Extreme Makeover as a Reality Show - Essay Example

Makeovers Turn on a television anywhere at any time and you are likely to be able to find some sort of makeover show included in the available listings. These shows offer a quick fix to life by providing an improved exterior façade to participants’ homes, bodies, fashion sense, faces, lifestyles, you name it. These ‘reality’ shows claim to be merely for the entertainment and are very focused on the outward image. They can therefore be easily overlooked as vacant, shallow embodiments of a new development in materialism. However, these trends are not necessarily the empty, superficial manifestations they originally appear to be. “Recently, televised ‘makeovers’ – in which a member of the public is plucked from obscurity and transformed, by virtue of clever hair, make-up and style consultants, into a glamorous creature – have become popular. Makeovers have now become almost ubiquitous, with a rash of television programmes portraying the results of makeovers not only on a persons appearance, but also on their homes, gardens and even their cooking skills. Documentaries that follow the progress of raw recruits into shining professionals also reflect the concept of change and metamorphosis inherent in makeovers” (Gillen, 2001). Playing to the modern culture’s Cinderella dream for a better future and our insecurities regarding who and what we are in relation to the rest of society, the consumer culture both reflects and magnifies a need for constant change through the use of this type of programming. It is through our outward appearances that we project who and what we are to other people. Studies have continuously shown that people dress a certain way and acquire certain things to try to evince an attitude of belonging to a particular subset of individuals who embody their ideals. With these outward appearances in hand, we can walk up to the ‘in crowd’ and proclaim ourselves a member. Regardless of how much an individual resembles the idealized images portrayed on movies and in television programs, there is a clear and consistent message that the average viewer sitting at home is never ‘good enough’ to present themselves to the society they feel they should be a part of. “Indeed Smith (1990) believes that women view their bodies as ‘objects of work’ requiring attention and upkeep in order to operate well and promote the desired effect” (Gillen 2001). Because the modern day ideals have established impossible standards of beauty and lifestyle, these reality shows have evolved as a pseudo means of evening up the odds. Weintraub (2004) quotes Extreme Makeover creator Nely Galan regarding the reasons she started her reality show. “You know, women are always saying, ‘Oh, if I had a personal trainer and chef like Oprah, or liposuction like actresses do …’ Well, we’re going to give them that.” Some of these shows, Extreme Makeover and Fox’s The Swan included, provide complete personal makeovers that include liposuction, plastic surgery and a host of other services. One person who participated in Extreme Makeover and is extremely happy with her results, said “she had been unhappy with her extremely broad, flat nose and very full lips. But, as an African-American, […] the last thing she wanted was to ‘come out looking white’” (Weintraub 2004). Critics of these shows discount the professed counseling and other therapy offered as meaningless coatings on the real issue at hand, which is “getting you that new bod, the one that will make all your friends and family at last see you as being ‘hot’ (Gibbons 2004). Doctoral candidate Angela Dancey (Weintraub 2004) points out that these shows work to deny they are about the appearance by including talk of psychotherapeutic and inspirational tales of rebirth, “but what you’re seeing and what they’re saying are very different.” However, for many people, being able to classify themselves as being in, or at least being mistaken for being a part of, the ‘in crowd’ is all they need to feel the confidence necessary to make the changes that lead to a better life. In that sense, this idea that outward appearance can lead to a Cinderella story of magical rebirth and new life provides a constant hope for the viewers of these shows. It is this hope for the future that the programs play on, both for those participating in the program and for those at home watching their television sets week after week. Shows like What Not to Wear and Ten Years Younger, while not extreme enough to include any kind of surgery, nevertheless, tend to focus not so much on the individual expressing themselves as teaching them how to express the accepted societal roles they embody. It is also this concept that has lead to the development of related shows that help makeover the home, the garden, the kitchen or the career lifestyles of their participants. With confidence that your home, your garden, your abilities, etc. match the ‘norms’ or upper limits of the current culture, the theory goes, you too will be able to conquer the world and become the next greatest success story. “Confidence is also about feeling comfortable in what you are wearing and the concept of comfort is multifaceted. For example, there is an explicit recognition that feeling comfortable allows women to feel confident and thus to project themselves to their audiences” (Gillen 2001). A pleasing outward appearance that falls into line with what society has deemed as beautiful – i.e. Sandra Bullock as she appears at the end of Miss Congeniality – helps us to feel this confidence and therefore this comfort level that provides us with the inner strength to face the challenges of everyday life. “As Jane commented, feeling confident and feeling comfortable stems from ‘conforming, wearing whats right’, though clearly wearing what is right is quite tightly controlled by external factors” (Gillen 2001). While those who have participated in the Extreme Makeover experience realize their lives haven’t increased any additional worth as a result of their cosmetic changes – “I would never say that my worth is more now than it was then, but I’m much more confident. I’m very happy with the choice I made. There’s no way anyone’s going to steal my joy” (Weintraub 2004) – it is argued that this experience of a significant change in the way something is done, in the way society might view an individual’s home, skills, etc., can lead to an experience of rebirth and rejuvenation into a world that was previously considered immutable in nature. Weintraub (2004) quotes Dancey as saying “As a culture and as a country, we’re really invested in this idea of the conversion, and we want it to be overnight. And the idea of a physical makeover gets linked to the idea of a spiritual makeover. It’s almost like being born again, in the religious sense.” The physical changes might not have actually changed anything else about a person’s life, but the perception that change has occurred is enough to spur viewers and participants alike into believing that outward change can bring about fundamental, life-lifting transformation. By focusing in on the idea that change must only happen at the outward, superficial level in order to be convincing, these types of reality shows provide a constantly evolving, constantly buying, consumer public that struggles to always obtain the latest treatments, fashions, enhancements and attributes that movies and television idolize. “As a consumer culture, we’ve been told by advertisers that we can change the things we don’t like about ourselves by buying a product. Maybe they [the viewers] can’t [have surgery], but they can go into Walgreen’s and buy a lipstick that’s going to change their life” (Weintraub 2004). While these consumers are picking up the hottest color lipstick, as well as the newest clothing style seen on The Swan this week, they can dream about what would happen if they could one day afford to get that plastic surgery that would convert their slightly downturned nose to the upturned angle they’ve always admired on their favorite actress. Seeing a particular tooth whitening agent being used on Extreme Makeover’s latest participant might induce them to run out to their dentist to discuss the possibilities of them using this product as well, further providing that all necessary vicarious link to the experience of a ‘whole new you’ from the outside in. “Product placements within the shows can also be lucrative, notes Herbert Terry, an associate professor of communications who teaches a course on reality TV and Indiana University. ‘The remote control is so handy, if you embed the product in the show, it’s harder to avoid.’” (Weintraub 2004). The public has bought into this concept so much that it is no longer even noteworthy to comment on the presence of a particular designer label being used in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or a unique cleaner being touted around in How Clean is Your House. Because people wish to be seen as trendy like the participants in Extreme Makeover, fashionable as those in Queer Eye or at the very least cleanly as in How Clean is Your House, they strive to obtain those same products they see on the show. It is not then so embarrassing to have a jar of cleaner still present on the kitchen counter when a friend drops by for tea because it is the type of cleaner used on ‘that show.’ The association indicates here is a spotless home and a fine housekeeper, even if the laundry room is stuffed full of three week old moldy towels. It is thanks to the messages displayed on television and the movies that the modern consumer has the impression that beauty and culture only needs to be skin-deep to pull off the illusion that here is a potential movie star, which is further ingrained by the proliferation of reality shows such as Extreme Makeover and The Swan that profess profound internal and lifestyle change as a result of a mere physical makeover. However, it is due to the quick-fix culture that has evolved around consumerism that continues to feed this attitude. The modern viewer dreams of a better life for themselves, always knowing they don’t quite measure up to some aspect of society, typically in the way that they look. The impossible standards set by the movie industry creates the illusion that most of us must look like Gwyneth Paltrow or Tom Cruise in order to be considered attractive. This internal drive to constantly redefine ourselves based upon how society sets its values and how we measure up to them, combined with our dream to be considered among the top rank of the ‘ideal’ group or the ‘beautiful’ people that creates the viewing public needed to support these shows even as it is these shows, and the advertising dollars that back them, that continue to push for superficial outward change as the quick-fix to all of life’s most nagging problems. Works Cited Gibbons, Sheila. “TV Makeover Shows are Prime Time Madness.” Women’s News. 22 December 2004. Retrieved 24 February 2006 from < http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2116/context/archive> Gillen, Kate. “Choosing an Image: Exploring Women’s Image Through the Personal Shopper.” Through the Wardrobe. Eds. Ali Guy, Maura Benim & Eileen Green. London: Berg, 2001, pp. 71-93. Weintraub, Joanne. “Makeover Shows Selling Fairy Tales.” Journal Sentinal TV Critic. 21 March 2004. Live TV & Radio. Retrieved 24 February 2006 from < http://www.jsonline.com/enter/tvradio/mar04/215820.asp> Read More