Award-winning producer and director Fenton Bailey reveals the cover for ScreenAge: How TV Shaped Our Reality, From Tammy Faye to RuPaul’s Drag Race. This upcoming riotous tale of pop culture charts the story of how World of Wonder, founded by Bailey and Randy Barbato, pioneered the revolutionary genre of Reality TV, whilst supporting and ushering queer voices into the mainstream.
Graham Norton:
“Fenton is like the Forrest Gump of popular and tabloid culture. If it created headlines, he was there.”
To be published by Ebury Press as a hardback edition on 17th November 2022 in the UK, with a US release set for early 2023, the book is packed full of insider gossip, featuring a star-studded litany of LGBTQ+ icons, and includes a foreword by acclaimed presenter Graham Norton.
Bailey grew up in an age with very limited queer visibility in mainstream media and ScreenAge is an evocative and thoughtful account of Bailey’s vision of creating a production company that would uplift and promote the voices of marginalised queer communities. “In addition to showing me a world of wonderful things, it showed me who I was,” Bailey affectionately recounts, in his emphasis on the impact media can have on the lives and upbringings of queer and marginalised individuals, especially as society moves towards the eponymous Screen Age.
Fenton Bailey:
“ScreenAge is my love letter to television. It is a personal odyssey and a cultural journey. RuPaul has said ‘Everything I learned, I learned through television’ and thanks to television I saw who I was and I found my tribe. ScreenAge is also about the big impact of the small screen on all of our lives. It has made the invisible, visible, especially outsiders and those on the margins.”
When he moved to New York in 1982, Bailey saw the world go Pop. Together with filmmaking partner and life-long friend Randy Barbato, their production company World of Wonder would pioneer the genre of Reality TV and chronicle the emerging Screen Age through their extraordinary programs and outrageous subjects – from Bible Belt televangelists and conspiracy theories to outrageous drag queens.
Today, World of Wonder boasts an array of awards and critical acclaim, most notable for its work in creating and producing the Emmy-award-winning global phenomenon, RuPaul’s Drag Race. ScreenAge is an engrossing first-hand look into how television has fundamentally shaped our reality, as well as Bailey’s beginnings and extraordinary career story as a trailblazing producer.
Michelle Visage:
“ScreenAge is a must-read. We FINALLY have a book that recognizes the profound and positive impact television has had on all our lives.”
ScreenAge features a humbling foreword by Graham Norton, who recounts how he found his beginnings through working with Bailey and World of Wonder. The book is packed with glorious insider gossip and amazing celebrity stories, including Bailey’s accounts of his work with pop culture icons such as Britney Spears, Tammy Faye Bakker and RuPaul Charles. These are the riotous tales behind the shows that would make ScreenAgers of us all.
A must-read for Drag Race die-hards as well as fans of popular culture and reality TV alike, ScreenAge: How TV Shaped Our Reality, From Tammy Faye to RuPaul’s Drag Race by Fenton Bailey is available to preorder now here, ahead of its UK release in all good bookstores on 17th November 2022.
