Reality (celebrity) check: fat, death and the ageing female body

Abstract

As the scholarly field of celebrity studies has demonstrated, fame performs a valuable cultural work akin to other social formations such as religion or heroism in that it often polices and makes intelligible divisions between the ordinary and the extraordinary, between the normal and the excessive and even between life and death. Celebrity studies theorists have tended to focus on the film industry and the star system in their reflections on the meanings of fame. And while they have sometimes considered women, they have not always brought gender to the forefront as a critical analytic in the study of celebrity. In this article I seek to add to the conversation on celebrity and gender through the analysis of reality TV celebrity. I examine two case studies provided by one of the longest-running, most-popular and most internationally syndicated reality television programmes, The Biggest Loser (Three-Ball Productions, 2004–present). Through this analysis, I seek to demonstrate that when women who possess reality celebrity are asked to uphold the heavy lifting of mediation and inspiration that celebrity theory has marked as the cultural work of fame, the terms for that fame shift. As demonstrated on The Biggest Loser, reality celebrity appears to offer a new position of liberation and empowerment that is amplified by women's embodiment in what I call utopic infantile celebrity, or the belief that the youthful body confers dividends in opportunity and fame. Utopic infantile celebrity fissures, however, in matters of age and biological motherhood, since its promises of youthful possibility are restricted to those whose large bodies have blocked heteronormative romance and childbirth rather than those who have already experienced it.

Keywords:

• celebrity
• feminism
• motherhood
• reality television
• The Biggest Loser

Notes

1. As of this writing in 2011, there have been four women winners of TBL: Ali Vincent, Season 5; Michelle Aguilar, Season 6; Helen Phillips, Season 7; and Olivia Ward, Season 11. Aguilar is not mentioned in my article because her victory was never labelled a ‘female first’. She has also absented herself from ensuing ‘where are they now’ check-ups and seemingly refused the celebrity function that Vincent and Phillips have embraced. Her absence in updates is typically either not noted in the diegesis of programming or referenced obliquely, with comments suggesting that she is missed. The assumption, of course, is that she has regained weight and so is ashamed to participate in the celebratory spotlight.

2. For an overview of related material, see Graeme Turner, Understanding Celebrity; and Sean Redmond and Su Holmes, Stardom and Celebrity.

3. Increasingly, however, more scholars such as Graeme Turner and Su Holmes are looking ‘between the cracks’, at celebrity that is provisional or a by-product of an expanded media industry.

4. For an extended discussion on the class mobility that is part of reality celebrity, and how the promises of the American Dream function in relation to motherhood, see Brenda R. Weber (2011).

5. For more on Makeover TV as a genre, see Brenda R. Weber (2009).

6. For discussion on how Helen cheated her daughter, her ‘selfishness’, and her wrinkles and sagging skin, see the following fan postings: http://www.thatsfit.com/2009/05/20/helen-phillips-biggest-loser-winner-talks-maintenance-cheat-foods-and-her-weight/ [Accessed 18 May 2011]; http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/05/helen-biggest-loser-from-a-size-22-to-a-size-2-the-biggest-losers-helen-phillips.html [Accessed 18 May 2011]; http://www.thinkfashion.com/blogs/stylosity_hollywood_hookup/archive/2009/05/13/helen-phillips-photos-vs-tara-costa-who-should-have-won-biggest-loser-7.aspx [Accessed 18 May 2011].

7. A controversy that erupted around 36-year-old Jillian Michaels in 2010 might also explain why women who give birth to children are not given the right to claim utopic infantile celebrity as are women who do not, even when the differences in age between mothers/non-mothers or biological/adoptive mothers are fairly negligible. In an interview with Women's Health Magazine, Michaels announced her intention to become a mother (and indeed, used this rationale, in part, as a reason for leaving TBL in 2011). Michaels ruffled feathers, however, when she indicated that she would rather adopt than subject her body to pregnancy. The magazine's slant clearly indicated that Michaels’ reluctance was due to fears of weight gain and body distortion wrought by pregnancy, though Michaels later refuted this reading. Still, her comment that ‘I can't handle doing that to my body’ reinforced the perception that, as Fat Feminist Fitness Blog rightly put it, Michaels’ celebrity positioned and ratified the notion that pregnancy is more of ‘an injury or a disease than a natural process that is legitimate for those who choose it’ (24 April 2010).