that, I’m writing a fan

fiction about this right now. Look at their body language!

Lucy: The way they’re staring into each other’s eyes–

Yvette: I know! And I know that straight women are often like, very touchy, but look at

that hand on her thigh!

Lucy: Yeah!

Yvette: I do not just like, sit there with my hand on the inner thigh of a friend… I mean,

let’s be real here.

40 Ship, short for ‘relationship’ is a term used in fan communities to refer to the relationships often devised in fan fiction.

143

Figure 2: The image of Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts that Yvette reads queerly.

In a further example, when asked if she had any queer ‘conspiracy theories’ (reading queerness where it might not otherwise exist), Matilda responded:

Matilda: Yeah. I think Bette and Tina [from The L Word] had an affair IRL [in real life]. For

sure. That’s one of my theories. I definitely have some.

Lucy: That’s a good one.

Matilda: I’ll have to think of them. But yeah, I have some that are very much, like, I’ve

found actual evidence. The Bette and Tina one – I went through an intense phase of

144 watching all of the panels that The L Word cast would do, and it was still a thing. And I just

remember there was a thing where Laurel Holloman, who played Tina, had just recently

split from her husband, and you see that every time Jennifer Beals, who played Bette,

talked on the panel, there was a very intense stare. Big one. Every time one of their sex

scenes were brought up, it was awkward between the two.

Then there was another one where, I think, I can’t remember, maybe Jennifer Beals said,

you know, “We wrapped on different days when we finished the show and I never got to

say thank you for everything” and she burst into tears, and they had a huge embrace

onstage. It was very public. Very intense. And I was like, yeah, woah, this is a huge

moment. Massive.

These examples all involve reading particular actions with a homoerotic lens, such as “a very intense stare”, hand placement, and kisses. These readings operate in a similar fashion to Doty’s

(1993) reading of Laverne and Shirley (1976-1983) and I Love Lucy (1951-1957), where he argues that the privileging of female friendship in those texts creates and allows for a lesbian narrative construction and spectator position. The difference between Doty’s readings and Matilda’s,

Yvette’s, and Emma’s is that they are, of course, reading such interactions onto ‘real’ people and friendships, and, as Matilda says, finding “actual evidence”. This quest for ‘truth’, Roach (2018) argues, can become problematic or harmful:

The labour involved in trying to discern a ‘truth’, which is knowable primarily only to the

individual in question risks becoming an invasive exercise, which accomplishes nothing

whatsoever in terms of advancing LGBT politics or queering pop culture in a meaningful

way. (p. 178)

145 This is an important point, and highlights the complexities of reading subtext into celebrity interactions. This will be discussed further in the next section on gossip, but first I want to address why it might be that participants would read such a subtext, despite its potentially damaging or, as Tilly would say, “problematic” ramifications. Generally, these reading strategies were adopted as a way to identify with celebrity media, to find something participants could relate to in a typically straight media context. In the context of celebrity, where the presentation of the self is based around a performance (Marshall, 2010), speculation over a celebrity’s sexuality serves a particular cultural function without the need for substantiation of the speculation. This cultural function is one of representation – as a way of inserting queer narratives into the overwhelmingly heterosexual space of celebrity media, and thus allowing for participants to see themselves in a text that typically excludes them. In his work on black sexuality, Snorton (2014) suggests there is a kind of Foucauldian panopticism at play in these reading strategies (p. 129). Snorton argues that queer, and generally subjugated, audiences adopt forms of surveillance of themselves and others to detect elements of similarity between themselves and celebrities to gain pleasure from their consumptive practices. In order to substantiate such an a priori truth, one must be willing to violate another’s privacy (p. 129). This kind of speculation – without substantiation – allows for representation without a violation of privacy. Participants speculate over a celebrity’s sexuality as a way to repurpose, to queer, the

‘game’ of celebrity media. This repurposing may not be deliberate, but rather, a product of their own queer contexts, of willing queerness into existence where it may not otherwise be apparent.

In my conversation with Yvette, we discussed the ongoing value of these kinds of queer readings in the face of increased overt queer media representation:

Lucy: You’re right, there is so much more, in celebrity, in pop culture, everywhere, there’s

way more gayness.

146 Yvette: Yeah.

Lucy: But do you think there’s still value in–

Yvette: Oh yeah, I think so, because even though there’s more [representation], you’re still

an other, to a certain extent… it’s kind of surreptitious, it’s fun, it feels like, I dunno, like

you’re in on a secret, kind of, you know, but it’s almost like… straight friends, I feel like

they wouldn’t get it in the same way. I’m like, no, (laughs), you don’t know what it’s like!

Lucy: It’s like, being part of a club.

Yvette: Yeah, exactly…I definitely still think there’s a place for it.

In this exchange, Yvette begins by suggesting that despite increased media representation, being queer is still, and always will be, a sexual minority, and so these readings have enduring value.

For Yvette, this value is because they are fun: that it’s about being in on a secret that her straight friends wouldn’t get. Her observation identifies the cultural/community connection to this kind of queer reading that Vern and Slaytina also discussed. Despite no longer needing to use code for survival and representation, for Yvette, these readings are now playful, and that playfulness is about being “in on a secret”. It is through the common experience of having ‘come out’, and thus holding some insight into what it means to be out or in, gay audiences are able to imbue the absence of disclosure with homosexual meaning, exposing homosexuality through its concealment. It’s worth noting here that in Epistemology of the Closet, Sedgwick (1990) argues that modern systems of knowledge are structured by the crisis of homo/heterosexual definition; that is, modern systems of knowledge for all people are shaped by the closet and what it means to be in/out. As a result, it’s possible for many people to read homosexuality in concealment; to understand the truth or a fact explicitly through its absence. The key here, however, is the way in which gay readers perceive the closet as a factor that unites them uniquely, which is evident in

Yvette’s comment that straight people “wouldn’t get it”. The intimate public of this kind of

147 reading is formed more through a perception of the shared worldview of readers, rather than necessarily a reality.

Making queer ordinary: Identifying with celebrity through queer subtext

Some participants suggested subtextual readings were part of an unconscious strategy of subversion of heteronormativity. For John, “I just always assume everyone is secretly gay… so I always look for gayness where there is straightness”. Yvette had a similar perspective: “My philosophy is gay until proven otherwise, you know how people are straight until… I operate from that basis”. Because of their queer subjectivities, Yvette and John produce Sedgwick’s

(1990) hetero/homo binarism in reverse. For Yvette and John, then, reading homosociality as homosexuality is their natural presumption.

Others would read queerly as a way to explain their interest in a particular celebrity. In their interview, Nay (27, queer/gay) said:

I think probably, I’m always rooting for someone, you know? Like, you love this person

and so, I needed to account for why I think this dude is hot, I really hope he’s into other

dudes, (laughs)… they must be! They can’t just be straight!

Nay’s interest in identification and attraction, even desire, for a particular celebrity is read queerly: if Nay feels drawn to that celebrity, then “they must be [queer]”. Celebrity studies typically operates from a position that says our desire to know more about a celebrity is fuelled by their position as ordinary yet extraordinary; at once relatable and larger than life (Dyer, 1998,

2004). Celebrity production wants us to know more about celebrity and their ‘real lives’, and thus invites identification; it finds ways to show that celebrities are ‘just like us’, and wants us to

148 identify with what is ordinary about them (Clarke, 1987; Gamson, 2011). In this example, perhaps it is the very production of celebrity and its fostering of intimacy between reader and star that means Nay loves this celebrity. But, by connecting to this celebrity, in a way that the production of celebrity intends, Nay subsequently also reads them as queer, because for Nay, in order to feel that a celebrity is ‘just like us’, they must also be queer. So, the normative production of celebrity (that is designed to foster intimacy) is queered by its queer reader (who needs the similarity of queerness in order to perceive intimacy). It’s also worth noting here that many of the exchanges highlighted in this section include laughter, suggesting the playfulness, fun, and pleasure that participants gain from this kind of discussion. Fox (29, gay), like Nay, created a homosexual subtext to increase or explain his interest in some celebrities:

Fox: When I watch TV shows, and they have actors that I like in them, I like to imagine

what it would be like if they were a couple. Wouldn’t it be funny if John Krasinski and

Neil Patrick Harris got married? That would be so cute, imagine what their kids would be

like, it would be so fun, they’d be so goofy. Sometimes with heterosexual couples

sometimes I like to imagine what they’d be like as gay couples instead, like, you’d be much

more fun if you were dating a man.

Annie: I do that. But like, it’s probably like one step further, I think that you totally could

be gay.

Fox: I just think it when they’re attractive, I just think you could be gay, maybe.

Annie: I’ll be watching period drama, and two women will look at each other in a certain

way and I’m like oh my god this is definitely going to be gay, oh my god it’s going to be

gay, and then it never fucking is. But, I see the world through my queer lens, and so I

search to see those things, whereas most people obviously see the world through their

hetero lens, and so when they see two women be nice to each other, they just presume that

they’re friends.

149 Lucy: So because you’re queer, you see those sorts of things?

Annie: Yeah, exactly.

…

Lucy: Even just, the article you brought up before [Elle], and then you were saying how all

the media was referring to Kristen Stewart and her gal pal, but as you said, we all knew–

Elle: We all know, everyone knows.

Lucy: And we didn’t really, I suppose have any, real reason to know that, we just sort of–

Elle: I was just like, but they were holding hands–

Annie: Yeah then sometimes I feel a bit bad that I’m presuming those things or whatever,

because are you part of the problem around like stigmatising those sorts of expressions of

friendship?

This exchange establishes several of the complexities of the queer reading. Fox, like Nay, uses a queer reading to explain or justify his interest in particular celebrities or to increase his interest in them, by inventing relatability through queerness. Then Annie (25, queer) explains how, like

Yvette and John, she reads same sex interactions as homosexual rather than homosocial because of her “queer lens”. Annie then goes on to address the complexity of this reading, by explaining her concern that reading these interactions as necessarily homosexual could be “stigmatising those sorts of expressions of friendship”, thus highlighting potential issues with eroticising the homosocial, which has particular ramifications when the reading is of real people (Roach, 2018).

Annie here points to the ways in which the logic of the closet and the discursive production of homosexuality through categories and labels produces normative conceptions of both homosexuality, and of heterosexuality (Brady, 2011; Sedgwick, 1990), where creating such a label for someone limits the potentiality of the interpretation of their selves and their interactions.

150 There is a possible limitation, then, to the ‘queerness’ of such speculation: these readings of celebrity are only ‘queer’, in terms of queer as a deconstructionist opposition to norms, so long as they are not explicitly labelling the celebrity as ‘gay’, and therefore attaching the celebrity to the regimes of normativity imposed by such labels and discursive productions of sexuality.

Where queer theory argues that the discursive production of sexuality reproduces normative assumptions around sexuality and re-inscribes the closet, queer people have attached themselves to queer as an identity (which is evidenced in the fact that 20 of my 61 participants labelled themselves ‘queer’, the most common sexuality label of the sample), the very thing queer theory seeks to destabilise or deconstruct. In this way, what is critically or theoretically queer about speculation around a celebrity’s sexuality is not the production of a sexual identity for a celebrity, but instead comes from queering celebrity media; from creating queer ways of identifying with and connecting to celebrity, the very production of which asks us to look for the ways in which we are similar to these extraordinary people by reading what is ordinary about them. In these readings, celebrity media is queered by the invention of a queer sexual subtext in order for celebrities to appear relatable – or ordinary – to queer people. The ordinary/extraordinary paradox relies on an assumption of continuous notions of the self – where the star is seen to be extraordinary (rich and famous) but unchanged by this (still ‘themselves’) (Dyer, 1998; Holmes,

2005a). This reading of celebrity that desires a queerness within the celebrity in order for them to appear relatable changes the celebrity self, disrupting the dominant ordinary/extraordinary paradox.

Dyer (2004) argued that it was Judy Garland’s ‘ordinariness’ that appealed to gay men, not because gayness is ordinary, but because despite her ordinary “heterosexual family normality”,

Garland became extraordinary, in the same way that gay men are born into heterosexual family ordinariness (p. 153). Dyer suggests that Garland’s ordinariness is a quality with a ‘below-surface’ sense of difference, where her life seemed ordinary, but had problems hidden from view, in

151 much the same way he suggests homosexuality is a repressed ‘difference’ behind the façade of the ordinary, the heterosexual. Here I propose a different view of the ordinariness of the celebrity. A queer subtextual reading of a celebrity produces a ‘below-surface’ fantasy of homosexuality as a mode of ordinariness, and therefore creates identification with the celebrity through reading this subtext.

Ultimately, reading a queer subtext into celebrity media and its production of intimacy with the audience was used as a tool for participants to relate to a celebrity, or to explain their affinity for a particular celebrity. Reading a subtext was about finding ways to frame a celebrity in their own terms of understanding, generally in a playful or pleasurable manner.

Queerbaiting

In reading a subtext onto celebrities, participants are enacting their own ‘lens of detection’, where they read particular actions or aesthetics as ‘evidence’ of a celebrity’s queerness. Draper

(2012) suggests that this ‘lens of detection’, as it is imposed by the media, is oppressive. Indeed, the oppressive force of this can be considered with regard to ‘queerbaiting’. Audience practices of reading a subtext have been commodified by the media and entertainment industries in a deliberate strategy known as queerbaiting, particularly in fictional media. According to Brennan

(2018c), “‘queerbaiting’ is a fan-conceived term that describes a tactic whereby media producers suggest homoerotic subtext between characters in popular television that is never intended to be actualised on screen” (p. 189) for the purposes of courting a queer audience (Brennan, 2018b, p.

105). The term typically has negative connotations in fan contexts (Brennan, 2018c), early scholarly work (Collier, 2015; Fathallah, 2015; Nordin, 2015, all cited in Brennan, 2018c) and in some of my focus groups. Emily (32, queer), Slaytina and Vern had a conversation about

152 queerbaiting evident in television shows like Sherlock (2010-2017) and Supernatural (2005-), and in the Pitch Perfect (2012-) film franchise. Of Pitch Perfect, Emily said:

In those films, it’s not even baiting anymore; the hook is in the water, the fish is on it, but

they’re not actually ever gonna land it. They are telling us that, at one point, these two

women had a queer experience, or they’ve fucked, or they made out, or something

happened, but we don’t even get to see it, so we’re being told something, and not shown

it, and I am done with that. I want us to be shown it, and, with Ocean’s 8, in particular, I

would be so angry, if we see this film, and we’re not shown some sort of connection

between two of those women, because you have eight strong, powerful women, who work

outside the system. It just doesn’t compute, to me, that two of them wouldn’t have some

sort of queer connection.

Arlo (23, gay) was similarly frustrated with queerbaiting as an alternative to explicit queer representation:

Arlo: I don’t like trying to insert queerness in, because it lets the industry get away with the

queerbaiting. Suggestive of queerness, but not explicit queerness, which I find quite

annoying.

Lucy: At this point we don’t need a queer subtext; we need a queer text?

Arlo: That’s what I think. I agree, yes. They had to do it previously, but now it just sort of

frustrates me. I think therefore queer readings are a bit damaging to try and get that together.

Making the need for that more apparent.

For Arlo, reading a queer subtext creates a certain complacency within the media, which allows them to get away with not presenting an explicit text, while Emily was similarly frustrated by the

153 lack of explicit visibility within certain films. These perspectives are common responses to queerbaiting. Given the progressed political context of the contemporary era, fans see queer subtext as subordinate to text, as ‘not good enough’, and a lazy attempt by producers to court queer audiences while maintaining a family friendly rating, which can constitute a form of representational harm or abuse (Brennan, 2018c, 2018d). In his work, Brennan (2018c, 2018d) is careful not to dismiss such instances of representational harm, but also suggests the positive aspects of queerbaiting. He establishes the difference between ‘queerbaiting’ (as devised by the producers, and thus, negative) and ‘hoyay’ (short for ‘homoeroticism, yay!’ which is fan devised and therefore transformative and empowering). Whether or not the subtext is fan- or producer- devised, “perhaps the same celebration… should be associated with all queer gestures in mainstream texts, and the textual subterfuges these gestures invite” (Brennan, 2018c, p. 196).

Roach (2018) similarly acknowledges the complex line between the harm and good of

‘queerbaiting’: in her work, she interrogates “the perilous line between being baited or pandered to for economic gain and being able to enjoy playful homoerotic subtext and androgynous styling, which can have a transformative and affirmational impact on queer fans” (p. 168). This debate is illustrative of some of the tensions between gay ‘subculture’ and ‘culture’, and indicative of Halperin’s argument for the ongoing need for both. It was clear that participants find explicit representation of LGBTQ people important, which is why I have devoted the second part of this thesis to interrogating questions of explicit representation; it was also clear that participants found value in reading queerness where it was not explicit, despite the potential representational harm of the lack of explicit queer identities.

In her discussion of the real person fiction devised by fans about Harry Styles and Louis

Tomlinson,41 Roach (2018) argues that there is a line between “reading signs of coded

41 Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are singers and members of One Direction. The group has been on an indefinite hiatus since 2016.

154 queerness” and constructing readings which “cause emotional stress or harm to the individual concerned and fuel toxicity within the fandom at large” (p. 179). Roach is critical of fandoms that pester celebrities to ‘come out’, to validate their ship, arguing that this invalidates the celebrity’s real-life experience, and begins to stray into ethically dubious territory around outing and invasions of privacy. Amber, Angela, and Emma, as members of fan communities, had witnessed this behaviour and were disparaging of the search for ‘proof’ when it went too far.

Angela was critical of the response of fans to two actresses from Glee (2009-2015):

The actors who played them are straight, and they’re married, and they have kids, but

those fans badgered them so much that they stepped so far away from their characters and

promoting the show at all because it’s just uncomfortable. To have people tweeting all the

time and saying, “Why don’t you come out” or abusing their partners and stuff like that.

It’s just terrible.

By suggesting that it was pressure from the fans that caused these actresses to withdraw from public commitments, Angela provides an example of Roach’s suggestion that such readings can fuel toxicity among fans and cause distress to the actors. Yvette recalls a similar example:

Yvette: Have you heard about the whole thing that went on there [with pop group Fifth

Harmony]?

Lucy: No.

Yvette: Well one of them has come out as bi, and she made a statement saying I’m a proud

Mexican American bisexual woman and everyone was like really excited, because like,

they’re pretty young, and their image is very hetero in many ways, all their songs are like,

ripped guys… but people are obsessed with the fact that they think that two of them were

in a secret relationship, one of them who’s since come out as bi. If you go down the rabbit

155 hole, people aren’t just having a joke about it, people are convinced, serious fandom where

they’re like, in this video she looks this way, and the eye contact they make, and like, you

know–

Lucy: It’s sort of a really interesting hybrid between classic fan fiction, right… but then it’s

people’s real lives, but you can still do that speculation–

Yvette: Yes! Yeah.

Lucy: But does it become ethically dubious because it’s real people?

Yvette: That was the whole thing that happened with them. People on Twitter were

constantly, being like, when are you guys going to acknowledge you’re in a relationship? I

think at one point one of them was like, can you quit asking us, it actually gets pretty

annoying.

Yvette and Angela speak about this kind of behaviour as both something they do not engage in, and something that moves from the playful kind of speculation discussed earlier to a potentially harmful situation. The tension between playful speculation and slashing and constructing a harmful reading is uniquely problematic to real person fan fiction (RPF) because it involves, as the name suggests, real people. As has been documented by scholars of RPF,42 the line between fictional characters and the actors played by them has long been blurred for fans, as evidenced by fan fiction about, for example, both Supernatural (2005-) characters, Dean and Sam, and their actors, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki (Roach, 2018, p. 180). Busse (2006b) writes: “for most fans, celebrities are simultaneously real and fictional... fans can talk about their fantasies as if they were real, while being aware that this ‘reality’ merely constitutes a fandomwide conceit” (p. 209).

This suggests an awareness of the fantasy established in ‘real’ person fiction, as well as the slippage between reality and fiction, character and actor that is common in fan communities, and

42 Busse (2006b) labels it real person slash (RPS).

156 discussed earlier in this chapter. This slippage was common in my focus groups: we would move from discussing fiction to celebrity, character to actor, in the same conversations, suggesting that celebrity, despite being ‘real’, occupies the same space as fictional pop culture texts for participants. Rojek (2001) discusses the celeactor, “a fictional character who is either momentarily ubiquitous or becomes an institutionalized feature of popular culture” thus implying the place of fictional characters within celebrity discourse (p. 23). Rojek’s inclusion of the fictional character within celebrity discourse further highlights the slippage between character and celebrity, and the place of both within discussion of media consumption practices. That fictional characters are often blurred with their celebrity actors is unsurprising given the fictional nature of gossip magazines and therefore the fictional nature of much mediated celebrity, and the immateriality of ‘truth’ when it comes to the cultural functions of celebrity more generally

(Turner et al., 2000; Turner, 2014). Celebrity can be constructed and read to suit the audience’s need, but they are also some kind of ‘real’ person. As a result, conversations were necessarily slippery, and participants were aware of the complexity of the discussion, and certainly the ethical considerations of projecting a fantasy onto a ‘real’ person.

Gossip: The mechanism for speculation

This section continues to explore the ethics of speculation around a celebrity’s sexuality with regard to gossip as the mechanism for such speculation. It will first consider the knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing through gossip, before demonstrating participants’ complicated relationships with gossip, and the queer value of gossip as the vehicle of a queer intimate public.

157 The Literature review explored some of the popular contradictions about gossip as detailed in scholarship, in particular, its positives and negatives, and its conflicting power for the dominant/dominated (see Adkins, 2017). These same contradictions were evident in my focus groups. Small focus groups among friends were chosen for this research to replicate (as close as ethically possible) a gossip situation: intimate and trusting settings, with the inclusion of myself

(which compromises the intimacy and trust but was unavoidable). As a result, conversations often imitated gossip, despite participants’ stated aversion to the practice. As Foster (2004) found in his research: “more than once in my own experience, a research participant has spontaneously denied ever having gossiped, yet in the next sentence conveyed something patently gossipy” (pp. 88-89). A typical example is this statement from Allya (28, pansexual):

Allya: I don’t really believe anything until someone says this incident directly involving me

happened like this. I treat everything else with speculation or dubiousness, which is why

hanging out with friends like Phoenix and other people that know a lot of stuff, I’m like,

oh, they broke up, oh, they’re fighting – it’s because I’m obviously not listening, or those

aren’t even the questions that I ask.

Lucy: Yeah, so you’re not much of a gossiper?

Allya: No, I don’t really like it, I feel like it’s bad for me. No shade to anyone else that

wants to do it, but I would feel shit if people are saying that stuff about me, and I want to

treat people how I want to be treated. I think the reason that I have so many great, loyal

friends, is because they know that I’m not that person, and I’m accountable for the things

that come out of my mouth.

Later in our discussion, we had the following conversation:

158 Allya: …Or the fact that Cara Delevingne, what’s her name?

Phoenix: Delevingne.

Allya: Thank you. I have a friend that’s friends with her, and she’s like, I am gay, she’s like

Kinsey Six gay, but every time they talk about her sexuality she’s a bisexual, she’s brave and edgy and shit.

Phoenix: Her and Jess [name changed], are like that [wraps fingers together to indicate closeness].

Allya: Gayyy.

Phoenix: All of them. All of them are fucking, all of them are gay.

Lucy: Who’s Jess?

Allya: Our friend.

…

Phoenix: Look I think the reason Cara Delevingne says that she’s bisexual is because she’s trying to become a mainstream actress, right now.

Allya: No but that’s the thing, she says that she’s gay.

Eloise: Does she? Or is it just because that’s the trend in like, particularly shitty celebrity mags is that they’ll just be like oh–

Allya: It’s assumed.

Eloise: Yeah, so, bisexual is easy because at least they’re still a little bit straight, or, they won’t acknowledge their– it’s the way it’s written

Phoenix: No, she’s gay.

Eloise: I know that, you know that, we know that, I’m saying the way that the media writes about her because they’re too scared of, like, you don’t want to ever say that someone’s gay because that makes them less relatable.

Phoenix: Isn’t she on video saying that she’s bi?

Allya: I’ve never seen that.

159 Eloise: Potentially, but people can change.

Allya: I’ve only heard this as like second or third source but I don’t know, through my

interpretation of her as a person through celebrity, she’s gay.

The conversation continues in a typically gossipy fashion, in the sense that it discussed personal details of someone’s life, discussing who Delevingne has dated, who those people have dated, who they’re dating now, and so on. I draw attention to these two segments of our discussion not to criticise participants, but to point out the contradictions in the way gossip is perceived, as well as the almost subconscious way it pervades these types of conversations, which become necessarily about celebrities’ private lives. This in itself isn’t interesting, because much celebrity chat exists at the nexus of the private and public (Cinque & Redmond, 2017; Turner, 2014). It does though showcase a clear origin of the gossip and rumour as knowledge acquired through the grapevine. Allya notes “I have a friend that’s friends with her”. This type of knowledge, then, is seen as more trustworthy than the media, who label Delevingne bisexual. Indeed, reported celebrity gossip (in blogs or magazines and so on) is derided more than personal gossip, a finding that Adkins (2017) and Meyer Spacks (1985) also acknowledge, and one that was clear in the observations of my participants.

In the previous section on speculation, I looked at how participants would get a gay ‘vibe’ from some celebrities, which provided the fuel for their speculation. Here, as in Allya, Phoenix (25, gay), and Eloise’s (25, queer) conversation above, I look at situations where a celebrity’s sexuality has become known through gossip. While on some occasions, participants can pinpoint the origin of the gossip, often, as is common with gossip and rumour, the origin is more difficult to pin down. Tom Cruise and John Travolta were brought up in the context of the persistent gay rumours around them in four focus groups, with just John Travolta (without Cruise) in two more focus groups. Hugh Jackman was brought up alongside these two in three of these focus

160 groups, Oprah in one, and Richard Gere in another, establishing the way in which some of these celebrities are often grouped together by association of gay rumour. An illustrative example here is my conversation with Beverly (26, gay) and Lou (27, gay). A discussion of outing, with both agreeing that no one should be outed, moved quickly into a discussion about alleged closeted celebrities, which went on for several minutes. A brief excerpt highlights both the knowledge acquisition of this form of gossip, and Lou’s disavowal of this kind of conversation:

Beverly: He’s [Alan Jones43] definitely gay. It’s like your John Travolta kind of unspoken

secret.

Lou: Yeah. And Hugh Jackman.

Beverly: Hugh Jackman [agrees].

Lou: There’s so many, what’s his name, Baz–

Beverly: Baz Luhrmann’s a fucking funny one.

Lou: There’s a lot of Australian closet cases that are probably more famous than any queer

Australians.

Beverly: It’s like the weird subculture where you have a gay guy and a girl who get along

really, really well, and they just decide to get married and make a go of it, not as a romantic

or sexual couple, but I guess like a supportive duo.

Lou: Yeah. Which I think is fine, it’s just sad.

Beverly: It’s just like, you have to wonder why though.

Lou: And like, I hate to be too speculative about any of those cases, but, we’ve heard like,

pretty–

Beverly: First-hand accounts. John Travolta has a gym in LA where he just kind of, gets

his rocks off.

43 Alan Jones is a prominent Australian radio commentator, known for his controversial and conservative views.

161 Lucy: Yeah, right.

Lou: And Becky’s [name changed] friend that used to be Baz’s assistant.

The source of the gossip in this conversation is again attributed to a friend of a friend, or more vaguely, “first-hand accounts”. Later in this conversation, Beverly names another friend who works in the entertainment industry as a further source of the rumours around Alan Jones, which kick-started this section of the conversation. Tom Cruise is introduced into the conversation as another example of the ‘supportive duo’ marriage, with Beverly calling his weddings “contract weddings”. The grapevine of knowledge here applies to John Travolta, Alan

Jones, and Baz Luhrmann, with Hugh Jackman and Tom Cruise included in the conversation by association. This association implicitly creates a form of unverified knowledge, the kind that Butt

(2005) describes as a queer epistemology. As Anne Helen Petersen (2007) writes with regard to

Perez Hilton’s coverage of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes:

His perpetuation of such a story subtly influences the reader to believe that regardless of

its veracity, such behavior may be believably attributed to the stars in question. Put

differently, even a story acknowledged as fake may influence a star’s image, simply by

associating that star with a certain type of behavior. Such stories also set a precedent.

From June 1st on, Hilton posted dozens of quips concerning Cruise’s purported micro-

management and “control-freak” antics with fiancée Holmes. Each story made the next

more believable, leading to Perez Hilton’s current speculation that Holmes was paid by

Cruise to bear his child in synchronization with the premiere of Mission Impossible III.

(para. 14)

The association can affect a celebrity’s image, because in this realm, as celebrity scholars have pointed out, the truth is unimportant (Gamson, 1994; Turner, 2014). Snorton (2014) notes,

162 “what we think we know about a figure… often outweighs whatever claims a celebrity makes”

(p.146). Butt (2005) suggests that gossip queers the evidential in its failure to abide by truth/false binaries, and similarly here, in the absence of authoritative constructions of truth, it doesn’t matter to Beverly or Lou if John Travolta, or Tom Cruise, or anyone else, is actually gay, because they have already accepted this as fact for the purposes with which they are using such celebrity gossip, and moved on. The spectacle of the closet, its hyper visibility despite its private interiors, means celebrities, as hyper visible figures, are often the subject of such rumours. The epistemology of gossip, and of celebrity media, renders truth less relevant and allows these rumours to be accepted uncritically. After this discussion, the conversation continued into the benefits and hindrances of coming out – to the celebrity themselves, and to the community at large:

Lucy: What would be the power in them coming out now? Is there any?

Lou: Travolta and Tom Cruise, no.

Beverly: No.

Lou: Alan Jones, definitely, because he’s got such a–

Beverly: A following of conservatives.

Lou: Yes. But, you’d be kind of sabotaging your own career in a way, because you’ve built

your career off being the opposite of what you actually are, so.

Lucy: Yeah.

Beverly: I don’t think he’s someone that we want speaking for our community. It’s more

so just a frustration that they walk amongst us, you know, and they pretend like they’re not

us.

…

Beverly: It’s starting to get better now, but it used to be a thing, gay men just wouldn’t get

roles if you’re openly gay. Hollywood’s riddled with like, closeted gay dudes.

163 Lucy: What’s that guy, Rupert Everett?

Beverly: Yeah, right.

Lucy: He’s talked about how he never got any straight roles, ever.

Beverly: Yeah. I think it’s getting better now.

Lou: That’s why I don’t harbour any resentment for those sort of people because one, it’s

not worth it, and two, you don’t know what’s gone on in their lives to like to make them

that–

Beverly: I think also, often they are openly gay in their own circles, in their own life, but

it’s just a thing of not making it a public thing.

Lucy: Yeah, and what’s their responsibility to do that?

Lou: Yeah exactly.

After this point the conversation turned to trans celebrities Caitlyn Jenner and Teddy Geiger and discussing how their coming out has more of an impact than if John Travolta came out, because, as Lou and Beverly argue, the current post-marriage equality political context prioritises transgender narratives and visibility over more lesbian and gay visibility. In this conversation,

Lou’s reticence to gossip in such a way about this particular topic is clear. He says: “I hate to be too speculative about any of those cases,” suggesting that engaging in rumour mongering is not a good thing. This is because this kind of speculation runs close to outing, which Lou and Beverly had initially agreed was not right. However, as this conversation runs its course, from discussing the concept of outing, to gossiping over a celebrity’s sexuality, to moving into a productive conversation about the benefits of celebrities being out, and their responsibilities to their communities, the social function of this sort of gossip becomes clear. Beverly and Lou were able to explain the value of queer visibility (‘coming out’) in these celebrities’ contexts, and compare it to the potential personal loss (of income, of reputation) the celebrity may experience, thus engaging in a productive discussion about what it means to have LGBTQ representation in

164 different spheres of the media – for example, the different value of Alan Jones’s coming out in comparison to John Travolta or Tom Cruise. This conversation illustrates the contradiction

Bergmann (1993) highlights: the conclusions of this conversation would not have been possible without the gossip, the very type of gossip both Lou and Beverly had expressed disdain towards at the beginning of the conversation. Ironically perhaps, the disdain toward this kind of gossip is necessary for making the conclusions around coming out and outing in the celebrity industry.

Bergmann suggests that gossip is necessarily a “discreet indiscretion”; an “open secret” (p. 152).

By acknowledging that gossip requires discretion, because of its “disdain” (p. 152), Bergmann argues it then creates the secret setting that produces the social value of gossip: the activation of the intimate social network through which moral negotiation can occur. Rumours of homosexuality are an apt example of gossip: recall that Sedgwick (1990) argues that homosexuality is produced discursively through a performance of silence, it is hidden yet visible, it too is an ‘open secret’. Without acknowledging that speculating about a celebrity’s sexuality is a form of gossip with negative social ramifications, the ensuing conversation between Lou and

Beverly about the social function of coming out would never be able to happen, and without actually speculating over a celebrity’s sexuality, we wouldn’t have been able to discuss the negatives of such an occurrence, and thus the conversation would never progress to this in the first place. Without the gossip, and the disdain for the gossip, we don’t have the resultant negotiation of moral norms.

The ethical complexity of gossiping about a celebrity’s sexuality has two key aspects: the way in which it is shared and spreads, and the consequences of that spreading, both for the celebrity, and for LGBTQ people as a marginalised group. The earlier section on speculation made clear that participants do speculate about a celebrity’s sexuality, and talk to their friends about it. This sort of gossip can become a bigger ethical issue when it is removed from the intimacy of [queer] friendship. As Adkins (2017) notes, “because gossip thrives at the nexus between public and

165 private, and often criticizes or debunks power, it can function in very different ways for the powerless and the powerful” (p. 4). Gossip about a celebrity’s sexuality can serve a very different function when it moves from the intimacy of friendship conversations to society more generally, in the same way that D.A. Miller (1990) suggests that the connotation of homosexuality has negative implications except in gay-affirmative contexts. Outside of an LGBTQ-specific context, such gossip takes on elements of homophobia, which can have obvious negative effects on

LGBTQ people. Butt (2005) suggests this is the case with gossip about artists: in the broader art world, gossip served to produce homosexual suspicion and homophobia, while within queer bohemian communities, this kind of gossip helped to build community. Therefore, there is value here in keeping this knowledge within a queer intimate public, where it serves a valuable function for queer people in negotiating identity, moral and social codes, and connecting to others in an intimate world. Indeed, Berlant (2011) suggests that “informal networks of knowledge sharing” such as gossip, “are central to the endurance and vitality of any intimate public” (p. 57). Once removed from this intimate public, as well as its homophobic ramifications, gossip can also, to return to Roach’s (2018) work on RPF, have real effects on the celebrity. Where Gamson (1994) noted that gossip about a celebrity has no repercussions, the changed context of new media, and the access to celebrity it allows, means this is no longer always the case.

I would argue there is nothing wrong with ignoring aspects of a celebrity’s public persona for the purposes of intimate gossip with friends. The problem occurs when the gossip “spills out into public discourse via social media” (Roach, 2018, p. 177), beyond the queer intimate public: when celebrities participate in conversations on social media, it can become an invitation for harassment by some sectors of the fandoms, as illustrated in the examples from Angela and

Yvette in the previous section. For Adkins (2017), when gossip moves online, it loses its intimate context and is thus no longer gossip. She writes: “Walter Ong’s (1982) evocative description of the ephemerality of orality— ‘sound exists only when it is going out of existence’ (71)—reminds

166 us of the ways in which gossip as an oral phenomenon is always potentially safer than printed gossip” (p. 211). Meyer Spacks (1985) is similarly sceptical of printed gossip because of its loss of intimacy. For Adkins and Meyer Spacks, the productive aspects of gossip rely on its place within the intimate public, the intimacy and ephemerality, and therefore, orality, of such conversations.

Writing down this kind of gossip in public forums like social media changes its context and effect, becoming less of a tool for the marginalised, and more of a marginalising tool. When gossip is removed from the safety of intimate space, it encounters the regime of normativity that seeks to oppress, and thus becomes a tool for the powerful (Adkins, 2017).

The value, then, of celebrity gossip, relies on its intimate setting but its public content. While

Berlant’s (2008) intimate public consists of strangers with a shared worldview and emotional knowledge, in this situation, gossip serves to reify an already intimate cohort, but still promises affective identification and belonging through its connection to the outside world via celebrity.

Like Berlant, Hermes (1995) suggests that celebrity gossip creates an “intimate common world” that brings together a community through shared knowledge of its subjects (p. 132). Beverly and

Lou’s conversation demonstrates the way in which celebrity gossip can have productive social functions with regard to conversations around coming out, because of its safety within the intimate, discreet setting it is premised upon. But gossip serves other valuable queer functions, as well. To return to Turner’s (2014) summary of the value of celebrity gossip as “an important process through which relationships, identity, and social and cultural norms are debated, evaluated, modified and shared”, we can assess how participants have queered these aspects of gossip in their conversations (p. 27). Gossip produces a different set of social and cultural codes than those prescribed by celebrity media, thus establishing gossip’s queer potential to allow for modified ethical codes particularly within intimate, queer settings.

167 Conclusion

For all its contradictions, there is value in gossiping about a celebrity’s sexuality in intimate settings, and reading a subtext into a celebrity’s behaviour (or getting a ‘vibe’). These conversations and readings create space for identification within heteronormative celebrity culture for queer people. As Berlant (2008) suggests with regard to the intimate public, it functions to remind subordinate audiences that they aren’t alone. Through gossip, participants recast celebrity culture in ways that provide a sense of belonging, in ways that allow “intimate connections to likeminded others” (Cinque & Redmond, 2017, p. 88). As a result, gossip acts as a way to produce meaning that grounds celebrity culture in affective identification, and modes of belonging, for a queer audience. As outlined earlier, through reading a homosexual subtext, participants found ways to respond to and resonate with certain celebrities. And this was usually a playful, pleasurable response. More than identifying with the celebrity and finding pleasure through similarity, however, gossip about a celebrity’s sexuality also creates a sense of belonging and inclusion in the social processes that gossip allows. By discussing whether or not a celebrity is gay, participants are able to use celebrity gossip for queer purposes in the construction of a queer intimate public. This practice is juxtapolitical in the sense that it creates an intimate public that, while subverting dominant readings of celebrity, creates a space for belonging, and survival, as relief from the political – including discussions of representation, visibility and queerbaiting

(Berlant, 2008). Engaging in this kind of gossip in small, intimate settings allows for participants to develop a form of celebrity gossip that is queer, and thus queers the functions of gossip.

Though, as a form of conversation that occupies the space between public and private, and true and false, destabilising these binarisms, perhaps gossip is already queer in itself.

168 Part Two

Reading queer celebrity

While the previous part sought to test Halperin’s (2012) assertion of the importance of a gay subculture rooted in identification with non-gay subjects when it comes to responses to celebrity media, Part Two considers the other side of Halperin’s gay culture, the explicit form rooted in gay existence, and gay identity. How participants engage with the celebrity aspects of this explicit gay culture – that is, openly LGBTQ celebrities and explicit representation of LGBTQ lives in celebrity media narratives – will be explored to understand the value of the representations of queer celebrities. Part Two continues to use Berlant’s (2008) work on the intimate public to argue for a refocusing of academic critique of representational schema from the political to the juxtapolitical and the affective. Instead of critiquing representational media as overly normative or essentialising, I argue for the affective value of such media, particularly in its creation of an intimate public of LGBTQ consumers of celebrity culture. Chapter Seven examines readings of openly [mainstream] LGBTQ celebrities and the subsequent representation of LGBTQ narratives in celebrity media and how this produces feelings of normality, relief from social isolation and a negotiation of the terms of the intimate public. Chapter Eight considers how new and social media has contributed to a fragmentation of publics, allowing for LGBTQ micro- celebrity to speak to what I call an intimate micro-public. Chapter Nine focuses on the affective responses to celebrities contributing to marriage equality activism in Australia, as this activism constitutes an explicit representation of gay lives in celebrity media (whether that be the celebrity’s life, or gay life more generally).

169 Chapter Seven

“Wow, I’m actually reading about a celebrity who is in a relationship with, or dating, a

woman”: LGBTQ celebrities, representation, and belonging

Perhaps unsurprisingly in a study of how LGBTQ people respond to celebrity media, a frequent topic of conversation in the focus groups were celebrities who openly identified as LGBTQ.

This chapter documents and analyses responses to LGBTQ celebrities in mainstream media contexts. It focuses on three key readings of this kind of celebrity that were established by my participants: the value of LGBTQ celebrities for identity construction; their importance for the

‘normalisation’ of LGBTQ identities; and the ways in which some LGBTQ celebrities can produce a paradox of visibility that carries positive and negative connotations. Importantly, the responses to this kind of celebrity were varied and contradictory across focus groups, reinforcing the heterogeneity of LGBTQ people as not necessarily a completely unified group with opinions that can be either quantified or generalised. These readings produce a form of emotional contact: in identifying similarities between themselves and celebrities, participants enact a form of intimacy, occasionally described dismissively as ‘parasocial’ (Rojek, 2012), but more recently characterised by Redmond (2014) as an affective space for connection. This emotional contact produces an intimate public of LGBTQ consumers of LGBTQ celebrity media. The representation of LGBTQ celebrities within mainstream media also allows for a negotiation of

LGBTQ identity, including debates on normativity and morality, which reinforce the intimate public through a negotiation of its terms, and reflect the way in which celebrity representation and celebrity affect intersect, overlap, and compete (Redmond, 2019). These debates are largely juxtapolitical: they are more about everyday survival and belonging than explicit political aims.

This chapter will draw on work from Berlant (2008) and Griffin (2016), to demonstrate the

170 emotional contact produced by readings of LGBTQ celebrity, and the intimate public that circulates around these readings.

LGBTQ celebrity and identity construction

The Literature review explained how celebrities have been considered useful for identity construction. My participants reflected this literature, emphasising the importance of such figures for their own (and others’) identities, drawing specifically on the similarities they saw between themselves and celebrities to aid in the construction of their own sense of self. It also explained the way in which post-structuralist thought argues that identity is formed discursively, through social interaction and cultural sources of meaning production (Hermes, 1999; Jagose, 1996). The instances where celebrity was especially useful for identity construction among my participants was when there was an absence of direct community, or where social interaction with other

LGBTQ people was limited, and thus identity construction relied more strongly on cultural sources. My participants self-identified as LGBTQ, and were interviewed in groups of their peers, so community was typically a part of their lives. As a result, participants tended to recall times before they came out to discuss the important role of celebrities in their construction of identity. Brody (39, bisexual) and Kage (36, queer) discussed this in some detail:

Brody: I know one that was big for me was Angelina Jolie, because she was one of the first

– and Drew Barrymore – that really came out when I was a kid as bi. That was really the

first exemplar I had in any sort of media of myself, so that was a big deal for me. I idolise

both of them because of that.

Lucy: So you’re more interested in celebrities that are queer or like you?

Brody: Yeah, definitely. Absolutely.

171 Kage: I liked Angelina Jolie a lot. I liked that she was so open about who she was. She

talked openly about cutting and self-mutilation and kinks and I was like, oh my god. And

as a teenager who had a very heteronormative gender role upbringing – my family, they

don’t talk about shit.

Brody: Yeah. Same as mine.

Kage: So, to see someone so open about who they are and what they’re interested in, I

was–

Brody: It’s exciting, hey?

Kage: Absolutely.

Brody: It’s like, yes! This person is like me! It’s not just – I might have been adopted, but

they’re not all like my parents! That’s what I used to do. I used to just think, I must be

fucking adopted. These people are just fucking dickheads. Particularly my father, but, yeah.

Just seeing her [Angelina Jolie] talk about that stuff. And Drew Barrymore and the way she

spoke so openly about being attracted to women. That was just a really big deal for me.

And it came just at the time where I was leaving home and all of that sort of stuff, and it

was the first time I guess that I really – because I grew up in a town where I physically did

not have the words to describe myself.

Nobody talked about it. Nobody told me that the reason why I had such strong feelings

for these girls was because I wanted to bonk them, not because I wanted to be them. But

no one could articulate that to me. Not until I left, and I went to university. That’s when I

started to learn about all of these awesome terms, like feminist, and queer, and all of this

other stuff that I’d never heard of before.

Brody and Kage both discuss the role that Angelina Jolie had in their identity construction before they had other options. For Brody, it was the isolation she felt within her family, and her hometown, where “nobody talked about it”. That she then refers to the education she received

172 at university suggests that Angelina Jolie and Drew Barrymore were useful identity markers for her before she had more community-based opportunities to form her identity. Kage suggests a similar situation when they note that “my family, they don’t talk about shit”. This conversation indicates that celebrities can be useful tools for identity construction during periods of social isolation, cultivating a sense of belonging where previously there was none. Brody and Kage developed this discussion with regard to teenagers today:

Brody: So, for them [young LGBTQ people], I don’t know how important that is. I’d say

it’s really important. Just having any sort of celebrity person there going, yeah, it’s okay to

be gay, and I know that in the future, things are gonna be okay for me.

Lucy: That’s the really important part of the It Gets Better project.

Brody: Exactly. As much as people criticise it, it’s so fucking important for kids like them,

when they genuinely don’t have anyone else around them going, yeah, it’s cool, it’s okay.

And it’s shit now at school, but it’ll be okay later. Yeah.

Kage: Yeah, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I grew up as a teenager idolising Angelina

Jolie and Drew Barrymore, and Pink even, to this day, I’m like, oh my god! You know, I

didn’t have that support and visibility from my parents. I looked up to those people and I

felt as a teenager so close to them, as weird as that sounds.

Brody: I was the same.

Emily (32, queer) had similar concerns for “baby queers”:

Emily: I think, particularly, when celebrities who, in some way, subvert the stereotypes of

what a queer person is – So, if a super femme woman comes out, or if a really masc. guy

comes out–

Slaytina: Portia de Rossi.

173 Emily: Yeah, that matters to me, because it says–

Slaytina: That there are multiple ways to be queer.

Emily: Yeah, and for young, baby-queers, it says to me that that’s a message to them that

they can continue to exist in the way that they are–

…

My sexuality and my gender informs how much I engage with something, because it

informs how much I think it’s going to make an impact for baby-queers…Or baby-people-

going-through-gender-stuff. So, if someone is being spoken about publicly in a positive

way, who is going through an experience that young people are gonna recognise their own,

up until that point, isolation in, that matters to me. I get much less engaged, at 32, about a

potential queer celebrity than I used to.

Brody, Kage, and Emily all observe the value of LGBTQ celebrities in contributing to the identity construction of LGBTQ people younger than themselves. The celebrity’s role in providing a pedagogical reference for identity (including LGBTQ identity) is discussed in the

Literature review, but here, visibility of a diverse range of identities is seen as crucial for young people in isolation to feel “okay”. Redmond (2014) argues that celebrities are “recuperating figures that the isolated individual can invest in, talk to, fantasise over; in exchanges where they are no longer shy, alienated and through which they feel wanted and connected” (p. 114). The lonely celebrity consumer is often pathologised via the typically negatively characterised

‘parasocial relationship’, where consumers are seen to create an invented, one-sided relationship with celebrity (Hills, 2016; Jenson, 1992; Rojek, 2001, 2012, 2016b, Turner, 2014). Rojek (2001,

2012, 2016b) for example, considers the relationship a fan has to a celebrity as a form of ‘second order’ or ‘presumed’ intimacy, placing it on a hierarchy below face-to-face social interaction.

Turner (2014) argues that the usefulness of the term is limited when describing the cultural function of celebrity, using the mass outpouring of collective grief at the death of Princess Diana

174 as an example where ‘parasocial’ fails to capture the enormity of celebrity’s functions. This example begins to capture the affective nature of the celebrity-fan relationship, something that

Redmond (2014, 2016b, 2016c, 2019) focuses on in his work on the celebaesthetic. Rather than putting the celebrity-fan relationship and the related “escape” of its perceived one-sidedness down to “parasocial fakery” (Redmond, 2019, p. 305), he (2014) argues that “stars and fans communicate with one another in and through the activation of powerful emotions and senses”, and that the production of celebrity is structured by affect (p. 14). The celebrity-fan relationship,

Redmond (2014) argues, allows fans to leave their “loneliness room” and access a form of connection, with celebrities, but also with others (p. 114). This connection can be social, or an affective fantasy, but it nonetheless produces the ‘emotional contact’ that Berlant (2008) suggests is characteristic of the intimate public. In this way, the celebrity-fan relationship between

LGBTQ celebrity and consumer is not a form of ‘second-order’ intimacy, but a relationship founded on connection that foregrounds the affective and emotional, that reminds consumers that they aren’t alone, and that they belong. This is done through representation – by representing LGBTQ identities within celebrity media, consumers are provided with an identity template, and thus a sense of connection. Redmond’s (2019) circuit of celebrity affect intersects with his circuit of celebrity culture, and suggests that there are unique relationships between celebrity representation and celebrity affect. It is a particular type of celebrity representation that allows for affective responses to celebrity media. That the celebrity is seen to provide a template for, to quote Emily, an “experience that young people are gonna recognise their own… isolation in” suggests that celebrities here circulate the intimate public, providing isolated members with a space for emotional recognition and connection through commodity culture. Reading about these celebrities is crucial for identity in the way it helps readers understand their place in the world, their own experiences, and connect to others in similar situations, with shared worldviews

(Berlant, 2008; Griffin, 2016; Halperin, 2012). In this way, the celebrity’s work with regard to identity construction is both representative and affective.

175 John (26, homosexual) and Tina (27, lesbian/queer) had a similar discussion with regard to the alleviation of loneliness:

John: When Raven Simone came out, I was so fucking happy.

Lucy: That’s So Raven, right?

John: Yeah, but I also had a crush on her when I was growing up so then when she came

out as gay I was like oh, yay!

…

John: As a gay person, I dunno if this somehow is related, but when I was a young

teenager and I saw any gay movie or TV show or anything like that, I suddenly cared about

the romances, whereas I’d never cared about straight romances. I was like, this must be

how straight people feel all the time, because they care so much about this stupid shit I

don’t care about, but then I was doing the exact same thing but with a gay couple.

Tina: I think I might have had that too, but I never really realised until now.

John: Oh really? Because I was like, oh I get it, now I understand.

Tina: I can see myself doing it now, but when I was in my teens and younger, that’s

definitely how I felt but I never realised that was why.

John: Yeah, because I didn’t like The OC until Marissa was gay, and then I was like, I

suddenly care about this.

Tina: Totally!

Tina and John also echo the sentiments of Brody and Kage and Emily in this conversation, demonstrating the importance of these characters and celebrities when they were younger. John emphasises the loneliness of their position, describing the moment they realised that they felt differently to straight people, or, rather, they felt the same way, but directed those feelings towards different characters or people. John’s point echoes Halperin’s (2012) through its

176 emphasis on being able to read in a way that straight people do (p. 425), and similarly the fantasy of ordinariness that circulates in the intimate public (Berlant, 2008). John also points to the relative isolation of LGBTQ people given the lack of visibility of their narratives, particularly when John was younger, before the growth of LGBTQ visibility that Gross (2007) outlines.

They elaborated on Facebook:

They [LGBTQ media figures] were important to me in my closeted days in the way that

car headlights are important while driving at night. I couldn’t see where I could possibly go

without them. For me it wasn’t so much a particular person as it was media in general.

Queer as Folk and The L Word etc. Probably wouldn’t have been able to find my way out of

the closet if it wasn’t for shows like that. They helped me get myself a shiny spine.

Gross (1991b) writes about the value of media in this way for sexual minorities: “Women are surrounded by other women, people of color by other people of color, etc., and can observe the variety of choices and fates that befall those who are like them”, however sexual minorities are less likely to be surrounded (i.e. in a family, for example) by others like them, and thus rely on representation in the media to present this “variety of choices and fates” (p. 27). Griffin (2016) similarly discusses the affective comfort and hope gay and lesbian people take in representational media. The value of media representation of LGBTQ identities for sexual minorities is reinforced through John and Tina’s conversations. The comfort here relates to the minimisation of isolation produced by representational media, and to the formation of the intimate public based on “a sense that there is a common emotional world available to those individuals who have been marked by the historical burden of being harshly treated in a generic way” (Berlant, 2008, p.

10, emphasis in original). Ahmed (2014) suggests that comfort occurs when one is inhabiting norms, so the desire to belong to the normal world, to feel ‘okay’ is a desire for comfort. While

Ahmed suggests this kind of comfort is not available to queer lives, and discomfort is a queer

177 feeling, comfort here is posited as a desire, something to work towards, a utopic form of normativity that characterises the intimate public (Berlant, 2008).

Similarly, for An (24, bicurious), social isolation was a persistent factor in the ongoing relevance of LGBTQ celebrity in the construction of their identity, and the feeling of comfort associated with alleviating this isolation. On Facebook, An writes:

I didn’t even realise labels such as queer, neutral, non-conforming existed until I was an

adult. Knowing that it was something that not just me, but other people [celebrities]

classified themselves as, made me realise that there are other people like me out there. I

wish that I knew sooner, so that I could be less afraid of being who I truly am, and not feel

like there was something wrong with me. Featuring LGBTQIA+ celebrities in mainstream

media helps other people who may not have known about these labels. It also helps people

who are comfortably cis/straight but not aware of these identities to know that they exist

and deserve to be respected, or at least realise it’s important to learn about different

identities.

An illustrates a process of pedagogy through the media and through celebrities that is essential to both An and to broader society, reflecting the work of Reed (2005) who suggests that Ellen

DeGeneres’s value is in the way her presence prompts a cultural conversation among many different groups of people on what it means to inhabit a lesbian identity. An’s story indicates the importance of external recognition of one’s identity that Scanlon and Lewis (2017) describe as

“an opportunity to identify in the most fundamental of ways” (p. 1012; see also Dhoest &

Simons, 2012, p. 271).

178 This kind of external recognition was also important for participants engaging in non-normative relationship structures. Tilda Swinton was an important figure for both Elle (22, bisexual), and

Brody because of her supposed polyamorous relationships. Elle and Annie (25, queer) said:

Elle: It’d probably mean something to me if like a celebrity I really liked was like ‘I have a

second partner,’ like I think it’s really cool that Tilda Swinton has a husband and a

boyfriend.

Annie: I didn’t know that.

Elle: Yeah, long term, it’s excellent, her artist boyfriend and her husband that stays with

the kids, it’s amazing, she’s just got a great life. I don’t think it changes my identity, but it’s

a nice piece of information that I feel good about knowing.

Annie: Yeah I think it’s interesting like for us, we’ve very recently entered this new,

relationship sort of thing, which there’s not, we don’t really have friends that are in this

dynamic.

Elle: And we don’t feel poly, like, I don’t.

Annie: Yeah, and there’s not a template, and we don’t really have many inspirations beside

that.

Swinton herself has since clarified that she is not in a polyamorous relationship. She is good friends with her former partner, and lives with her current partner. As Baron (2015) writes in a profile of Swinton for GQ: “Her love life, she explains, is not the polyamorous sin marathon that appears in the tabloids—there are two men in her life, Byrne, who now lives elsewhere, and

Kopp, with whom she shares a home, an arrangement she has in common with millions of other people” (para. 13). This situation, where participants discussed elements of a celebrity’s private life that the celebrity has since refuted, is a good example of the nature of gossip and tabloid media, where the factual status of the content is irrelevant (Turner et al., 2000, p. 139); what

179 matters most is the way in which gossip is used. As Turner (2014) writes, gossip is “an important social process through which relationships, identity and social and cultural norms are debated, evaluated, modified and shared” regardless of its factual status (p. 27).

Elle was quick to point out that her interest in Tilda Swinton’s relationships did not change her own identity. Annie notes they don’t have a template for their relationship outside of someone like Swinton, and Elle’s comment “we don’t feel poly” suggests a form of isolation from others who might engage in these forms of relationships, because she doesn’t feel a similarity to other

‘poly’ people. This exchange reflects the difficulty in ascertaining modes of identity construction given that the process is complex, discursive, and often dependent on creating fixed categories from individual desires, which may not be fixed or innate (Brown, 1993, p. 393; Hermes, 1999).

Hermes (1999) argues that while celebrities may not be so useful for identity work, it is their discursive value and the social community created around them that might be useful, suggesting notions of an intimate public created through consumption of the celebrity commodity. Even if it is just through establishing a similar set of behaviours, there may be some degree of affinity between Elle and Tilda Swinton, and similarly with Brody, thus providing a sense of comfort or belonging to a social world. Brody and Alexis (44, bisexual) discussed this issue:

Brody: I’m married to a guy, but he lets me date women and stuff like that – we had a poly

situation going on. And I was looking for any examples of that in real life. Of course Tilda

Swinton is very famously poly, yes.

Alexis: Awesome. I didn’t know that.

Lucy: Tilda Swinton is incredible. She’s got her husband and her boyfriend.

Brody: A good thinking, doing woman who I just idolised. That was it. It just helped to

affirm – help me realise there are other people out there like me, and of course we only

ever talk about celebrities, so they’re the only ones we’re gonna see.

180 Alexis: It’s funny you say that about that recognition, because I feel the same way when I

hear about celebrities who are married but live in separate houses. I always go, oh, thank

god, somebody gets it! The comedian Denise Scott has a relationship like that. I don’t

think they’re together, but Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter. They were neighbours,

married, but they were neighbours. Oh, personal space!

Brody: Yeah. I think it’s always been a big deal for me, but that’s because I think I spent so

much of my life looking for examples of myself that it’s become part of who I am now.

Tilda Swinton plays a similar role for Brody as she does for Elle, but Brody is more explicit about the way she seeks out Swinton as an example of “other people out there like me”, using the same words as An. Access to this kind of celebrity pedagogy can provide a feeling of connection, contact, and belonging for queer narratives and experience. It is clear that by looking for examples of people in similar ‘situations’ or ‘templates’, Elle and Brody look to Tilda Swinton for a form of representation – the external recognition of a similar existence that Scanlon and

Lewis (2017) identified in their work with audiences of lesbian film (see also Dhoest & Simons,

2012).

While LGBTQ celebrities have been useful for some of my participants in the construction of their own LGBTQ identity and realising the possibilities available to them, the same could be said of other aspects of participants’ identities. While the focus groups tended to centre on

LGBTQ celebrity given the context of the discussion and the specific research aims, it was clear that celebrities are also useful for other forms of identity construction beyond sexuality. Allya

(28, pansexual, mixed race), for example, found a particularly strong sense of identity from celebrities of colour, given her relative isolation from people of colour in her everyday life:

181 Allya: I read this great thing that said, for minority groups, how can you be what you don’t

see? And I found that really striking, because it’s something that I thought about but never

been able to articulate that just so, perfectly. I think the reason that I have so much

invested in shows and music and stuff [we’d been discussing Solange and Lauryn Hill] is

that I’m so underrepresented in every kind of aspect of my life. So then when I do see it, it

gives me this great sense of belonging that I can’t get from anywhere else, aside from my

living room, with my mum and my sister… so on a micro level, seeing or making the time

and the space to follow these people gives me a sense of empowerment, and belonging,

and hope.

Here, Allya’s social isolation from others ‘like her’ is different to that of Brody’s, in that her family is a source of comfort, and she lacks external recognition from the wider community. The sentiment though is very similar: celebrities can provide a sense of belonging, a moment of recognition (Scanlon & Lewis, 2017, p. 1012), a figurehead of an intimate public.

Celebrities, including micro-celebrities (discussed in the next chapter), who share identity characteristics with my participants (particularly sexual identities, but other characteristics like race, gender, political views, or nationality also arose through the course of the research) were of some use in the formation of their identities, especially in spaces of relative isolation. Kern

(2014) notes that media representations of cultural identities help to form an imagined community around a marginalised identity, which in turn aids validation for individuals in their own sense of identity. She argues this with regard to the identities represented on The L Word

(2004-2009), but it is clear that participants here reflect a similar sense of belonging and empowerment from celebrity representation.

182 LGBTQ celebrities, visibility, and the process of normalisation

This section considers the role of LGBTQ celebrity in ‘normalising’ LGBTQ people for broader society. Some participants saw a great deal of value in this role, while others articulated the paradox and contradictions of this kind of visibility (as simultaneously providing a representation of how to live as an LGBTQ person, while also limiting the LGBTQ narrative to one, uniform experience) that are similar to Berlant’s (2008) contradictions of the intimate public. She writes:

The intimate public provides anchors for realistic, critical assessment of the way things are

and provides material that foments enduring, resisting, overcoming, and enjoying being an

x [a member of a nondominant group of people]. To be all of these things to all of these

people, though, the intimate public’s relation to the political and to politics is extremely

uneven and complex. (p. viii)

The debates about the normalising role of celebrity reflect the complexity and tensions of the intimate public, where media and cultural forms that circulate within this public offer the opportunity to resist, endure, and also enjoy the shared experience of living in a nondominant collectivity (Berlant, 2008). Griffin (2016) articulates this contradiction persuasively, with regard to gay and lesbian media: “The value of gay and lesbian media for people who consume it can be located in matters of feeling, emotion, and affect, or how such media allow them to ‘feel normal,’ in ways that are often simultaneously emancipatory and repressive” in the sense that this kind of media allows for feelings of freedom and belonging, in spite of their normative “shortcomings”

(p. 13, p. 15). Scholars such as Gross (2001) and Hennessy (1994) are critical of the ways in which visibility of sexual minorities is not ‘queer’ in the sense that the normative aspects of this kind of representation promote neoliberal and capitalist agendas of individualism and identities formed in the marketplace (for example, the pursuit of the pink dollar renders gay people visible

183 so that they may be marketed to), though they do recognise possible positive effects on the individual. These are the tensions Berlant (2008) describes in the intimate public and its mediation through commodity culture: because it operates through a commodity culture, the intimate public is largely “juxtapolitical”, it seeks to “generate relief from the political” (p. 10).

The intimate public has an incoherent relationship to politics in the sense that it offers solidarity and survival to minoritised populations through a normative fantasy of belonging within commodity culture. Berlant (2008) suggests that debates over the terms of the intimate public, such as the debate over whether or not ‘normal’ LGBTQ celebrities represent a broader

LGBTQ experience, facilitate the belonging the intimate public promises, because this kind of negotiation allows for a feeling of intimacy and of emotional contact. This argument is supported in literature on celebrity which suggests that celebrity gossip facilitates an intimate collective world through negotiation of moral and social norms (Feasey, 2008; Hermes, 1995;

Redmond, 2014; Turner, 2014). Thus, negotiations over the politics of visibility in celebrity media serve to reinforce the intimate public generated by LGBTQ celebrity.

Participants often responded positively to LGBTQ celebrities who were seen to be ‘normalising’

LGBTQ identities. These representations of LGBTQ celebrities seemed to indicate a social progress in the mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ identities, and the possibility of ongoing acceptance. Much of the discussion around LGBTQ celebrities centred on how they are represented in the media. In the absence of having a personal relationship with celebrities, the only way participants have any access or understanding of celebrity is through the media and its discursive production there. Elle and Annie were discussing a news article about Kristen Stewart:

Elle: It’s interesting that the whole thing is legitimising gay relationships as – the same way

they gossip about any other [relationship].

…

184 Annie: I haven’t thought about – Elle’s point about how it’s actually kind of nice, like,

tabloids talking about queer relationships just like any other relationships, i.e. being gossipy

and being like he said, she said, and all of that. It makes it kind of more normal, I guess.

Lucy: Is inclusion being given the gossip treatment?

Annie: Rather than the gossip being the gay aspect, you know.

Elle and Annie were pleased that gay relationships were being gossiped about in a way that makes them seem “just like any other relationship”. This sentiment is echoed by Rosie (32, bisexual) and Rudiger (32, lesbian) who consider the change in reporting around gay relationships in the last few years:

Rosie: I’m pleased to see it [gay relationships in mainstream celebrity media], even if it’s

trashy, just because I remember when we were younger, they wouldn’t. They would only

ever have anything queer as like a sordid horrible secret. So, to have it just be normalised

and trashy just like all the straight stuff is, to me, is kind of a good sign, I think.

…

Rudiger: Lindsay Lohan was kind of one of the trendsetters for that with her relationship.

I remember – that was when you first started seeing it in the media.

Lucy: Yes. Samantha Ronson.

Rosie: Yeah.

Rudiger: It wasn’t always covered positively, but it was covered.

Lucy: That’s an interesting one, because I feel like – the way I saw that was that her

relationship with Sam Ronson was just another part of her long, extended meltdown. They

were like, “She’s so crazy, she’s dating this girl.”

Rudiger: Yeah. That’s how they covered it.

Rosie: Absolutely.

185 Lucy: And how do you feel about that?

Rudiger: For me, it was always the mixed feeling of, yeah, it’s just making it look like a

crazy phase, but at the same time, wow, I’m actually reading about a celebrity who is in a

relationship with, or dating, a woman.

Lucy: Yeah.

Rudiger: In mainstream magazines. It was a split sort of thing. But yeah, it definitely did

have that feel of, oh, yeah, she’s just declining, and look what she’s doing now.

Rosie and Rudiger believed that the coverage of gay relationships has improved, moving from queerness being a “sordid, horrible secret”, to coverage that brought mixed feelings, and finally to it now being “normalised and trashy just like all the straight stuff”. Anne (39, queer) and

George (33, gay) had a similar conversation:

Lucy: Do you think these gossip magazines have gotten to the point where gay stories are

fine and not really a controversy?

George: I reckon that the angle of them has changed. It used to be like a scandal, like,

almost painted in a dirty light, and now they don’t do that anymore, I don’t think it’s

negative, but I don’t think it’s positive, it’s just gossip.

Anne: It’s just as stupid as they cover everything else, which is nice, it’s equality!

…

Anne: I think I’m interested in how they [LGBTQ celebrities] present themselves and how

the world reacts to them.

George: That’s it, how’s everyone going to react to this.

Anne: How are people reacting to it.

Lucy: It’s kind of a barometer for how acceptable it is?

George: A barometer for social change.

186 Anne: Yeah, like I think that it is. Even the fact that Cara [Delevingne] can date whoever

she wants and it’s not a big deal, you know, like maybe things are getting better. I don’t

know though.

Anne and George are interested in the pedagogical value of the LGBTQ celebrity, using them as a chance to gauge societal reactions to aspects of homosexuality, thus cultivating a feeling of belonging within broader society. These conversations reflect the importance of ‘normal’ representation of LGBTQ celebrities in the media for these participants. This kind of representation is described as “a good sign”, “nice” or an indication that “things are getting better”. These participants felt that being depicted as ‘normal’ is a positive thing, despite much of queer theory’s opposition to the term (for example, Warner, 1999). Being seen as normal is equated with being accepted, and is thus a tool for survival. Rhian (23, queer) and Dani (28, queer) discuss acceptance of LGBTQ celebrities by their fans as having a ripple effect, similar to a dancefloor:

Dani: And there is the homophobic world that, you know, the more famous people come

out, it’s almost acceptable. You know those narrow-minded people who, if something is

legal they’ll believe it, or if famous people are a certain way, they’ll believe it. I feel like

that’s possibly a positive thing, because we could assume that someone wouldn’t just stop

liking someone because of their sexuality. It does happen, but other people are like, ‘Oh,

we just love that person, so it doesn’t matter’.

Rhian: Yeah. It normalises it.

Dani: It normalises it. And I feel like – I remember many years ago, no one would ever

come out if you were famous, but it’s becoming more often now.

…

187 Dani: Especially on a dancefloor, you know. When you’re at a nightclub and no one’s

dancing, and then you start busting out and everyone comes to dance with you. It’s like

this movement where people are becoming a bit more accepting.

Rhian: 100%. I feel like that’s really happened this year with trans issues so much, which is

so amazing… because there would be so many trans kids and teenagers struggling with

their identity. And then they have someone like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner, which is,

whatever. Yeah, stuff like that makes me so happy, because thank god you have

representation.

Similarly, An believes that coverage of gender fluid celebrities helps to promote acceptance of those identities:

An: Yeah, because at the end of the day, they’re [celebrities] getting more attention than

most people. So I’d be interested to see how they’re presenting themselves, and how the

media gets informed, and whether the media agrees or disagrees, and what sort of impact

that would have on representation of queer people in the long run.

Lucy: How the media sees it, how the people commenting see it. You can get that

barometer of where everyone’s at through a celebrity.

An: Yeah. I think I hold this hope that things will become a bit more acceptable. Things

will not be so straight. Too gendered, you know? I have that hope for the future, and I

think I look for that when I read those articles [about gender fluid celebrities].

On the whole, these examples collectively reflect the way in which mainstream coverage of

LGBTQ celebrities seeks to cultivate a sense of belonging to broader society among participants, a feeling of being accepted, equal, or normal. Griffin (2016) suggests that ‘feeling normal’ is an affective state, an:

188 Experience of freedom and belonging; it is both a flush of recognition and a fantasy of

generality. It is an experience of body and mind that you share with others, a sense of

mutuality that can be difficult to come by without readily available scripts by which to

model yourself. (p. 1)

Griffin uses the idea of the intimate public to demonstrate the tensions between the value of

‘feeling normal’ generated by gay and lesbian media and the modes of queer critique that seek to dismiss this normativity as reinforcing heteronormativity and the subordination of homosexuality. He suggests that the “pleasures of normativity” that stem from belonging, from feeling normal (Griffin, 2018, p. 167) are not to be dismissed, and that ‘feeling normal’ can be queer, if we consider it queer to have “‘good’ feelings about unconventional sexual practices and subaltern cultural milieus” (Griffin, 2016, p. 4). Positive feelings, like belonging, with regard to

LGBTQ celebrities, Griffin suggests, have a queer potential. That queer potential here is in the cultivation of a queer intimate public, predicated on ‘good’ feelings about unconventional sexualities.

However, not every participant had positive things to say about queerness being normalised through the coverage of LGBTQ celebrities. Both the paradox of visibility and normalisation of

LGBTQ identities through celebrity media can be discussed through two recurrent examples in the focus groups: Ellen DeGeneres and Caitlyn Jenner. These examples reflect the debates facilitated by celebrity media, debates which allow access to the intimate public through negotiation of its terms.

189 Ellen DeGeneres: Normal icon

When Ellen was discussed in focus groups, she was usually referred to as “a queer icon”, “THE queer icon”, “influential”, and generally, by her first name only, solidifying her iconic status. She typically earnt this title for her fiercely normal attributes, and her role in promoting acceptance of

LGBTQ identities among everyday people, thus facilitating the sense of belonging described in earlier sections. For example, Mel (29, lesbian) said:

Mel: She’s [Ellen DeGeneres is] amazing and she’s so beloved and open about her

sexuality and humorous about her sexuality and challenges gender stuff, but in a very non-

threatening way that I think can be a more effective way of challenging things, rather than

the aggressive route. And she’s funny, and I like how she dresses, and I like her story. Who

would be queer and dislike Ellen?!

Rudiger (32, lesbian) and Romeo (24, gay) discussed how high profile her relationship with

Portia de Rossi is:

Rudiger: I followed Ellen and Portia for quite a while. Not recently, but I did.

Romeo: Are they huge activists?

Rudiger: No. I don’t believe they are… I don’t think that they’re huge activists, but at the

time, just the public perception of them, I was really intrigued by, and how high profile

their marriage and their lives are.

Romeo: They’re still high profile. I guess they’re still being subtle activists.

Rudiger: Yeah. True.

Romeo: Just because they’re not out there saying–

190 Rudiger: Exactly. Exactly. I don’t have any problem with the way they live their lives at all.

I know some people are like, “They could do more with their platform” but they have a

platform to speak of.

Romeo: Yeah. Exactly.

Rudiger: It’s exposure.

Lucy: And the fact that Ellen exists and looks like that on daytime television.

Rudiger: Yeah. And is loved by tonnes of people.

Lucy: That’s really interesting.

Rudiger: Yeah.

Romeo: And after she came out as well was when she made her real fame and fortune.

The juxtapolitical potential of Ellen is outlined in this exchange between Romeo and Rudiger.

Romeo questions Ellen and Portia’s role as activists, and both Rudiger and Romeo decide that the fact that they have a “platform” allows them to be “subtle activists” in their ability to generate “exposure” of gay relationships. This type of exposure is designed to generate the belonging and recognition that Berlant (2008) characterises as “normativity itself” (p. 5). Thus,

Ellen’s ability to provide ‘exposure’ – or as Berlant would term it, “recognition in a social world”

(p. 5) – reflects the juxtapolitical nature of the intimate public, and its ability to generate relief from explicitly political aims. This point becomes even more clear in the exchange between

Elena (24, bisexual), Ginger (26, bisexual), Lara (28, lesbian) and Siobhan (26, gaaaayyy):

Elena: I think she’s [Ellen’s] so funny and she makes everyone feel really comfortable and

she is not ashamed to be who she is for the past thirty years or whatever. As soon as she

came out she’s just ‘I’m gay’, she lost her show for a while… but that doesn’t matter

because at least she’s being herself. And then because of that she got her show back, and

it’s incredibly popular. I just like that she is like not afraid to just be herself.

191 Lucy: What do you think Ginger?

Ginger: I like her also because she’s kind of like tongue in cheek, funny with celebrities.

Like she’ll call them out on their shit, do you know what I mean? I joined the gym when I was a receptionist in Adelaide, so that on my lunch break, I could go to the gym not to work out, but just to get away from my work because I hated everyone I worked with. I also had a homophobic boss that was homophobic only towards lesbians, and I had a girlfriend. So I would go watch Ellen, and I just fucking loved it, because she was hilarious, but also didn’t go on about how she was gay, but would just make like little comments.

She doesn’t have to put it out there and be like ‘gay rights!’ because everyone is just so supportive of her, because she’s so happy and lovely and confident. She did do it like a very long time ago.

Lara: She doesn’t have to do that, because she did that in the early 90s, she’s done that.

Ginger: Yeah, but I also love that she doesn’t go on about it. She doesn’t bring it up every episode, she just so happily and openly talks about her relationship with Portia and normalises it–

Siobhan: It’s normal because it is.

Ginger: Yeah because it is. She’ll be like you know last night with Portia we were both doing the groceries, and nobody goes *gasp* that’s a chick. Everyone is just like, that’s her wife. That’s cool.

…

Lara: Well I think she’s at that point now because she went through a lot of shit to get there. If you read any autobiography stuff on her, like chronic depression, was literally like suicidal, was in the public eye and had everything at her fingertips and then came out and for that she got completely scrutinised, [her] show got cancelled, all this backlash, her long- term partner and her were breaking up. All of this stuff within this public persona and it

192 was almost unheard of, because it was such an era or time where there were some gays, but

it was in a–

Elena: I feel like they were mostly men, there weren’t a lot of female gay people out there.

Lara: Yeah… so she’s been through that… [conversation continues]

Ginger likes Ellen because of her humour, and because “she didn’t go on about how she was gay”. She appreciates Ellen’s ability to “normalise” being gay by casually talking about doing the groceries with her wife – normal, everyday activities, for normal people. Ginger also points out how she used watching Ellen as an escape from her homophobic boss. Ellen has juxtapolitical value for Ginger, as she could provide a feeling of belonging and recognition in the face of a hostile working environment. In pointing out the hardships Ellen has faced in the past, Lara presents indications of progress within LGBTQ rights, where Ellen has been “through a lot of shit” to now being, in Elena’s words, “incredibly popular”. Progress for this group is firmly normative, in the same way that Mel was appreciative of Ellen being ‘non-threatening’ in her challenging of gender stereotypes. Ellen’s role is as a normal icon, generating relief from the political, creating a form of belonging, generating “good” feelings about unconventional sexualities.

Other participants found Ellen’s juxtapolitical value paradoxical, reflecting the incoherencies of the intimate public. Alexis, Brody, and Kage discuss Ellen with explicit regard for questioning of the different terms ‘lesbian’ and ‘queer’:

Alexis: I mean, she’s [Ellen DeGeneres] just part of the landscape, but [let’s talk about]

Ellen DeGeneres.

Kage: I was gonna mention [her] as well, yeah.

193 Alexis: When her 20th anniversary of her coming out or something like that, and they looked back through the history of that whole thing of her coming out on her sitcom, and the President of the time congratulating her and stuff like that. And even Obama talking about how much of a watershed moment that was… I guess that speaks to the normalisation of it, but you’d hope that, like, her doing that doesn’t go forgotten.

Lucy: Yeah.

Brody: She’s quite outspoken around a couple of fairly significant suicides in the 80s and

90s as well of young people, where she actually went along and addressed at their memorial service and that sort of stuff to say, you know, it’s not good enough. We need to keep making sure that we come out so that people understand that they’re surrounded by people that care about them. She was one of the few people to actually do that which was a pretty big deal at that time.

Alexis: Yeah.

Brody: Where people were still being… well, they still are being screamed down the road when you’re walking up the street. So it was a big deal for her. I really look up to her as an amazing activist.

Kage: I think it’s arguable that she is THE icon.

Brody: Yeah. She is, yeah.

Alexis: Yeah.

Kage: But that also brings up – I don’t know. It’s tough because I don’t necessarily see her as queer. She’s a lesbian. You know? She is a very self-identified lesbian, which is fine. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but you know. My partner and I joke that it’s okay to be

‘Ellen gay’.

Brody: Yeah, yeah.

Kage: She’s the palatable of being gay.

Brody: Homonormative.

194 Kage: Exactly, yeah.

Alexis: Yeah, totally. She has that sort of–

Lucy: She’s got middle class American mums [as her fanbase].

Brody: Yep. That’s it.

Alexis: It’s interesting too, because she has that short haircut, and that sort of becomes

synonymous. She might as well just hang her keys off her belt as well.44 But, like, that’s

weird, ‘cause it – but I guess her partner isn’t necessarily – her partner’s very straight-

acting, I suppose. So that kinda helps.

Lucy: They’re sort of perfect butch femme.

Kage: That’s what I was gonna say. Ellen and Portia definitely set a benchmark for what’s

acceptable to be gay or what it looks like to be a lesbian couple.

Alexis: Yeah.

Brody: Gentrified, nice, activist.

Alexis: It’s interesting too because the word queer is like – it has two meanings, because

there was a queer as an umbrella term, and there’s queer as a definite identity. So it’s

difficult, or easy to flip between the two. You can pretty much say any gay or queer

identity, but then at the same time, you’ve got to find people who navigate that actual

definition.

Initially, Alexis, Brody and Kage categorise Ellen as “THE icon” – someone who has done a lot of valuable activism, especially during a time when gay activism was less acceptable, as evidenced by Brody’s discussion of her work “during the 80s and 90s” and how it was a “pretty big deal at the time”. Alexis refers to her acceptance by the president as indicative of “the normalisation of it [being gay]”. The conversation then switches, as Kage notes that they “don’t necessarily see

44 This is a common lesbian stereotype. By referring to this, Alexis is suggesting that Ellen is a stereotypical image of a lesbian.

195 her as queer” and describe her as “the palatable [version] of being gay”. Brody then labels Ellen

“homonormative”, referring to the popularisation of Duggan’s (2002) term to describe the conservative shift in LGBTQ politics toward assimilating homosexual people into the norms of heterosexual society, rather than resisting them or seeking alternative modes of living. Instead of rejecting heteronormative institutions, like marriage and the military, as was the aim of early queer critiques (see Warner, 1999), homonormative agendas seek to be included in such regimes, suggesting that ‘equality’ is predicated on inclusion within such institutions, rather than a rejection of such forms of regulatory power (Duggan, 2002). Alexis considers the fraught definitional difficulty of the term ‘queer’ to explain the way that Ellen might be called queer if it was being used “as an umbrella term”, but less queer as the “definite identity”.45 The paradox of

Ellen’s visibility starts to manifest in this conversation. Alexis, Brody and Kage are clearly appreciative of her work in activism, but at the same time, they are critical of that activism for being “homonormative”, and not necessarily representative of them because it is not “queer”.

This debate reflects the “promise of belonging” made possible by a negotiation of the terms of in the intimate public (Berlant, 2008, p. ix). By debating whether or not Ellen’s visibility has been a good or bad thing, Alexis, Brody, and Kage are participating in a form of intimacy that depends on their ability to feel like they belong to an intimate public created by celebrity media. They are able to discuss and negotiate celebrity and its production of identity and moral and social norms

(Turner, 2014) in a way that includes LGBTQ identity, facilitating a belonging to an intimate public formed around LGBTQ celebrity and for LGBTQ people.

A further negotiation of Ellen’s place within the queer intimate public is highlighted in the following conversation between Powpowindamow (PP, 55, queer) and Sparklebutt (SB, 25, queer):

45 Many queer theorists would disagree with Alexis that ‘queer’ is a definite identity. This definitional tension is explored in the Literature review.

196

PP: I think that the more that you see the straight acceptance of queers and gay people – I

mean a classic case of example is Ellen DeGeneres.

SB: Fucking heck. That’s the last time I talk about a queer celebrity.

PP: Because she’s so fucking mainstream. Every second word in the conversation – and I

think this is why we react the way we do when we talk about marriage – every second

word is, “My wife, Portia.” My wife, my wife.

SB: I was playing a game of celebrity heads and I was like to everyone, just so you know, I

don’t know many celebrities, so play it easy on me. We were going around, and I was like,

can I have another clue? And someone was like, you know her. She’s you. You’ll get her. I

really couldn’t think of it. Someone was like, oh, you’d love her sex tape. I couldn’t get it,

and it was Ellen DeGeneres. I was like, she doesn’t represent me! I hate her. She is a

representation of a lesbian in media, but she’s scum and crossed the picket line. Fuck that.

I hate her.

Lucy: Lots of people love Ellen. It’s really fascinating getting that really different

perspective on this stuff.

SB: She’s so bite-sized edible to a straight audience as well. All the straight housewives that

love her, because she’s not a threat.

PP: She’s like Oprah lite.

Sparklebutt’s dislike of Ellen appears to stem from the fact that she broke the picket line during the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) strike in 2007, and because of her “bite-sized edib[ility]” to a straight audience. Evoking an anti-capitalist, anti-neoliberal sensibility, Sparklebutt presents a queer critique of Ellen – criticising her decision not to unite with the workers during the WGA strike, and her palatability, her ‘normality’ to heterosexual audiences. The juxtapolitical nature of

197 the intimate public is demonstrated here – while for some, Ellen generates relief from the political, for others, she is articulated in explicitly political terms.

The paradox of Ellen, loved by some for her ability to ‘normalise’ LGBTQ identities, and disliked by others for the same reason, as well as her ability to act as a distinction between what one might consider ‘lesbian’ or ‘queer’ produces discussion and debate over Ellen’s value for

LGBTQ people in broader society. This facilitates a form of intimacy through the connection with others via such negotiations, be they agreements or disagreements, and thus sustains this intimate public. As Berlant (2011) writes:

In an intimate public one senses that matters of survival are at stake and that collective

mediation through narration and audition might provide some routes out of the impasse

and the struggle of the present, or at least some sense that there would be recognition were

the participants in the room together. (p. 226)

These debates were more apparent in discussion over the mediation of Caitlyn Jenner’s celebrity persona.

Caitlyn Jenner: The paradox of visibility

While some celebrities could perhaps loosely be termed ‘role models’ (such as Angelina Jolie for her bisexuality or Tilda Swinton’s apparent polyamory) for participants, other LGBTQ celebrities, for example, Caitlyn Jenner, were not valued in the same way, and were not as useful for identity construction. Jenner’s persona reflects the disappointment Halperin (2012) feels about “identity-based culture” which is a key reason behind his hypothesis of the ongoing importance of queer readings of non-queer cultural forms: “Confronted by such an identity-

198 based culture, by the world they thought they had wanted, many gay people become rapidly and radically disillusioned with it” (p. 120). Every time Caitlyn Jenner was discussed in focus groups

(which occurred in nine focus groups and one interview), the tension of the positive and negative aspects of her persona were discussed, reflecting the disillusionment with explicit representation Halperin outlines. Peggy (25, queer) put it succinctly, thanks to the reboot of TV sitcom Will & Grace (2017-):

Peggy: I feel like Caitlyn Jenner was somewhat a compromise. So, in the new series of Will

& Grace, there’s a scene where they’re playing a celebrity heads-type game. There’s a scene

where it’s like, we want to love her, but we just can’t! It’s Caitlyn Jenner. Because she’s

essentially a compromise. Yes, I’m transgender, but I’m still a racist, sexist, piece of shit

Republican. It’s like, I’m different in this way you don’t like [transgender], but you can

accept me because I conform in every other way you consider important.

Jenner was a divisive figure for my participants, partly because of her status as one of the first public figures to transition in the public eye who was neither representative of most trans people and whose class and politics were alienating. This is certainly what Arlo (23, gay) thinks:

Arlo: If we talk about Caitlyn, because it was the first major trans coming out, so much of

what the public learned about trans identities was mediated through her experience as a

very conservative rich white woman.

Lucy: Now everyone thinks that when you transition you disappear for 6 months and

reappear as a whole other gender?

Arlo: Yeah. Enoch, basically what you’re also saying is that these are people who are very

well-off, and there’s no real risk at the end of the day except for career impact when it

comes to coming out.

199 Enoch: Yeah.

Beverly (26, gay) and Lou (27, gay) also discuss the “mishandled responsibility” Jenner had when she was coming out:

Lou: I completely understand why the trans [community] got so upset with her, because it

was sort of a mishandled responsibility, but also it’s someone who’s completely foreign

thrust into like this huge spotlight, and I feel like they’re bound to say the wrong things,

when they’re not–

…

Beverly: I don’t think she should’ve made it a career the way she did.

Lou: That’s what the whole Kardashian thing is though… either way, it was brave.

Beverly: I think it’s [her coming out has] done a lot, like I’m sure it’s had a lot to do with

people like Teddy Geiger46 feeling comfortable about coming out.

Lucy: Yeah, totally.

Beverly: Because there’s somebody of Caitlyn’s status was brave enough to come out and

do a Vanity Fair cover.

Lou: Yes.

Beverly: And just announce that she was a woman.

Lou: Which is awesome.

Beverly: It’s awesome. I think all the problematic stuff with her is in the details of what

she’s said.

Lou: Yes.

Beverly: And the fact that she voted Trump and is like–

46 Teddy Geiger is a singer who came out as a trans woman in 2017, a little over two years after Jenner’s public announcement of her own transition.

200 Lou: Yes.

Beverly: I think it’s hard to justify being a Republican trans woman when all of their

policies are anti trans. So I think it becomes a bit murky.

Tina, John, Carlos (28, bisexual), and Renee (33, bisexual) had a very similar conversation:

John: Well [Caitlyn Jenner’s] an example of somebody being in a really unprecedented

position to affect social change, but not doing it and shitting on it instead. So, everyone’s

collectively like, are you fucking serious?!

Carlos: Also though, before, when she was Bruce Jenner, she was in Don’t Stop the Music,

the Village People movie! I feel like that’s an even bigger slap in the face to marriage

equality, like let alone you’re a trans person, you were in fucking Village People movies,

like–

John: She’s a piece of shit, yeah, Ellen [DeGeneres] really gave her a grilling [about

marriage equality], and she was just flicking her hair like, ‘none of this affects me,’

Tina: I feel disappointed.

Lucy: Yeah?

John: It’s disappointing because she’s squandering the potential she’s got.

…

Tina: I kind of feel like with being disappointed in celebrities when they let you down,

politically or something – I do feel disappointed, but then there’s another side of me that’s

a bit understanding. I think it started with Miranda Kerr and someone else was dissing her

out, and I’ve met her before, and she’s just a regular person, and maybe she said

something once and then people made it really big, so then the disappointment feels really

big, but she’s just a regular girl with too big a microphone.

Carlos: Yeah, totally.

201 Tina: So, I’m disappointed, but then there’s also a bit of understanding.

Carlos: There’s also a bit of the fact like how much of our expectations for this person

were justified. Caitlyn Jenner’s a great example because we just assume that because she’s a

transgender person she’s going to support all these other views, but that’s just one tiny

part.

John: She doesn’t even support transgender rights.

Renee: Especially when the whole reason she’s famous is for being a sportsperson and

they’re not commonly known to be the most socially progressive, so, it is a little odd that

just because this aspect of her is a big part of her now, that everything else, like her being

incredibly wealthy most of her life, privileged and sporty–

Tina: White.

Renee: And white! That she’s going to be now this champion of things–

John: Well you’d assume, I think the assumption was made because she went through

something in the public eye that is quite harrowing for normal people.

Renee: Yeah, but she did it in her own bubble, in a very protected way.

John: Yeah, so surely this would penetrate a little bit of that [bubble], but no. I don’t think

it was bad that people expected that, I think it was just optimistic.

Carlos: Yeah.

John: I don’t think anyone would be an idiot for hoping that she would come out and you

know, be a bit more supportive of transgender people, considering she is one. God, this is

fucking bizarre to me.

Tina: Yeah it’s really weird.

Participants held particular expectations of Caitlyn Jenner: how she might use her exposure as an out trans woman in ways that were politically useful, how these expectations were perhaps misguided given Jenner’s relative privilege in comparison to other transgender people, and her

202 lack of experience in the public spotlight as a transgender advocate. Beverly and Lou were ultimately pleased with Jenner’s decision to come out in such a public manner, but take issue with “the details of what she’s said”. This point was echoed by John, who was “disappointed because she’s squandering the potential she’s got”. These conversations reflect the danger of positioning celebrities as potential ‘role models’ for a group of people with whom they might share some traits, but who, ultimately, belong to a different class (Rojek, 2012). Participants wanted to relate to Caitlyn Jenner as a celebrity advocate for transgender people, but ultimately were able to recognise, as is common in celebrity reading, that she belongs to a different class, and thus, enjoys a privilege not shared with my participants (Hermes, 1999; Johannsson, 2006).

The classic extraordinary yet ordinary paradox of celebrity appears yet again in this discussion.

My participants recognise Jenner as ‘ordinary’, ‘just like us’ because of her transgender identity, but extraordinary because of her wealth. This perspective on the ‘ordinary’ aspects of Caitlyn

Jenner is particularly salient in an LGBTQ audience, who can see their own sexual or gender identities reflected in Jenner. This extraordinary/ordinary paradox additionally reflects the juxtapolitical nature of the intimate public created by celebrity media. By discussing whether or not Jenner should use her platform, participants are negotiating the terms of the intimate public, which is occasionally seen as political, but mostly serves to act “as a critical chorus that sees the expression of emotional response and conceptual recalibration as achievement enough” (Berlant,

2008, p. x). The fact that Jenner allows for a public expansion of the knowledge of what it means to be a trans woman, a conceptual recalibration, is certainly seen as an achievement, while the

‘squandering of her potential’ to be more political is lamented, thus demonstrating the proximity to, and negotiation of, the political in this intimate public.

Alexis, Brody, and Kage had the following conversation:

203 Kage: You know, that was such a huge thing, and in a way, it felt cool to see someone queer on all these covers, but at the same time it’s kind of like, uh, this feels a little uncomfortable because are they really promoting her transition because they support it, or because is it more of like a, look at how weird this person is, kind of thing?

Brody: Exactly.

…

Alexis: It was interesting, because like, I was – went through a really – I guess every trans person does – I went through a period of severe questioning for about sixteen months, but it was just at the same time that people were speculating about Caitlyn Jenner’s identity.

And there was a real horrific cover of one of these magazines, I can’t remember which.

Kage: Yeah.

Alexis: Before she transitioned but in makeup. It was all Photoshopped and stuff like that…just photos of her at the shop with her breasts developing and haircut and stuff like that. And that was still that sort of, oh, how weird.

Brody: Yeah. The exoticisation of it.

Alexis: Totally. Then she came out which was awesome, although, like, her politics aside–

Kage: Yeah.

Alexis: Because she’s so far removed from me, and any of the realities of most–

Brody: That’s right, that’s a good point. Very white, Anglo-Saxon privilege. It’s really, really obvious, in everything. Yeah.

Alexis: Yeah. But it’s a double-edged sword too, because she had her own narrative, but it’s not the one true narrative, ‘cause there never is one true narrative.

Brody: Yeah.

Alexis: But that became gospel for people who had never met a queer person before. So, it’s like, trapped in the wrong body is not everyone’s story… Lots of trans people go

204 through this thing about – well, internally, they go, am I trans enough? Do I tick enough

boxes?

Brody: Yeah.

Alexis: Do other people validate my identity because of A, B and C? And if someone

famous has a narrative that your identity doesn’t line up with, then that, for some people

who are a bit short-sighted and shallow, it invalidates your identity. It’s very troublesome.

Lucy: Yeah. It’s helpful to have a storyline out there, and then when you don’t match that

storyline, and that’s the only storyline you’ve been shown, how do you navigate that?

Alexis: Yeah, yeah.

Brody: That’s right, yeah.

This conversation begins with the concern that Jenner is being held up in the media as a spectacle, like the ‘freaks’ Gamson (1998) has written about in detail. Gamson considers the spectacle of the sexual non-conformist on talk shows, to explore what the paradoxes of visibility he characterises as “democratization through exploitation, truths wrapped in lies, normalization through freak show” (p. 19). Ultimately, Gamson suggests that tabloid talk shows are neither wholly exploitative nor wholly democratic, but that the two are inseparable. Kage reflects on this paradox of visibility as they ask, “are they really promoting her transition because they support it, or because is it more of like a, look at how weird this person is, kind of thing?”. The conversation then moves on to capture some of the sentiments echoed in the other conversations about Caitlyn Jenner and her ordinary/extraordinary persona. Alexis and Brody note the relative privilege of Jenner, and how she is “so far removed from me [Alexis], and any of the realities of most [transgender people]”. Finally, Alexis discusses the way in which Jenner’s public transition created a singular narrative around transgender people echoing Arlo’s sentiment about the relative lack of narratives around transitioning that have been visible in the media, particularly in the mainstream media, or for viewers who don’t regularly access queer content.

205 Alexis is concerned that the invalidation of trans identities that deviate from Caitlyn Jenner’s will be harmful to transgender people. As identity is a process of negotiation through mediated experiences and social interactions (Hall, 1996; Hermes, 1999), the idea that one may not conform to the one trans narrative in mainstream media presents problems for Alexis both within transgender people and for their position within society. This is also part of the paradox of visibility Gamson (1998) describes as one of the central dilemmas of collective identity: through shoring up, essentialising, and making fixed identity categories (like gay and lesbian), political power is generated through the creation of a collective from which to agitate for civil rights. But it is through the essentialising of these categories that oppression is also created through the solidifying of difference, and through which a politics of respectability emerges, whereby those who do not fit the ‘fixed’ identity category are excluded (Gamson, 1998; see also

Gamson, 1995). Typically, those who do not fit the ‘fixed’ identity category are additionally oppressed in other ways, including class, education, and race (Brown, 1993; Gamson, 1995,

1998). The paradox of visibility is evident within Alexis’s assessment of Jenner: by essentialising

Jenner’s narrative as “gospel” as the only visible narrative, other ways to be transgender are rendered subordinate. But without Jenner’s narrative, transgender stories are altogether absent from celebrity media.

These conversations demonstrate the paradox of visibility of Caitlyn Jenner. This paradox reflects the difficulty of seeking explicitly political rewards from celebrity commodity culture, highlighting instead the value of shifting away from the political and toward the juxtapolitical.

The debates over Jenner’s value as a celebrity here reflect the formation of an intimate public; one where its terms are negotiated by members, and a complex sense of connection and belonging is forged through the paradox of visibility, whereby survival is more of a priority than an explicit overhaul of the political system.

206 Conclusion

This chapter considered how participants responded to the representation of out LGBTQ celebrities in the media. It argued that some participants find LGBTQ celebrities particularly useful for aspects of their identity construction, particularly in instances of relative social isolation. It then discussed the ways in which LGBTQ celebrities promote homonormativity and the paradox of visibility, demonstrated through an analysis of how participants felt about Ellen

DeGeneres and Caitlyn Jenner. In considering these questions of identity construction and the politics of normativity and visibility, this chapter argues for a reframing of representational schema away from the explicitly political aims of existing queer critique, toward an affective understanding of how representation in mainstream media can produce an intimate public. This is reflective of Redmond’s (2019) suggestion that the representation of celebrity sits in dynamic interaction with celebrity affect – that representation isn’t always necessarily ideological, but can also be affective, or at the very least, related to the affective. This chapter has taken on the relationship between the representational and the affective to suggest that representation of

LGBTQ lives within celebrity culture produces an intimate public. In doing so, it looks to the affective rather than the hegemonic, interpreting representational media in affective ways, shifting focus from the political to the juxtapolitical, and as a result, shifting to new directions in the study of celebrity audiences.

207 Chapter Eight

“You’re probably only five make-out links away from a really famous queer person”:

LGBTQ micro-celebrity and the intimate micro-public

In 1991, Gross (1991b) reflected on sexual minorities and mass media, and what to do about the near invisibility of LGBTQ people in mainstream film and television. He suggested we look elsewhere: “the answer to the plight of the marginalized minority audience would seem to lie in the cultivation of alternative channels, even while we continue to press upon the media our claims for equitable and respectful treatment” (p. 45). Of course, since 1991, the media landscape has changed substantially, and some of that “equitable and respectful” treatment has been seen across mainstream media. There remains an ongoing importance for the kind of alternative channels Gross suggested, made increasingly possible by forms of new media, especially social media. As the Literature review outlined, recent scholarly work in celebrity studies focuses on the proliferation of celebrity in the 21st century as a result of new media, and how this has shaped the rise of the ordinary celebrity, or the micro-celebrity. New media – and with it, micro-celebrity – is perfectly placed as the location in which to cultivate alternative channels outside of the mainstream. Indeed, as Sender (2012), notes: “The rethinking of conventional models of media transmission from one-to-many to many-to-many, one-to-few, many-to-one, and so on, has particular import for minority groups, particularly GLBT minorities, in terms of visibility, types of representations, and identification” (p. 208). This chapter, then, considers the place of LGBTQ micro-celebrity, typically cultivated in alternative channels provided by new media, in readings of celebrity by LGBTQ Australians.

In the Literature review, I outlined some of the definitional tensions of the micro-celebrity.

Recall that Marwick (2013b) suggests the micro-celebrity can be two things: the celebrity who is

208 famous on a smaller, more niche scale, and the practice of celebrity strategies online. Marwick suggests there is a continuum of micro-celebrity, borrowing Rojek’s (2001) terms to distinguish between the ascribed and achieved micro-celebrity. Ascribed micro-celebrity, for Marwick, is the micro-celebrity that is famous on a small, niche, scale: although they might have become famous through the practice of celebrity strategies online, there is now celebrity media produced about them, and as a result, demonstrate a more uneven celebrity-fan relationship (p. 116). Achieved micro-celebrity, on the other hand, refers to the practice of celebrity presentational strategies online, the creation of a persona, and the development of a close relationship with one’s ‘fans’

(p. 117). I use the term micro-celebrity to refer to this broad continuum, from celebrities who are famous on a small scale, to those who are famous on a small scale as a result of their online personas, to the practice of celebrity strategies online for a minimal audience. This chapter considers a spectrum of micro-celebrities, and their relationship to media gatekeepers, as well as the alternative channels that new media provide, and the production of uneven fan-celebrity relationships within the particular context of LGBTQ audiences.

This chapter argues that LGBTQ micro-celebrities operate within intimate micro-publics that constitute modes of belonging within a fragmented, niche public, reflective of the new media sphere in which audiences, and celebrity, have fragmented into smaller publics (Turner, 2016).

While micro-public spheres operate politically through their latent challenges to power in the sense that they operate outside of official public life and media publicity by being submerged within everyday life (Keane, 1995), the intimate micro-public is juxtapolitical, or ambivalent about its civic engagement. Instead of relating to the mass public, members of these fragmented publics find a sense of belonging within the intimate micro-public. While this belonging may still constitute a “normative fantasy”, the changed [fragmented] context suggests a different

“normative fantasy” to that proposed by mainstream media forms, thus altering what it might mean to be normative (Berlant, 2008, p. 12). What matters to readers of this kind of celebrity is

209 the cultivation of alternative media channels that allow for queer participation within the celebrity media environment, that creates a sense of normativity, even if that normativity is very different to that provided by mainstream media forms. This chapter will first argue for the ways in which micro-celebrity produces an intimate micro-public through scenes of affective identification. It will then consider the role of the multisocial interaction within the intimate micro-public, and finally focus on micro-celebrity strategies as a mediation of the self through the intimate public.

LGBTQ micro-celebrity: ‘Just like us’

It’s worth recalling here that each focus group began with participants sharing some aspect of celebrity media they had consumed recently. In all of these instances, participants typically chose more mainstream elements of celebrity and media, such as those who found or enjoyed widespread fame on traditional platforms such as film, television and music.47 Participants were also asked prior to the focus group, in the expression of interest survey, to list three celebrities they regularly read about, and responses were similarly mainstream. When participants were asked to think about celebrity, they would typically first turn to more traditional understandings of celebrity, the ‘extraordinary’ star who has talent, and is the “cream at the top of a meritocracy”

(Gamson, 2011, p. 1063). The more ‘ordinary’ celebrities, or micro-celebrities, usually only came up much later in discussion, or after prompting by me, suggesting that the traditional definition of celebrity still seems to prevail. The question of scale (‘how famous/how many followers does one have to be considered a celebrity?’) was brought up often, suggesting that celebrity needs a

47 This includes ‘crossover’ stars who perhaps began their fame journey in more ‘ordinary’ ways, such as Justin Bieber (YouTube) or Kim Kardashian (socialite and sex tape), but now enjoy more mainstream types of fame.

210 following in order to be considered as such. Micro-celebrity was often overlooked, though the instances in which it was brought up yielded results worth considering.

It is within the realm of micro-celebrity that the ‘just like us’ adage finds real relevance with participants. These smaller scale celebrities were often discussed in terms of their relatability, the ways in which they felt more ‘real’ (authentic), and in the attainability of social interaction, as opposed to parasocial. Social media was often valued as the site of much of the interaction with, and consumption of, this kind of celebrity. This was often particularly important for people who expressed their marginalisation in explicit ways. Allya (28, pansexual, mixed race) said:

I want more space to be made for people like me… I think that that is a part of celebrity

that I can fully celebrate… I make a very conscious choice to follow [on social media]

these other people [micro-celebrities] because they help uplift me… I feel like that’s what

you get when you flip through an Instagram or a Twitter or a whatever, you’re like, that’s

my girl, that’s my boy.

With the help of trans micro-celebrity Laverne Cox,48 Tilly (23, queer, Anglo Saxon) expresses a similar thought:

Laverne Cox uses this phrase, and it’s called a possibility model. Instead of the phrase role

model, it’s showing that people who – maybe trans, or they don’t fit into society in some

way – can see these people in the media and realise, hey, I can access success. I can access

48 Laverne Cox is a transgender actress, well-known as the face of TIME Magazine’s “transgender tipping point”. Though Laverne Cox enjoys some level of more mainstream fame, I consider her a micro- celebrity here because of her engagement with micro-celebrity practices, such as social media interaction (Marwick, 2013b; Marwick & boyd, 2011). Cox could be considered an ‘ascribed’ micro-celebrity, in the sense that her TIME cover gives her wider recognition and therefore a more uneven celebrity-fan relationship (Marwick, 2013b).

211 wealth… Instagram gives a platform to people who wouldn’t normally get a platform.

There is a new generation of celebrities that have become famous from Instagram that

would never have been famous otherwise.

In discussing who they tended to follow on Instagram, Tilly and Rhian (23, queer) talked about the appeal of following queer people such as Lea DeLaria49 and Laverne Cox. It was important for Tilly that she could relate to who she was following: “You need some connection. Whether that’s because you’re both queer, or both women, or both political, or because you both interact with the same people, for me I am drawn towards a celebrity that has some sort of similarity there.” Nay (27, queer/gay, Aboriginal) also spoke of the importance of seeing black and queer celebrities, because of the similarities they provided. They told me:

Adrienne Rich has a quote about the cognitive dissonance that comes when you look into

a mirror and can’t see anything back, there’s no reflection… it’s a really weird feeling…

but we’re at a time when it’s very easy to find a niche on the Internet.

Allya, Tilly and Nay all exhibit positive feelings about the way in which social media and the

Internet more generally allows space for people to see others like them, to carve out niche

‘possibility models’. These possibility models echo the visibility provided by LGBTQ celebrity discussed in the previous chapter, but in these examples, that visibility is less likely to occur in mainstream contexts. Even so, these possibility models are often inscribed in neoliberal, normative ideals – which is exactly what Tilly describes when she discusses accessing success and

49 Lea DeLaria is an American comedian, actress, and singer. She is known for being the first openly gay comedian to appear on a late-night talk show (in 1993), but more recently is best known for her portrayal of Big Boo on the Netflix series Orange is the New Black (2013-2019). DeLaria represents the micro- celebrity who is particularly famous within a niche, as she is more well-known among LGBTQ audiences. Her contemporary celebrity persona also adopts micro-celebrity strategies in that she uses her Instagram presence to connect with fans, and draws most of her contemporary fame from new media forms, such as Netflix.

212 wealth – but it is through such normative ideals that these models offer visibility, belonging, and a chance to ‘feel normal’ (Griffin, 2016). The immediate consequences of reading black and queer figures in their media consumption for participants like Tilly, Allya and Nay are positive ones. This is the function of the intimate public: through reading micro-celebrity in these juxtapolitical terms, we are able to get a sense of its affective value for participants.

A slightly different example of a possibility model was presented by Slaytina (24, bisexual) who finds Amanda Lepore50 to be particularly influential. She writes on Facebook:

Before realising I was trans, Amanda Lepore was the most important symbol in my life.

She still is, but it’s a less pressing love and obsession than it was before I realised that I

could actually become that beautiful blonde bomb shell… She is everything I’ve always

wanted to be (see also Anna Nicole Smith) but for the longest time I didn’t know it was a

possibility for me. Thanks to my lunatic mother my earliest signs of gender dysphoria were

turned into conversations about weight loss and that was painted as the only way I would

ever be happy with my body when I actually wanted tits, blonde hair, big lips and SRS [sex

reassignment surgery].

Slaytina’s comments here reflect the work in Chapter Seven on the importance of LGBTQ celebrities for participants in positions of social isolation (such as before coming out). J. Cohen’s

(2001) extensive work on defining identification points to the particular importance that identification has on identity in young people and adolescents, drawing on Erikson (1968) and

Mead (1934) to note the ways in which emulating characteristics of others helps to build an adolescent’s own identity (as cited in J. Cohen, 2001). While Slaytina is not necessarily referring

50 Amanda Lepore is a transgender model, performance artist, and socialite well-known for being a former Club Kid and her extensive plastic surgery.

213 to her adolescence, she is referring to a time before her trans identity was fully realised. Her comments illustrate J. Cohen’s definition of identification, where the individual temporarily loses their own perspective in favour of the person or character they are identifying with (p. 261). That

Lepore was more important to Slaytina before she realised she was able to “become that beautiful blonde bomb shell” suggests that she was able to identify with Lepore and imagined

Lepore’s physical characteristics as her own, before they were a material reality. Lepore was a real

‘possibility model’ for Slaytina. Now that Slaytina has realised she is trans, she describes her relationship to Lepore as a “less pressing love and obsession”. Lepore became famous through more mainstream media channels, as one of the ‘freaks’ of Gamson’s (1998) work.51 She continues to move in LGBTQ nightlife subcultures, and so while her fame may have begun as a

‘freak’ on mainstream media, it continues to be micro in a niche sense.

Tilly similarly valued Lepore’s celebrity identity and glamour, noting that she’s ‘forgotten’ because she’s not verbally outspoken:

Tilly: So many people forget about Amanda Lepore as a trans woman, because she was

trans in the 90s and is fucking amazing, and is still out there doing her thing, and she’s not

ever really mentioned. It was because I feel like she wasn’t verbally outspoken.

Rhian: Yeah. Yeah.

Tilly: She was doing her thing. She was visible. But she never was really interested in

political things. She was just wanting to be herself.

Dani: Also, that was before social media.

Lucy: Does she have Instagram?

51 Gamson does not refer to Lepore specifically, but does refer to the club kid scene, of which Lepore was a part, and the role of transgender people on talk shows in the 1990s. Lepore featured as a guest on The Joan Rivers Show (1989-1993) alongside fellow club kids in 1993.

214 Tilly: Yeah. Her Instagram is sick.

Dani: So good.

For Tilly, Lepore presents a kind of possibility model of someone “out there doing her thing” but doesn’t generate much media coverage, existing now for Tilly and Dani (28, queer) largely on

Instagram. Here, ‘being yourself’ is something that is valued for Tilly, but not for the media who apparently ‘forgot’ her. While Lepore indeed garnered media attention in the 90s as a ‘freak’, a further appeal of many micro-celebrities lies in the way their existence within a fragmented media landscape means such celebrity is necessarily predicated on its evasion of much mainstream attention and thus bypass the gatekeepers of mainstream media. This then allows them to enact queerness in their own way, outside the terms prescribed by mainstream media, which typically adopts a conservative view toward many non-normative behaviours (Gorin &

Dubied, 2011). Matilda (22, queer), for example, told me:

I think that’s something I like a lot – people who are queer, and that’s who they are, and

they do their thing. They still seem to be most comfortable in queer spaces, but it’s never

controversial or anything. It’s almost like she’s [musician and actor/comedian Carrie

Brownstein] not a big enough a celebrity for that to be an issue, yeah. Which I have always

really – I get a lot out of people like that… [they’re not] under constant scrutiny.

Without external media gatekeepers, the micro-celebrity can find a wider freedom of behaviour and provide a ‘possibility model’ that isn’t criticised or seen as scandalous within contemporary mainstream media forms (as is the case with many of the celebrities discussed in Part One).

Micro-celebrities and the alternative media channels that mediate them are able to reposition what constitutes ‘controversial’ behaviour. What is seen to be normative and constitutive of

‘belonging’ is determined not by a mass public, but by a smaller, fragmented public of the micro-

215 celebrity audience. The normative fantasy of belonging to this intimate micro-public changes the sense of what constitutes the normative. Evading scrutiny and reinscribing what it means to belong was a sentiment shared across some groups. Dani spoke of her distaste of celebrity culture because of the scrutiny, and because it’s a “poisonous industry”, but she was able to see the value of celebrity that could bypass mainstream gatekeepers:

Tilly: I think celebrity media is really important for showing people –

Rhian: For representing minorities.

Tilly: Yeah. Exactly. And that’s why Instagram is so good…

Dani: That’s so true.

That this conversation happens again with regard to representation suggests the continuing fantasy of belonging that is brought about by the visibility of mediated queerness, even within a fragmented media environment.

Skuirrelmoose (47, queer) also saw the value in the ability for micro-celebrity to bypass media gatekeepers and thus perform versions of queerness not previously possible for celebrity. He argues that as a result of social media, we have broader representations of queerness. Using the example of Jordan Raskopoulos,52 he notes that she “never would’ve gotten onto anything ever” because of mainstream media’s reluctance to represent transgender people, but is able to access some degree of fame on new media platforms, providing visibility and the fantasy of belonging to a group of people that is typically denied that by mainstream media and the mass public.

52 Jordan Raskopoulos is a Sydney-based transgender singer and comedian.

216 Micro-celebrities often arose in discussion when I asked participants who they found to be personally influential. Brody’s (39, bisexual) “hero” is Fat Mike,53 because “he speaks to me. He really does. And he carves out a little queer space which I think is a fantastic one to be in… he makes me feel happier to be a part of the world.” Brody’s connection to Fat Mike is a political one as well as a queer one. In speaking about how Fat Mike inspires her, she discussed his vocalisation of “political issues”,54 as well as his involvement in kink communities. For Brody,

Fat Mike’s influence on her is as a result of the ways in which there is alignment with herself both politically and queerly. When answering the same question, Vern (28, queer) responded

“for me, I think Alok Vaid-Menon55 has all the answers”. Vern elaborated by explaining that they find Vaid-Menon’s writing a particularly useful tool when educating both themselves and others about queerness and gender. Vern explains that, often, situations Vaid-Menon has written about, such as misgendering, have occurred with them. By following Vaid-Menon on Instagram, Vern finds a media representation of experiences like their own.

Bypassing media gatekeepers allows greater access to the micro-celebrity, providing a higher level of intimacy through unfettered access via social media (Abidin, 2015; Marwick & boyd, 2011).

This greater sense of intimacy fuels the affective identifications with the micro-celebrity. For

Berlant (2008), the intimate public creates an affective scene of identification among strangers. In these examples, the micro-celebrity, through sharing their lives on social media, invites members of the intimate public to identify with their lives and their shared experiences. This identification was, for Beverly (26, gay), aspirational. He was “definitely more inclined” to follow a queer

Instagram personality, because he finds it encouraging “to see how well they can do”. In this instance, Beverly is referring to both personal and professional aspects of these celebrities’ lives.

53 Fat Mike is the lead singer of punk band NOFX. 54 Brody specifically mentioned NOFX’s anti-pharmaceutical companies song ‘Oxymoronic’, and their opposition to domestic violence and child sexual abuse as political issues. NOFX have also long opposed Republican politics, most notably George W. Bush’s presidency. 55 Alok Vaid-Menon is an Instagram personality, poet and LGBTQ activist.

217 He discusses the success of Troye Sivan’s56 musical career (and mainstream crossover success), and the ‘success’ of Cheyenne Jackson57 through his personal life, who frequently posts on

Instagram about raising his family with his partner, actor Jason Landau. For Beverly, watching the couple “sing Broadway songs to their kids while feeding them” was something he wasn’t able to consume anywhere else, and something he found aspirational, particularly because he saw it as proof that sexuality “doesn’t really have a negative impact anymore” – especially when it comes to his own intentions of raising a family – and presenting LGBTQ lifestyles in public. The cultivation of intimacy through Jackson’s Instagram provides a mediation of gay life that brings comfort to Beverly, an identification predicated on a normative fantasy of belonging. This fantasy operates within the broader public – Beverly doesn’t want his sexuality to have a negative impact on his life generally – but is produced through being part of a fragmented media audience rather than a mainstream media audience.

The greater access to intimate details of a micro-celebrity’s life is something Yvette (27, lesbian) also enjoyed. She and her partner watched a substantial number of lesbian YouTubers, who, according to her, use the platform to document their everyday lives. For Yvette, “these people aren’t celebrities. They’re not necessarily rich, they’re not movie stars or anything like that, so they feel like normal people, but normal people that are kind of interesting”. Yvette frames these vloggers as a kind of ‘possibility model’, as Tilly also mentions. Like Beverly, she also looks to these kinds of celebrities for models on raising children:

It’s interesting seeing these couples that are 29, or 30, and that could be us in a few years.

It’s just interesting seeing how they manage those things [parenting, getting pregnant]

56 Troye Sivan is an openly gay Australian musician who began his career as a YouTuber, though now enjoys more mainstream success. 57 Cheyenne Jackson is an openly gay Broadway actor with a substantial Instagram presence. In more recent years Jackson has also had minor roles in film and television.

218 because… when you’re a gay couple, there’s not an assumption of who’s going to carry

your children or how you’re going to have a baby.

These kinds of micro-celebrities are not read in the same way as traditional celebrities in that they are seen as more ‘real’, authentic, and relatable because of the greater sense of intimacy they communicate. They also present specific lifestyle models (queer parenting strategies) that participants like Beverly and Yvette are interested in, because of the relevance to their own lives, demonstrating the value of the fragmented media sphere in generating feelings of belonging that are harder to access in mainstream media forms.

Tina (27, lesbian/queer), Nik (33, gay), Carlos (28, bisexual) and John (26, homosexual) had an interesting conversation about empathy for micro-celebrities as compared to more traditional celebrities. Their conversation centred around Britney Spears’s mental breakdown, and Chris

Crocker’s58 famous “Leave Britney Alone” video on the subject. They all agreed they felt more empathy for Crocker than for Spears, because as Nik explains, “we can relate to Chris Crocker, we can’t relate to Britney Spears” because Crocker was more “real” than Britney, who Nik described as “untouchable”. Crocker is more real because he doesn’t have access to the same celebrity industry and system as mainstream celebrities, made apparent from the grainy, homemade quality of the YouTube video that catapulted him into fame. When Carlos asked if they would feel differently if Spears had created a similarly emotional, homemade video, Tina,

John and Nik all felt they wouldn’t. “It would feel hackneyed and put together,” says Nik. Here, micro-celebrities are afforded a greater degree of ‘authenticity’ because of the medium in which they operate, and the way in which YouTube is seen to bypass traditional celebrity industries and

58 Chris Crocker is an openly gay, gender non-conforming former YouTuber, Internet personality, and porn star, best known for his “Leave Britney Alone” video in 2007.

219 gatekeepers. The intimacy produced between micro-celebrity and consumer is not the only form of intimacy the micro-celebrity allows, as the next section demonstrates.

Micro-celebrity and multisocial interaction

Hills (2016) argues that the relationship a fan has to a celebrity underpins a variety of social interactions online, from seeking reciprocity from a celebrity figure to engaging in fan communities and fan-fan interactions. Hills is concerned with reconsidering the parasocial interaction, reframing it as ‘multisocial’ – multi-directional and multi-layered. Instead of simply being a connection from fan to celebrity (parasocial), this relationship connects fans to other fans, allowing for fan-fan interaction as well as fan-celebrity interaction. The multisocial interaction as a concept is concerned less with affective relations and more with social ones than

Redmond’s (2014, 2019) celebaesthetic, but both similarly allow for layers of connection that move beyond a simple, uneven fan-celebrity dynamic. Hills suggests that celebrities enable communities of people to communicate and connect over a shared devotion for that celebrity among fan communities. In his previous work on fans (2006), Hills labels the celebrities within these fandoms as ‘subcultural’ in the sense that they are famous particularly among the fan subculture. The celebrities discussed among fan communities, therefore, can be considered micro-celebrities in the way that they are famous on a micro scale, for a niche group of people, or subculture. The multisocial interaction, while primarily social, could be considered a form of interaction within the intimate public of LGBTQ fan consumers, as these consumers are connected by both an affective identification with a celebrity, and their shared worldview as

LGBTQ people.

I conducted one focus group that reflected this multisocial fan community. Emma (32, bisexual),

Angela (31, lesbian), and Amber (39, lesbian) met in an online fan community for TV series The

220 100 (2014-), where they would discuss the same-sex relationship between the two lead characters, Clark and Lexa (colloquially known as Clexa). The group were planning a trip to

Clexacon, a queer fan convention in Las Vegas featuring a range of writers, directors and actresses discussing queer representation. The celebrities we discussed were largely the actresses that play these LGBTQ television characters, and were thus most well-known in these subcultural LGBTQ fan communities, ‘micro-celebrities’ in the micro or niche sense.59 Emma,

Angela and Amber were fans of celebrities such as Eliza Taylor (the actress who plays Clark) initially because of her career, but the ongoing interest in her as a celebrity stems from the multisocial interactions afforded within their fan community, and the sense of belonging to this intimate public these interactions produce. Amber mentioned that before the show’s popularity took off, she had “exchanges with the actresses” on Twitter, reflecting the more symmetrical celebrity-fan relationship that is characteristic of the micro-celebrity. Such exchanges had become harder now that the actresses’ followers have increased, and the celebrity-fan relationship accordingly more ‘uneven’, but she notices when these celebrities favourite a fan tweet, and continues to join in conversations online with other fans, attend meet ups and conventions the celebrities participate in, and views the live web podcasts after every episode airs. It is both the enjoyment of the LGBTQ television series and characters, as well as the opportunity for multisocial interaction within this fan community that is so valuable to Emma,

Angela, and Amber. These multisocial interactions produce an explicit form of belonging through connection to the celebrity and to each other.

The opportunity for interaction was a big drawcard for micro-celebrities, indicating the heightened sense of intimacy micro-celebrities allow through their more symmetrical celebrity-

59 While many of the actors that play these characters do not personally identify as LGBTQ, they are included in this chapter because it is relationship to explicit representation of LGBTQ life – through their portrayals of these characters, and the associated queer fan convention – that make them important to these fans.

221 fan relationship. Because they enjoy celebrity on a smaller scale, and were perceived as more

‘authentic’, they were therefore often discussed in terms of the potential for interaction, through both online interaction, as Amber detailed, and other forms of interaction as well. Several participants would make mention of incidents where they had interacted with a micro-celebrity – whether that was a tweet, an interaction at a party, or something else. According to Emily (32, queer), this sort of interaction is made more possible with queer celebrities because of the community connection:

Emily: I think there’s always this lovely belief in queerdom that you’re, probably, only five

make-out links away from a really famous queer person.

Vern: So, Amanda Palmer60 stuck her tit in my mouth one time, and she’s made out with

Margaret Cho,61 so that’s a pretty small link.

Emily: That’s a really close connection…

Slaytina: And I’ve made out with you [Vern].

Emily: And I’ve made out with you [Vern]… So, we are all one tit away from Margaret

Cho!

This exchange suggests the [perceived] intimacy of a transnational queer community, and measures this intimacy through degrees of separation from queer celebrity. Here, celebrity acts as a way that Vern, Emily, and Slaytina measure intimacy within their community, through connecting themselves to celebrity via intimate interactions with others in the “queerdom”. The connectedness of the transnational queer community (via “make-out links”, perceived or real) suggests its formation as intimate public where members share emotional (and possibly, in this example, physical) contact, and a shared worldview, as well as a desire for belonging. The

60 Amanda Palmer is an openly bisexual American singer. 61 Margaret Cho is an openly bisexual American comedian.

222 perceived intimacy of the micro-celebrity and its place within an intimate micro-public allows for such a sense of belonging.

Ferris (2016) proposes the concept of the local celebrity, as the person with a form of celebrity status within a close-knit geographical community. The local celebrity is easier for audiences to interact with, which alters (and lessens) the asymmetry that we typically associate with fan- celebrity interactions. The local celebrity is similar to the micro-celebrity defined as a celebrity on a micro scale. As Warren (26, queer) said in his discussion with Carol (26, lesbian):

Warren: I would even go so far as to call, like, some queer people in the community

celebrities.

Carol: Like the DJs and stuff?

Warren: No. Like, just people. Like I remember a couple of years ago, in Sydney, when

there was this hot couple who lived here. Friends like, three people removed. And they

were just really active on the party scene. Not necessarily DJs, but they just were known.

Carol: Yeah.

Warren: And I was like, “Oh my god, they’re so cool,” and I found myself fanning over

these people. Who are just people. One of them worked in community services. The other

one was like a nurse, or something, and that was – they were just a couple, who were cool

as. They were just really cool. I just wanted to be friends with them so hard.

Lucy: So they were people who you kind of admire from afar.

Warren: Yeah.

By seeing these people at queer social events on a regular basis, but without having any personal connection, Warren therefore applies the celebrity label to these people. When considering

Boorstin’s (1971) long heralded definition of celebrity as someone who is “well-known for their

223 well-knownness” (p. 58) the label makes sense in the context of a local queer community, because these people are only known to Warren because of their well-knownness at this micro scale. George (33, gay) had a similar perspective on members of her local queer community:

George: I used to follow Lotte [Barnes]62 because I just really dug her style, what she wore,

and her tattoos and everything, and then I met her, and if anything the facade was a little

bit ruined, because I used to think, oh, this girl’s so cool, and then I met her and she’s just,

she’s nice, she’s lovely–

Anne: But she’s just a person?

George: Yeah! And it’s weird when you follow someone, and you see them out [at a party

or social event], and you feel like you know them because you follow them and you see

everything they do… but you don’t know them. Don’t say hello, they don’t know who you

are... I get way more obsessed with people who are a little bit insta-famous than I would a

celebrity usually. Someone who’s almost accessible to my life, and they’re just another

normal person, but what they do in their life, and the way they present their life is so

attractive and cool that people want to follow them, that to me seems way more interesting

than following a celebrity.

George articulates the asymmetry of the interaction with Instagram personalities, demonstrating the way in which social media has made strategies of celebrity accessible to a wider group of people, therefore allowing a wider group of ‘ordinary’ people to engage in asymmetrical

‘celebrity-fan’ interactions (Ferris, 2016; Marwick, 2013b). By curating an online presence that makes these figures desirable to George, they establish a façade of extraordinariness, like

62 Lotte Barnes is an Instagram user with nearly 9000 followers. In this sense, she could be considered an achieved micro-celebrity, because of her use of celebrity strategies in order to construct an online persona (Marwick, 2013b).

224 celebrities, only to have that shattered when George meets them and discovers “she’s just a person”, when the interaction moves from parasocial to social. This exchange with George demonstrates that the ordinary vs extraordinary paradox evident within mainstream celebrity culture can be similarly created and experienced through social media micro-celebrity strategies.

Here, the appeal of this kind of figure to George is that an asymmetrical relationship exists, but it is far more symmetrical than a typical fan-celebrity interaction, placing them somewhere on the micro-celebrity continuum of achieved to ascribed and allowing for a greater sense of intimacy than a more asymmetrical relationship (Abidin, 2015; Ferris, 2016; Marwick, 2013b). The same could be said of Warren’s desire for a friendship with the ‘celebrities’ in his community. While

Warren does not admit to engaging with these figures, his desire for interaction and intimacy is demonstrated by the fact that he wanted to be friends with them, but the asymmetrical nature of their relationship was apparent through the way Warren “fanned” over them, producing a parasocial interaction, rather than a social one. He acknowledges that they were “really cool” and

“known” (extraordinary) but simultaneously “just people” (ordinary). Because social media allows the mediation of ordinary figures, the ‘texts’ of the intimate public expand to include such

‘ordinary’ figures, and the intimate public fragments into many intimate publics such as

Instagram followers, or people at a party. In both examples, a sense of belonging is heightened because the reduced asymmetry of the celebrity-fan relationship means that these ‘celebrities’ are far more relatable than those with a more asymmetrical fan-celebrity dynamic, and the potential for social interaction is far more possible, even if it is not realised. This belonging is further heightened by the tailored nature of the fragmented intimate public as immediately local.

Recall that micro-celebrity is two things: being famous on a small scale, and the practice of celebrity, including presentational techniques drawn from ‘traditional’ celebrity, among everyday people and interactions, especially on social media platforms (Marwick, 2013b; Marwick & boyd,

2011; Senft, 2008). Indeed, in coining the term, Senft (2008) noted that the micro-celebrity

225 involves “a new style of online performance that involves people ‘amping up’ their popularity over the Web using technologies like videos, blogs, and social networking sites” (p. 25). The last part of this chapter will consider the adoption of micro-celebrity strategies by participants, most notably Tilly, to examine how these strategies of presentation of the self operate within an intimate micro-public.

Micro-celebrity strategies: Tilly

Tilly posts photos of herself with personal captions on Instagram, largely about her queerness, feminism, and her sex work, and has garnered a substantial following for doing so. At the time of writing, Tilly has approximately 30,000 followers on Instagram, and was able to recognise her micro-celebrity practices because of how she was received. During her focus group, we discussed her celebrity status:

Tilly: I’ve had quite a few things that have happened recently where people think I am –

it’s almost as if I’m this idea that exists.

Lucy: Not a real person?

Tilly: Not a person.

Dani: What was that comment – “Are you from the Internet?”

Tilly: Yeah. I met someone in Melbourne and they were like “Are you from the Internet?”

Well, I exist in person too.

Dani: It’s so weird. I think it’s the same thing with famous people. They think it’s some

random idea. Not a person. You see photos of them, but you don’t see them in person, so

you’re no longer a person.

Rhian: Once you’re famous you’re fair game for people to say whatever they want about

you.

226 Tilly: I read this really good quote, “There are two ways to dehumanise someone. By

saying derogatory things about them, and degrading them, and there’s by worshipping

them”. That is another way to dehumanise someone, because you don’t see them as a

person anymore.

Dani: Yeah. That’s really true.

Tilly: That’s what people do with celebrities. They forget it’s actually a person with feelings

behind everything that happens – everything they see in the media. That is why I like

Instagram, because it reminds you the person is a person, because like you they have an

Instagram account. Like you, they post about their feelings.

While celebrity strategies can be employed by anyone, the example of Tilly suggests that it isn’t until these celebrity strategies are read by others that they are perceived as celebrity. Any individual can present their private lives and confessional style authenticity on Instagram, but it isn’t until a substantial following reads these strategies that the individual is celebrified, by moving them along the continuum from achieved to ascribed. For Tilly, that celebrification comes from being recognised in the street, and treated as an ‘idea’ rather than a person. This correlates to the perspective expressed earlier by George and Warren, who admit to seeing personalities as more than a person – because the realisation they are “just” people came as something of a shock. The mediation of the person into a micro-celebrity turns them into a text, which in turn circulates through the intimate micro-public. It is the asymmetry of the fan- celebrity relationship that produces this kind of mediation from ‘person’ to ‘idea’ (or text). Thus, the celebrity is only produced when read as such. When I asked Tilly directly if she would consider herself a celebrity, we had this conversation:

Lucy: Do you think Tilly would count as a celebrity?

Tilly: I don’t think I count as a celebrity, no.

227 Rhian: I would say, actually, yes, if you’re engaged in the area that you’re being politically active about. I feel like a lot of people would think of – especially amongst Sydney and

Melbourne – would think of you as synonymous with sex work in their head, because you’re the most outspoken about it. You’re in heaps of publications, you’ve done heaps of interviews, you’ve been on the ABC. A lot of people – yeah.

Tilly: I don’t know.

…

Dani: What makes you a celebrity exactly?

Tilly: Exactly. I don’t know… I’m going to Google the definition of celebrity.

Rhian: I feel like a celebrity is being well-known.

Dani: But by how many people, you know?

Rhian: But I also think – I think you’re a celebrity in your own right, because I do think that you are synonymous for something [sex work], and a lot of people would think of you as that.

Tilly: There are two definitions.

Rhian: For example, I was at that picnic not long ago, a conversation came up about sex work, and all of these girls were like, pretty basic straight girls, and they started talking about what they thought about sex work, and one of them goes, “I follow a sex worker on

Instagram – her name is Tilly”, and I just let the conversation unfold. Girls who you don’t know who don’t know anything about sex work, when sex work is mentioned, they think of you.

Tilly: A celebrity definition is “A famous person, especially in entertainment or sport”. I always forget about sporting celebrities.

Rhian: Yeah. Totally.

Tilly: The other definition is “The state of being well-known”.

Rhian: I think that’s you.

228 Dani: That’s it.

Tilly: I don’t know.

Dani: But that’s the thing – by how many people?

Like Turner (2016), Dani is particularly concerned by the question of scale: how many people does one need to be well-known by to be considered a celebrity? For Rhian, it is the fact that

Tilly is recognised by people outside of her queer, feminist, sex worker niche – “pretty basic straight girls” – that elevates her celebrity status, although Ferris (2016) or Hills (2006) would suggest that it is sufficient that Tilly is well-known within the niche to be considered a local or micro-celebrity. Rhian’s attachment to traditional media gatekeepers in creating celebrity suggests this kind of elevation is required: she emphasises the fact that Tilly has been on the ABC as proof of her celebrity status, which is not unlike Marwick’s (2013b) suggestion that ascribed micro-celebrity enjoys coverage within more mainstream forms of celebrity media. While Tilly doesn’t consider herself a celebrity (perhaps because of her inability to see herself as anything other than a person), she does see the way she has been ‘celebrified’ through being recognised on the street, or treated as an idea. This conversation demonstrates the definitional tension the word celebrity has, particularly in the age of social media, where the shift from traditional media gatekeepers and celebrity industries to a fragmented, user-oriented landscape where everyday people adopt celebrity strategies has meant a change in the scale of celebrity, as well as a shift toward the ‘ordinary’ in the ordinary/extraordinary celebrity dynamic, producing the opportunity for the fragmented intimate micro-public of the micro-celebrity, and the continuum of micro- celebrity (Marwick, 2013b). The example of Tilly as micro-celebrity presents the way participants of this study reflect both sides of the celebrity-fan relationship and therefore both participate in, and produce, intimate micro-publics.

229 Conclusion

This chapter has considered the role of the micro-celebrity, who has typically bypassed traditional celebrity industries, in LGBTQ consumption of celebrity media. The fragmentation of the media landscape and the growth of user-oriented media has changed the possibilities of who can be considered a celebrity, and has produced multiple intimate micro-publics that allow for different modes of belonging and affective sites of identification. While the micro-celebrity continues to produce an intimate public that is predicated on a normative fantasy of belonging, this form of belonging is reduced to a smaller context within the intimate micro-public. This chapter has also considered the notion of celebrity as practice, and uses Tilly to discuss how micro-celebrity strategies are understood by those who practice them, ultimately finding that when it comes to celebrity as practice, participants may rely on external judges to determine celebrity status, whether that is through an audience response, or, like Rhian, recognition by media gatekeepers, or in the case of George and Warren, the production of a parasocial interaction in lieu of, or before, a social interaction. The micro-celebrity is therefore a presentation of mediated intimacy, and is thus able to circulate within an intimate micro-public of readers of that persona.

230 Chapter Nine

“It was nice for me watching that, because she was very calming”: Affective responses to

celebrity marriage equality activism

This chapter develops the work on explicit representation of LGBTQ life in celebrity media, with an overtly political focus by studying a specific case: that of the involvement by celebrities in marriage equality activism. Same-sex marriage became legal in Australia in December 2017, after a protracted campaign, and a controversial postal survey on the topic. In January 2019, a study published in Australian Psychologist confirmed what many LGBTQ Australians, media practitioners, and doctors had long suspected: the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey of

2017 had caused elevated levels of psychological distress among lesbian, gay and bisexual

Australians (Verrelli, White, Harvey & Pulciani, 2019). What role might celebrity activism have had in these levels of distress, or perhaps in their alleviation? This chapter will analyse the responses participants had to celebrity involvement in the marriage equality campaign, focusing especially on the positive and negative affects experienced during the campaign, and the role of

Australian actor Magda Szubanski,63 as well as briefly the role of Israel Folau.64 While Folau does not identify as LGBTQ, this chapter includes an analysis of participant responses to his activism, because it involves the explicit mediation of LGBTQ life, and therefore reflects explicit media representation of LGBTQ identities.

63 Magda Szubanski is an Australian actor and comedian, best known for her roles as Sharon Strzelecki in the acclaimed Australian comedy series Kath and Kim (2002–2007) and Esme Hoggett in the award- winning film Babe (1995). She rose to prominence in Australia as a cast member of the popular sketch comedy series Fast Forward (1989–1992). Szubanski was rated Australia’s most-recognised and best-liked television personality in 2003 and 2004 according to Audience Development Australia’s Q-scores report, and has been a household name since (Lallo, 2017). 64 Israel Folau is a rugby union player who was a vocal opponent of marriage equality during the postal survey, and received substantial media coverage for his views.

231 Marriage equality is an apt campaign to consider the affective response to political activism.

Berlant (1997) argues that the US political public sphere has become an intimate public sphere through its focus on private forms of citizenship, of which marriage is a classic example. That access to equal citizenship is determined by rights to marriage reflects the infiltration of the intimate and affective into the political. Following on from Berlant’s work on sex and citizenship, I argue that instead of seeking tangible, quantifiable results for the impact of celebrity activism, as has been the subject of much scholarly work on celebrity advocacy, we should be focusing on how celebrity involvement affects the subjects of such activism. This chapter argues that the affective value of celebrity advocacy has been overlooked in scholarship that favours the traditional paradigm of celebrity politics (Wheeler, 2013), despite the fact that celebrity politics “trades and traffics in the representation of ‘authentic’ emotion”, and therefore should be read affectively (Redmond, 2019, p. 58; Kellner, 2008).

Szubanski is significant as a queer celebrity case study because her prominence in the campaign during this time made her a regular topic of conversation amongst my participants. Szubanski came out on Valentine’s Day 2012, in a statement made specifically to draw attention to the importance of marriage equality. At the time, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that “Szubanski said she chose to come out on Valentine’s Day because ‘we live in a democracy and one in 10 people, which is the number of gay people, are not represented equally’” (K. Quinn, 2012, para.

8). In a report published the day the postal survey results were released, marriage equality advocates described Szubanski’s role in the campaign since her coming out 5 years earlier as

“invaluable” and “devastatingly effective” because of her ability to be personable to a wide array of Australian audiences (Lallo, 2017, para. 5). Szubanski, as a prominent television personality whose persona has been tied to marriage equality activism for many years, provides a rich example from which to assess the affective value of such activism.

232 The Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey

After years of deliberation and inaction around marriage equality, the conservative Liberal and

National Party Coalition, under the leadership of Tony Abbott announced its intentions for a plebiscite (a non-binding, compulsory vote) on the topic in 2015, a policy it took to the 2016

Federal election, which the party subsequently won. The government’s plebiscite followed the political format of this issue established by Ireland, where a referendum on same-sex marriage was held – and returned a victory for marriage equality advocates – in 2015. After two failed attempts to pass legislation on the plebiscite in the Senate, in 2017 the government announced its intentions to hold an optional marriage law ‘survey’, to be conducted via post, asking all citizens to have their say, rather than be represented by their local member. This allowed new forms of political engagement by celebrities, ones that the traditional paradigm of celebrity advocacy has not considered. It also provided an opportunity to hear the voices of the LGBTQ community about their responses to these new forms of celebrity activism.

The focus groups were conducted both before the postal survey was announced and the plebiscite was still notional, and also during the survey period as well as immediately after results were announced. Prior to the survey, participants seemed universally positive about the involvement of celebrities in marriage equality campaigns, applauding the work of Kylie

Minogue, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Margot Robbie, and the Veronicas – however small their contribution. Carol (26, lesbian) argued that Minogue and Robbie wearing shirts in favour of marriage equality was “one tiny little thing they can do… and it will make a difference.”

Statements of approval were generally less emotive than those during and after the survey. This conversation between Romeo (24, gay), Rory (30, gay), Rosie (32, bisexual) and Rudiger (32, lesbian) demonstrates the kind of discussion that occurred prior to the reality of the postal survey:

233 Lucy: Do you see many Australian celebrities endorsing anyone for the [federal] election?

Rory: They all know they’re absolutely useless.

Romeo: Do we have celebrities that are that influential here?

Rory: Kylie Minogue’s done the “Say I do Down Under” campaign with her husband. I

know they’re not married yet.

Romeo: Her fiancée.

Lucy: And Ian Thorpe65 is on that too.

Rory: Yeah.

Rosie: I guess Penny Wong66 has taken on that kind of celebrity thing in the queer

women’s community.

Romeo: She’s not celebrity, she’s status politics, I guess.

Rudiger: She’s becoming a celebrity.

Rory: She was on Have You Been Paying Attention? the other night.

Romeo: She’s great.

Rudiger: If we’re going in that direction, we could say Magda Szubanski as well.

Rosie: Oh yeah.

Rudiger: She’s an Australian celeb.

Romeo: Isn’t she a legend? Such a legend.

Romeo: And using her book and her work now for queer messages.

Rudiger: Yeah. That’s true.

In this conversation, campaigns are discussed in general terms, with celebrities like politician

Penny Wong and actor Szubanski labelled as “great” and “a legend”. After a question about

65 Ian Thorpe is an Australian swimmer who rose to prominence during the Sydney 2000 Olympics, and publicly came out in 2014. 66 Penny Wong is an openly gay Australian senator and member of the Australian Labor Party, representing South Australia in the Senate since 2002.

234 general elections, conversation turned immediately to the marriage equality campaign “Say I Do

Down Under” which suggests the kind of political context participants were situated within at the time.

Copland (2018) suggests that discourse surrounding the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey was intensely focused on the negative effects the debate had on LGBTIQ Australians, without a similar focus on the potential positive effects. The result, he argues, was that the debate focused on the vulnerability of the LGBTIQ population, reifying the “wounded attachment” of identities and identity politics to its subordination (Brown, 1993). Copland suggests this discourse of vulnerability was especially established by advocates for marriage equality – by raising fears that the postal survey would unleash bigotry and increase youth suicide (p. 262). He argues that by focusing on the vulnerability of this population, chances for solidarity and social cohesion were compromised, and as a result, limited the possibility for other productive outcomes of the postal survey. This narrative of vulnerability, however, was certainly present within the conversations held with participants about celebrity involvement.

Participants said they drew comfort from the involvement of celebrities in the campaign. Lou

(27, gay) and Beverly (26, gay) described the potential involvement of international celebrities as

‘validating’, ‘reaffirming’, ‘empowering’:

Lucy: And for you personally, does [celebrities getting involved] have much of an impact?

Beverly: Like what celebrities say?

Lucy: Not in changing your mind but in like, seeing the John Oliver thing,67 was that like...

Lou: Oh it made me feel good about myself, yeah.

67 John Oliver is the host of US talk show Last Week Tonight (2014-), and he ridiculed the ‘pointless’ postal survey on his program in October 2018.

235 Beverly: Yeah, it was empowering in a way, to know that the situation is being seen over

there.

Lou: Yeah.

Lucy: And if you had more queer icons from overseas talking about it?

Lou: Definitely, I think that would’ve made me feel, like they’ve already been through all

this, so like, it would’ve been nice to hear maybe Ellen, did she do anything about it?

Beverly: Oh, she tweeted, but–

Lou: Okay.

Beverly: She should’ve done a statement, I think.

Lou: Yeah, so it would’ve been nice to just hear more from people overseas. But, I mean,

it’s not their responsibility I guess, it just would’ve just been something that would have

been really reaffirming, and would have made me appreciate them more, I guess.

This conversation echoes Draper’s (2017) findings that participants in his study about the role of divas in the gay community had an expectation that divas give back to that community. Here,

Lou suggests that international celebrities could have done more, which in turn would have made him appreciate them more. That they’ve “been through all this” implies a sense of collective solidarity in a difficult situation, reinforced by his assertion that he would have been

“reaffirmed” by their messages of support. The discussion about international celebrities stemmed from a conversation about the lack of Australian celebrities that Beverly and Lou liked getting involved in the campaign: “There aren’t many gay Australian celebrities, like at all, really, except for all the blonde comedians like Josh Thomas and Joel Creasey68 and they all make me want to kill myself,” said Beverly. There is an affective relationship with celebrity here, evidenced

68 Josh Thomas and Joel Creasey are both openly gay Australian comedians. Thomas is especially well- known for his television program, Please Like Me (2013-2016). Creasey is also a television personality, known for his regular television appearances and hosting of Australia’s coverage of Eurovision, and the televised coverage of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

236 in the strong bodily reaction Beverly has to these celebrities. The affective response is clear in other conversations as well, such as this dialogue between Arlo (23, gay) and Scarlet (23, bisexual):

Lucy: Did you see much involvement of celebrities in the postal survey and how did that

make you feel?

Arlo: Yeah. Actually, it was there, so you’d see Kylie Minogue I suppose vote yes. But I

actually think there was obviously instances of it, like Ellen [DeGeneres] celebrating it, etc.

But the reality of it is because so much of our celebrity culture is imported, and this was an

issue directly affecting Australia, no, I do not think it was a huge part of the postal survey.

Nothing really comes to mind re: celebrity involvement, apart from the Veronicas69

speaking at a marriage equality rally.

Scarlet: There was Magda.

Arlo: Yeah. Magda on Q&A.70

Scarlet: She was pretty good, though. I thought she was good. She’s the only one I can

think of apart from people like Ellen celebrating it, but that was after the fact. When the

actual bad stuff was going on, I can’t think of any. I’m sure people did, but I mean, with

the Magda thing, it was quite good because she is very well spoken and appeals to straight

people. So I think even my parents heard about the Q&A thing. It was nice for me

watching that, because she was very calming... And also the fact that she did say – when

there was the Anglican archbishop guy on the panel, and she actually said to him, I would

really like to be married in the church but I can’t and I’m not asking you to have anything

to do with that. That was quite good for me to hear, because I was brought up in a very

69 The Veronicas are an Australian pop duo, consisting of twin sisters Lisa and Jessica Origliasso. The pair have been vocal supporters of same-sex marriage in Australia and the US since 2009. 70 Q&A (2008-) is a news and current affairs talk show program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

237 religious family. My dad’s very strict Catholic. I have the same wish as well. It’s not really

very radical of me but I would love to get married to a girl in the Catholic church. And

maybe that will happen in my lifetime, who knows, but it’s not really talked about much

among the gay community.

Because very rightly so, a lot of gay people have negative associations with religion. So

yeah, it’s not a huge deal, but it was nice to hear that.

Lucy: So seeing Magda present a perspective that you hadn’t really seen much of, but

could relate to. And it made you feel calm, you said.

Scarlet: Yeah. I think she was just quite chill about the whole thing. It was like, yeah, okay,

it’s all gonna be okay. It was reassuring.

What interests me here is Scarlet’s response to Szubanski’s involvement in the campaign. Scarlet felt “calmed” as Szubanski appealed to audiences “when the actual bad stuff was going on”, indicating her awareness of the narrative of vulnerability created by marriage equality advocates.

This suggests at the very least a personal, affective value in Szubanski’s activism through its ability to bring Scarlet some comfort. Other participants spoke of Szubanski’s work on the campaign situating it within the traditional paradigm. For example, Alexis (44, bisexual) thought that she “helped the ‘yes’ vote in a very positive way,” but there were several affective responses to Szubanski’s involvement. As an example, I had this conversation with Yvette (27, lesbian):

Lucy: Have you seen much, recently, about celebrities being involved in the postal survey?

Yvette: Yeah, yeah, I feel like there was a lot of stuff, and especially like certain Australian

celebrities in particular, people like Magda Szubanski were really publicly behind the push,

very vocal.

Lucy: And what is the role of Magda in that kind of campaign, as an example?

238 Yvette: I thought it was interesting. With something like the plebiscite, you have so many

emotions about because it’s obviously a very frustrating exercise that we even had to go

through that. I know I live in a bubble, and so I feel like, for a lot of people, somebody

like her, or other celebrities, might be the only gay people they know of. So when I see

things like that, I’m really grateful. I have read Magda’s autobiography and having read

that, I know what a huge deal it was for her to support that because even relatively recently

when she was in the closet and she still was dealing with a lot of self-hatred for being gay.

So to see her doing that, and knowing okay that must be really tough for you. She talked

about when she came out and when she came out in support of marriage equality what a

humongous deal it was, and so I guess I feel grateful that people like that are willing to

stand up and use their voice for good.

Yvette is concerned with both her own response to Szubanski’s campaigning, as well as the personal cost of Szubanski’s efforts. This is illustrative of the kind of parasocial interaction audiences have with celebrities, but also of the emotional nature of such interactions. Yvette feels “grateful” for Szubanski’s efforts, and is able to empathise with her, even switching the point of view of her conversation to second person, as though speaking directly to Szubanksi

(“that must be really tough for you”). Here, the parasocial interaction becomes an affective mode of engagement with marriage equality celebrity activism, through empathy. A further example is demonstrated in my conversation with An (24, bicurious):

Lucy: Did you see many celebrities involved in the Australian campaign?

An: The only thing I remember is Magda. I think towards the mid-end of the– they kind of

just took pictures of her crying. I knew her because I remember her from Babe. That’s the

only place I remember her from. If I don’t know that celebrity, I won’t remember. All I

239 know is that a lot of celebrities most likely would’ve said something about the marriage

equality campaign.

…

Lucy: How does that make you feel?

An: It makes me feel great. Someone else is on – agreeing with me. I find that even if that

person was not a celebrity, because you know how during the ‘yes’ campaign they have

people who were just normal people saying, oh, I am a lesbian, sharing their stories. Even

that, I was happy about. It’s the same joy when I hear celebrities supporting marriage

equality.

Lucy: Nice to see that you’re not alone. You’re part of a momentum?

An: Yeah, exactly. And also it really enforces the idea that I’m not abnormal for thinking a

certain way.

An’s response here highlights a key aspect of the everyday relationship to celebrity culture. An only knows Szubanski from her film Babe (1995), but is able to recall the images of her crying during the postal survey. An’s reaction is fleeting, and only able to be recalled through an emotional image. But Szubanski still brings comfort by making An feel “not abnormal,” part of a group. An, Scarlet and Yvette’s responses collectively suggest some element of “comfort”, which

Ahmed (2014) discusses at length. For Ahmed, comfort is the feeling of “fitting”, a feeling regularly denied to queer people, and a feeling invisible to those who have it (p. 148). To be able to notice a transition from discomfort to comfort is reflective of an experience outside of heteronormativity. For Ahmed, as for many others, including Butler (2002) and Sullivan (1995), movements that seek to produce homonormativity, to include homosexuality within heteronormativity – like marriage equality – only serve to create further discomfort as it becomes apparent how “almost normal, but not quite” homosexual people are (Ahmed, 2014, p. 149).

Ultimately, Ahmed argues for the political value of existing in discomfort: “Discomfort is hence

240 not about assimilation or resistance, but about inhabiting norms differently…Queer feelings are

‘affected’ by the repetition of the scripts that they fail to reproduce, and this ‘affect’ is also a sign of what queer can do, of how it can work by working on the (hetero)normative” (Ahmed, 2014,

(p. 155, emphasis in original). The value of Szubanski’s activism, apart from bringing a form of comfort to some participants – similar to the comfort that Griffin (2016) suggests is provided by representational media and the feelings of belonging such media produces – also exists in creating an awareness of these feelings of comfort/discomfort. Indeed, some of the participants derived no comfort at all from Szubanski’s activism, with some expressly feeling discomfort at the homonormativity of the campaign and Szubanski’s involvement, as Ahmed suggests. This conversation between Peggy (25, queer), Kitt (28, queer) and Jezebel (32, queer) is reflective of some of these tensions between comfort and discomfort:

Peggy: Going back to the postal survey, obviously I wasn’t swayed by celebrity opinion

because I’ve been – you know, my opinion was very much established on that. I want the

right to marry whoever I want regardless of gender. But seeing celebrities and people I

respected come out in favour of marriage equality, whether they were queer themselves or

just decent people, was validating. There was something very powerful about, there’s this

person that I respect and they respect my identity.

They don’t know me as an individual, they don’t have any opinion on me, but they respect

my identity. And that was a very powerful thing for me.

Kitt: Yeah, definitely.

Jezebel: I disagree. It made absolutely no fucking difference to me. Whether it was a

celebrity endorsement, whether I thought I was valid or not, or whether my relationships

were valid or not. It made less than zero difference for me. If anything, I actually became

angrier about it, because I’m like, why didn’t you do something earlier? Why are you now

jumping onto the rainbow flag-waving bandwagon? Where were you when blah?

241 I actually felt really different about it. I was angry. You know, I understand particular

celebrities – obviously the first I can think of is Magda, who came out during this whole

horrific process. I applaud her courage for that. But anybody else who was just like, oh,

look at me and my safe heterosexual marriage, oh yeah, my best friend is gay, I want you

to be happy too. Fuck you. I don’t need your condescension.

Peggy: I had a similar reaction to some people, like Mia Freedman.71

Kitt: Let’s not get started.

Peggy: The let’s show our rings thing. Fuck you. That was the most tone-deaf thing you

can possibly ever do. Not a fan of Mia Freedman on any level. With that, I cracked the

shits. But with other celebrities, I apologise, I can’t think of a single example, but it was

nice to see, hey, there’s this person out there that I respect and, you know, they’re decent.

And they see the world the same way I do. That was empowering.

This conversation began in a similar way to previous conversations, suggesting that celebrity involvement resulted in positive emotions like validation, and therefore ‘comfort’, but Jezebel’s passionate disagreement and anger here demonstrates a discomfort with the heterosexual institution of marriage, and celebrities “jumping onto the rainbow flag-waving bandwagon”.

While there is a parasocial affinity with Szubanski – referring to her by her first name, expressing empathy for her courage – her dislike of other celebrities getting involved, her feeling of being condescended to, suggests an awareness of difference, or not fitting, that Ahmed (2014) writes of. A similar feeling of discomfort is articulated in a different way by Lee (42, queer) and James

(37, queer):

71 Mia Freedman is an Australian journalist and founder of women’s website Mamamia. She courted controversy during the postal survey for initiating a campaign on Twitter that encouraged married women to display their wedding rings in a show of solidarity, using the hashtag #married4marriageequality.

242 James: I think she’s [Magda Szubanski’s] a good example of somebody who is going, okay,

well I’m a public figure who’s out. I’ve got to use that wisely. I won’t just sit back and not

do anything, you know? And I suppose there’s a bit of a thing in the queer community

about that. About, like, wanting public figures who are out to do a good job of being

advocates and representing the community and stuff like that. So I do have a bit of a soft

spot for that kind of thing.

Lucy: Do you think gay celebrities have a responsibility to be that kind of advocate person

that Magda is?

James: I used to think that, but then I felt really bad for Ian Thorpe about all of the

homophobia that got directed at him. And he was just a kid who was a good swimmer

who won a few medals. You know? This is old news now. It’s probably ten years ago or

something. But going, you know, you’re a sell-out who should’ve used your public persona

for–

Lee: I saw an interview with him recently. He explained what it was like for him and it

sounded intense. He was so young. To get that kind of pressure. I feel like it’s as much

pressure on any human being to, like – to link what is personally impressing you and feel

like all of our oppression is linked, and want something different. I’ve got lots of friends

that are totally not political or interested in any of that. And it’s okay too, you know?

James begins the conversation by suggesting his ‘soft spot’ for the work that celebrities like

Szubanski do, yet continues by empathising with the pain experienced by Ian Thorpe. The fact that James feels ‘bad’ suggests a sense of discomfort, particularly as the source of the feeling is homophobia. Ahmed’s queer feeling of difference, and discomfort, is present here. Similarly, Lee describes their reaction to the “pressure” on Thorpe as “intense”. These words have a particular weight to them, suggestive of discomfort. In this conversation, while James might derive pleasure from Szubanski’s advocacy, the two feel a sense of discomfort at expecting a celebrity to

243 engage in advocacy because of its potential to bring harm, like homophobia. The notion of celebrity advocacy carries with it queer feelings of comfort and discomfort, which are especially articulated through an empathic affinity where James “felt” for Thorpe, and Lee describes their oppression as “linked”. Later in our conversation, when I asked specifically about the postal survey, I was intrigued by Lee’s response:

Lucy: Do you think – still talking about political stuff – did you see much celebrity

involvement in – we talked about Brad [Pitt] and Angelina [Jolie], but in Australia in the

postal survey campaign?

Lee: Oh, god.

James: I haven’t really followed it that closely, but to be honest, I can’t really think of

much. Who was the high-profile person I saw talking about marriage equality? Goodness.

Lee: I felt like I was very separate from the online campaign, and it actually got – the

general hatred on the streets, and amongst friends and community and stuff got so bad

that it was – I was really shocked. I didn’t think that would happen. That’s not related to

celebrities, but I just don’t think – I really had very little interest in it. Of course it needs to

happen, but the whole thing was just a load of shit.

The way it was done, obviously, but it’s just… I feel like it’s just a bit of distraction and it’s

a palatable thing for Australia to cope with. I just couldn’t believe the abuse on the street

going up. It was really full-on.

Lee’s response echoes the work on the psychological distress to LGB people during the survey

(Verrelli et al., 2019), as well as physical distress. What I am most interested about in Lee’s response is the limit to which celebrity advocacy is able to provide any sort of affective relief or comfort in a time of distress, where modes of survival take priority. Lee’s inability to recall any sort of celebrity involvement suggests that for them, the reality of the campaign, “the general

244 hatred on the streets” overrides the possibility of drawing comfort from celebrity. Where Lee’s immediate connections were in need of support, any parasocial relationships they may have with celebrities (such as the empathy for Ian Thorpe in the previous excerpt) were made redundant in that moment. Lee’s politics could also play a part here, as they generally had little interest in the survey, thinking “the whole thing was just a load of shit”. Indeed, while Lee’s politics and the distress of the situation caused them to ignore celebrity involvement, others expressly felt discomfort at the lack of inclusion in the campaign, labelling it a betrayal by the celebrity faces of the movement, such as Vern (28, queer) and Slaytina (24, bisexual):

Lucy: How did celebrities being involved in the marriage equality campaign affect or

impact you?

Slaytina: I felt sold out.

Vern: Yep.

Lucy: You felt sold out?

Slaytina: Yep. Betrayed.

Lucy: By who, and how?

Slaytina: By every organisation that was part of that…

Lucy: What about with celebrities?… In terms of in the campaign. Do you remember any?

Slaytina: Magda, Ian [Thorpe], you know, the ‘Aus. gays’.

…

Vern: Magda. I remember at the announcement of the ‘yes-ness’, in Prince Alfred or

Prince Albert, whichever one isn’t a dick piercing, I always forget…

Lucy: Prince Alfred Park,72 yeah.

72 Sydney-based ‘yes’ campaigners gathered in Prince Alfred park to hear the results of the survey being announced.

245 Vern: On that stage, she said some absolute horse shit about how it was the last inequality

has been overturned… And just some fuckin’ nonsense, so, I understand that it can be

practically useful to utilise celebrities’ politicism, but I’m very sceptical of it.

Slaytina: I’m very sceptical of it, ‘cause it has nothing to do with me.

Lucy: Yeah?

Slaytina: No one in that debate, no celebrity said trans people have a right to not get

divorced to change their gender markers. No one said that.

Lucy: That never came up?

Vern: No one. And there was nothing at all said, about how if your legal sex was ‘X’, you

can’t marry anybody.

Slaytina: Yeah.

The betrayal felt by Slaytina and Vern reflects the discomfort of their exclusion from the debate generally, and explicitly in Szubanski’s comments about “the last inequality” which in its

(homo)normative rhetoric excluded them as transgender and non-binary people. Their comments demonstrate the sometimes-limited capacity of celebrity activism to solicit emotional responses from marginalised identities. Celebrity culture succeeds because of the extraordinary/ordinary dichotomy – that celebrities are simultaneously like their everyday audiences, and completely unlike them (Dyer, 2004; Turner, 2014). In this example, Vern and

Slaytina felt that Szubanski’s activism (and persona, given how tied her coming out narrative has been to marriage equality activism) “has nothing to do with me” and is thus unsuccessful. Vern and Slaytina also highlight the role of gender in the marriage equality campaigns, and the apparent lack of meaningful engagement with gender throughout the campaign. For while, as

Peggy highlights, the entire campaign focused on “the right to marry whoever I want regardless of gender,” in doing so, it negated the importance of gender in marriage for transgender people.

It is the exclusion from the [genderless] narrative of the campaign, and thus from the activism of

246 celebrities involved in the campaign, that brought about discomfort for Slaytina and Vern, and thus highlights the limitations of positive affects for some participants.

Most of the conversations around celebrity involvement in the postal survey centred on the celebrities advocating for the ‘yes’ campaign. Despite this, some participants were disheartened by advocates for the ‘no’ campaign, even though they numbered far fewer than ‘yes’ advocates, suggesting that the focus on the vulnerability of LGBTQ people during the campaign meant that these advocates held their attention. This conversation with Peggy, Jezebel, and Hortense (32, queer) about Israel Folau indicates the discomfort felt as a result of his advocacy:

Hortense: I can’t think of anyone who [advocated for the ‘no’ campaign]. Most of them –

or certainly their media managers – are smart enough to roll with the zeitgeist.

Jezebel: I can pick one off the top of my head who voted no publicly. You guys probably

won’t know who it is. Israel Folau. A rugby player who very publicly came out and said,

look, I have no issues with gay people, but I don’t believe in gay marriage. In saying that,

he was a Mormon, he was a missionary, and look, people are entitled to their religious

beliefs, but it became a public story.

Hortense: That was one of those issues though where, if he was to say, I don’t believe in

gay marriage, but if you want to get gay marriage, whatever, I’m like, buddy, go for it.

Jezebel: I agree with you.

Hortense: If he says I don’t support gay marriage so you can’t get gay marriage, then into

the bin.

Jezebel: Of course. I completely agree with you. That’s an example of celebrity in the

public eye.

Peggy: I have to say, when I think of the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ campaigns, Israel Folau is the only

football player I remember voicing any opinion on either side.

247 Jezebel: He’s the only one I can think of.

Peggy: On either side.

Jezebel: David Pocock, who is an almost Christian missionary type playing for the

Wallabies was so pro-gay marriage he was phenomenal. He’s an incredible human being.

I’m a bit of a footy girl. They’re the two I can think of, off the top of my head.

Peggy: I’m thinking of what footballers made statements. There were a few. Folau is the

one that sticks with me because he was the most vocal. I know that there are a lot of NRL

players particularly playing for Parramatta, who are quite conservative Christians. They

belong to the Hillsong church and similar. They need to keep their mouths shut.

Jezebel: And they did mostly.

Peggy: Because they know that their social capital is what brings money home. Probably

more than their football skills. It’s interesting that when public opinion is going a certain

way, for the most part you either support it or shut up. There are very few people who will

speak out against it. I’ve got to give credit to those people for sticking to their guns as

much as I disagree with them, because at least they’ve got the guts to come out and say

something. Where for the most part, celebrities follow what’s popular, or they shut their

mouths.

Jezebel: Good point.

The affective response generally conveyed here is anger – Hortense says they should get “into the bin”, Peggy says “they need to keep their mouths shut”. What’s especially interesting about this conversation is the way in which the group discusses the trend in celebrity advocacy following a cultural zeitgeist, and that being the reason for so few celebrities advocating for the

‘no’ campaign. It’s important to note here that this conversation took place after the results of the survey were released, so after the group could have known exactly what the zeitgeist was, and therefore comment upon it in retrospect. This group had earlier expressed anger at celebrities

248 jumping on the bandwagon, so it is unsurprising to see a reluctant respect for celebrities (“at least they’ve got guts”) who voted no, even if it caused them anger. Israel Folau was only mentioned in one other interview, and was the only ‘no’ advocate to be raised at all. In my conversation with Nay (27, queer/gay, Aboriginal), they said:

Lucy: Did you notice much celebrity involvement in the postal survey campaign, and how,

what did that make you feel?

Nay: So this is, once again, sometimes celebrity involvement is not a good thing. I saw

some of Israel Folau, who’s a footy player, come out and say he wasn’t going to [vote yes].

And for a lot of kids and black people as well that I know, he is a celebrity.

Lucy: Yep.

Nay: That pissed me off. That really pissed me off.

Lucy: Do you think he would’ve had the power to change people’s minds to vote no?

Nay: Yeah, he made it okay… there are people on the fence on these issues.

Both Nay and Jezebel contextualise Folau’s celebrity in their conversations, suggesting that he is little known, at the very least in LGBTQ communities – Jezebel tells her friends “You guys probably won’t know who it is”, while Nay suggests that Folau is a celebrity for “kids and black people” within Nay’s Indigenous communities. This suggests that Folau’s celebrity presence among LGBTQ communities is as a result of his advocacy for the ‘no’ campaign, further reinforcing the presence of the discourse of vulnerability around the postal survey that Copland

(2018) articulates. Folau’s advocacy brought discomfort for Nay “that really pissed me off” because his views legitimised a ‘no’ vote, especially among Nay’s communities where Folau was more well known.

249 In her work on feminism and anger, Ahmed (2014) argues for the ongoing importance of

Brown’s (1993) ‘wounded attachment’ of identity politics, that acknowledging the pain suffered by women collectively and structurally is productive for feminism. She writes: “feminism also involves a reading of the response of anger: it moves from anger into an interpretation of that which one is against, whereby associations or connections are made between the object of anger and broader patterns or structures” (p. 176). Acknowledging pain, suffering, and survival, is also characteristic of the intimate public and its affective possibilities (Berlant, 1997, 2008). The translation of the intimate public sphere into the political public sphere suggests it is politically valuable, therefore, to acknowledge the anger felt by participants like Nay, Peggy, and Hortense, provided there is an understanding of the association of the anger to the broader structures that have caused it. In these instances, it is not just Folau that makes participants angry, but his political stance, his connection to the Church, and his standing as a role model for children.

Ahmed makes a compelling argument for the value of anger in feminist politics, and it is similarly important to acknowledge the anger, as well as the comfort and discomfort, of participants during the postal survey campaign, given the affective register of this kind of intimate politics (Berlant, 1997).

Conclusion

The relationship between a celebrity and the audience is multi-faceted, but key among these facets is the notion of the parasocial interaction and a form of identification with a celebrity persona and their actions. Turner (2014) argues that the parasocial interaction doesn’t completely explain the relationship of the audience to celebrity. In this chapter, I have argued that we need to consider the role of affect in understanding participants’ response to celebrity activism and particularly Magda Szubanski’s involvement in the Australian marriage equality campaign,

250 structured through queer feelings of comfort and discomfort, and feminist anger, in order to fully understand the role of the celebrity with intimate political public spheres.

The sense of vulnerability of LGBTQ Australians that pervaded discourse around the Australian

Marriage Law Postal Survey, as well as the increased distress felt by LGBTQ Australians during this time suggest that the real value of Magda Szubanski’s celebrity activism lies not in her ability to persuade others to vote ‘yes’ (while this is no doubt important, it is impossible to accurately ascertain), but in her ability to bring a collective sense of comfort to a population that was perceived as vulnerable, and proved to be distressed. Her ability to do so epitomises the nature of the celebrity/audience parasocial interaction, but also the ability of participants to be able to engage affectively with her. Analysing collective responses to celebrity activism affectively also helps us understand those who couldn’t engage in a positive way, or at all, such as transgender participants Vern and Slaytina, who experienced discomfort and even anger because of

Szubanski’s presence in the campaign, or Lee, whose immediate circumstances meant that social relationships took precedence over parasocial ones. The chapter has also considered the affective value of anger in response to Israel Folau’s campaigning, and the value in acknowledging anger as an emotion with political value. Ultimately, reframing the value of celebrity activism to consider its affective potential allows for a better understanding of how vulnerable populations experience celebrity advocacy, and a scholarly reevaluation of the effects of such campaigning through the lens of the intimate political public.

251 Chapter Ten

Conclusion

This research caps off almost eight years of scholarly investment in celebrity and its intersection with queer life: from papers on Lady Gaga and the pink dollar and the depiction of non- normative sexualities in my Undergraduate degree; through an Honours thesis on the heteronormativity of celebrity news about Miley Cyrus; as well as many conference papers on aspects of this expansive project. It’s not entirely clear when or why celebrity became such an obsession for me, but my scholarly attachment to celebrity could almost be described as camp.

My fervent obsession with a topic so frequently derided and dismissed as low culture has reached almost the point of excess; my elevation of it to a PhD a kind of “seriousness that fails” (Sontag,

1966, p. 283), especially when trying to explain (defend) to those not in the ivory tower the object of my research. Like a camp reading of celebrity, I find myself so attached to defending scholarly interventions in celebrity that I sound like a parody. I’m not alone; on the contrary, I find myself in the wonderful company of the many esteemed celebrity studies and popular culture academics who have investigated this field before me.

My own speculative reading of Kristen Stewart was a motivation for undertaking this research, and her coming out narrative inspired a shift in focus. After years of paparazzi shots of her with other women (and her own admission of loving her girlfriend) she finally put to bed any possibility of celebrity media continuing to refer to her and her partners as ‘gal pals’ – “masking the lesbian possibility with euphemisms of friendship” – by explicitly labelling her own sexuality live on television (McBean, 2016, p. 282). In 2017, while hosting Saturday Night Live (1975-), in a monologue about President Trump’s apparent dislike of her, she told the world, “Donald, if you didn’t like me then, you probably really aren’t going to like me now, because I’m hosting SNL

252 and I’m, like, so gay, dude” (D.R. King, 2017). In this instance, Stewart used her LGBTQ identity to point out Trump’s anti-LGBTQ position for an explicitly political end. Throughout this research, I have moved away from a political analysis of queer readings of celebrity culture, in favour of a juxtapolitical analysis that focuses on the affective use-value of celebrity for its readers. This shift was inspired particularly by Redmond’s work on the circuit of affect (2019).

The political terrain of LGBTQ identity is fraught with tension – at one end of the spectrum, queer theorists and activists are arguing for the end of the assimilationist-style politics that have dominated identity politics in the last few decades (Warner, 1999), while at the other, a U.S. president is attempting to strip away the rights of LGBTQ people, and somewhere in between, many LGBTQ people are asserting their rights through assimilationist tactics, like getting married. As a result, it’s hard to know where to go with a political analysis of queerness, or of commodity culture in contemporary society. Muñoz (2009) for example, looks to the future of queerness, envisioning it as a project of always becoming; queer is a utopia, always on the horizon, never in the present.

In light of these tensions, this research sought to understand what else is important about reading celebrity for queer audiences. It took Redmond’s (2019) concept of the circuit of affect as overlapping and intersecting with the circuit of culture, and analysed how celebrity media makes participants feel, as well as how they interpret it. It found that even though celebrity media might be dismissed as overly normative, the feelings produced by this normativity should not be overlooked. It also found that despite the growing presence of celebrities who are ‘just like us’, queer people continue to adopt queer reading strategies of celebrities who aren’t ‘like us’, finding ways to identify with them, and to create a form of emotional contact that produces an intimate public of queer readers of celebrity media, both in its explicitly LGBTQ form, and its more subcultural, subtextual form. This research doesn’t dismiss the importance of studying celebrity and its audience through a political or ideological lens; instead, it just chooses to shift the focus

253 to the emotive tones of celebrity. In doing so, this thesis focused on the way in which celebrity culture enables the production of an intimate public of queer readers; an intimate public that is largely juxtapolitical, but occasionally political (Berlant, 2008). It also found that queer readers are heterogeneous and occasionally conflicting in their reading strategies, that the intimate public is imprecise and full of contradictions, as Berlant (2008) suggests. The answer, then, to how queer people read celebrity media, is not a simple one: their reading strategies are multi-faceted, at times contradictory, sometimes political, often juxtapolitical. They read for intimacy, identification, identity, and queer feelings.

An overview of this thesis

The additional research questions in this study help to address some of the different ways queer people read celebrity media. The first, how do queer people respond to non-queer celebrity?, is the subject of Part One of this thesis. There, I argued that non-queer celebrities still constitute part of the consumption practices of queer readers of celebrity media, despite growing representation in this field. The non-queer celebrities that were a source of identification for participants were all women, and often troubled, scorned, or transgressive women: participants could relate best to flawed women. This is explored in detail in Chapter Four, which found that readings of these celebrities are camp/melodramatic, where they involve an identification with the troubled celebrity in order to produce an affective bond and subvert the dominant reading of that celebrity. Chapter Five continued this investigation, by suggesting it is the queer participants’ relationship to the affect of shame that allows for a reading of transgressive and apologetic celebrity that is structured by shame.

Chapter Six continued to answer the first additional research question, by investigating the ways in which participants would speculate over the sexuality of a non-queer celebrity, reading a queer

254 sexuality where it hadn’t explicitly been stated. This chapter addressed the ethical dilemmas of gossip, outing, and queerbaiting, but focused on the affective value of these playful, speculative readings, in creating space for identification within heterosexual celebrity media.

The next additional research question, how do they respond to queer celebrity?, was the subject of Part

Two of this thesis. Chapter Seven focused particularly on the response of participants to more mainstream LGBTQ celebrities, finding that the response to these celebrities was both positive and negative. Some participants valued the way in which the representation of queerness within mainstream celebrity media allowed for increased visibility, the possibility for identity construction, and the chance to belong, to ‘feel normal’. Others found this kind of representation was only possible for a narrow set of LGBTQ identities, and didn’t fully encompass their own identity. They found this representation disappointing, in the same way

Halperin suggests gay culture cannot supplant the fantasy made possible by gay subculture. This chapter also found that the negotiation of these representational boundaries and the paradox of visibility produced the emotional contact of the intimate public, through a negotiation of its terms and the affective responses to such representation.

Chapter Eight continued the investigation into queer celebrity, focusing on queer micro- celebrity. It found that participants valued queer micro-celebrity because of the ways they were able to present a diversity of representations and ‘possibility models’. Because micro-celebrities often bypass traditional media gatekeepers, participants valued the ways in which a diversity of identities was possible in this celebrity form. Also important to readings of queer micro-celebrity is the more symmetrical fan-celebrity relationship, and the possibility for social interaction, both with celebrity and within the community of celebrity consumers, such as queer fandoms. Micro- celebrity, in this way, facilitates emotional contact and connection among its consumers.

255 Chapter Nine investigated the representation of gay life in celebrity media, via marriage equality activism. In focusing on how participants felt about Magda Szubanski’s activism especially, but also Israel Folau’s, this chapter argued for the importance of considering the affective value of celebrity activism in its production and facilitation of positive and negative affects. It argued for the importance of considering how activism affects those who seek to benefit from it, not tangibly, but affectively.

The subsequent additional research questions are investigated across a range of chapters. How does celebrity media reflect queer life (or not)? is explored throughout the thesis, explicitly in Part Two, through a negotiation of the queer identities in celebrity media. These chapters attempted to map the affects produced by representation, especially the feelings of belonging, of emotional contact, of ‘feeling normal’, and the contradictions these feelings bring with them. But it is also a persistent question in Part One. In Part One, participants found queer ways to read celebrity, and thus, ways in which celebrity media reflects queer life, whether that’s through a shared relationship to power/vulnerability or strength/suffering, a shared understanding of shame, or the shaping presence of the closet in both celebrity media narratives, and queer lives. How do participants relate to celebrities? is also explored throughout this thesis, but ultimately, I found that participants tend to relate to celebrities through the extraordinary/ordinary paradox, by finding ways that celebrities are both like, and unlike, participants. Part One of this thesis interrogated the way in which participants would find ways to identify with non-queer celebrities, to relate to celebrities who are not readily ‘like them’. Part Two explored the way in which participants related to the celebrities who are more readily ‘like them’.

The final additional research question, how does celebrity gossip produce community among queer readers?, brings together work from celebrity audience studies on the value of celebrity gossip, and the concept of the intimate public to try to understand the community formed by queer readers of

256 celebrity media. The intimate public has a presence in every chapter, because I found that celebrity gossip produces an intimate public in many ways. Whether through shared subversive reading strategies, the production of affective sites of identification, carving a space for emotional contact, for negotiation, and for the production of queer feelings, celebrity gossip, as a form of intimate talk within a culture that is founded on intimacy and discourses of identification, creates a space for queer readers of celebrity media to connect with each other.

And perhaps that’s achievement enough.

Where to from here?

In answering the central research question, how do queer people read celebrity media?, and the additional research questions discussed above, this thesis has contributed to the burgeoning fields of audience research within queer media studies, queer celebrity studies, and affective qualitative audience research. It applied methodologies from feminist media studies and cultural studies to queer audiences, in order to test theories within queer media studies about the role of celebrity and mainstream media forms in gay culture (Halperin, 2012), and the affective value of representational media forms (Griffin, 2016). It also contributes to the growing body of work in celebrity studies that seeks to study celebrity through the circuit of affect (Redmond, 2019).

But as well as contributing to these growing fields and testing the hypotheses of scholars before me with qualitative audience research, this thesis gave voice to an underrepresented community within celebrity audience research, and elevated the voices of a socially marginalised group. In asking how queer people read celebrity media, I prioritised the voices of a community who is often spoken for, and let them speak for themselves.

257 Audience research within queer media studies has had a slow start (Haslop, 2009). But its value cannot be underestimated. I don’t wish to suggest that my research entirely fills the gap within this field: to the contrary, there is more to be done. Future studies could focus more specifically on demographics within the broad LGBTQ umbrella and how the intersections of identity affect different readings, including voices of colour, older voices, or those of rurally located LGBTQ people. Future studies could also focus on individually lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer people’s voices, rather than the umbrella as a whole (gay men have enjoyed substantially more representation in this field, though are still relatively underrepresented in qualitative audience studies). Additionally, they could concentrate on LGBTQ communities in parts of the world that do not enjoy the same level of acceptance as in Australia, to understand the role of media where discrimination is more readily experienced on a day-to-day basis. They could also research popular or mass culture more broadly, as celebrity tends to invade all aspects of popular culture.

Finally, future studies could consider specific celebrity media forms, rather than taking my broad participant-led approach that led to discussing celebrity culture in general.

There are many directions future research on queer responses to celebrity could take. It is my hope that this research continues: my camp attachment to celebrity studies needs to be satisfied.

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282 Appendices

Participant list

Focus groups

Group Pseudonym Age Gender Sexuality Pronoun Ethnicity location

Sydney Lara 28 Female Lesbian She/her Australian

Ginger 26 Female Bisexual She/her Australian

Lois 29 Female Lesbian She/her Australian

Elena 24 Female Bisexual She/her Half Australian/ Half South American Siobhan 26 Female Gaaaayyy She/her Australian

Sydney Nessy 34 Female Lesbian She/her Australian

Hayley 30 Female Gay She/her Caucasian

Anne 39 Female Queer She/her Australian

George 33 Female Gay She/her Caucasian

Sydney John 26 Other Homosexual They/theirs Prefer not to say

Carlos 28 Male Bisexual He/his Greek Australian

Tina 27 Female Lesbian/queer She/her Caucasian

Renee 33 Female Bisexual She/her White

Nik 33 Male Gay He/his White

Luke 21 Male Homosexual He/his White

Nancy 25 Female Bisexual She/her Prefer not to say

Sydney Beau 23 Male Gay He/his Caucasian/white

Elle 22 Female Bisexual She/her White Australian

283 Fox 29 Male Gay He/his White

Annie 25 Female Queer She/her Australian

Sydney Eloise 25 Female Queer She/her Caucasian/Australian

Allya 28 Female Pansexual She/her Mixed race

Phoenix 25 Male Gay He/his Mixed race

Sydney Rhian 23 Female Queer She/her Caucasian

Tilly 23 Female Queer She/her Anglo Saxon

Dani 28 Female Queer She/her European

Sydney Arlo 23 Male Gay He/his White

Enoch 22 Male Gay They/theirs Aboriginal/Tongan

Scarlet 22 Female Bisexual She/her Prefer not to say

Sydney Vern 28 Trans Queer They/theirs Cypriot/Anglo Australian Slaytina 24 Female Bisexual She/her White

Emily 32 Female Queer She/her Caucasian

Sydney Skuirrelmoose 47 Male Queer He/his Jewish

Powpowindamow 55 Male Queer He/his Prefer not to say

Sparklebutt 25 Female Queer She/her Prefer not to say

Sydney Jezebel 32 Female Queer She/her Prefer not to say

Peggy 25 Female Queer She/her Prefer not to say

Hortense Mueller 32 Male Queer He/his Prefer not to say

Kitt 28 Female Queer She/her Prefer not to say

Melbourne Rosie 32 Female Bisexual They/theirs Caucasian

Rudiger 32 Female Lesbian She/her Caucasian

Romeo 24 Male Gay He/his Italian/Australian

Rory 29 Male Gay He/his Prefer not to say

284 Melbourne Emma 32 Female Bisexual She/her Caucasian

Angela 31 Female Lesbian She/her Hispanic

Amber 39 Female Lesbian She/her Caucasian

Melbourne Carol 26 Female Lesbian She/her Eurasian

Warren 26 Male Queer He/his Prefer not to say

Leia 25 Female Bisexual She/her Prefer not to say

Brisbane James 37 Male Queer He/his Anglo/Croatian

Lee 42 Agender Queer They/theirs English, Irish, Scotland, Latvia, Germany Gold Beverly 26 Male Gay He/his Australian

Coast

Lou 27 Male Gay He/his Caucasian

Hobart Kage 36 Non- Queer They/theirs Cuban-American

conforming

Alexis 44 Female Bisexual She/her Australian

Brody 39 Female Bisexual She/her Australian

Interviews

Location Pseudonym Age Gender Sexuality Pronoun Ethnicity

Sydney An 24 Queer Bicurious They/theirs Malaysian/Chinese

Melbourne Matilda 22 Female Queer She/her British Australian

Brisbane Mel 30 Female Lesbian She/her Prefer not to say

Brisbane Nay 27 Womanish Queer/gay They/theirs Aboriginal

Perth Yvette 27 Female Lesbian She/her Caucasian

285 Examples of posts on the virtual focus group

Example one:

Example two:

286 Recruitment material

Example of Facebook post:

287 Image that accompanied Facebook posts:

288 Expression of interest form, Participant Information Statement, and Participant Consent

Form

See overleaf

289 03/06/2020 A study of how queer people read celebrity media

Resize font:  Returning? A study of how queer people read celebrity media  | 

This expression of interest form is an opportunity for you to indicate your willingness to participate in a study on how queer people read celebrity media, as well as a chance for the researcher to gather some valuable information about you for the research. Your name and contact details are required in order for the researcher to contact you about the project, but nothing else. Other information about you, such as your age, gender, or sexuality may be used in the research to contextualise some of your responses. Other questions in this form will help to establish some of the questions at the focus groups.

If you wish to read more about the study before filling out this form, please read this Participant Information Statement. This statement has more information about how the responses to this form will be used. You will be given a hard copy of this at your focus group or interview.

If you would like to download the Participant Information Statement, you can do so here.

Attachment: Lucy Watson PIS Version 1.0.pdf (0.12 MB)

Section One: Contact information This information will only be used to establish focus groups.

Name: * must provide value

Email address: * must provide value

Mobile number: * must provide value

Postcode: * must provide value

Section Two: About you

Age: * must provide value

Gender: * must provide value

Sexual orientation: * must provide value

Please indicate your highest level of education (if you are Didn't finish high school currently studying, please select the level you are currently High School studying) Undergraduate University * must provide value TAFE or other tertiary education Postgraduate University Other reset

If you indicated 'other' in the previous question, please specify:

What is your occupation? * must provide value

What is your ethnicity? * must provide value

Section Three: Arranging the focus group

I am seeking to form focus groups amongst peers. Are you group filling out this form as part of a group, or an individual? individual reset * must provide value If you are an individual, you may be asked to participate in a one on one interview, or, if possible, a focus group with others in your area that may not be known to you. https://surveys.sydney.edu.au/surveys/?s=9t8f6SVARM&fbclid=IwAR1ZmIx6OWSxlihE_XdU5I9LemM7k7VXTLbjuMgUAou4A7FAYv5saueylbQ 1/2 03/06/2020 A study of how queer people read celebrity media

If you're part of a group, please indicate the names of others in your group.

Expand This data will only be used to organise the focus groups. The researcher cannot contact people who have not filled out this expression of interest form, so please ensure everyone in your group fills this form out individually.

Name three celebrities you find yourself reading about: * must provide value

Expand

Name three places you find information about celebrities: * must provide value

Expand

Roughly how many celebrities do you follow on Twitter I don't have Twitter or Instagram and/or Instagram? None * must provide value 1-5 6-10 More than 10 reset

How often do you read articles about celebrities? everyday a few times a week * must provide value once a week less than once a week reset (Including articles on blogs or news sites about celebrities, magazines, social media posts made by celebrities)

Submit

Save & Return Later

https://surveys.sydney.edu.au/surveys/?s=9t8f6SVARM&fbclid=IwAR1ZmIx6OWSxlihE_XdU5I9LemM7k7VXTLbjuMgUAou4A7FAYv5saueylbQ 2/2

Department of Media and Communications School of Letters, Arts and Media Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences ABN 15 211 513 464

Dr Megan Le Masurier Room N224 Lecturer, Undergraduate Coordinator, Degree Woolley Building Director Master of Publishing The University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA Telephone: +61 2 9351 3628 Facsimile: +61 2 9351 5444 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.sydney.edu.au/

Not ‘just like us’: a study of how queers read celebrity media

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT

(1) What is this study about?

You are invited to take part in a research study about how queer and other LGBTI-identified people might understand celebrity media. The study will look at the ways in which these people consume celebrity media, the meanings they gather from it, the celebrities they enjoy following, and why, in an attempt to understand the ways in which celebrity media might affect the queer community.

You have been invited to participate in this study because you responded to an expression of interest form indicating your eligibility and willingness to participate. This Participant Information Statement tells you about the research study. Knowing what is involved will help you decide if you want to take part in the research. Please read this sheet carefully and ask questions about anything that you don’t understand or want to know more about.

Participation in this research study is voluntary.

By giving your consent to take part in this study you are telling us that you:

ü Understand what you have read. ü Agree to take part in the research study as outlined below. ü Agree to the use of your personal information as described.

You will be given a copy of this Participant Information Statement to keep.

‘Not just like us’: A study of how queers read celebrity media Version 1.0 29/1/16 1 (2) Who is running the study?

The study is being carried out by the following researchers: • Lucy Watson, PhD candidate, University of Sydney • Megan Le Masurier, Lecturer, Undergraduate Coordinator, and Degree Director (Masters of Publishing), University of Sydney

Lucy Watson is conducting this study as the basis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Sydney. This will take place under the supervision of Dr Megan Le Masurier, Lecturer, Undergraduate Coordinator, and Degree Director (Masters of Publishing).

(3) What will the study involve for me?

You will be asked to complete an expression of interest form outlining your eligibility for the study, as well as listing some celebrities of interest, and places you consume celebrity media. You will also be asked if you would like to pass this expression of interest form to peers and friends who you think may be interested in the study. This is voluntary.

You will then be asked to participate in a two-hour focus group with your peers. If you filled out the form as an individual, you may participate in a focus group with strangers, if possible, or a one on one interview. This focus group or interview will be audio recorded and notes will be taken by the researcher. If further information is needed, you may be asked to participate in another interview or focus group to discuss topics arising from the initial focus group or interview. The focus group will involve the researcher asking you, and your peers, questions about celebrities, celebrity media, and how your sexuality might interact with the ways you perceive celebrities and their behaviour. You will not be identified in any publications, and you may choose a pseudonym you will be referred to.

You will then be asked if you would like to participate in a private Facebook group with participants from all of the focus groups who have chosen to be involved, to discuss celebrity media online. You will be added as a friend to the researcher’s Facebook profile, and then added to the group. Your participation in this aspect of the research can be as frequent and detailed as you determine (for example, from a ‘like’ of an article posted, to a detailed comment, to a comment conversation with another participant, to posting an article of your own choosing). The Facebook group will be open for the duration of the data collection period (approximately 6 months), and may appear in your news feed or notifications during this time. The group will be closed at the end of the 6 month period and you are welcome to remove the researcher as a ‘friend’ on your Facebook profile.

Discussions in the focus group and on Facebook will centre on your responses to celebrity media. You may be asked how your sexuality affects your responses. Conversation may be sexually explicit, humorous, emotional, or maybe heated. You might disclose aspects of your personal beliefs, particularly regarding acceptable moral and social behaviours, with regard to celebrity actions and the public response to it. If at any time you do not feel comfortable, you are able to leave, or notify the researcher. The researcher will be moderating both the face-to-face and online discussion, and will delete any offensive or inflammatory remarks online.

‘Not just like us’: A study of how queers read celebrity media Version 1.0 29/1/16 2

(4) How much of my time will the study take?

The expression of interest form will take you less than 5 minutes to complete.

The focus group will run for approximately two hours, with snacks provided.

If you are invited to a further interview, this will last for approximately one hour. If you agree to participate in any additional focus groups, these may be up to an additional two hours.

You can determine the time taken for the research on Facebook. This research will ideally fit into your own patterns of Facebook consumption – if you are a regular and vocal user on Facebook, you may contribute to this research more frequently than those who use Facebook less often.

(5) Who can take part in the study?

People are eligible for this study if they are over the age of 18, and self identify as queer, or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, or those who in some way fall outside straight mainstream expectations and assumptions regarding sex, gender, and sexuality.

(6) Do I have to be in the study? Can I withdraw from the study once I've started?

Being in this study is completely voluntary and you do not have to take part. Your decision whether to participate will not affect your current or future relationship with the researchers or anyone else at the University of Sydney.

If you decide to take part in the study and then change your mind later, you are free to withdraw at any time. You can do this by contacting the researcher.

Your expression of interest form will be used to arrange focus groups and to lead the topics of discussion. You can withdraw your responses if you change your mind about being involved in the study. You can do this by contacting the researcher.

If you take part in a focus group, you are free to stop participating at any stage or to refuse to answer any of the questions. However, it will not be possible to withdraw your individual comments from our records once the group has started, as it is a group discussion. As it is a group discussion, you are free to answer only the questions you choose, or participate only in the discussions you want to.

If you are being interviewed, you are free to stop the interview at any time. Unless you say that you want us to keep them, any recordings will be erased and the information you have provided will not be included in the study results. You may also refuse to answer any questions that you do not wish to answer during the interview.

If you participate in the online discussion group (Facebook) and you decide to withdraw you can remove yourself from the group or contact us to remove you. Please let us know at the time when you withdraw what you would like us to do with the information (comments, posts, likes) you have posted on the Facebook group up to that point. If you wish, your

‘Not just like us’: A study of how queers read celebrity media Version 1.0 29/1/16 3 information will be removed from our study records and will not be included in the study results, up to the point that we have analysed and published the results. Conversations with other participants, however, may not be able to be withdrawn, as it is a group discussion.

(7) Are there any risks or costs associated with being in the study?

Aside from giving up your time, and commuting to the focus group, we do not expect that there will be any risks or costs associated with taking part in this study. It is not expected that the conversations in the face-to-face and virtual groups will be harmful in any way as the subject matter is quite light-hearted.

However, it might be possible for you to experience some distress if discussion were to get heated, emotional, or sexually explicit. If you are uncomfortable, you are able to leave at any time, or discuss other options with the researcher. The researcher will be moderating both face-to-face and online discussion, and will delete any offensive or inflammatory remarks online.

(8) Are there any benefits associated with being in the study?

We cannot guarantee that you will receive any direct benefits from being in the study, but you will be contributing to better understanding how celebrity media affects the queer community, an as yet unresearched area of media and cultural studies.

(9) What will happen to information about me that is collected during the study?

You will not be identified by your name in this study, and can choose a pseudonym to be used in the research. The expression of interest form will record your sexuality, your age, gender, occupation, education, ethnicity, and contact information. Your contact information will not be disclosed, and will be kept confidential, however some generalised identifying characteristics may be attached to your pseudonym, where relevant, for example, the research may refer to ‘Colleen’, a lesbian student in her 20s from the Inner West of Sydney. If you have any issues with this, talk to the researcher about what generalised information about you can or cannot be used.

The expression of interest form is hosted by REDcap, the University’s secure survey host. All data is kept secure by the University of Sydney.

Audio recordings of the focus groups and interviews will be taken, and screen shots of material posted in the Facebook group. Any Facebook data that is external to the private group will not be used. The audio recording and screenshots collected will only be used for analysis, and quotation, but will not appear in the final paper (i.e. you will not be able to be identified by your voice or Facebook profile). Any quotes from you will be attributed to your pseudonym.

Facebook will have access to the data you provide in the Facebook group, as per their terms and conditions. By using Facebook, you agree to their terms and conditions regarding the way your profile information is used. By agreeing to participate in the Facebook aspect of this research, you are reminded that you have already agreed to these terms and conditions,

‘Not just like us’: A study of how queers read celebrity media Version 1.0 29/1/16 4 and that Facebook’s use of any data from this research is outside the responsibility of the researcher. If you do not wish to provide this information to Facebook, you can opt out of this section of the research.

The results from this study will be published as a student thesis, as well as in conference papers, journals, and other academic publications. The data from this study will not be used for any other purpose, beyond publishing the results of this research in a range of possible formats (books, journals, conferences, as listed).

The data obtained in this research will be stored securely during the research and at the completion of the study will be stored in the Chief Investigator’s office for a period of five years after the research has been completed, after which time it will be securely destroyed. By providing your consent, you are agreeing to us collecting personal information about you for the purposes of this research study. Your information will only be used for the purposes outlined in this Participant Information Statement, unless you consent otherwise.

Your information will be stored securely and your identity/information will be kept strictly confidential, except as required by law. Study findings may be published, but you will not be individually identifiable in these publications.

(10) Can I tell other people about the study?

Yes, you are welcome, and encouraged to tell other people, particularly other LGBTI and queer people about the study. However, you should not discuss the specifics of conversations or other individuals in the focus group or Facebook group, in order to protect other participants’ privacy. You should not screenshot or share any content from the Facebook group.

(11) What if I would like further information about the study?

When you have read this information, Lucy will be available to discuss it with you further and answer any questions you may have. If you would like to know more at any stage during the study, please feel free to contact me via phone (0401336825) or email ([email protected])

(12) Will I be told the results of the study?

You have a right to receive feedback about the overall results of this study. You can tell us that you wish to receive feedback by ticking the relevant box on the consent form. This feedback will be in the form of a short summary in lay terms. You will receive this feedback after the study is finished.

(13) What if I have a complaint or any concerns about the study?

Research involving humans in Australia is reviewed by an independent group of people called a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). The ethical aspects of this study have been approved by the HREC of the University of Sydney, project no. 2016/144. As part of this process, we have agreed to carry out the study according to the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007). This statement has been developed to protect

‘Not just like us’: A study of how queers read celebrity media Version 1.0 29/1/16 5 people who agree to take part in research studies.

If you are concerned about the way this study is being conducted or you wish to make a complaint to someone independent from the study, please contact the university using the details outlined below. Please quote the study title and protocol number.

The Manager, Ethics Administration, University of Sydney: • Telephone: +61 2 8627 8176 • Email: [email protected] • Fax: +61 2 8627 8177 (Facsimile)

This information sheet is for you to keep

‘Not just like us’: A study of how queers read celebrity media Version 1.0 29/1/16 6

Department of Media and Communications School of Letters, Arts and Media ABN 15 211 513 464 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Dr Megan Le Masurier Room N224 Lecturer, Undergraduate Coordinator, Degree Woolley Building Director Master of Publishing The University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA Telephone: +61 2 9351 3628 Facsimile: +61 2 9351 5444 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.sydney.edu.au/

Not ‘just like us’: a study of how queers read celebrity media

PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM

I, ...... [PRINT NAME], agree to take part in this research study.

In giving my consent I state that:

ü I understand the purpose of the study, what I will be asked to do, and any risks/benefits involved.

ü I have read the Participant Information Statement and have been able to discuss my involvement in the study with the researchers if I wished to do so.

ü The researchers have answered any questions that I had about the study and I am happy with the answers.

ü I understand that being in this study is completely voluntary and I do not have to take part. My decision whether to be in the study will not affect my relationship with the researchers or anyone else at the University of Sydney now or in the future.

ü I understand that I can withdraw from the study at any time.

ü I understand that my expression of interest responses can be withdrawn if I withdraw from the study. I understand that some of the characteristics I provide in this form, such as my age, gender, or sexuality, may be used to contextualise my responses in the research.

1 ‘Not just like us’: A study of how queers read celebrity media Version 2.0 1/3/16

ü I understand that I may leave the focus group at any time if I do not wish to continue. I also understand that it will not be possible to withdraw my comments once the group has started as it is a group discussion.

ü I understand that I may leave the interview at any time if I do not wish to continue. I also understand that it will be possible to withdraw my responses in the interview. I understand that I can refuse to answer questions posed to me in the interview.

ü I understand that if I participate in the research on Facebook, I have also already agreed to Facebook’s terms and conditions regarding their use of my information. I also understand that I can withdraw from this section of the research at any time, and my individual responses will be withdrawn, though it may not be possible to withdraw my conversations with other participants, as it is a group discussion.

ü I understand that personal information about me that is collected over the course of this project will be stored securely and will only be used for purposes that I have agreed to. I understand that information about me will only be told to others with my permission, except as required by law.

ü I understand that the personal information and comments of others in the study is to be kept private, and thus will not share any information about other participants, or their comments in focus groups and on Facebook, with anyone else.

ü I understand that the results of this study may be published, and that publications will not contain my name or any identifiable information about me.

This form continues on the next page.

2 ‘Not just like us’: A study of how queers read celebrity media Version 2.0 1/3/16

Any published results will use this pseudonym to refer to me: ______

I consent to: • Audio-recording YES o NO o

• Being contacted about future studies YES o NO o

• Participating in a Facebook discussion group about the project, as outlined in the Participation Information Statement. YES o NO o

If you wish to be involved in the Facebook discussion group, please provide your Facebook name and email address: (Please note this data is only being used to add you to the research group)

______

Would you like to receive feedback about the overall results of this study?

YES o NO o If you answered YES, please indicate your email address:

Email: ______

...... Signature

...... PRINT name

...... Date

3 ‘Not just like us’: A study of how queers read celebrity media Version 2.0 1/3/16