Gay Representation on CBS’s
Big Brother:
The Case of Frankie Grande
CBS walks a precarious line with Big Brother. On one hand, the show is
the epitome of cheap reality television, chock-full of tacky challenges, where
one contestant gets evicted each week and the last houseguest standing wins
$500,000. On the other hand, the show can be considered a microcosm of American
society. This gives the producers a certain degree of social responsibility. What
CBS chooses to air (and not to air) is important because it shapes the worldview
of those who watch the show. As Sears and Goddaris argue in “Roar like a Tiger
on TV?” reality TV programs reproduce contemporary society, and they “provide
the viewing audience members with cues about ways of acting in the real world”
(Sears & Goddaris 184).
As I watched the season 16 contestants’
pre-season interviews, I found out that Frankie Grande was cast as the season’s
gay male contestant. I was pleased about this casting choice because I was
familiar with Frankie’s YouTube videos,
in which he comes across as friendly, outgoing, and sociable—a great
combination of attributes for a contestant to have. Additionally, Frankie went
into the Big Brother house with a
relatively large fan base already built-in because he is Ariana Grande’s
brother. Right off the bat, Big Brother
puritans were annoyed because Frankie’s fame was bound to give him an unfair
advantage in the game.
As such, he was entering the house with a certain degree of stigma attached to
his name.
At the season’s one-week mark, fans began
to turn on Frankie for various reasons. In the following essay, I will attempt
to determine why this fan hatred came to be, and at whose fault: Frankie’s or
CBS’s? I believe CBS’s penchant for heteronormativity made it difficult for him
to operate authentically, and Frankie, by no fault of his own, played right
into the negative tropes the show often employs. I will address heteronormativity
on reality TV, the damaging effects of gay tropes, and the unrealistically high
standard to which gay reality show contestants are held, using Frankie Grande’s
experience as the vehicle for exemplifying my arguments.
I should begin this analysis by, first
and foremost, situating myself as a white, heterosexual, feminist woman, and I
acknowledge my subjectivity as such. I reconcile my difference from Frankie
Grande by approaching this topic from an academic queer & gender studies
standpoint, and I by no means wish to speak on behalf of the gay community. My
goal is to rationalize Grande’s experience on Big Brother by using the experience of others in the LGBTQ+
community as a framework to guide my investigation. I am also invested in the representation
of oppressed minorities in media, particularly given the profound potential for
audience mimesis and validation (Silberman 449).
Heteronormativity on Big Brother
Season after season, only one gay man is
cast on Big Brother. The imbalance of
gay-to-straight characters on season 16 was a whopping 1:16, which places a gay
man in a house full of heterosexuals. This heteronormative context is
drastically different from the setting in which gay males perhaps find
themselves outside the Big Brother
house. Frankie Grande performs on Broadway, which is a notoriously safe space
for individuals who identify as queer (Clum 247). Grande himself expressed how
fond he is of the inclusive nature of theatre, given the camaraderie between
straight and gay colleagues. He says, “There’s no faux pas with us being
lovey-dovey and touching each other in theater” (Schultz). His public image is
also very closely tied to his sister Ariana, who recently denounced Catholicism
in favor of supporting her gay brother, which paves the way for an inclusive
and tolerant milieu for Frankie and his Grandtourage (Ehrlich).
 |
| Grande on the set of Rock of Ages |
The Big
Brother house is very different. I imagine, for a gay contestant, the
compulsory heterosexuality of the show can be staggering. Compulsory
heterosexuality is defined as “the accumulative effect of the repetition of the
narrative of heterosexuality as an ideal coupling” (Ahmed 145). Much of Big Brother’s appeal is the hope that
two of the houseguests will couple up, or to borrow one of the show’s many colloquialisms,
become a “showmance”. The gay male contestant, of course, has no potential to
engage in a showmance since he is the only homosexual man there. In “‘You are
not Allowed to Talk About Production”: Narratization on (and off) the Set of
CBS’s Big Brother” Ragan Fox reflects
on his time in Big Brother 12 as the season’s
gay male. He notes the particular moments in which he felt isolated from the
other contestants due to his sexuality, particularly at times when houseguests
were discussing the possibility for showmances: “Early in the game, I felt left
out when my roommates discussed potential romantic pairings among the houseguests”
(Fox 193). These casual conversations constituted his “othering” by putting him
on the periphery of the pre-established Big
Brother rhetoric (Butler 133).
Frankie Grande tried to conform to the
heteronormativity of his male peers on Big
Brother. He mentioned that his strategy going into the house was to
“infiltrate the jock alliance” because he has a “fraternal way of relating to
[straight guys]” (Schultz). I believe Grande’s way of interacting with the
other men on the show was problematic. He found himself in hot water when
mentioning to the guys that they should “double team [Victoria]” and “take all
of her virginities in one night”, in reference to raping another houseguest
(Goddard). In another instance, Frankie and Cody Calafiore were discussing a
rape scene in the movie Showgirls,
and Frankie thought the scene is hilarious, while Cody maintained that rape
scenes do not belong in movies (Grodner).
As such, Grande appealed to the other contestants’ heterosexual masculinity in
a way that was degrading and unacceptable, by repeatedly perpetuating the belief that rape is amusing.
The Gay Villain & the
Problem of “Zankie”
Fox also explains that “gay characters
are marked by their failure to achieve intimacy” and so the show’s producers,
fans, and LGBTQ+ contestants must find “other ways to performatively render gay
sexuality” (Fox 193). One of the ways in which gay characters are typified is
by enacting various tropes, which are “stereotypical, repetitious
representations” of the gay persona (193).
The trouble with these tropes is that they preserve “negative and limited
portrayals of homosexuals”, which thwarts the efforts of the LGBTQ+ community, since,
as I previously argued, what is portrayed on reality TV shapes the worldview of
its audiences (193). In the case of Frankie Grande, I would like to particularly
focus on the tropes of the villain motif and the gay-by-association
heterosexual character.
It is quite often that, in
competition-based reality TV shows like Big
Brother, the homosexual contestant is characterized as the gay villain. This
is unsurprising, given that the gay villain motif has been documented in media
many times before, be it in “Disney movies, witches and psychos in canonical
films, and perverts and child molesters in the news” (198). Fox suggests that the
gay villain trope is born out of the stereotype of the gay contagion (202),
which I believe is associated to Judith Butler’s understanding of Simon
Watney’s concept of “gay disease”, explicated in his “Policing Desire: AIDS,
Pornography, and the Media” (Butler 132). The stereotype of the gay contagion
is rooted in the longstanding, homophobic response to AIDS; which is directly
related to the notion that gayness can be spread, and even worse, that it is life-threatening
(132). So, when a gay male participant on Big
Brother aligns with a heterosexual male, the public reaction is both
complex and outrageous.
“Zankie” refers to the homo-hetero relationship
between Frankie Grande and Zach Rance, another male houseguest on Big Brother season 16 (O’Keeffe). Zach
and Frankie got very close in the competition. Their relationship was quite
physical; they hugged and touched and cuddled constantly. This could have been
the brink of Big Brother’s first homosexual
showmance, however producers were quick to dismantle that possibility. On July
6th, CBS exposed Zankie’s relationship and answered the question
fans were wondering: We know Frankie is gay, but is Zach? His answer: “I am not
gay, but the bond that Frankie and I have is so genuine and sincere, that I
truly feel like he is my boyfriend” (Grodner). This mixed response is exactly
what CBS was hoping for: Zach Rance is straight and there is no possibility of
Zankie becoming a veritable showmance. On the other hand, CBS must have realized
how many Zankie supporters there were, because the second half of Zach’s
statement was enough for fans to go wild with excitement. Many “Zankie” fan accounts sprouted on Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube around this time, which further solidified and arguably fetishized Zach & Frankie’s relationship. Essentially, the producers gave fans just enough information for them to be excited about the
possibility of Zankie, but sanitized the response by having Zach confirm that
he is not homosexual. Later on in the episode Zach says once more, “I’m
straight and I only date women, but Frankie is just one of the best people I’ve
ever met” (Grodner).
The problem with Zankie is the
following. Zach confirms he is straight, but continues to show affection
towards Frankie… So how does this paint Frankie? It brings us back to the gay
villain motif, which is perhaps best iterated with Zach’s own words to Frankie,
as heard on the live feeds on August 3rd: “You try to turn me gay
every single day. I feel like you get closer and closer every time but it ain’t
going to happen […] Frankie’s the horniest guy in the world.” (Grodner). The “straight-mistaken-for-gay” trope that Zach enacts is
“commonplace” in television, and it “derives much of its humor from the
audience’s knowledge that the character is not, in fact, gay” (Fox 202). The
problem is that this kind of behavior cites and reproduces the myth that gay men
are predators, especially in their relationships with heterosexual men (202).
While Fox, on his season of Big Brother,
was particularly careful not to come off as a sex-starved gay predator, Frankie
embraced this trope by taking Zach’s comment as a compliment to his virility (Grodner).
In his autoethnographic essay, Fox reveals that CBS prodded him to talk about
hetero-male cast members in a sexual way, which confirms the producers’ desire
to perpetuate the trope of the gay villain as sexual predator (Fox 204).
In an article from The Wire entitled
“Breaking Down How Frankie Grande Became the Most Hated ‘Big Brother’ Contestant”, author Kevin O’Keeffe cites the
“destruction of Zankie” as one of Frankie’s pitfalls. Later on in the season, Frankie
contributed to a plan to have his showmantic partner Zach evicted. This move further
entrenched Frankie into the villain motif because it proved to fans that
Frankie did not care about Zach for anything beyond companionship, and was
willing to cut him whenever he needed to. Breaking ties with allies at
strategic points in the competition is generally seen as a strong move (Hayden Moss cutting ties with his showmance Kristen to benefit his alliance in season 12 is the example that comes to mind),
but the backlash Frankie received proved that he was being held to a different
standard than that of a heterosexual man playing Big Brother.
The fact of the matter is that Frankie Grande was not placed in this competition to win. He was simply there to contribute
his gay storyline. This is perhaps why Andy Herren, gay male and winner of
season 15 of Big Brother, is one of
the most-hated houseguests in the show’s history. He was not there to win, but
he did anyway. Alas, the role of the gay male is a typecast on Big Brother. “Type” is defined as “any
simple, vivid, memorable, easily-grasped and widely recognized
characterization” that has “no complexity of character or multiplicity of
traits” (Wojcik 226). Frankie was not expected to excel in this competition; he
was not meant to be the lead role, but rather, a supporting role (243). The gay
male is therefore subordinate to his heterosexual competitors. Any time he
transgressed this boundary by succeeding in the game, Grande was vilified even
further.
Catch-22 for Gay
Contestants
It is my assertion that the gay man
is set up for failure when he is cast on Big
Brother. Frankie fell victim to the villain motif (among other tropes), but
even if he actively resisted this kind of stereotyping, he would not have been
able to escape these representations. Fox went into the Big Brother house fully cognizant of the negative ways in which he
might be portrayed, and he worked very hard to combat them. Even so, CBS
portrayed him as an oversensitive villain, and he found himself “ensnared in a
web of gay representation” (Fox 204).
Fox addresses the fact that he was held
to an impossibly high standard on the show. When Hayden Moss, his fellow
housemate told him: “You are an awesome representative of the gay community”,
Ragan appreciated his compliment but also acknowledged the unfairness (204). No
one tells heterosexuals that they are “awesome representations of the hetero
community”. As such, gay competitors have to “serve as an exemplar of a
historically marginalized group and
play a game known for cheating and backstabbing” (205). Anyone can see that it
is extremely difficult, and perhaps impossible, to operate under such rigid
expectations.
Still, Zankie’s hetero-homo relationship
is being hyped as progressive in the LGBTQ+ community. In his article entitled
“Frankie Grande on Big Brother and
the Hetero-Homo ‘Zankie’ Showmance That Had Everyone Talking”, Brandon Schultz
claims that “this is one of the first times
we’re seeing a serious, strong love between a straight man and a gay man that
goes far beyond tolerance—and it's on network television” (Schultz). While I can definitely see how Zankie’s
relationship might be considered progressive, I feel like this speaks volumes
to the need for a homosexual relationship between two men to be seen carried
out on a normative reality TV show like Big
Brother. Zankie, as loving as it may have been on the surface, was
extremely tumultuous and problematic, particularly because it vilified Frankie
as a gay man and conserved the myth of the “gay contagion”. Perhaps after
acknowledging how much the public was rooting for Zankie, CBS might see that
fans are eager to see relationships alternative to heterosexual ones. In
breaking the show’s heteronormativity, a door of possibility would open for Big Brother’s homosexual contestants by
allowing them a fighting chance to excel in the game, and it would also
ameliorate the way homosexuality is perceived on a macro level.
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