The television personality system: televisual stardom revisited after film theory

Abstract

If film stars are defined by the paradox of their simultaneous ordinariness and unattainability, then television personalities have been conversely defined by their ordinariness and attainability. Associated with the tropes of intimacy and authenticity of television, the television personality is deemed to be an ‘authentic’ depiction of their ordinary selves. This essay does not set out to challenge this distinction between film star and TV personality per se, but rather attempts to address television personalities in terms of their own medium specificity. Building on Karen Lury's (1995) work on television performance, I suggest that, once we examine their ordinariness, authenticity and ‘just-as-they-are-ness’ more closely, we can usefully pay attention to television personalities as texts that resonate with wider cultural meanings. To achieve this, I draw distinctions between what I term the ‘televisually skilled’ and ‘vocationally skilled’ performer, whereby the latter is defined by their presentation of some skill external to that of television presentation itself. Paying particular attention to Alan Titchmarsh as an exemplar of this later category, I argue that far from creating ‘agreeable voids’, as Ellis depicts the television personality, ordinariness and authenticity function precisely as a site of their economic, textual and cultural importance, often concealing complex and contradictory ideological meanings.