19

Tom ’s Something I want to say. . . : examining contemporary celebrity, identity and sexuality

Kim Allen, Laura Harvey and Heather Mendick

n December 2013, Tom Daley, Team GB young people aged 14-17 in six schools in Through a series of television shows and Idiving medallist and television presenter, , and the rural South auto/biographies, many facets of his life uploaded a short video to YouTube West. When we visited these schools have become public knowledge – among elusively entitled ‘Something I want to across , but especially in the these, his childhood dreams of in say . . .’ In it, Daley tells us that despite South West, young people aged 14-17 the Olympics, his ongoing competition “dating girls” in the past, he’d not had talked to us about Tom Daley and how with the many brilliant Chinese divers, the a “serious relationship” until last spring, they had grown up with him, following bullying he experienced at school and the when he met someone who makes him his journey to Olympic success. When we loss of his father to cancer shortly before feel “so happy and so safe ... well that came to choose 12 celebrities to analyse London 2012. By contrast, we are given someone [pause] is a guy”. Within days it in detail, we picked Tom Daley as one of very little information about his sexuality. had attracted nearly 10 million views and these, alongside fellow sports star Mario In his 2012 autobiography, Daley tells us around 35,000 comments. It crossed over Balotelli, royals Kate Middleton and of his attraction to and kiss with a female from new media to old media, featuring Harry, musicians Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj and diver on a rival team; and in past media in newspaper articles, and being discussed Justin Bieber, actors Emma Watson and interviews, where he’s been repeatedly on radio and television programmes. As Will Smith, Reality TV stars Katie Price asked about his relationship status, such, this video deserves the attention of and Kim Kardashian, and entrepreneur he’s said that he wants a girlfriend but media educators. To offer some possible Bill Gates. (You can read about how we currently doesn’t have time for a serious starting points, in this article we explore selected these 12 here: http://www. relationship because diving takes first what it can tell us about contemporary celebyouth.org/final-top-12-celebrities- place in his life. celebrity, identity and sexuality. from-the-group-interviews/) Tom Daley’s celebrity is a mix of Olympic Having mostly avoided the blanket For the case study of Tom Daley, Heather medallist and Reality TV star. This is Olympic coverage over the summer, studied his media representation including interesting because he crosses over a we first encountered Tom Daley when reading an autobiography and biography, widespread distinction in contemporary we started to work together on the following the news coverage of Daley celebrity between ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ CelebYouth research project that is across six months and enduring every celebrities. ‘Proper’ celebrities’ fame is exploring the role of celebrity in young episode of season one of the TV-celebrity- based on talent and hard work, while people’s aspirations. The project is diving-competition Splash! that Daley ‘improper’ celebrities are viewed as funded by the Economic and Social fronts. While we each followed the media famous for nothing. Two of us (Kim and Research Council and based at Brunel and coverage of four different celebrities, we Heather) explored these distinctions in Manchester Metropolitan Universities. shared information on our case studies a paper published in 2013 and found As part of this we carried out 24 group and regularly discussed breaking news that ‘improper’ celebrity is associated interviews about celebrity culture with about the celebrities whose lives we had with working-class women’s routes to learnt so much about. One such story fame such as glamour modelling, reality was Tom Daley’s Something I want to say television and becoming the partner of video, which struck all three of us as brave a footballer (colloquially known as a and inspiring. But in this article we try WAG). It may initially appear fair to judge to take a step back and look critically at marriage a less valuable route to fame the ‘something’ Tom Daley wants to say. than sporting or musical accomplishments. For those who missed his rise to fame we However, the same judgements made begin with some background. of those WAGs who date and marry footballers are rarely applied to middle- Who is Tom Daley? and upper-class women, such as Kate Video still: http://b.vimeocdn.com/ Tom Daley hails from a working-class Middleton, who also acquire their celebrity ts/460/333/460333496_640.jpg family in , South West England. status through marriage rather than on media education journal 55 20

Mail, a newspaper that has sponsored his First, as Henry Jenkins (2006) discusses, career. This letter focuses readers on his media convergence is altering the hard-working Olympic credentials and his relationship between production and use ‘ordinary’ background within a close-knit – for, in our interactive world, all use is, on family, in which, following his father’s some level, also production. death, he’s now the ‘male breadwinner’. In this way, despite his Reality TV work, While readers/viewers/listeners never Daley has been saved from falling into the passively absorbed information from ‘improper’ celebrity category. the mass media, they are now able to participate in online communities of users These distinctions also relate to wider who are also generating online content, Publicity image from Splash: http://db2. hierarchies of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ thus increasingly blurring the boundaries stb.s-msn.com/i/93/33A81C3E6846E0302 celebrity that we have identified in young between the user and the producer, the F60548249F2BE_h498_w598_m2.jpg people’s talk about celebrity in the study. reader and the writer, the professional For example, participants in the rural and the amateur. As mentioned above, the basis of particular achievements. schools evaluated Daley’s celebrity status Daley uses the same social media as his Further, making your living via Big positively in relation to his work ethic fans, micro-blogging site , photo- Brother and other Reality TV programmes, and having overcome bereavement and sharing site , YouTube and seems to us a great deal tougher and bullying. In the next section we look in another video-sharing site Keek; and the more precarious than doing so through more detail at his celebrity representation volume of ‘user’ comments beneath his appearing in films. and how it exemplifies two key shifts in ‘coming out’ video, were far in excess of celebrity images. the video to which they were a response. Tom Daley’s involvement in reality However, perhaps the most intriguing television started early through a 2010 A contemporary celebrity and pertinent example of such blurring is BBC ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary The In his work on classic Hollywood stars, fanfiction, the stories through which fans Diver and his Dad, which followed his Richard Dyer used detailed readings of the re-imagine Daley’s life. There are romantic daily life – training, studying and at home images of Marilyn Monroe, Paul Robeson fanfictions, such as Mistletoe and Babies..., with his family – focusing on his close and Judy Garland, to show how these stars a first-person narrative written from the relationship with his father, Rob. Recently relate to work, sexuality, and ethnicity, point-of-view of Daley’s wife arriving Daley has increased his television work but also how these aspects of our lives home from work on Christmas Eve to him through his lead role in the prime time ‘depend on more general ideas in society and their children. There are also sexually- ITV Saturday night programme Splash! in about what a person is and stars are explicit stories, such as Larry and Tom which celebrities learn to dive and then major definers of these ideas’ (2003, p.7). Daley, in which Daley joins Louis from One compete against each other in a live show. Although, as Su Holmes and others have Direction for a threesome in the flat Louis He acts as a mentor to the celebrities and pointed out, the images of many current shares with bandmate Harry. both dives and talks in each episode of celebrities are rather different from Splash! His diving coach acts as one of the those of such celluloid greats, we would Second, the boundaries between the public three judges on the show. argue that what Dyer said remains true and the private are shifting and blurring of current celebrities: they too provide in new ways. While there’s long been an Daley’s embodiment of both high status a means to ‘articulate what it is to be a interest in the lives and loves of the rich and low status forms of celebrity is human being in contemporary society’ and famous, such information classically not unique – cycling medallist Victoria (2004, p.7). For example, when people was found within intertexts such as gossip Pendleton is just one of many world- discussed singer Miley Cyrus twerking at magazines which operated between the class athletes to appear in Strictly Come the 2013 Video Music Awards, they were main texts of an artist’s films, albums, Dancing (see http://www.celebyouth. not simply or even mainly talking about books etc. For most celebrities, text and org/femininity-celebrity-and-olympic- her behaviour, but instead expressing intertext have converged, in forms such role-models-the-case-of-victoria- social anxieties, notably about the so- as Keeping Up with the Kardashians and pendleton/) but it is unusual for an called sexualisation of culture and in via social media that give us the illusion Olympian who is still at his peak. His particular, the relationship between and expectation of instant access to position has not been without tensions. sexualised media, girlhood and notions celebrities’ thoughts and feelings. While He, and four of his diving team mates, of childhood innocence. And, when we Daley’s diving remains in place as the were publicly criticised by David take part in debates about footballers’ ‘real’ reason for his fame, for many of us, Sparkes, Chief Executive of British ‘outrageous’ earnings we are collectively ‘intertexts’ such as The Diver and his Dad Swimming, in 2012 when they posted negotiating our ideas about the and Something I want to say . . . are the on YouTube a video of themselves lip- relationship between work and reward and main routes through which we know him. syncing to LMFAO’s hit ‘Sexy and I about what we, as a society, do and should He has made extensive use of social media Know It’ (http://www.youtube.com/ value. However, despite these continuities throughout his career, or as Chas Newkey- watch?v=bws52wtv6Ts). More recently in what Graeme Turner (2004) and others Burden put it in his biography of Daley Sparkes again spoke out critically, call the cultural significance of celebrity, – he “is cleverly building his fan-base and suggesting that Daley’s involvement in there have been shifts in the nature and connecting with it online” (2011, p.169). Splash! shows a lack of commitment to social function of stardom since the He set-up regular Twitcam sessions where his diving. Daley’s mother, Debbie Daley, 1950s. Here we look briefly at two that he speaks direct to his fans and answers wrote a strong defence of her son through provide an important context for Daley’s their questions more than a year and a an open letter published in the Daily ‘Something I want to say . . .’ video. half before the London Olympics. What we

media education journal 55 21 see in these videos and his other uses of video has been managed by the celebrity don’t know what my imagination was social media, are very public performances industry to promote the ‘Tom Daley doing’. This documentary is filled with such of a very ‘private’ self. By inviting fans to brand’. We also suspect that the timing difficult moments, from Daley arguing share and gain insights into their ‘private’ of this announcement, just before the with his father to his going within him to self, stars come to feel closer to us, even second season of Splash! started on ITV, his brain scan. Following from this, we can ordinary, and authentic. This is at the isn’t a coincidence. However, despite experience this video as another difficult heart of Daley’s Something I want to say . . these suggestions that the video was far moment. . video and is explored in the next section. from organic, Daley cleverly constructs himself as real, through anticipating and Coming out? ‘In an ideal world, I Authenticity: ‘Honesty is something vocalising such doubting and dissenting wouldn’t be doing this video . . .’ I really do believe in . . .’ voices. He tells us ‘For me honesty is In canvassing public opinions on the video, Authenticity or ‘being oneself’ is a moral something that I really do believe in and we found that two reactions dominated. duty: it is required of everyone from I’ve always been honest. I may have been, First, that it’s sad that this is ‘news’ - politicians to Big Brother housemates. you know, vague in some of my answers sometimes followed by a statement that Sociologist Nikolas Rose has analysed but I’ve always been honest’. He defends his diving is more interesting/important how we are now compelled to choose his previous silence by saying, ‘One of and that ‘in this day and age’ celebrities our futures and to make, know and the things that’s been important to me (and perhaps, by extension, others) examine our-selves. We are assumed has been having some form of private shouldn’t feel the need to make a public to be individuals who are ‘motivated by life’, anticipates people asking ‘Well why announcement about their sexuality. anxieties and aspirations concerning did you do a book, and why did you do Second, that the speaker ‘knew’ already – [our] self fulfilment, committed to finding a documentary?’, and responds ‘I’ve only although this was often accompanied by a [our] true identities and maximising [our] ever talked about things I feel comfortable vagueness about what it is that they knew. authentic expression in their lifestyles’ talking about’. This pattern of personal What do these reactions tell us about (1996, p.196). Given the importance of revelation, followed by voicing the doubts contemporary sexuality? authenticity, we now look at how Daley of others and then providing a defence does this in the video. against these, recurs through the short video. Daley also positions his speaking We are all well-trained at searching out out as a way of his being honest in the the ‘real’ and distinguishing it from the face of dishonest reporting: ‘recently I was ‘fake’, and we enjoy doing this. Annette misquoted in an interview and it made me Hill, discussing Big Brother viewers, feel really angry and frustrated and you illustrates that catching that ‘moment know, like emotions I’d never felt before, of truth’ is central to viewing practices um, when reading something about and pleasures: “audiences look for the myself’. moment of authenticity when real people are ‘really’ themselves in an unreal Following work by critical psychologists environment” (2002, p.324). In his video, Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell Daley uses the aesthetic devices of ‘the (1987), we are not suggesting that such reveal’ and ‘the confessional’ to establish discursive techniques are always planned, intimacy, interiority and authenticity. or necessarily even recognised by the Tom Daley Calendar: http://blogs. Sitting in his bedroom talking to us, speaker in the moment. But the language coventrytelegraph.net/passtheremote/ direct-to-camera, apparently unmediated, that people use in their everyday life tom%20daley%202012%20nov.jpg as Daley does, suggests a truth-telling via does perform social functions, including intertextuality, taking credibility from the positioning the speaker in a particular Tom Daley’s sexuality is partly public video diaries of 1990s, the Big Brother light. Of course, where celebrities are property. He makes money out of it, as diary room of the 2000s, and everything concerned there is also the additional the above image from the cover of the in between. He tells us that when some of complexity of more formalised strategies 2013 Tom Daley Calendar suggests. Go his relatives asked ‘Why don’t you just do of presentation through Public Relations. to Amazon and you can buy Mrs Tom a statement, why don’t you do a magazine So, as viewers, we are invoked to believe Daley T-shirts in a range of 11 colours. cover. Why don’t you do a TV interview?’, Daley is honest here through the form the The fanfictions discussed earlier involve his response was, ‘I didn’t want to get my video takes and the discursive techniques Tom in having sex with both men and words twisted. I wanted to put an end to he uses, but also in the ways that it women. Because of this, any relationship all the rumours and speculation and just draws on earlier texts about him. For of Daley’s, whoever it were with, would be say it and just tell you guys’. The repeated example, The Diver and his Dad begins news. word ‘just’ here functions to reinforce the with Daley recounting a dream, apparently intimacy. giving us an uncensored glimpse into But while this announcement is about a his unconscious, of standing on the 10m relationship it is not simply about that, As he suggests ‘people will call me a board for his final dive in London 2012, as the level of media interest indicates. liar’, so he has a tricky job negotiating needing only an average dive to take gold, About a minute into the video, Daley authenticity in this video. When he says looking down and seeing a shark but being says ‘in an ideal world I wouldn’t be that he initially told fewer than five unsure whether it’s real. On diving in, he doing this video’. He tells us not just that people about his new relationship, we is swallowed by the shark and dies but, he’s in a relationship but that he’s in a assume one of them was his publicist. still in his dream, he sees the headlines relationship with a guy, and he pauses for This makes us think about how this announcing his death. As he remarks, ‘I several seconds before communicating media education journal 55 22

that second part, a silence pregnant experiences, and the constant requirement twice, expressing that “I hope you can join with meaning. Thus this video has clear to fit into categories (see http://www. me in my journey to Rio 2016 too”. elements of the ‘coming out’ genre. So it’s pinknews.co.uk/2013/12/02/comment- news because very few people in the world i-made-a-mistake-with-my-tom-daley- Tom Daley is regularly depicted wrapped in of sport have come out. Wikipedia’s list headline-but-a-mistake-was-all-it- the British flag. Indeed a huge 14m Union of LGBT sports people is longer than one was/). But not only are there no labels in Jack is unfurled before his opening dive might expect but on closer inspection, it Daley’s sexual story, there’s no journey. He in the final of the first season of Splash! contains very, very few household names. doesn’t come out of the closet, for while The nationalism in this video is more Most recently, Liam Davis has become ‘it did take me by surprise a little bit, ... it subtle, not a massive flag dominating the the first English professional footballer to was always in the back of my mind that screen, but a couple of pillows on which come out as gay during his career since something like that could happen’. And he casually reclines and which are mostly Justin Fashanu in 1990, and 16 years after he hasn’t changed, ‘of course I still fancy obscured by his body. Like the blue Union Fashanu’s tragic suicide. The reaction to girls’, the ‘of course’ suggesting that this Jack motif that backs the cover image for Daley has been overwhelmingly positive – should not even need to be said. his calendar (reproduced earlier), we can he has over ten times as many thumbs up see this as part of what Michael Billig than thumbs down on YouTube, suggesting Interestingly, the story he tells in a calls ‘banal nationalism’, an everyday that public attitudes towards same- television interview with broadcaster nationalism of ‘the embodied habits of gender relationships are changing and Jonathan Ross only a few days after social life’ (1995, p.8). This is also evident providing evidence for Mark McCormack’s posting the video (http://www.youtube. in his references to Olympics past and (2011) thesis on ‘the declining com/watch?v=kD6WJiJhkCQ) does have present that bookend the video, a mention significance of homophobia’ (see http:// a sense of a journey. For example, he of the medal he won for Britain in 2012 markmccormackphd.com/the-declining- recounts, ‘when you’re growing up you and the one he hopes to win in 2016. significance-of-homophobia/). But what may always have those kind of thoughts Daley did is still tough – particularly at 19 . . . I felt like there was something wrong In his autobiography and in his mother’s years of age and in the glare of the media. with me . . . I didn’t know other people open letter to David Sparkes, we are In seeing it as non-news, the speakers felt that way . . . I felt like so alone . . . I reminded again of Daley’s Britishness whom we canvassed position themselves felt like I couldn’t be who I wanted to be. through the contrasts they make to the and their society as having moved to And from Monday I’ve felt like I could just Chinese divers: a progressive view of sexuality and so be myself’. However, this doesn’t detract deny the very conditions that make his from the distinctiveness of the video When the Chinese are younger, their revelations so brave. through which he broke the news. As Ken parents make the decision whether Plummer points out, all narratives have they want them to be musicians, As we said above, there are parts of what their time. So it is perhaps a sign of our well educated or sportsmen or Daley says that indicate he’s ‘coming own times that Daley tells an individualist sportswomen and they keep working out’. But this is not one of the modernist story of love that comes along, surprises at it for their whole life. The diving ‘coming out’ tales which sociologist Ken him and massively changes his life, rather training sounds brutal. The Chinese Plummer astutely analysed in his book than a collectivist narrative of finding an coaches are very forceful but are Telling Sexual Stories. Such modernist identity within a community. Despite this, normally technically excellent. It’s a stories are characterised by a temporal “for narratives to flourish there must be a very different culture; one that I’m patterning of a journey from youthful community to hear . . .” (p.67), and while sure I would do really badly in. (Tom suffering, via contest and struggle against Daley’s video garnered an enthusiastic Daley, 2012, p.110) an enemy, to a mature ‘coming to terms response from the LGBT community, with yourself’, finding a new home within and reportedly served as inspiration for The Chinese comparisons really a like-minded community. For Plummer others, both celebrity (Arsenal women’s annoy me - and I know that they the ‘coming to terms’ phase is critical: footballer Casey Stoner) and non- annoy Tom. He was not born in ‘It is associated with coming to work out celebrity (see http://www.riveronline. Beijing. He was born in Plymouth. I fairly clearly the nature of sexuality: to co.uk/content/2014/01/27/how-tom- saw a documentary a few years ago give a label, to resolve the problems posed daley-inspired-ku-student-come- which showed the Chinese boot- through signification, to find the story out-bisexual), to come out it, it can be camp style of training in sport. This which explains it all’ (1995, p.88-9). But seen positively that Daley has aimed his is not Tom. He would not function Daley doesn’t label himself. message at a wider audience and at his if his life was just diving. (Debbie fan base more generally. Daley, 2013) So when we asked people what they thought about Daley and they said that Britishness: “It’s a very different culture Daley’s success is constructed as the they ‘already knew’, what was it that they . . . “ In the absence of a fixed sexuality triumph of British individualism against already knew? Indeed one group of young with which Daley aligns himself, we will the Chinese ‘brutal’ production-line people we interviewed for the CelebYouth end by briefly looking at the aspects of approach. Tom Daley, in distinction from project were certain he had come out as his identity that are fixed in the video: his the Chinese, is always himself, and in gay over a year before he released this Britishness, and related to this his desire being himself, he is intrinsically British. video. Initially, in the media reaction, there to continue his sporting achievements The honesty that compels him to say was a rush to ‘categorise’ him as gay or despite hurdles in his personal life. When ‘something’ is similarly ‘authentically Tom’ bisexual, perhaps reflecting this knowing he speaks about these he reminds us “I’m and ‘authentically British’, and perhaps, and suggesting the widespread erasure still Tom” and he uses the word ‘journey’ in this way, embracing sexual diversity of bisexual and queer identities and becomes British too, even as this very

media education journal 55 23

Britishness makes other forms of diversity Daley, D. (2013) ‘Tom’s Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture: more difficult. probably kept you in your job. He turned where old and new media collide, New down his friends and holidays to keep York: New York University Press. Together Kim Allen (Manchester diving after the Games. Isn’t it time you McCormack, M. (2011) The declining Metropolitan University), Laura Harvey left my son alone?’ Available at www. significance of homophobia, Oxford: (University of Surrey) and Heather dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/ Oxford University Press. Mendick (Brunel University) make up article-2259777/Tom-Daleys-mum- Newkey-Burden, C. (2011) Tom Daley: the the CelebYouth research team who are Debbie-hits-David-Sparkes-Splash- unauthorized biography. London: Michael researching ‘the role of celebrity in young criticism--EXCLUSIVE.html O’Mara Books Limited. people’s classed and gendered aspirations’. Daley, T. (2012) My Story, London: Michael Plummer, K. (1995) Telling sexual stories, This study is funded by the Economic and Joseph. London: Routledge. Social Research Council. You can follow Dyer, R. (2003) Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars Potter, Jonathan and Margaret Wetherell. their work via Twitter @CelebYouthUK or and Society, London: Routledge. (1987) Discourse and social psychology: at their website www.celebyouth.org. Hill, A. (2002) ‘Big Brother: the real beyond attitudes and behaviour, London: audience’, Television and New Media, 3: Sage. References 323-340. Rose, N. (1996) Inventing our selves: Allen, K. and Mendick, H. (2013) ‘Young Holmes, S. (2004) ‘“All you’ve got to worry psychology, power, and personhood, people’s uses of celebrity: class, gender about is the task, having a cup of tea, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. and ‘improper’ celebrity.’ Discourse: studies and what you’re going to eat for dinner”: Turner, G. (2004) Understanding Celebrity, in the cultural politics of education, 34 (1): Approaching Celebrity in Big Brother’ London: Sage. 77-93. in Understanding Reality Television, S. Billig, M. (1995) Banal nationalism, Holmes and D. Jermyn (eds) London: London: Sage. Routledge.

Le Cinéma, cent ans de jeunesse: an integrated film education programme

Mark Reid

n 2009 I was introduced to an fore- or background, and a busier, more people to make films in the style of Iextraordinary film education programme, social fore- or background. The boy was the Lumières: a one-minute take, fixed one unlike anything I had seen before isolated in the frame, until the very end, shot (or ‘plan fixe’) on film, and without (I’ve been teaching and working in when the shots integrated him with his sound. These ‘Lumière Minutes’ became film education for 20 years). Nathalie peer group. It was a striking example of an instant hit: simple, focused, but rich Bourgeois, Head of Education at the how the unique linguistic resources of film and highly textured. It turned out that Cinémathèque Française in Paris, came to can be used to tell a simple story but in a the Lumières, far from being primitive visit us at BFI Southbank, and showed us sophisticated and cinematic way. film pioneers, limited by the constraints a short film made by a class of 8 year old of their technology and cinematic children called Enfin un ami. A boy, new to An approach that could generate such imaginations, had actually discovered his school, is left out of playground games striking results, and that used the much of what cinema would have to offer and his classmates’ peer group. At the end fundamentals of film language with over the next century: depth of field, the of the film he is invited to a classmate’s young children, must be worth closer three axes of action, the management birthday party, and is shown joining in investigation. So, what was, and is, ‘le of on- and off-screen space, and, dare with his new friends. Cinéma, cent ans de jeunesse’ (which I say it, the manipulation of scenes and might be translated as ‘Cinema – 100 people into something looking like, but What was so striking about the film was Years Young’). not the same as ‘real life’. The hunch was the composition of the action within the that young people, and their teachers frame: Nathalie told us that the group, Origins and filmmakers, can similarly discover with their teacher and a filmmaker, had In 1995, to celebrate the centenary the resources of film by imitating such a been looking closely at a concept they of cinema (commonly taken to be the superficially simple approach. called ‘figure/fond’, or the relationship screening of The Arrival of a Train at La between foreground and background in a Ciotat Station by the Lumière brothers in Chief among this group of cinéastes shot. We noticed then that in each shot Paris), a group of French film educators was Alain Bergala, a leading French film there was a carefully balanced calibration and cinéastes created a small programme critic, contributor to Cahiers du cinéma, between our hero, shot alone in either inviting groups of children and young and friend of various luminaries of media education journal 55