Abstract
Prior to the Celebrity Big Brother ‘ race’ row in 2007, British Reality TV star, Jade Goody, was recurrently held up as emblematic of the ‘democratisation’ of celebrity. Yet this controversy gives us cause to question a narrative of populist democracy where the circulation of celebrity status is concerned. This article explores the construction of Jade’s image before, during and after the row, examining how it offers a unique insight into the relationship between Reality TV, celebrity and discourses of selfhood in contemporary culture - especially as these are mapped across the categories of gender and class. Indeed, Jade’s representational journey points to some of the cultural tensions which surround the fascination with Reality TV stars. They are often required to demonstrate the retention of an essential ‘working-class glitz beneath the glamour’ (Biressi and Nunn 2005, p. 146), while (like many ‘essential’ identities), this core can also be cast in negative terms – as the ‘real’ identity which must be (re)assumed if social order is to prevail.
Highlights
Jade Goody shot to fame when she appeared as a contestant in the 2002 (UK) series of 6 Big Brother
As Rachel Dubrofsky has explored, Reality TV has dramatised a particular set of discourses surrounding the therapeutic: while traditional models of the therapeutic ‘assume a desire to change the self alongside the imperative to affirm or accept the self’ (Dubrofsky 2007, p. 266), Reality TV articulates the therapeutic through the idea of ‘ affirming a consistent self across disparate social spaces, verified by surveillance’ (266)
The fact that celebrity can be constructed as a form of disciplinary regime (Foucault 43 1975) rather than a celebration of individual ‘greatness’, may well reflect much-debated shifts in modern fame
Summary
Jade Goody shot to fame when she appeared as a contestant in the 2002 (UK) series of 6 Big Brother. At the same time, inviting Jade back into the house was very much in keeping with 17 the self-reflexive nature of CBB where discourses of celebrity are concerned.
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