Ground-breaking producer of RuPaul’s Drag Race publishes book ScreenAge making the 'invisible, visible'

Portsmouth-born producer and director, Fenton Bailey, is the co-founder of World of Wonder, an award-winning production company which he runs with Randy Barbato.

This month, on November 17, Fenton released his fourth book – ScreenAge: How TV Shaped Our Reality from Tammy Faye to RuPaul’s Drag Race – a riotous tale of pop culture and how World of Wonder pioneered the revolutionary genre of reality TV, whilst supporting and ushering queer voices into the mainstream.

Although the bulk of World of Wonder’s output, which includes the phenomenally successful RuPaul’s Drag Race, is overseen from their offices in Los Angeles where Fenton now lives, he was born in Portsmouth in 1960 and lived on 15 High Street until the age of six.

From there, Fenton and his family moved to Gosport, where – from an early age – he took inspiration from ground-breaking and sometimes controversial television which would lay the groundwork for his future career.

‘One of the things I do remember was going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Ritz Cinema in Gosport,’ he says.

‘I was underage, so I snuck in and that had a really transformative effect, I thought ‘this is amazing.’

Another local influence on Fenton was watching the 1975 made-for-television biographical comedy-drama, The Naked Civil Servant, based on the British gay icon Quentin Crisp, played by John Hurt.

‘The other thing that really changed my world was seeing The Naked Civil Servant, which was a telly play about Quentin Crisp, who was this big old queen,’ says Fenton.

‘I’d never heard of him when I watched it but, during the war they wouldn’t take him in the Army because he was gay so he lived in Portsmouth.’

Fenton went on to study English at Oxford and as soon as he finished university, he moved to New York, now living in America for most of his life.

‘I was quite keen to get away, and not because it was such a terrible place, but just because, being gay, New York was the shining city on the hill,’ says Fenton.

‘So many of the shows I was watching as a kid were American shows so I think that’s part of what drew me to America.’

Fenton met life-long business partner Randy in New York in the early 80s and it was there they formed their electronic dance duo, The Fabulous Pop Tarts and in the course of gigging around New York's clubs they met drag artist and musician RuPaul.

‘We met Ru when we were performing in Atlanta and we were like ‘oh my gosh, RuPaul is a star’ – and so we started representing Ru and we managed him for a while and got him his record deal then we did his talk show for VH1.’

‘So we’ve just been working away together for all these years,’ he adds.

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It was during the same time when Fenton and Randy met the Club Kids, a group of outrageous party scenesters whose number included Michael Alig. The pair had already begun filming the antics of the Club Kids when Michael Alig and his roommate Robert Riggs murdered fellow Club Kid Angel Melendez.

The story formed the basis of World of Wonder’s 1998 documentary ‘Party Monster - The Shockumentary,’ and was further adapted as a 2003 feature film ‘Party Monster’ starring Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green.

‘TV is actually all about revealing people and peeling away the layers, and probing and taking things that are invisible off screen and making them visible,’ says Fenton.

‘The thing I really love about reality TV and documentaries is I’ve just always felt that even though these genres weren’t particularly respected, they wielded a great cultural impact.’

Growing up in an age with very limited queer visibility in mainstream media, it was important to Fenton to champion these suppressed voices, and give them an outlet.

‘I do think drag is a real art form, we always believed it was universally relatable, sometimes when we pitched the show at first people thought it would be niche,’ he says.

‘But we never felt that way, maybe just because we were crazy and deluded but we just felt that the issues a drag queen faces, hostility, rejection, hopelessness - those aren't exclusively LGBT issues, they're things everybody faces in their life.

The now Emmy-award-winning global phenomenon, RuPaul’s Drag Race, first premiered on the little-known LGBTQ television network, Logo, but has since been key player in leading a gay cultural revolution.

‘Its future was not assured by any means. It would be amazing to say yes we knew it was going to be a hit, but we had no idea. I always felt that drag was this sort of ignored art form,’ says Fenton.

‘It was popular in clubs in New York and also in London, but we just thought it was so brilliant and amazing and Ru was so brilliant and amazing.’

With a foreword by Graham Norton, who found his beginnings through working with Fenton and World of Wonder, ScreenAge echo’s this sentiment.

The book is a first-hand account of the way television has shaped our world and Fenton’s vision to create a production company that would uplift and promote the voices of marginalised queer communities.

‘That’s what reality TV has done more than anything else, it’s put characters who were not normally seen as fit for the culture, on TV and from a queer perspective, that’s been really impactful,’ he says.

‘Before that, the queer community was invisible and existed as an isolated sub-culture rather than something that’s just part-and-parcel of everyday life.’

As well as RuPaul Charles, Fenton has worked with many well-known names and gives accounts of his experiences rubbing shoulders with the stars in his book. This includes pop culture icon Britney Spears, following World of Wonder’s 2013 documentary I Am Britney Jean, who at the time of the film, was embroiled in a since controversial conservatorship.

‘When we were filming the documentary, we knew about the conservatorship and somehow got the impression she was being protected and cared for. Britney obviously feels very differently about it,’ adds Fenton.

‘I think the really interesting thing about Britney is how terribly badly she’s been treated by the media and how if me and you went through that kind of abuse, it would drive you mad so I think it’s amazing she’s survived.’

Through World of Wonder Fenton has reshaped international pop culture, earning 30 Emmys, inspiring two Oscars, creating a global network across 190 territories, and bringing drag culture to the world stage.

‘TV has been slagged off for most of the years of its existence as trashy, corrupting or bad for you and within TV the thing that’s most despised has been reality TV and I just feel that it’s not fair or true.’

‘That’s why I wrote ScreenAge, to try and figure out why TV is so important and how it is that things that are often the least respected, actually have the most impact. ScreenAge is my love letter to television.’

ScreenAge: How TV Shaped Our Reality, From Tammy Faye to RuPaul’s Drag Race by Fenton Bailey is published by Ebury Press at £20 and is available in all good bookstores now; To order visit smarturl.it/ScreenAge.