Interrogating the Politics of LGBT Celebrity in British Reality Television Michael William Lovelock (Student number 3866084) Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of East Anglia School of Art, Media and American Studies August 2016 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. Abstract Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, reality television has been one of the most prolific spaces of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) visibility in British popular culture. Yet, in almost two decades of scholarship on reality TV, very little academic work has addressed the representation of LGBT identities within this medium, outside of a small set of makeover programmes. Where LGBT visibility in non-makeover reality shows has been analyzed, these representations have been approached as largely indistinguishable from fiction texts, their status as reality TV passing largely unaddressed. This thesis critically interrogates the relationship between reality television as a form, and the representations of LGBT identity found within reality programmes. Focusing on British reality shows broadcast between 2000 and 2014, this study explores how the generic specificities of reality television have shaped the ways in which LGBT identities have become visible within reality formats. This thesis argues that, in the figures of LGBT reality TV participants, tropes of authenticity, self-realization, celebrity and democracy bound to reality television itself have functioned as the discursive frameworks through which a series of normative scripts of LGBT subjectivity and LGBT life have been produced and circulated through British popular culture. This thesis examines the representations of LGBT identity in a range of different reality formats, including Big Brother, The X Factor and The Only Way is Essex, amongst others, alongside the discussions and depictions of LGBT participants in extra-textual media like magazines, newspapers and blogs. Through these materials, this study interrogates how different reality formats enable LGBT subjectivities to become visible in different ways, the divergent ways in which British reality television has represented different kinds of queer identities, and how British reality shows have mobilized the conventions of reality TV to construct and delineate cultural hierarchies of “acceptable” and “unacceptable” formations of queer subjectivity. 1 Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the support of my primary supervisor, Dr Su Holmes, whose guidance, mentorship and encyclopedic knowledge of Big Brother have been beyond invaluable. I really could not have asked for a better supervisor. I would also like to thank my secondary supervisor, Professor Yvonne Tasker, for providing vital input and advice, Dr Jamie Hakim for being involved in my upgrade panel and continuing to take an interest in my research, and my Viva panel, Dr Sarah Godfrey and Dr Anita Biressi. Lastly, I thank my family for their never-ending love and support. Declaration of funding This project was funded by a Doctoral Studentship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (grant: AH/K503009/1). 2 Contents List of Illustrations 4 Introduction 6 Chapter One: Surveying the literature 27 Chapter Two: Acceptance, humanity and emotional excess: Validation, nationhood 69 and queer suffering in British reality TV Chapter Three: „I am Brian and I‟m just happy to be gay‟: Authenticity and queerness 108 in reality television Chapter Four: Making and making over transgender identity in reality television celebrity 145 Chapter Five: Emotion, self-acceptance and the 'happy queer' in British reality TV 185 Conclusion 226 References 241 3 List of Illustrations Figure 1: Timeline of LGBT rights reform in Britain 43 Figure 2: Nadia Almada, screenshot from Big Brother (Channel 4, 2004) 81 Figure 3: The diary room, screenshot from Big Brother (Channel 4, 2004) 81 Figure 4: Nadia Almada, screenshot from Big Brother (Channel 4, 2004) 85 Figure 5: Nadia Almada, screenshot from Big Brother (Channel 4, 2004) 85 Figure 6: Nadia Almada, screenshot from Big Brother (Channel 4, 2004) 85 Figure 7: Nadia Almada, screenshot from Big Brother (Channel 4, 2004) 85 Figure 8: Brian Dowling on the cover of Attitude (October 2001) 86 Figure 9: Charlie and the boys, screenshot from The Only Way is Essex (ITV2, 2012) 99 Figure 10: Bobby and the girls, screenshot from The Only Way is Essex (ITV2 2012) 99 Figure 11: Ian 'H' Watkins, screenshot from Celebrity Big Brother (Channel 4, 2007) 121 Figure 12: Kemal enters Big Brother, 2005. Image from: 122 http://bigbrotheruk.wikia.com/wiki/Kemal_Shahin Figure 13: Rylan Clark, screenshot from The X Factor (ITV1, 2012) 136 Figure 14: Rylan Clark, screenshot from The X Factor (ITV1, 2012) 136 Figure 15: Rylan Clark, screenshot from The X Factor (ITV1, 2012) 136 Figure 16: Nadia Almada on the cover of heat (21 -27 August, 2004) 171 Figure 17: Nadia Almada on the cover of heat (28 August – 3 September 2004) 171 Figure 18: Lauren Harries, screenshot from Celebrity Big Brother (Five, 2013) 173 Figure 19: Lauren Harries internet meme 181 Figure 20: Mark Byron internet memes 193 Figure 21: Nadia Almada in heat (21-27 August 2004) 206 Figure 22: Harry's birthday, screenshot from The Only Way is Essex (ITV2, 2011) 220 4 Figure 23: Harry's birthday, screenshot from The Only Way is Essex (ITV2, 2011) 220 Figure 24: Harry's birthday, screenshot from The Only Way is Essex (ITV2, 2011) 220 Figure 25: Harry's birthday, screenshot from The Only Way is Essex (ITV2, 2011) 220 Figure 26: Sean Miley Moore, screenshot from The X Factor (ITV1, 2015) 238 5 INTRODUCTION I've learned a lot about myself and I've learned to accept myself, and I really hope the British public have learned a lot about the transgender issue, and they will accept me and respect me as I go out into the public. And not only me, but respect other transsexual people (Celebrity Big Brother, Five, 5 September 2014). This statement by Kellie Maloney, a recently transitioned transgender participant of Celebrity Big Brother UK (Channel 4, 2001-2010; Five, 2011-) in 2014, condenses a number of the discursive tropes which have structured the representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in British reality television between the years 2000 and 2014. In this quotation, Kellie positions her appearance on the show as a crucial stage in her broader narrative of gender transition, situating participation in Celebrity Big Brother as part of an existential journey to discover and affirm her 'authentic' self. Prior to 2014, Kellie had been known to the British public as Frank Maloney, a male boxing promoter, and appearing on Celebrity Big Brother as Kellie functioned as her public coming out as a transgender woman. Embedded in Kellie‟s claimed revelation of her intuited female identity via participation in the show, was the broader cultural conception of reality television as a space of authenticity; an environment in which, under the gaze of twenty-four hour camera surveillance, the „true‟, essential and innate selves of those who are mediated will inevitably emerge for public consumption (Corner, 2002). It is in this discursive context that Kellie‟s intuited, female identity was constructed as the essence of who she „really' was. „Learning‟ in the quote above thus takes on dual meanings. First, the therapeutic and revelatory qualities of the Big Brother format are conceived as having enabled Kellie to connect with and articulate publicly her true and authentic female identity. Second, the mass mediation of her gender transition narrative is endowed with a pedagogical function. Kellie voices her hopes that (heterosexual and non-transgendered) viewers will 'learn' about the emotional and physical challenges of transgender life through having witnessed her own struggle represented on the show. Here, cultural scripts of participation in reality TV as an emotional „journey‟ of self- revelation are implicated in the shifting contours of „acceptance‟ and „integration‟ for sex and gender non-conforming people in contemporary British society. 6 Discourses such as these, which assert the apparently transformative potential of reality TV visibility, have surrounded transgender, gay, lesbian, and otherwise gender/sexuality non- conforming participants of numerous British reality TV shows since the turn of the millennium. Indeed, by the second decade of the twenty-first century, reality television in the UK has attained a popular legacy as a space of unprecedented visibility for LGBT identities. Whilst often vilified in almost every other way, the form has been, and continues to be, celebrated by broadcasters and critics for helping to foster a climate of „acceptance,‟ „tolerance,‟ and „inclusion‟ for sexual minorities in contemporary Britain.1 Operating on this dual axis, discourses of acceptance – both self and societal – have recurred with striking regularity in the context of LGBT participants in British reality TV. Brian Dowling, the openly gay winner of Big Brother in 2001, stated in his eviction interview that the „high point‟ of his reality television experience was „people accepting me for who I was,‟ whilst in 2004, the victory of transgender Nadia Almada as the winner of Big Brother 5 was summarised in The Times with: [Nadia] had said that her reason for entering the show was to seek “acceptance as a woman”. She won 3.9 million votes – 74 per cent of the vote – and one could only presume that the viewing public had, after watching her for ten weeks, really understood just what being a transsexual means, and had accepted her (Moran, 2004). Crucially, this passage coalesces the authenticity and interactivity inherent to the reality form as not only reflecting, but as having actively enabled a greater awareness of transgender issues amongst the British public.