Telling stories to make it in Hollywood: Rebel Wilson, comedy and celebrity authenticity

ABSTRACT

In 2015, writer, comedian and actor Rebel Wilson was at the centre of an exposé, courtesy of what she called ‘the shady Australian press’. Thrown into question were her birth name, age, upbringing and education – and, curiously, her authentic funniness, as if this too could be retracted retrospectively despite scene stealing turns in Hollywood comedies. In light of Wilson’s vindication, due to a clear win in her 2017 defamation case against Bauer Media, this article examines the preceding fallout for the actor. I argue that this case offers more than just another example of the authentic/inauthentic binary imposed upon celebrities, grounded as it is in a complex combination of Wilson’s gender, nationhood and contested comic turf. In drawing from Wilson’s work for broadcast, and in her capacities as both creator and star, I explore the interplay between those characters and the alleged falsehoods in her background. Situating Wilson in the tradition of comedian comedy, and exploring available parallels in the scholarship on Melissa McCarthy and Roseanne Barr, I track an emerging and possibly strategic separation in Wilson’s public and comic personas, arguing that this offers a clear illustration of the ways female comedians must navigate their celebrity and ‘authenticity’.

KEYWORDS:

• Celebrity
• gender
• comedy
• Rebel Wilson
• bogan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For just two of no doubt countless examples of this pertaining to Wilson, see Molloy (2015) and Donohoe (2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stayci Taylor

Stayci Taylor is an Industry Fellow and lecturer with the Media Program at RMIT. She has co-edited special issues of the Journal of Screenwriting and Networking Knowledge, and is published on comedy, gender and screenwriting practice in journals including Senses of Cinema, New Writing and TEXT. She continues to work as a screenwriter of film and television.