‘White Trash’ and the Celebrity-as-Assemblage: Class, Race and Authority in the Reality TV Star Memoirs of Jade Goody, Paris Hilton and the Kardashians

Yelin, Hannah

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-44621-5_4

Hannah Yelin²

447 Accesses

Abstract

Memoirs offer the opportunity to intervene in a public image. However, ghostwriters, media industry practices, genre conventions, and the star’s symbolic function, all circumscribe this form of agency. This chapter considers the capitals that the celebrity and their ghostwriter bring to authorship. Contrasting Jade Goody with Paris Hilton reveals that class origins shape how these women are able/required to represent themselves. Where Goody adopts a model of abjection, seeking exoneration through confession, Hilton can adopt a strategy of camp play and heightened artifice. It examines both women’s reception as ‘white trash’ despite their diametrically opposed backgrounds. This reveals that the nature of reality TV celebrity, with its subjects’ lives on continual display, provides a basis for the gendered classing of its female stars as ‘trash’, a status deriving from the failure to demonstrate acceptably feminine restraint rather than relating to socioeconomic status. Whilst celebrity culture and its supporting gossip media have traditionally been viewed as a ‘low’ field with tabloid sensibilities, its value system is revealed to be punitively middle class.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 89.00; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 119.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 119.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
See Holmes (2004); Beverley Skeggs and Helen Wood, ‘The Labour of Transformation and Circuits of Value “Around” Reality TV,’ Continuum 22.4 (2008), 559–72; Thomas Fahy, ‘One Night in Paris Hilton: Wealth, Celebrity, and the Politics of Humiliation,’ Pop-Porn: Pornography in American Culture, ed. by Ann C. Hall and Mardia J. Bishop (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007), 75–98.
2.
Goody (2009), p. 13.
3.
Hilton, p. 100.
4.
Skeggs and Wood, pp. 560, 564.
5.
Kim Allen and Heather Mendick, ‘Young People’s Uses of Celebrity: Class, Gender and “Improper” Celebrity,’ Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 34.1 (2013) 77–93, p. 79.
6.
Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 3.
7.
Ibid., p. 3.
8.
Tyler and Bennett, p. 376.
9.
See Skeggs and Wood; Allen and Mendick; Tyler and Bennett.
10.
The Simple Life, 2003–2007. TV, 20th Century Fox.
11.
Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965).
12.
Celebrity Big Brother, 2007. TV, Endemol. Series 5.
13.
Bigg Boss, 2008. TV, Endemol. Series 2.
14.
Jade: The Reality Star Who Changed Britain, 2019, Channel 4.
15.
James Desborough, ‘JADE: YES I DID GIVE PJ THE BJ!’ The People, 28 July 2002, p. 4.
16.
Dyer (1979), p. 7.
17.
Anita Biressi and Heather Nunn, Reality TV: Realism and Revelation (London: Wallflower Press 2005), p. 147.
18.
Williamson (2010), p. 199.
19.
Hilton.
20.
Fahy.
21.
Hilton, pp. 5–6.
22.
Ibid., p. 10.
23.
Annalee Newitz and Matt Wray ‘Introduction,’ White Trash: Race and Class in America, ed. by Newitz and Wray (New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 1.
24.
Nancy Jo Sales, “Hip-Hop Debs,” Vanity Fair (September 2000), p. 378 cited in Fahy.
25.
Goody (2009), p. xxxvii.
26.
Goody (2009), p. 14.
27.
Hilton, p. 4.
28.
Goody (2009), p. xxxv.
29.
Ibid., p. 4.
30.
Couser (1998).
31.
Now the Editorial Director of Bauer Media, the company which owns UK celebrity gossip magazines, heat and Grazia, Cave is a university educated journalist and broadcaster. Goody, a working-class woman repeatedly excluded from her state secondary school, became famous, and publicly mocked, for her malapropisms, confusion and lack of education.
32.
Goody (2009), p. vii.
33.
Smith and Watson (2001), p. 2.
34.
Dyer (1979), p. 42.
35.
Tulisa Contostavlos, Honest: My Story So Far (London: Headline, 2012).
36.
Holmes (2004), p. 128.
37.
Goody (2009), p. vii.
38.
Patrick Foster, ‘Media Scrum Continues After Jade Goody’s Death, with Rehashed Book and a Film Plan,’ The Times, 24 March 2009.
39.
Ibid.
40.
Channel 4, 2019.
41.
Goody (2009), p. 74.
42.
Ibid.
43.
Mandy Morrow, ‘Celebrity Book Deals: The Latest, Highest-Paid Advances,’ The Richest, 3 August 2014.
44.
Virginia Blackburn, ‘Katie Price’s Life? It’s a Price Worth Paying,’ The Guardian, 17 January 2010.
45.
Holmes (2005b).
46.
Goody (2009), p. 49.
47.
Hilton, p. 130.
48.
Ibid., p. 100.
49.
Ibid., p. 11.
50.
Billboard Staff, ‘Paris Hilton Signs with Cash Money; Second Album to Feature Lil Wayne,’ The Hollywood Reporter, 2 May 2013; ‘Paris Hilton on Her Global Tour and Drug Use in the EDM Scene,’ The Hollywood Reporter, 8 October 2013; Matt Medved, ‘Paris Hilton Reveals Las Vegas Residency, Defends DJ Career,’ The Hollywood Reporter, 31 March 2015.
51.
Hilton, p. 100.
52.
See Couser (1998).
53.
Gilmore (2010).
54.
Ibid., p. 657.
55.
Ibid., pp. 657–58.
56.
Goody (2009), p. 9.
57.
Ibid., p. 13.
58.
Ibid., p. xxxvi.
59.
Ibid., p. xxxviii.
60.
Ibid., p. xxxv.
61.
Goody (2009), p. xxxv.
62.
Rachel E. Dubrofsky, ‘Fallen Women in Reality TV: A Pornography of Emotion,’ Feminist Media Studies 9.3 (2009), 353–68.
63.
Foucault (1978), pp. 61–62.
64.
Dyer (1979), p. 138.
65.
Goody (2009), p. xxxv.
66.
Smith and Watson (2001), p. 51.
67.
Tyler and Bennett, p. 377.
68.
Obituary: ‘Jade Goody,’ The Telegraph, 22 March 2009.
69.
Anita Singh, ‘“Jade Goody Represented Wretched Britain”, Says Sir Michael Parkinson,’ The Telegraph, 7 April 2009.
70.
Nick Morrison, ‘What Can Schools Learn from Jade Goody?’ Times Educational Supplement, 17 April 2009.
71.
Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (Cambridge: Polity, 1993), p. 30.
72.
Ibid.
73.
Tseëlon, p. 1.
74.
Hilton, p. 20.
75.
Ibid., p. 20.
76.
Ibid., p. 11.
77.
Ibid., p. 5.
78.
Ibid., p. 100.
79.
Ibid., p. 10.
80.
Ibid., p. 4.
81.
Ibid., p. 6.
82.
Ibid., p. 82.
83.
Blackburn.
84.
Hilton, p. 44.
85.
Ibid., p. 93.
86.
Ibid., p. 44.
87.
Ibid., p. 103.
88.
Ibid., p. 176.
89.
Barbara Klinger, ‘Digressions at the Cinema: Reception and Mass Culture,’ Cinema Journal 28.4 (1989), 3–19, cited in Holmes (2004), pp. 121–22.
90.
Su Holmes and Sean Redmond, ‘Fame Damage: Introduction,’ Framing Celebrity, p. 289.
91.
Hilton, p. 4.
92.
Ibid., frontispiece.
93.
Ibid., p. 6.
94.
Ibid., p. 4.
95.
Ibid.
96.
Ibid., p. 14.
97.
Misha Kavka, Reality TV (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Press, 2012), p. 77.
98.
Sontag (1967), p. 275.
99.
Hilton, p. 8.
100.
Sontag (1967), p. 280.
101.
Dyer (2002), p. 52.
102.
Dyer (1979), p. 110.
103.
Sontag (1967), p. 288.
104.
Hilton, p. 9.
105.
Ibid., p. 4.
106.
Ibid., p. 60.
107.
Dyer (2002), p. 49.
108.
Hilton, pp. 5–6.
109.
Faye Woods, ‘Classed Femininity, Performativity, and Camp in British Structured Reality Programming,’ Television New Media (2012).
110.
Holmes (2005a).
111.
Fahy.
112.
Hilton, p. 39.
113.
Ibid., p. 48.
114.
Ibid., p. 90.
115.
Ibid.
116.
Ibid., p. 14.
117.
The joke hinges upon a pun conflating the hotel chain that is the source of her inherited wealth and her body, the implication that it is equally easy to pay for access to either, making a link between her perceived promiscuity and the size of her vagina.
118.
Dyer (2002), p. 50.
119.
Hilton, p. 15.
120.
Holmes (2004), p. 114.
121.
Chris Rojeck, Fame Attack: The Inflation of Fame and Its Consequences (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), p. 29.
122.
Daniel Boorstin, The Image (London: Penguin, 1963), p. 11.
123.
Goody (2009), p. 22.
124.
‘Jade Goody, “Had No Talent—And She Knew It” Says Max Clifford,’ The Mirror, 6 May 2009.
125.
Dyer (1979), p. 42.
126.
Holmes and Jermyn, ‘Introduction,’ Understanding Reality Television, p. 22.
127.
Goody (2009), p. 2.
128.
‘The Year of the Chav,’ The Daily Mail, 19 October 2004.
129.
Susie Dent, Larpers and Shroomers: The Language Report (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
130.
‘The Year of the Chav,’ The Daily Mail.
131.
Tyler and Bennett, p. 380.
132.
Ibid., p. 377.
133.
Gamson (2007).
134.
Goody (2009), p. 36.
135.
Tyler and Bennett, p. 389.
136.
Goody (2009), pp. 65–66.
137.
Bev Skeggs, ‘The Toilet Paper: Femininity, Class and Misrecognition,’ Women’s Studies International Forum 24.2–4 (2001), 297.
138.
Tyler and Bennett, p. 381.
139.
Su Holmes, ‘Jade’s Back and This Time She’s Famous: Narratives of Celebrity in the Celebrity Big Brother “Race” Row.’ Entertainment and Sports Law Journal 7.1 (2009), 22.
140.
Tasker and Negra (2007), p. 2.
141.
Goody (2009), p. 66.
142.
Skeggs (2001), p. 298.
143.
Goody (2009), p. 81.
144.
Ibid., p. 82.
145.
Radha S. Hegde, ‘Of Race, Classy Victims and National Mythologies: Distracting Reality on Celebrity Big Brother,’ Feminist Media Studies 7.4 (2007), 457–60; Lieve Gies, ‘Pigs, Dogs, Cows, and Commerce in Celebrity Big Brother 2007,’ Feminist Media Studies 7.4 (2007), 462.
146.
Holmes, ‘Narratives of Celebrity in the Celebrity Big Brother ‘Race’ Row,’ Entertainment and Sports Law Journal 7.1 (2009).
147.
Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi, ‘“A Trust Betrayed”: Celebrity and the work of Emotion,’ Celebrity Studies 1.1 (2010), 49–64.
148.
Bourdieu (1984), p. 40.
149.
Stuart Jeffries, ‘Beauty and the Beastliness: A Tale of Declining British Values,’ The Guardian, 19 January 2007.
150.
Bourdieu (1984), p. 255.
151.
Goody (2009), p. 91.
152.
Ibid.
153.
Hegde.
154.
Jeffries.
155.
Gies, p. 462.
156.
‘Jermaine in Frame: New Big Bro Race Row,’ The Daily Star, 3 February 2007.
157.
John Hartigan, ‘Unpopular Culture: The Case of “White Trash”,’ Cultural Studies 11.2 (1997), 317.
158.
Hannah Yelin and Laura Clancy, ‘Doing Impact Work While Female: Hate Tweets, ‘Hot Potatoes’ and Having “Enough of Experts”,’ European Journal of Cultural Studies, forthcoming.
159.
Newitz and Wray, p. 2.
160.
Ibid.
161.
Ibid.
162.
Ibid., p. 3.
163.
Ibid., p. 1.
164.
Kardashian, Kardashian, and Kardashian, p. 100.
165.
Redmond (2006), p. 266.
166.
It is worth noting that, whilst this analysis takes in only the identities performed in the 2011 collective Kardashian memoir, the racialisation of Kim Kardashian in particular has evolved since its the publication, as she has embraced and appropriated signifiers of Black identity such as cornrow hairstyles.
167.
Kardashian, Kardashian, and Kardashian, p. 10.
168.
Ibid., p. 21.
169.
Diane Negra and Maria Pramaggiore, ‘Keeping Up with the Aspirations: Commercial Family Values and the Kardashian Brand,’ Reality Gendervision: Sexuality & Gender on Transatlantic Reality Television, ed. by Brenda R. Weber (London: Duke University Press, 2014), p. 86.
170.
Kardashian, Kardashian, and Kardashian, pp. 36–37.
171.
Hartigan, p. 317.
172.
Tasker and Negra (2007), p. 2.
173.
Skeggs (2001), p. 297.
174.
Ibid.
175.
‘White trash,’ posted by ‘Your Mom,’ Urban Dictionary.
176.
Shelley Cobb, ‘Mother of the Year Kathy Hilton, Lynne Spears, Dina Lohan and Bad Celebrity Motherhood,’ Genders 48 (2008).
177.
Bourdieu (1984).
178.
melladior@ho, ‘Paris Hilton: Rich White Trash,’ Listology.
179.
Skeggs (2003), p. 101.
180.
Hilton, p. 13.
181.
Goody (2009), p. 186.
182.
Sam Faiers, Living Life the Essex Way (London: Simon and Schuster, 2012), p. 23.
183.
Ibid., p. 21.
184.
Hilton, p. 8.
185.
Goody (2009), p. 46.
186.
Hilton, pp. 52–53.
187.
Mary J. Russo, The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 53.
188.
Goody (2009), p. xxxv.
189.
Ibid., p. vii.
190.
Hilton, p. 9.
191.
Ibid., p. 7.
192.
Tyler and Bennett, p. 380.
193.
Cobb, p. 6.
194.
Ibid., p. 25.
195.
Bourdieu (1993).
196.
Dyer (1979), p. 3.

Bibliography

Allen, Kim and Heather Mendick. ‘Young People’s Uses of Celebrity: Class, Gender and ‘Improper’ Celebrity,’ Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 34 (1), 2013: 77–93.
Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965.
Google Scholar
Bigg Boss, 2008. TV, Endemol. Series 2.
Google Scholar
Billboard Staff. ‘Paris Hilton Signs with Cash Money; Second Album to Feature Lil Wayne.’ The Hollywood Reporter, 2 May 2013. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/paris-hilton-signs-cash-money-532750.
Biressi, Anita and Heather Nunn. Reality TV: Realism and Revelation. London: Wallflower Press, 2005.
Book Google Scholar
Blackburn, Virginia. ‘Katie Price’s Life? It’s a Price Worth Paying.’ The Guardian, 17 January 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/17/jordan-celebrity-memoir.
Boorstin, Daniel. The Image. London: Penguin, 1963.
Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge, 1984.
Google Scholar
———. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. Cambridge: Polity, 1993.
Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge, 1993.
Google Scholar
Celebrity Big Brother, 2007. TV, Endemol. Series 5.
Google Scholar
Cobb, Shelley. ‘Mother of the Year: Kathy Hilton, Lynne Spears, Dina Lohan and Bad Celebrity Motherhood.’ Genders, 48, 2008. http://www.genders.org/g48/g48_cobb.html.
Contostavlos, Tulisa. Honest: My Story So Far. London: Headline, 2012.
Google Scholar
Couser, G. Thomas. ‘Making, Taking, and Faking Lives: The Ethics of Collaborative Life Writing.’ Style 32 (2) 1998: 334–51.
Google Scholar
Dent, Susie. Larpers and Shroomers: The Language Report. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Google Scholar
Desborough, James. ‘JADE: YES I DID GIVE PJ THE BJ!’ The People, 28 July 2002.
Google Scholar
Dubrofsky, Rachel E. ‘Fallen Women in Reality TV: A Pornography of Emotion.’ Feminist Media Studies, 9 (3), 2009: 353–68.
Article Google Scholar
Dyer, Richard. Stars. London: British Film Institute, 1979.
Google Scholar
———. The Culture of Queers. London: Routledge, 2002.
Google Scholar
Fahy, Thomas. ‘One Night in Paris Hilton: Wealth, Celebrity, and the Politics of Humiliation.’ Pop-Porn: Pornography in American Culture, ed. by Ann C. Hall and Mardia J. Bishop. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007: 75–98. http://www.georgesclaudeguilbert.com/fahy.pdf.
Faiers, Sam. Living Life the Essex Way. London: Simon and Schuster, 2012.
Google Scholar
Foster, Patrick. ‘Media Scrum Continues After Jade Goody’s Death, with Rehashed Book and a Film Plan.’ The Times, 24 March 2009.
Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume 1, trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
Google Scholar
Gamson, Joshua. ‘The Assembly Line of Greatness: Celebrity in Twentieth Century America.’ Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader, ed. by Su Holmes and Sean Redmond. London: Sage, 2007: 141–55.
Google Scholar
Gies, Lieve. ‘Pigs, Dogs, Cows, and Commerce in Celebrity Big Brother 2007.’ Feminist Media Studies, 7 (4), 2007.
Google Scholar
Gilmore, Leigh. ‘American Neoconfessional: Memoir, Self Help and Redemption on Oprah’s Couch.’ Biography, 33 (4), 2010: 657–79.
Article Google Scholar
Goody, Jade. Jade Fighting to the End. London: John Blake, 2009.
Google Scholar
Hartigan, John. ‘Unpopular Culture: The Case of “White Trash”.’ Cultural Studies, 11 (2), 1997: 316–43.
Article Google Scholar
Hegde, Radha S. ‘Of Race, Classy Victims and National Mythologies: Distracting reality on Celebrity Big Brother.’ Feminist Media Studies, 7 (4), 2007: 455–69.
Article Google Scholar
Hilton, Paris. Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose. New York: Fireside Books, 2004.
Google Scholar
Holmes, Su. ‘“All You’ve Got to Worry About is the Task, Having a Cup of Tea, and Doing a Bit of Sunbathing”: Approaching Celebrity in Big Brother.’ Understanding Reality Television, ed. by Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. London: Routledge, 2004.
Google Scholar
———. ‘“Off-guard, Unkempt, Unready”? Deconstructing Contemporary Celebrity in Heat Magazine.’ Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 19 (1), 2005a: 21–38.
Google Scholar
———. ‘“Starring… Dyer?” Re-visiting Star Studies and Contemporary Celebrity Culture.’ Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 2 (2), 2005b: 6–21.
Google Scholar
———. ‘Jade’s Back, and This Time She’s Famous: Narratives of Celebrity in the Celebrity Big Brother Race Row.’ Entertainment and Sports Law Journal, 7 (1), 2009.
Google Scholar
Holmes, Su and Deborah Jermyn, eds. Understanding ‘Reality’ Television. London: Routledge, 2004.
Google Scholar
Holmes, Su, and Sean Redmond, ‘Introduction: Understanding Celebrity Culture.’ Framing Celebrity: New Directions in Celebrity Culture, ed. by Su Holmes and Sean Redmond. London, New York: Routledge, 2006.
Google Scholar
Jade: The Reality Star Who Changed Britain, 2019. Blast! Films, Channel 4.
Google Scholar
Jeffries, Stuart. ‘Beauty and the Beastliness: A Tale of Declining British Values.’ The Guardian, 19 January 2007. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/jan/19/broadcasting.comment.
Kardashian, Kim, Kourtney Kardashian, and Khloe Kardashian. Kardashian Konfidential. New York: St Martin’s Press, 2011.
Google Scholar
Kavka, Misha. Reality TV. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Press, 2012.
Google Scholar
Klinger, Barbara. ‘Digressions at the Cinema: Reception and Mass Culture.’ Cinema Journal, 28 (4), 1989: 3–19.
Article Google Scholar
Listology, melladior@ho, ‘Paris Hilton: Rich White Trash.’ http://www.listology.com/story/paris-hilton-rich-white-trash.
Medved, Matt. ‘Paris Hilton Reveals Las Vegas Residency, Defends DJ Career.’ The Hollywood Reporter, 31 March 2015. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/paris-hilton-reveals-las-vegas-785656.
Morrison, Nick. ‘What Can Schools Learn from Jade Goody?’ Times Educational Supplement, 17 April 2009. http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6011978.
Morrow, Mandy. ‘Celebrity Book Deals: The Latest, Highest-Paid Advances.’ The Richest, 3 August 2014. http://www.therichest.com/expensive-lifestyle/money/celebrity-book-deals-the-latest-highest-paid-advances/.
Negra, Diane and Maria Pramaggiore. ‘Keeping Up with the Aspirations: Commercial Family Values and the Kardashian Brand.’ Reality Gendervision: Sexuality & Gender on Transatlantic Reality Television, ed. by Brenda R. Weber. London: Duke University Press 2014.
Google Scholar
Newitz, Annalee and Matt Wray, eds. White Trash: Race and Class in America. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.
Google Scholar
Nunn, Heather and Anita Biressi. ‘“A Trust Betrayed”: Celebrity and the Work of Emotion.’ Celebrity Studies, 1 (1), 2010: 49–64.
Article Google Scholar
Obituary: ‘Jade Goody.’ The Telegraph, 22 March 2009. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/5031343/Jade-Goody.html.
Redmond, Sean. ‘The Whiteness of Stars: Looking at Kate Winslet’s Unruly White Body.’ Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader, ed. by Su Holmes and Sean Redmond. London: Sage, 2006.
Google Scholar
Rojeck, Chris. Fame Attack: The Inflation of Fame and Its Consequences. London: Bloomsbury, 2012.
Google Scholar
Russo, Mary J. The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
Google Scholar
Sales, Nancy Jo. “Hip-Hop Debs,” Vanity Fair, September 2000. Cited in Fahy, ‘One Night in Paris Hilton’: 75–98.
Google Scholar
Singh, Anita. ‘“Jade Goody Represented Wretched Britain”, says Sir Michael Parkinson.’ The Telegraph, 7 April 2009. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/jade-goody/5114664/Jade-Goody-represented-wretched-Britain-says-Sir-Michael-Parkinson.html.
Skeggs, Bev. ‘The Toilet Paper: Femininity, Class and Misrecognition.’ Women’s Studies International Forum, 24 (2–4), 2001.
Article Google Scholar
———. Class, Self, Culture. London: Routledge, 2003.
Google Scholar
Skeggs, Beverley and Helen Wood. ‘The Labour of Transformation and Circuits of Value ‘Around’ Reality TV.’ Continuum, 22 (4), 2008: 559–72.
Article Google Scholar
Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.
Google Scholar
Sontag, Susan. ‘Notes on Camp.’ Against Interpretation and Other Essays. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1967.
Google Scholar
Tasker, Yvonne and Diane Negra. Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
Book Google Scholar
The Daily Mail. ‘The Year of the Chav,’ 19 October 2004. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-322501/The-year-Chav.html.
The Daily Star. ‘Jermaine in Frame: New Big Bro Race Row,’ 3 February 2007. http://www.dailystar.co.uk/posts/view/12423.
The Mirror. ‘Jade Goody “Had No Talent—And She Knew It” says Max Clifford,’ 6 May 2009. https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/jade-goody-had-no-talent-392393.
The Simple Life, 2003–2007. TV, 20th Century Fox.
Google Scholar
THR Staff. ‘Paris Hilton on Her Global Tour and Drug Use in the EDM Scene.’ The Hollywood Reporter, 8 October 2013. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/paris-hilton-her-global-tour-645126.
Tseëlon, Efrat. The Masque of Femininity: The Presentation of Woman in Everyday Life. London: Sage, 1995.
Google Scholar
Tyler, Imogen and Bruce Bennett. “‘Celebrity Chav’: Fame, Femininity and Social Class.” European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13 (3), 2010: 375–93.
Article Google Scholar
Urban Dictionary. ‘White Trash,’ posted by ‘Your Mom.’ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=white%20trash.
Williamson, Milly. ‘Female Celebrities and the Media: The Gendered Denigration of the ‘Ordinary’ Celebrity.’ Celebrity Studies, 1 (1), 2010.
Google Scholar
Woods, Faye. ‘Classed Femininity, Performativity, and Camp in British Structured Reality Programming.’ Television New Media, 6 November 2012.
Google Scholar
Yelin, Hannah and Laura Clancy. ‘Doing Impact Work While Female: Hate Tweets, “Hot Potatoes” and Having “Enough of Experts.”’ European Journal of Women’s Studies, March 3, 2020.
Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
Hannah Yelin

Authors

Hannah Yelin
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hannah Yelin .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Yelin, H. (2020). ‘White Trash’ and the Celebrity-as-Assemblage: Class, Race and Authority in the Reality TV Star Memoirs of Jade Goody, Paris Hilton and the Kardashians. In: Celebrity Memoir. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44621-5_4

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44621-5_4
Published: 10 November 2020
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-44620-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-44621-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics