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Reality TV and Queer Identities

Sexuality, Authenticity, Celebrity

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Michael Lovelock

    1. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

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  • Offers the first book-length study of reality television’s central role in how queer identities take shape within popular culture

  • Interrogates how reality TV has set out hierarchies of ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ ways to be queer in the contemporary moment

  • Draws upon a wide range of case studies from both US and UK reality TV, linking recent cases with older examples from across the first and second decades of the 21st century

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Michael Lovelock
    Pages 1-32

  3. ‘Real’ Queers on Television: From Heteronormativity to Compulsory Authenticity

    • Michael Lovelock
    Pages 33-62

  4. Queerness as Authenticity in Reality TV

    • Michael Lovelock
    Pages 63-92

  5. Born This Way: Authenticity as Essentialism in Reality TV

    • Michael Lovelock
    Pages 93-126

  6. Resurgent Heteronormativity in Reality Pop

    • Michael Lovelock
    Pages 127-154

  7. Working and Werking: Queerness, Labour and Neoliberal Self-Branding in Reality TV

    • Michael Lovelock
    Pages 155-187

  8. Conclusion

    • Michael Lovelock
    Pages 189-200

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 201-205
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines queer visibility in reality television, which is arguably the most prolific space of gay, lesbian, transgender and otherwise queer media representation. It explores almost two decades of reality programming, from Big Brother to I Am Cait, American Idol to RuPaul’s Drag Race, arguing that the specific conventions of reality TV—its intimacy and emotion, its investments in celebrity and the ideal of authenticity—have inextricably shaped the ways in which queer people have become visible in reality shows. By challenging popular judgements on reality shows as damaging spaces of queer representation, this book argues that reality TV has pioneered a unique form of queer-inclusive broadcasting, where a desire for authenticity, rather than being heterosexual, is the norm. Across all chapters, this book investigates how reality TV’s celebration of ‘compulsory authenticity’ has circulated ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ ways of being queer, demonstrating how possibilities for queer visibility are shaped by broader anxieties and around selfhood, identity and the real in contemporary cultural life. 

Reviews

“Michael Lovelock’s Reality TV and Queer Identities: Sexuality, Authenticity, Celebrity offers an excellent insight into the changing landscape of televisual form revealing how queer social actors are staking their claim within reality TV. Offering both an historical account and a sophisticated theoretical foundation, Lovelock’s insight is both informative and provocative.  Engaging with case studies as diverse as The Real World, Bake Off, and Fire Island, this book is accessible, stimulating and a delight, for scholars and everyday readers.” (Christopher Pullen, Bournemouth University, UK )

Authors and Affiliations

  • Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Michael Lovelock

About the author

Michael Lovelock is an English teacher, who has previously taught media and cultural studies at the University of East Anglia and Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK. His previous work has appeared in numerous journals, including the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Feminist Media Studies and Sexualities.

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