Off the grid but on the radar: disconnected celebrity in Alaskan subsistence television

Abstract

ABSTRACTAlaska-based reality shows have constituted a sizeable presence of late, with dozens of unscripted series debuting since 2010. Set against the bulk of this programming, The Last Alaskans promises audiences more holistic, less commercialised representations of Alaskan life. Shows like this, which I call ‘subsistence TV,’ follow solitary individuals or families living off-grid in landscapes fetishised as remote and unforgiving. As a platform selling the redemptive possibilities of individual autonomy and self-optimisation, Alaska reality TV generally – and subsistence TV specifically – appear to combine the neoliberal vernacular of reality programming with the loaded mythology of the American frontier. Focusing on the figure of Heimo Korth – who has been the subject of a book, two documentaries, and is a main character on the show The Last Alaskans – this essay explores the limits of fame represented by those whose lives exist largely outside the ecosystem of celebrity production, circulation, and consumption. Through a discourse and textual analysis of The Last Alaskans and other Korth-aligned media texts, I argue that he, The Last Alaskans, and subsistence TV open new lines of inquiry into presumptions about celebrity ecology as well as the conjunctions of labour, gender, and space that inform prevailing understandings of fame.