We all want to be big stars: The desire for fame and the draw to The Real Housewives

Abstract

This study analyses eighteen in-depth interviews with adults in the Midwest who watch Bravo’s reality (RTV) docusoap franchise Real Housewives. Shifting the gaze away from RTV effects and towards the proliferation of RTV, RTV stars (celetoids) and what Graeme Turner calls the ‘demotic turn’, this study examines the show’s appeal and whether a latent desire for celetoid-type fame exists among the main viewer groups analysed here (straight women and gay men). A desire for fame appears to be present among the men in this study, and younger men tended to conceive celetoid-type fame as desirable. This study also finds that men and women gravitate towards different character types. Straight women appear less intensely drawn to Real Housewives than gay men, both in terms of buying Real Housewives products and attempting to connect with the women on the show via Twitter. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the profusion of RTV, the demotic turn and celetoids factor into new desires among regular people for celetoid-type fame. This study also adds to recent research that shows that a desire to be famous is now characteristic of younger generations.

Digital ventriloquism and celebrity access: Cameo and the emergence of paid puppeteering on digital platforms

“…The term has since been redefined by Rojek (2012: 165) to include a distinctive form of celetoid: the “long-life celetoid” who can “achieve durable or semi durable types of fame,” and are “not distinctive for anything except their impudent ordinariness.” Long-life celetoids are mainly a product of social media and reality TV spin-offs and docusoaps. Perhaps nowhere is the persistence of long-life celetoids more evident than in docusoaps like Real Housewives (Psarras, 2014). These cast members maintain media attention due to multi-year contract deals with networks, which legitimates these people as media personas (Thompson et al, 2015) and gives them time to build a brand across social media platforms.…”

“…Long-life celetoids are mainly a product of social media and reality TV spin-offs and docusoaps. Perhaps nowhere is the persistence of long-life celetoids more evident than in docusoaps like Real Housewives (Psarras, 2014). These cast members maintain media attention due to multi-year contract deals with networks, which legitimates these people as media personas (Thompson et al, 2015) and gives them time to build a brand across social media platforms.…”

“It’s a mix of authenticity and complete fabrication” Emotional camping: The cross-platform labor of the Real Housewives

“…It has been found to exploit the women’s bodies, work, and reputations (Hearn, 2016). The franchise has also been critiqued for its racial (Bunai, 2014; Hawley, 2014) and gender stereotyping (Lee and Moscowitz, 2013), conspicuous consumption (Cox, 2014), and fandom (Nayar, 2015; Psarras, 2014). Scholars have also honed in on the franchise’s matrix-like structure (Levy, 2018) and format on a global scale (Johnson and Trelease, 2018).…”