ANNA
Lesbian #2 on UK's Big Brother
PlanetOut News Staff
She missed the cash prize by a fraction, but the reality show's lesbian sweetheart scored points for tolerance just like her "surviving" U.S. counterpart.
As mad as the U.S. went for Survivor, Britain went for its version of the series Big Brother, and while lesbian former nun trainee Anna Nolan came in only a very close second in September 15's final vote, she may have had some of the same impact for acceptance that gay Survivor victor Richard Hatch had -- her sexual orientation was simply taken for granted. Megan Radclyffe, TV writer for London's Gay Times, told The Observer that, "What Anna has done has changed everything. We have had lesbian characters like [lesbian comic] Rhona Cameron in Rhona and lesbian kisses with Anna Friel in Brookside. There was even a lesbian couple in Queer As Folk, but we haven't had openly gay real women on TV -- until now. Anna was totally open about her sexuality and over 10 weeks got almost half the votes of millions of people who phoned in. Lesbians used to feel like the freaks at the bottom of the pile. She's made lesbians look like the way most really are -- normal, funny, intelligent, modest."
Well before the final vote, more Britons had voted by phone for who should stay and who should go from the Big Brother house than voted in the last election for Members of the European Parliament. On the final night alone, more than ten million people tuned into the show (a 56.5% audience share, and Channel 4's second-biggest audience of all time), and almost two-thirds of the show's viewers were women. Hundreds of women told a helpline set up for the audience things like, "I have got crushes on other girls at school and she makes me feel OK about it." Among the messages Anna received was one from her favorite actress Kathy Burke, reportedly reading, "Dearest darling Anna, If you want to come round for a cup of tea and a feel of my tits, you would be more than welcome."
On her release after ten weeks in the house, Dublin-born Anna, 29, said she "had not expected to become a role model for lesbians, nor Britain's most famous lesbian," but that she was "happy if anything I do or represent helps anyone else in a similar position." At a press conference the following day, she said she wasn't sure what her next move would be. "I'm going to sleep for a week and then after that I'm not very sure. People have been suggesting different career paths I could take and I have to decide which ones I fancy. Before I went into the house I worked at a skateboard shop and I know my job is there for when I come back but I don't have plans of what I'm going to do." Naturally many are foreseeing a career in TV for her.
Despite heavy rain, thunder and lightning, a crowd of 2,000 had gathered around the specially-built Big Brother house for the release of its denizens, many fans having traveled considerable distances to demonstrate their support for Anna and weeping at her loss by only about 2% of the public vote (3,539,683 - 3,414,979, more than 1 in 12 Britons participating). "We love Anna," one sign proclaimed. But at least the man who defeated Anna, Craig Phillips, is a good guy -- he's donating the entire 70,000 pounds (about U.S.$100,000) he won to help a friend with Down's syndrome obtain a heart-and-lung transplant.
The hardest part of participating on the show for Anna was being separated from her partner Tania Paice, not being allowed to talk with her or anyone else from her life. On the show Anna was often seen wearing a T-shirt with a "T" and "10/9," signifying Tania and their anniversary. They spent Anna's first night of freedom just talking, catching up. They should have a chance to do more of that while enjoying Anna's second prize, a week in Barbados and a week in St. Lucia.
Anna was an early favorite among oddsmakers after revealing that she'd left the convent because she is a lesbian and that the possessions she'd brought with her into the house were a violin, slippers and a vibrator. A spokesperson for the Ladbrokes betting house had said, "At this stage, we are almost as much in the dark as everyone else about how the relationships between the inmates will develop, but I'm hoping that an ex-nun who wants to take a vibrator into the house will be the perfect mixture of saint an sinner to cope with anything the others may throw at her."
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