Over the holidays, I watched a What Not to Wear marathon. While the show is totally addictive, the functioning part of my brain had mixed reactions. I’ll get into the negative today and later address the positive.
Makeover shows sell a promise of personal transformation. They are all product placement shows (sometimes more obviously than others), and they are all interested in telling you to buy, buy, buy. A bald message of consumerism works—QVC is popular, and plenty of people sit around watching infomercials as if they were real talk shows. But makeover shows tell you that it’s not consumerism, it’s self-improvement.
I watch these people—the makeover recipients—talk about how they’re changing themselves, how they feel more confident, how changing the outside works to change the inside. I watch the stylists teach people who hate their bodies to dress in a way that accentuates their bodies’ beauty, and show them how wonderful their bodies can be. And all of this is so very, very persuasive.
And yet.
The bottom line of consumerism is that you must buy. You must need to buy. You must feel inadequate if you don’t buy, and your sense of inadequacy must be sustained. You cannot actually feel adequate, having purchased, or you won’t purchase again. Consumerism wants to drive away any notion that “Money can’t buy happiness” because, if that belief gained hold, you might spend your time pursuing happiness instead of spending money.
But What Not to Wear is not QVC. It isn’t saying that money can buy happiness. Its message is, indeed, more insidious. It’s saying that money, spent the right way, buys happiness.
So you watch these people get their makeovers, and your jaw drops at how transformed they become. And you think “That can happen to me.” And when you go shopping and you come home and wear your new clothes and you’re still the same person, it’s not that money can’t buy happiness, it’s that you didn’t spend it the right way. So you watch WNtW again and go shopping again, and hope this time you get it right.
You know, wearing nice clothes is a wonderful thing. I love to shop. And looking good is better than looking bad. But nice clothes don’t cure body dysmorphia or low self-esteem or poverty or exhaustion or eating disorders—all of which have been a part of the lives of people who’ve received makeovers on WNtW.
There was this one show: The woman had five kids (including an infant). Her life was crazy busy. She wore crappy sweats and when she went out she wore crazy, inappropriate, glittery, see-through, brightly colored, low-cut costumes. Yep, she sure did need a makeover. But she also needed someone to help her look at her life. Was she getting the help she needed with the kids? She said on the show that her clothes were like a cry for attention. When the loud clothes went away, would the need for attention? I don’t think so. I think she’s going to look great and have five kids and no time, no peace, and no attention. And WNtW will not have bought her happiness.
But when she takes the pipe she’ll look great!
Maybe a bit too cynical……. I like WNtW, but I don’t see the same message. Maybe because they screen their participants pretty closely, to find people whose low self-esteem is tied to their body image, and since How Not to Think Badly About Yourself Because You’re a Lump would not be Must See TV they settle for helping you look more like you want to look, or the way you think you should look.
Much in Paganism resonates with the wisdom that he sensual self can lend a hand and lead the way into other discoveries/improvements.
But how?
That question led me (in my case) to both Paganism and the book by the name of Tools of Change (author Margo Adair has worked with a variety of situations/people, including Starhawk, I believe).
Funny…Wikipedia has en entry on learned helplessness but doesn’t have one on learned empowerment – an imbalanced focus that plays out across much of the Net and other resources.
Not a coincidence,..
Besides the arts and disciplines in some Pagan paths and Eastern cultures, businesses of the Western world often hire the best people when they want tools of change and discuss how and why with the most clarity.
I gotta think about this. A counter-blog may be pending.
I’ll be interested to hear it. I have my own counter-blog planned, but I have to have time for it. I thought it’d be today but maybe over the weekend.
I actually like this show because I find it so different from other makeover shows. There are no nose jobs, crazy exercise regimes, or tummy tucks. It’s advice to dress the body you have as a best as possible and in line with your lifestyle (more or less since buying a $300 shirt is not in line with my lifestyle). People do tend to feel better when they look better. They certainly get more compliments and a lot of woman need that kind of validation from other people. And that’s a whole ‘nother issue.
I guess that the reality is that none of these shows will bring any of its participants long-term happiness because they only offer external solutions to internal problems. You’re totally right, Deb, it’s consumerism and it’s entertainment. And yet, I watch it every Friday with a martini in hand.
I like WNTW, and I find I actually buy less because I have learned how to dress myself better by watching this. Instead of buying (over the course of a year) 20 different $10 shirts which do nothing for my body, I’ll buy 2 $30 tops which accentuate the good things about my body.
Maurinsky, that’s an excellent point. It’s nice that the message about spending money the right way is actually helpful. Later today or tomorrow I’ll write WNTW Part Two, which has been planned as favorable all along.
[…] Okay, part one was negative, and got a surprisingly strong reaction. You must have noticed, though, that despite my negativity, I’m watching the thing. […]