Yesterday, Nikki Grahame's updated biography popped up on Kind of Book for 99p. For those who don't recall, Nikki Grahame was a Big Brother contestant, most famous for her tantrums. What stood out to me most was her "Who is she?!" rant and the whole ipod thing. I don't really remember how those came to my attention, because I don't follow the show. Except one season, when it was on right before Graham Norton, which I did watch because you couldn't follow the first ten minutes of Graham Norton without knowing what was going on in the house. Also because it was easier to just turn the TV on early than to remember to do so at the exact right time.
Anyway. I really like reading the biographies of people - predominantly women - who are on the periphery of my life. I'm not really sure what the appeal is for me. Part of it is the reminder that other people are people too, if you know what I mean.
An example. Sarah Burge. She's very often criticised for the amount of plastic surgery she's had, for being a bad woman, a bad feminist, a bad mother, etc, etc. Her biography, The Half a Million Pound Girl gives her more backstory. Short version; she was forced into prostitution at fifteen, and generally taught that her looks were the only thing that mattered about her. She had her first operation after a partner beat her so badly that her face was destroyed. The NHS job damaged her sense of self-esteem - which, as you know, was heavily based on being told, for years, that the only valuable thing about her was her looks - so much that she began having surgery privately to repair it. She's also a much better mother, with far different values than the Daily Mail would have you believe. I find it a lot harder to judge her for her decisions knowing that, and I think that's a good feeling for me to have, and to extend to people around me.
In Nikki's case, the book mostly focuses on her long struggle with anorexia, and the way she spent most of her childhood - from the age of eight - in psychiatric wards and hospitals for mentally ill children. That leaves me with a whole different impression of her.
I think, for me, the difference between fiction and biography is that I already tend to have an impression of real people, and it's the stripping away of that initial impression that I find so interesting. As I said, my impression of Nikki consisted of those two clips. They were literally all I could recall about her. Finding out that she had so much more going on reminded me to be aware of stranger bias. You know, when you're angry it's because of circumstances, but when a stranger is angry, they're obviously just a horrible moody person.
I've probably mentioned this before, but one of the first biographies I ever read, after Walt Disney's, was Mel Bs, of the Spice Girls. Bo Selecta had a character based on her, and frequently advertised (Leeds accent) her 'new book', Catch a Fire. When I saw a copy going cheap I just thought, well, why not actually read it? It was an interesting experience. The Spice Girls were famous when I was eight years old. They weren't like real people to me - they were cartoon characters. If I recall correctly, I'm older now than they were then. I've read Geri and Victoria's biographies too, and seeing the Spice Girls turn from cartoon characters into real women was incredibly interesting.
Recently, I read Crystal Renn's biography, Hungry. Crystal Renn is a very successful plus-sized model who started out as a straight size (ie, tiny) model. She also struggled to control her eating habits in order to gain what she was told was the only acceptable body for her chosen career. She slowly broke free of that, and the book is a wonderful discourse on fat-shaming and the pressures women are put under to stay below a certain weight. It's exaggerated in the modelling industry but is in no way absent in the real world. It's very similar to Fragile, though I had no preconceptions of Crystal Renn, since I'm from the UK and had never heard of her. I actually found the book in the 99p shop. They still have a bunch of copies. It's absolutely worth buying.
Anyway. I really like reading the biographies of people - predominantly women - who are on the periphery of my life. I'm not really sure what the appeal is for me. Part of it is the reminder that other people are people too, if you know what I mean.
An example. Sarah Burge. She's very often criticised for the amount of plastic surgery she's had, for being a bad woman, a bad feminist, a bad mother, etc, etc. Her biography, The Half a Million Pound Girl gives her more backstory. Short version; she was forced into prostitution at fifteen, and generally taught that her looks were the only thing that mattered about her. She had her first operation after a partner beat her so badly that her face was destroyed. The NHS job damaged her sense of self-esteem - which, as you know, was heavily based on being told, for years, that the only valuable thing about her was her looks - so much that she began having surgery privately to repair it. She's also a much better mother, with far different values than the Daily Mail would have you believe. I find it a lot harder to judge her for her decisions knowing that, and I think that's a good feeling for me to have, and to extend to people around me.
In Nikki's case, the book mostly focuses on her long struggle with anorexia, and the way she spent most of her childhood - from the age of eight - in psychiatric wards and hospitals for mentally ill children. That leaves me with a whole different impression of her.
I think, for me, the difference between fiction and biography is that I already tend to have an impression of real people, and it's the stripping away of that initial impression that I find so interesting. As I said, my impression of Nikki consisted of those two clips. They were literally all I could recall about her. Finding out that she had so much more going on reminded me to be aware of stranger bias. You know, when you're angry it's because of circumstances, but when a stranger is angry, they're obviously just a horrible moody person.
I've probably mentioned this before, but one of the first biographies I ever read, after Walt Disney's, was Mel Bs, of the Spice Girls. Bo Selecta had a character based on her, and frequently advertised (Leeds accent) her 'new book', Catch a Fire. When I saw a copy going cheap I just thought, well, why not actually read it? It was an interesting experience. The Spice Girls were famous when I was eight years old. They weren't like real people to me - they were cartoon characters. If I recall correctly, I'm older now than they were then. I've read Geri and Victoria's biographies too, and seeing the Spice Girls turn from cartoon characters into real women was incredibly interesting.
Recently, I read Crystal Renn's biography, Hungry. Crystal Renn is a very successful plus-sized model who started out as a straight size (ie, tiny) model. She also struggled to control her eating habits in order to gain what she was told was the only acceptable body for her chosen career. She slowly broke free of that, and the book is a wonderful discourse on fat-shaming and the pressures women are put under to stay below a certain weight. It's exaggerated in the modelling industry but is in no way absent in the real world. It's very similar to Fragile, though I had no preconceptions of Crystal Renn, since I'm from the UK and had never heard of her. I actually found the book in the 99p shop. They still have a bunch of copies. It's absolutely worth buying.
