ANTECEDENTES NACIONALES

According to Holmes and Redmond, ‘the representation of modern fame is bound up with auto-destructive tendencies or dissolution. One of the dominant scripts of stardom and celebrity now centres on the real and symbolic pain fame brings to those who exist in the glare of the media spotlight’ (2005: 15). The media are increasingly involved in damaging the image of a celebrity through salacious and unflattering reportage. Autobiographies on the other hand work through narratives based on damage caused by fame to offer a

narrative of healing. Feminine autobiographies especially trade in narratives of crisis. Goody and Katona’s autobiographies centre on breakdown and bodily struggles.

Femininity is a public performance that depends on the validation by others (Skeggs, 1997).

This is particularly evident in the lives of celebrities who are, in a sense, always on display.

Bodily representations are even more central for reality TV celebrities with little talent, whose celebrity relies wholly on media appearances. Discourses of the celebrity body are central in Goody and Katona’s autobiographies. As the media constantly criticise and judge celebrity bodies, celebrities are always under pressure to maintain an acceptable body image. As Bailey puts it, ‘women’s very bodies are tailored, by women, to conform to social ideals which are historically specific. Women have been associated with the body and emotion’ (1993: 104). Engaging in such discourses, Goody and Katona’s autobiographies are arguably more traditional in their representations of gender. Fame brings with it pressures to adhere to feminine bodily norms and for Goody and Katona this pressure has driven them to eating disorders and plastic surgery.

It was also during this time that I developed an eating disorder. I was making myself sick to keep the weight down, and when I wasn’t doing that I was developing a serious (and very secret) addiction to slimming pills. The more people said how good I looked - I had long dark hair extensions at the time and I nearly combusted on the spot when I read that one newspaper thought I looked like Liz Hurley – the more pressure I felt to maintain it.

Slimming pills just seemed like the easy answer to keep the weight off (Goody, 2008: 26-27).

Goody’s autobiographies tell the extent of her bodily insecurities and in doing so add to her representation as being somehow unfinished – a sense that dominates the narratives in both of her autobiographies. From the beginning media representations concentrated on judging Goody’s body, which, according to the autobiographies, was the reason that Goody became so insecure about her looks. Goody didn’t look her best at the eviction from the Big Brother house in 2002: ‘I didn’t try my eviction outfit on during the whole time I was in there.

I think I was in denial. I was about a size 10 before I went on to Big Brother, and when I came out I was a size 14! So when I put the dress on – I was bulging out everywhere’

(Goody, 2006: 137). Her appearance at this time fuelled media judgement of her body. After the initial reporting, the media never stopped calling Goody Miss Piggy or comparing her to a pig, names that arose every time Goody received negative publicity. Goody also did not realise that she was doing her body serious harm through abusing slimming pills. The implications of her slimming pill addiction are revealed in Jade – Catch a Falling Star:

I hadn’t actually admitted it to anyone yet, but my body was turning into an absolute mess because of all the damage I was doing to it.

Ever since Bobby was born I’d been relying on slimming pills and laxatives to keep my weight under control. Yes, I might have exercised and, yes, I might have told certain magazines I was on some new-fangled healthy-eating diet. But I was always supplementing it with tablets (Goody, 2008: 73).

The second autobiography contains several similar sections where Goody’s persona slowly unravels, revealing new, previously untold details. Thus the autobiographies give an impression of revealing hidden truths and of admitting previous omissions, thus working narratively to construct a sense of ‘authenticity’. But at the same time as these autobiographies construct ‘authenticity’ they admit that Jade Goody, the celebrity, is indeed a narrative construction, and one that is on-going and changing depending on circumstances.

Social gender norms affect the way celebrity autobiographies are written and the manner in which celebrities are represented.

As most feminists argue, gender norms are not simply innocuous social rules or guidelines that tell one how to act and dress; gender norms play a significant role in social organisation. Moreover, the gender norms for women are not just constraining on some trivial level but encourage self-starvation, bodily mutilation, and unwarranted surgical practices (McLaren, 2002: 97).

Bodies are cultural constructions and celebrities are currently seen as embodying the ‘ideal’

body and appearance. However, autobiographical narratives represent female celebrities’

bodily struggles to achieve and maintain this ‘ideal’ thus using the body to ‘authenticate’ the celebrity. ‘Bordo discusses the ways in which culture constructs and pathologises femininity.

[…] These pathologies are an extreme form of the inscription of femininity on women’s bodies’ (McLaren, 2002: 95). In Goody and Katona’s case gender pathologies are combined with the class pathology of ‘chav’. Their working-class bodies are seen by the media as not conforming to the ideal, with pressure put on them to modify their bodies to fit the norm. In Goody’s case, this pressure leads to bulimia.

I was sick. And sick. And sick. […] I looked myself in the mirror and I smiled. I’d actually enjoyed the feeling of being sick. […] So that was it; I didn’t stop after that. […] Nobody knew. And it went on for months. […] But underneath it all I was deeply ashamed. I’d be all alone, crouching in a toilet with my head down the loo. What kind of a person does that? (Goody, 2008: 198-199).

Moving into the world of celebrity, new celebrities often alter their appearance to improve and to transform. This transformation then provides material for their on-going narrative construction. Goody’s autobiographies represent the eating disorder as the only way that Goody can stay in control of at least one aspect of her life although at the same time a shame discourse works to construct a deeply troubled young woman who cannot cope with sudden fame and is ashamed of having succumbed to bulimia. Eventually Goody had to confess to her eating disorder. Confession then alleviates the shame but narratively sets in motion her addiction to slimming pills. ‘Pills offered me a sneaky way of doing the same job.

I got well and truly hooked on them’ (Goody, 2008: 27). Narratively, an eating disorder and slimming pill addiction then work to construct a troubled female celebrity, or female celebrity in crisis – a representation also familiar in media representations.

The autobiographies follow the dominant feminine discourse of train-wreck female celebrity, demonstrated by numerous celebrities over the years. Female reality TV celebrities’

autobiographies and confessional discourses are clearly gendered feminine through bodily narratives. As the body is the main avenue for female celebrities to ‘re-invent’ their image, it becomes central to discourses about the persona and the self of the celebrity in crisis.

Pressures of fame are written on the body, but eating disorders are rarely revealed in media confessionals. The emphasis in these is often on healthy eating, diet and exercise, but as seen in Goody’s case, the autobiographies reveal hidden disorders and addictions, putting the created media image in question. But this also ensures the autobiography’s place as the site of ‘truth’ and ‘authenticity’. According to Bell (2008) reality TV female celebrities’ fame depends on their being both in and out of control. This in turn guarantees a continuous narrative to be circulated in the media. ‘Through the memoir, one can offer emotional intimacy, dispute or create media scandals, and assert authenticity’ (Bell, 2008: 4). What is central about contemporary celebrity autobiography is that it is one of the few means of (re)constructing a celebrity persona, which is to some degree under the control of the celebrity (Bell, 2008).

As well as physical failures, mental distress has also become a central theme in celebrity autobiographies. As seen in the previous chapter, even male celebrities are now willing to confess mental instability, but instead of creating pity or condemnation of them, mental distress adds to the male ‘creative genius’ image. However, this works differently in relation to female celebrities.

Gender is understood to be an important ingredient in the way celebrity madness is communicated and understood, with the appropriation of the “feminine therapeutic discourses” used to reinforce the patriarchal definition of genius as a combination of male and female qualities reserved exclusively for men. […]

Celebrity mental illness provides women with a melodramatic affect correlating to a particular female experience of frustration and disempowerment (Holmes and Redmond, 2006: 291).

Female breakdown is often narratively represented as being caused by failed relationships, thus the female celebrity is defined through her relationships with men. Katona had a mental breakdown after her marriage collapsed and she was treated in two rehab centres, the Priory in the UK and Cottonwood in Arizona U.S.A. Katona’s breakdown was widely reported in the media, as her autobiography relates: ‘There were newspaper reports all over the place about how I was losing it’ (Katona, 2007: 306). Her autobiography Kerry – Too Much, Too Young offers a response to these newspaper reports by detailing her illness: ‘I did my best to forget everything and get on with my life, but it was impossible. My dream of having a happy, stable family of my own was in pieces. I was a broken woman and didn’t know how I was going to get through it’ (Katona, 2007: 293). ‘When I was at my lowest point, certain friends persuaded me into going out, having a drink and taking drugs. […] For a few hours I did feel better. I would forget the pain and feel like I wasn’t worthless or ugly. I had no idea what I was doing to myself or how it would end and refused to admit it was becoming a problem’ (Katona, 2007: 294). Like in the case of Goody, the autobiographical discourse implies that Katona’s background is to blame for her insecurities, addictions and depression. ‘I replayed [the relationship with Bryan] in my mind, trying to work out what I had done wrong. I blamed myself, my upbringing and the insecurities it had given me’

(Katona, 2007: 295). ‘A lifetime of rejection dictates its own pattern of behaviour, and that’s something I needed to change’ (Katona, 2007: 311).

Katona’s mental breakdown is represented as a continuous struggle. She is weak and fallible as she succumbs to the same addictive behaviours time and again:

In the months that followed my first stay in the Priory, I had huge highs and lows. Despite my resolutions to stop relying on drink and drugs, I couldn’t resist the way they made me feel better about myself. An argument with Bryan would plunge me back into depression and I’d head straight for the pub (Katona, 2007: 300).

Harper (2006) suggests that female mental illness is often described as a ‘battle.’ Unlike their male counterparts female depressives are seen as being in a constant ‘battle’ with their illness whereas for men, mental illness adds to their images as mad geniuses. Male mental illness is not usually seen in tragic terms, the tragedy only enters the discourse when a male celebrity dies before their time. Furthermore, mental illness is used to prove Katona’s ‘authenticity’ vis-a-vis the ‘role’ she played in Atomic Kitten: ‘In a way, being one of

the Kittens was like acting, so because I wasn’t being myself I didn’t need that confidence boost’ (Katona, 2007: 179). The autobiography attempts to satisfy the public curiosity about what the celebrity is ‘really’ like (Dyer, 1986). Katona’s Atomic Kitten persona is replaced by a fallible and disturbed young woman, supposedly ‘the real Kerry’.

According to Harper, ‘in today’s postmodern media, the “appearance” and “reality” of celebrity (both equally constructed) are represented simultaneously’ (2006: 321). The autobiography then becomes a text which, through representations of mental illness, seems to offer the ‘reality’ behind the glamour of celebrity. However, narratively mental distress is resolved and the celebrity returns to glamorous life: ‘When I came out [of rehab] at the end of those six weeks, I was a new woman. I felt so refreshed, so vibrant and healthy’ (Katona, 2007: 312). Mental illness is represented as an everyday struggle, working to ‘authenticate’

Katona’s reality TV-based celebrity persona constructed after she left the band Atomic Kitten and divorced her pop star husband. The transgressive and mentally distressed Katona is returned to normality through a discourse of motherhood, a new marriage and a new pregnancy. In the story of her life, marriage and motherhood are represented as central to happiness and content: ‘I want to be with Mark and our kids in one big happy family forever’ (Katona, 2007: 330). Female celebrity autobiographies then rely on motherhood as a vehicle to resolve the crisis, hardships and failures. If autobiographies work to reduce the stigma attached to celebrities through representing them as ‘authentic’ and by revealing the

‘truth’ about their personas, the discourse of ‘authenticity’ does not always work. The media’s condemnation can be so total that it is difficult for celebrities to counter accusations through confession. This is particularly evident in the case of scandal discourse.