The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Communications DISCOURSES OF SOBRIETY ADDICTION, CONSUMPTION AND RECOVERY TELEVISION A Dissertation in Mass Communications By Brian L. MacAuley © 2014 Brian L. MacAuley Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2014 The dissertation of Brian L. MacAuley was reviewed and approved* by the following: Matthew Jordan Associate Professor of Communications Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Matthew McAllister Chair of the Graduate Program Professor of Communications C. Michael Elavsky Associate Professor of Communications Gail Masuchika Boldt Professor of Education *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT The debut of the documentary-style reality television program Intervention (Benz et al.) in 2005 marked the emergence of a subgenre of reality programs that focuses specifically on addiction and recovery. Previous depictions of addiction on television were largely restricted to individual news items and documentaries, made-for-television movies, “very special episodes”, or, at most, as a recurring aspect of a fictional character’s backstory; this subgenre, hereafter referred to as “recovery television”, represents the first time that multiple ongoing programs work to construct cultural understandings of addiction for television viewers. As a result, Intervention and its genred imitators, including VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (Buchta et al., 2008) and TLC’s My Strange Addiction (Bolicki, Cutlip, Galligani, Tarpinian, & Theeranuntawat, 2011), mark a distinctive shift in the history of the depiction of addiction and alcoholism in the media. For critical/cultural scholars, television is seen as a medium with potentially profound ideological and normative influence. Arguably, television is one of the ways in which we learn about the world, and this pedagogical function must be interrogated when it extends to issues of mental or corporeal health—especially when the issue in question, addiction, is itself contested terrain for contemporary medical science. The recovery television subgenre represents a potentially influential discursive formation which requires further examination. This dissertation is an examination of how the phenomenon of addiction becomes a televisual discursive formation, the subgenre of reality television called “recovery television”, and is thus re- constructed by the interactions between text, audience and industry. The precursors to the recovery television subgenre activated the audience’s voyeuristic instincts by spectacularizing addiction in The Osbournes (Brooks, Ewing, & Osbourne, 2002), The Anna Nicole Show (Ewing et al., 2002), Being Bobby Brown (Baker-Simmons, Nyanning, Shasid-Deen, Shelley, Tricarico, 2005), and Hey Paula! (Murphy, Sternberg & Whittaker, 2007). iv When these programs found “evidence” of addiction, this evidence was foregrounded. When the subjects deny their addiction, the programs redirect our attention to the excessive material consumption of the subjects. We also see the “othering” inherent in classed, racialized, and gendered portraits of addiction. Consequently, the industry responded to the success of these early programs by delivering the lived experience of “real” celebrity addiction via the imagery of madness in Breaking Bonaduce (Foy et al., 2005) and Shooting Sizemore (Demyanenko et al., 2007). In these programs, the distorted visuals and erratic behavior of these addicts engage with the ongoing cultural fascination with madness (Foucault, 1965) and also work to “other” their addicted subjects. The production and industrial discourse surrounding Intervention (Benz et al., 2005) positioned the program as “discourse of sobriety,” a text with direct relation to reality and a desire to enact social change. Yet, the industry requires standardization, and therefore coercive power is exercised on these subjects to meet these standards. In turn, the standardized logic works as Foucauldian biopower (Foucault, 1978); it teaches the viewer how to live as self-sufficient individuals in neoliberal society. In VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (Buchta et al., 2008), Dr. Drew Pinsky, star, co- creator and co-producer of the Celebrity Rehab franchise exercises the power of the “tele-clinical gaze” over his patients. Pinsky’s gaze, a hybrid of Foucault’s clinical gaze (Foucault, 1973) and the gaze of the television producer, diagnoses his patients utilizing his expert medical knowledge with an eye to transforming this medical treatment into televisual spectacle. Ultimately, the need to transform treatment into a spectacle for consumption compromises the patient’s treatment. Finally, the derivative texts of recovery television demonstrate that the reification of addiction into televisual commodity is complete. Addiction is reduced to an easily replicable formula. In this reduction, the concept of addiction becomes almost unrecognizable. Ultimately, v the transformation into spectacle has detached the sign from the signified; the image of addiction is now undistinguishable from the other commodities in the society of the spectacle. In a society where consumption is equated with success and happiness, and where vast resources are mobilized to stimulate consumptive appetites, the phenomenon of pathological consumption becomes a source of cultural anxiety. Recovery television programs tap into the collective cultural anxiety about addiction and the thin line between normal and deviant consumption: “The face of madness [that] has haunted the imagination of Western man” (Foucault, 1965, p. 15). Just as madness haunted enlightenment society, now addiction—coded as deviant consumption—haunts contemporary consumer culture. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................. ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... x Chapter 1 Discourses of Sobriety: Addiction, Consumption and Recovery Television ......... 1 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 4 What is Addiction? ........................................................................................................... 14 Cultural Foundations of Recovery TV ............................................................................. 23 Television, the Public Good, and Advertising ................................................................. 27 Reality TV ........................................................................................................................ 28 Reality TV and Addiction ................................................................................................ 32 Organizational Flow of this Dissertation ......................................................................... 37 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 40 Chapter 2 The Precursors: Constructing the “Real” Celebrity Addict .................................... 41 Incitement to Discourse .................................................................................................... 44 Textual Autopsy? A Note on Methodology ..................................................................... 45 Situating the (Alleged) Celebreality Addict ..................................................................... 47 The Osbournes .................................................................................................................. 51 Ozzy’s Appetites .............................................................................................................. 52 The Anna Nicole Show ..................................................................................................... 57 Anna’s Appetites .............................................................................................................. 58 Being Bobby Brown .......................................................................................................... 62 Bobby and Whitney’s Appetites ...................................................................................... 64 Hey Paula! ........................................................................................................................ 67 Abdul’s Alleged Appetites ............................................................................................... 68 Classing the Celebreality Addict ...................................................................................... 70 Gendering the Celebreality Addict ................................................................................... 71 Racializing the Celebrity Addict ...................................................................................... 73 Laughing at the Celebreality Addict ................................................................................ 77 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 78 Chapter 3 The Strange Case of Mr. Bonaduce and Mr. Sizemore .......................................... 81 Mad about Addiction ........................................................................................................ 84 Situating Bonaduce and Sizemore ...................................................................................