Face to Race

26    It is interesting to note the particular words used by the British women, which draw on discourses typically used to describe male activities and physical features.

Goody: She was hairy and they bleached it — I mean and they shaved it.
Shetty: No they lasered it.
Goody: Shaved it and then lasered it.
Shetty: And they shaved it before they lasered it, so which means that –
O'Meara: It grows back.
Shetty: It grows back, and I haven't had time to get it lasered. . .
Lloyd: Do you get stubble?
Shetty: No. I do have baby hair on my face which looks like. . . bear hair now.
O'Meara: You're, you're bleaching your whole face off?
Shetty: When you have side burns and. . .you can't not bleach —
O'Meara: That's like a man.
Lloyd: [laughing]
O'Meara: [louder] That's like a man.
Lloyd: I haven't got any bleach – I mean I haven't got any hairs.
Shetty: Thanks for rubbing it in. [Lloyd laughing]
O'Meara: You better rub it in. But I just don't get why you're bleaching your nose?
Shetty: Just, just to make it all look even.

O'Meara is extremely forthright when she repeatedly states "that's like a man" (in response to Shetty shaving her face). While the words here are direct in describing Shetty as "like a man," the repetition of this statement with escalating emphasis shows the direct use of power in ascribing a certain identity to Shetty. More subtle was the use of particular words in constructing Shetty as less feminine, such as the emphasis placed on the words "shave," "hairy" and "stubble" (more often associated with men's, rather than women's, faces), and furthermore, Goody's previous description of Shetty as "wolf-boy." Here Goody again directly constructs Shetty as having masculine attributes rather than feminine. The laughter of the three British women in response to this statement further suggests that Shetty's femininity is laughable, and that she can never aspire to being female in the same way that they can. In short she is constructed as different, in regard to her gender, and her physical features, which are largely linked to her cultural heritage that is constructed as inherently different to that of the British women.

27    The curiosity demonstrated by both O'Meara and Lloyd regarding Shetty's facial hair, and their insult to her femininity, is disguised by their apparently genuine surprise, and the innocence (whether feigned or real) in some of the questions directed towards Shetty. On the other hand, Goody almost takes on the role of authoritative narrator, explaining to O'Meara and Lloyd the situation regarding Shetty's facial hair, assuming an air of authority that enhances her power to construct Shetty's gender identity. Shetty is continuously constructed as abnormally different throughout the extract, both in terms of her existing facial hair, and in terms of the non-existent facial fair of the three British women ("I haven't got any hairs" – Lloyd). The negative connotations of having facial hair are apparent in the way in which O'Meara says, "you better rub it in," with implied negative implications of having visible facial hair for a female. Furthermore, having facial hair is constructed as something to be ashamed of, and something which Shetty should attempt to deal with "discreetly."

Goody: I can't believe she does her makeup in the toilet all discreet but walks out with that on her face.
O'Meara: Yeah [Imitating Indian Accent] "And I've got a big hairy face. And I must bleach the hairs off my face".

The final statement by O'Meara is clearly racist, imitating Shetty's Indian accent with ridicule towards Shetty's physical features, clearly linking them to her Indian heritage. Gender and racial categories are both drawn upon here, and as was the case with the white women examined in Schloesser's text, the white woman is constructed as the representation of true femininity, compared to the dark-skinned and hairy Indian woman, who is somehow constructed as less female, and thus potentially somehow less human. The existence of historically contingent ideologies such as the "fair sex" – a term defining only white or "fair" women as real women (Hoagland; Schloesser), are evidently present in modern-day discourses.

Conclusion

28    The analysis provided in this paper calls to attention the complex ways in which numerous facets of identity are inescapably enmeshed together in everyday discourses and ideologies. Such an observation, it must be said, necessitates an ongoing critical analysis of the interlinked structural and systemic ideologies which serve to position, and justify positioning, individuals on the basis of "differentiations" such as race, class, gender, sexuality and ability. The examples drawn from Celebrity Big Brother demonstrate the ways in which the accrual of particular attributes associated with whiteness – in this instance Britishness, cultural habits, and certain constructions of femininity – were used to validate positions of privilege (and associated positions of oppression) within the Big Brother house. Of particular interest were the varying interpretations and explanations of events offered by both the protagonists and other housemates, which consistently drew on a number of historically contingent discourses about white women, and their relationship with the racial "other."

29    This analysis specifically highlights the complex interaction between race and gender discourses, and resulting positions of privilege or oppression associated with the accumulation (or lack thereof) of "cultural capital" (Hage). The construction of the tense relationship between Shetty and the British "trio" (Goody, O'Meara & Lloyd) as being due to uniquely female styles of interaction, and female attributes, is just one such way in which racist discourses can seemingly subtly emerge through other identity constructions, which could also include class, sexuality or ability. Whilst many variations on this theme were articulated by the housemates (with particular differences noted between male and female accounting of events), they worked to reduce the "racist" intent of the protagonists, and to reduce differences between protagonists to gender effects, effectively minimising cultural or racialised evocations of difference. Such constructions of "girls being girls" or of a "gendered" form of bullying imply that so-called "racist" actions are accidental and unintentional, reinforcing dominant images of racism as something only present in working-class males rather than as a phenomenon not restricted to a given class or gender, and thus also manifest in mixed-class female-to-female discourses (Ware). Strongly reminiscent of Schloesser's depiction of racial and patriarchal hierarchies was the manner in which the men in the house presumed authority in defining female identities and actions within the house, and in turn, the power that the white women in the house wielded in the construction of Shetty's identity as being outside the bounds of normative (white) femininity.

30    In the Big Brother house Shetty is subjected to outright ridicule of (racialised) physical attributes (i.e. facial hair), and of cultural habits and ideas (essentially constructed as inferior to "white" cultural habits). The corresponding discourses constructed by the three British women to justify their dislike of Shetty were based on fatal dissimilarities in terms of common background and culture, and also on Shetty's supposedly inherent unlikable personality (constructed as both an individual, cultural and class fallibility). Clearly, it becomes a complicated matter to extract and untangle class, gender or racial discourses from such interactions. It is not until we take a closer look that it becomes evident that Shetty's skin colour (i.e., one that is not identified as "white"), and her lack of conformity to "white" cultural values (as seen by Goody, O'Meara & Lloyd) came to be negatively constructed through a myriad of classed, gendered and cultural/national discourses. These factors demonstrably found articulation through each other, in a manner that signifies the complexity of informing ideological structures and systems, and which draws attention to the relative positions of privilege and oppression which they inform and support.