Makeover TV: Selfhood, Citizenship, and Celebrity 9780822391234

Citation preview

makeover tv

console-ing passions Television and Cultural Power Edited by Lynn Spigel

makeover tv Selfhood, Citizenship, and Celebrity Brenda R. Weber

duke university press Durham and London 2009

© 2009 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper b Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan Typeset in Iowan Oldstyle by Achorn International Library of Congress Cataloging-inPublication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

For my students— past, present, and future. You got me thinking.

contents



1

Introduction. Into the Makeover Maze A Method in the Madness



37

1. Makeover Nation Americanness, Neoliberalism, and the Citizen-Subject



81

2. Visible Subjects Economies of Looking, Pedagogies of Shame, Sights of Resistance



127

3. “I’m a Woman Now!” Race, Class, and Femme-ing the Normative



171

4. What Makes the Man? Masculinity and the Self-Made (Over) Man



215

5. Celebrated Selfhood Reworking Commodification through Reality Celebrity



253

Conclusion. Can This Makeover Be Saved?



267

Notes



285

Bibliography



301

Videography



315

Index

acknowledgments

For several years, and regardless of the topic, I could not teach a class without including on the syllabus Annie Dillard’s chapter “Seeing” from her remarkable book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. In an essay astonishing for its wisdom, there is a particular sentence that stands out to me now as critical to the makeover. Dillard writes about the experience of discovery: “I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.” Her metaphor is one of enlightenment through a sometimes painful intervention—a theme constantly sounding in and through makeover tv. But Dillard also speaks here of an interconnection between people, a way of “becoming” only accessible when someone outside ourselves points the way to different iterations of our being. It is, indeed, through these very types of interconnections that the idea for this book came into being, which, in turn, has brought forth its own mental makeover for me. One of the great delights about working on popular culture more broadly and reality tv in particular is almost everyone has something to say about it. I offer my thanks to the many people I have talked with—in classroom settings, during hair cuts and dentist appointments, at conferences and dinner parties, and while being driven to the airport in Sydney, Australia at 5 in the morning. In particular, I’d like to thank Leigh Turner, who kindly invited me to Montreal for a symposium on plastic surgery, as well as the many fine scholars who participated in that event: Victoria Pitts-Taylor, Debra Gimlin, Karen Throsby, Laura Miller, Lynne Luciano, Abigail Brooks, and Deborah Sullivan. Your collective enthusiasm for my work in its early stages made me realize I had a book in the making. In a similar vein, I’d also like to thank Deb Verhoeven, Mary Jean Corbett, and Dorothy Brockopp, who invited me to give extended talks

on the makeover and offered, in return, terrific ideas and encouragement. I owe Diane Negra tremendous thanks for her enthusiasm and remarkable insights. Bernadette Wegenstein has been a great resource and advocate. I am incredibly lucky that so many fine scholars also enjoy great food, and so it is with fondness as well as appreciation that I thank Gareth Palmer, Richard Maltby, Ruth Vasey, Kate Bowles, Deb Verhoeven, Robyn Morgan, Tania Lewis, Chris Holmlund, Debra Gimlin, Courtney Berger, and Marsha Orgeron for conversations about the intricacies of the makeover. Somehow the scent of strong coffee and warm biscuits—or a proper English roast—or margaritas with a kick—are intricately associated for me with the mental mélange of the makeover. And though I did not share a meal with her (I promise!), I’d also like to thank Pam Smith, Indiana’s contestant on The Biggest Loser, who graciously came to campus to speak with my students and then stayed and talked with me for an additional two hours about life post-reality tv. This book found its genesis in an article on Extreme Makeover that appeared in Genders. Ideas from that piece, as well as a second article on The Swan, co-authored with Karen Tice and also appearing in Genders, are sprinkled throughout this book. A portion of chapter 2 explaining affective domination first appeared in Configurations, and a condensed version of chapter 4 on men in the makeover was first published through The International Journal of Men’s Health. I thank all of these journals’ editors for their permission to include elements of those earlier pieces in this book. Ken Wissoker and Courtney Berger at Duke University Press have been unfailingly enthusiastic and supportive of me and this book. I thank them for their guidance and belief in this project. It has been an honor to work with them. I also offer my thanks to the anonymous reviewers, who gave illuminating direction and helpful encouragement. Leigh Barnwell at Duke offered a third level of support and direction, and Neal McTighe is a superb copyeditor. I wish to thank the Indiana University Vice Provost for Research for a grant in aid of scholarship. I have great colleagues and friends at Indiana University, many of whom invited me to speak in their classes or at university symposia, and I thank Colin Johnson, Marlon Bailey, Alexander Doty, Susan Stryker, Maria Bucur-Deckard, Susan Seizer, Rick Wilk, Gardner Bovingdon, Jen Maher, Helen Gremillion, Suzanna Walters, Judith Allen, Jeanne Peterson, Lynn Comella, Purnima Bose, Sarah Knott, Jon Simon, John Lucaides, Joan Hawkins, Betsi Grabe, Susan Lepselter, Barb Klinger, Michael Kaplan, and Ilana Gershorn. I couldn’t have produced this book   ·  Acknowledgments

without the great grace and competence of Indiana University’s Department of Gender Studies’ office staff, Nina Taylor and Kristi Brand. I’m grateful to Sara Friedman and Mary Gray, members of my writing group, for their careful, intelligent readings, and their sustaining friendships, as well as to Lessie Jo Frazier, who generously gave her time and attention to building a discussion on citizenship. I am also deeply grateful to close friends who read the draft of the manuscript in full, offering helpful guidance: Yeidy Rivero, Radhika Parameswaren, and Greg Waller. My students have also offered great responses to and interest in this project, in particular Andy Lewis and Karolyn Steffens. Super-student Julie Campbell painstakingly edited the manuscript and videography. In a perfect world I could thank each of my students by name, because it is truly the amalgamated conversation between me and them that served as impetus for this book, but short of listing all 450 of them here, I dedicate this book to them in gratitude. Learning rocks! Throughout the course of this project, my friends and family have been a significant source of support. Thanks to my dear friends Patti Peplow, Suzanne Gripenstraw, Jean Ward, Karen Tice, Dwight Billings, Richard Angelo, Chantal Carleton, Sharon Hamilton, Haidee Wasson, Scott Curtis, and Kirsten Pike, for thoughts, reflections, celebrations, and commiserations. I would not be in this profession were it not for Donna Swaim—you are my inspiration. I am particularly indebted to Mary Ann Taylor Hall and James Baker Hall, who have served as writing mentors to me. I thank my two sisters-in-law, Beth Kamhi and Andrea Waller Miera, for their kindness, interest, and unfailing style sense. Thanks, too, to Matt Kamhi, Moby Waller, Gail Ecker, Peter Kalesz, and Graham Waller, who have been great interlocuters on the intricacies of gender and popular culture. I thank my brothers John and Robert—who have both been remarkable research assistants—as well as their families: Becky, Heather, Ciara, and Alex (see, Aunt Brendy did mention you in her book!). My dad, David Weber, and I have had riveting conversations about what constitutes the makeover, and I want to thank him for first teaching me how to watch moving images critically. Between his watchful eye and my mother Mary Weber’s wise heart, I hope I have been able to produce a book capable of both keen observation and profound empathy. Finally, and most especially, I offer my thanks and appreciation to Greg Waller, whose immense intellectual curiosity has been fully engaged with the makeover’s many intricacies. Thank you for being my cherished partner in scholarly pursuits as well as in life and in love. Acknowledgments  ·  xi

introduction

into the makeover maze A Method in the Madness

I just can’t wait until I see the whole complete me. —Barbara, makeover subject, How Do I Look? I don’t feel like that [Before] person was ever me. —Amy, makeover subject, The Biggest Loser I guess we’ll know in a few seconds if everyone likes the new me. —Jeremy, makeover subject, Trick My Trucker Are you you? Oh my gosh, you look great! —Friend to subject Samantha, Extreme Makeover I’m not a cold person. I’m warm and inviting, and I want my kitchen to be warm and inviting. —Angela, makeover subject, Color Correction

The makeover has long been a mainstay of advice columns and entertainment literature targeted at women, yet in this new millennium television has launched a seemingly unprecedented proliferation of makeover-themed shows for the house, car, and body that preach the pleasures and possibilities of transformation, rejuvenation, and alteration for everyone. The list of makeover shows is extensive: from Makeover Manor, which specializes in helping African American single moms, to A Makeover Story, What Not to Wear, and 10 Years Younger, which perform “miracle transformations” within the blink of a chemical peel and wardrobe change, to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which has given new meaning to queering (or not) men, to Look-a-Like, Style Her Famous, and I Want a Famous Face, which make over

“average” people so that they might more closely approximate celebrities. There’s Head 2 Toe and How Do I Look?, which invite friends and families to exert makeover mandates, and the more hardcore makeovers of Dr. 90210, Fat March, Big Medicine, Plastic Surgery Beverly Hills, Brand New You, Plastic Surgery: Before and After, Extreme Makeover, The Craze, Ruby, Bulging Brides, Weighing In, The Swan, I Lost It!, Shaq’s Big Challenge, and The Biggest Loser, which forcibly reshape the body through plastic surgery or intense weightloss boot camps. Makeover segments are a critical element of afternoon programming on network talk shows, such as Oprah, Maury, Ricki Lake, and the Tyra Banks show. There are also a countless number of house, car, motorcycle, boat, restaurant, kid, marriage, salon, and manners makeovers that have set a new benchmark for televisual transformations.1 To put it mildly, U.S. television is inundating viewers with imperatives about selfappraisal, self-critique, and self-improvement. My fascination with television makeovers began at a very precise moment. In early 2003, I watched abc’s plastic surgery makeover show, Extreme Makeover, in preparation for a class I would soon teach. Amy, one of the makeover participants described by the show as a “painfully shy cake decorator,” said in her post-makeover interview, “I’m beautiful! I just don’t care what people think of me anymore. If I’m happy with myself, that’s all that matters.” At the time, Amy’s comments struck me as contradictory since it was social disapproval of her own appearance that had initially led to her feelings of poor self-worth and “debilitating shyness.” As her story indicated, Amy’s failure to approximate the gendered indicators of personhood had left her feeling powerless. Post-makeover, beautiful, and able to please the gaze, Amy states that social judgments no longer matter to her. By the time of her “big reveal,” we get the clear sense that by capitulating to social standards about appearance, Amy becomes empowered with the ability to transcend those very standards. The makeover thus answered Amy’s cry for recognition by inscribing intelligibility onto her body through large breasts, a bright smile, and a pert nose. This transformation—where subordination empowers, where a normalized appearance confers individuation—reflects the larger terrain of the makeover itself. In its messages about gender and identity, the television makeover is an elaborate maze, a complicated labyrinth of pathways and dead ends, of cul-de-sacs and trap doors. There is both the promise of cause and effect, of Before and After, and the absence of any direct line­

  ·  Introduction

Amy, Before and After. Extreme Makeover. www.abc.com

arity—the shows themselves, however, belie this fact. Given this, the only way to understand the contradictory logics of the makeover maze is to venture more deeply into that maze. This book is an attempt to do just that. Since 2003, I have watched and analyzed upward of 2,500 hours of makeover television—everything from body and style shows, to home and garden programs, to kid, dog, car, restaurant, truck, clutter, debt, marriage, and motorcycle rejuvenations. Doing so has enabled me to realize that the makeover as text is both amazingly diverse and remarkably similar. As a recognizable genre, however, makeover tv contains a number of startling contradictions; it is the relationship between these tensions that unifies the genre. The makeover’s thematic paradoxes begin with the following:

Into the Makeover Maze  · 

— to be empowered, one must fully surrender to experts; — to become “normal,” one must endure “extreme” body-altering interventions aimed at one’s gender, sexuality, race, class, and eth­ nicity; — to be “truly” feminine or masculine, one must be hyper-gendered; — to communicate an “authentic self,” one must overwrite and replace the “false” signifiers enunciated by the natural body; — to be unique and special, one must look and act like everyone else; — to be looked at appreciatively, one must first be critically condemned by the social gaze; — to achieve a state of privacy where ugliness does not code as transgressive, one must appear on national and international television and publicly expose the shame of the “ugly” body. A basic question fuels my continuing passion with makeovers: how can Amy’s statement make sense? Or, in other words, how does Amy’s desire to be both normal and extraordinary, to be a law-abiding citizen and above the law, to be out of the gaze but loved by it inform a way of knowing that both endorses and undermines classic binaries of subject and object, active and passive, powerful and weak, mastermind and dupe? To begin answering these questions, we must first consider Amy’s comment as both a valid statement about her own experience of empowerment through transformation and an articulation of cultural makeover logics writ large. Amy’s desire for submission and control is not evidence of her personal confusion but the articulation of a powerful, internally contradictory feature of desire and anxiety expressed through and constructed by makeover tv. Given this, it is critical that we do not dismiss Amy’s position or opinions as idiosyncratic, irrational, or nonsensical. Amy’s story illuminates the vexing tensions about selfhood, gender, and conformity that are expressed through most makeover narratives. The makeover maze functions as what Michel Foucault terms a social practice, in that it combines imperatives, attitudes, and modes of behavior that become instilled into rituals that people perfect and teach (Care 45). The consolidation of these practices around the concept of selfhood, Foucault argues, intensifies and valorizes “relations of oneself to oneself ” through imperatives about individual behaviors that have direct bearing on systems   ·  Introduction

of social relations (Care 43). How we believe we care for the self thus speaks to and informs what we understand the self to be. In turn, such iterations of the self offer critical information about other identity-related concepts articulated through the makeover, such as individualism and pluralism, defiance and conformity, value and worthlessness, regulation and freedom, authenticity and performance. Makeover tv focuses very specifically on television’s imagination of the reasons one must be made over, the shame of refusing alteration, and the glory in becoming a polished, refined, beautiful, and confident individual, what I call here an After-body. Importantly—and in some contrast to Foucault—the makeover as social practice does not teach individuals how to cultivate the self but how to locate it. These do not tend to be mediated stories about what Foucault terms “retreats within oneself ” where the individual strives for self-improvement. Instead, makeovers depict stories of failed or imperiled selfhood, the locus of identity stalled or stagnated. In these mediated transformation texts, the body stands as the gateway to the self. Importantly, it is not just the physical body altered through plastic surgery, weight loss, or style, but the symbolic body represented by rooms, cars, or kids that functions as the key that will unlock the self. On makeover tv, that which is subject to change marks the site of the emerging self. On these shows, selfhood links to social locations and practices marked as normative, frequently designated through images that connote upward mobility, heterosexuality, consumer-orientation, conventional attractiveness, ethnic anonymity, and confidence. For instance, when Queer Eye re-meets its former subjects at its 100th episode, “Straight Man Pageant,” subject George describes his Before appearance: “That person was hiding in a shell.” George then says with feeling, “When you guys came to my place and showed me what I could do, what I could be, it just put me to another level. I’m a new man today.” Another Queer Eye subject, Jeff, says, “I believe I was hiding under a mountain of hair,” which led to a “lack of confidence, a belief in myself inside, . . . you guys showed me that I could shed that façade and let the real me out.” Tellingly, both George and Jeff speak their gratitude in the terms of a reconstituted masculinized selfhood made intelligible through the makeover, and importantly, both men direct the new currencies tendered through their After-bodies to starting businesses; their masculine prowess made manifest in the marketplace. Even on those shows where Before-subjects already seem to value their sense of self, makeovers intervene with class, race, and gender-inflected Into the Makeover Maze  · 

“improvements” that gain legitimacy by speaking through the idiom of identity. On the long-running What Not to Wear, hosts Stacy London and Clinton Kelley often lead subjects, participants, or victims through what the show describes as an “identity crisis,” in order to achieve an appearance coded as feminine, sophisticated, and refined. When in the fifth season they encounter Cristina Hernandez, who is coded as a hyper-sexualized, “passionate,” Latina woman of color, they deem her their most challenging makeover yet. Cristina, who proudly displays her body in ways that visually mark her as sexy, resists What Not to Wear’s rules, arguing through the makeover’s own logic that her clothes are an outward manifestation of her identity. When Stacy and Clinton literally trash Cristina’s tight sequinned skirts and cleavage-revealing blouses, she screams, “That’s Cristina that you’re throwing out!” Yet, as in all episodes, Cristina experiences a conversion. The makeover’s “painful” process leads her to recognize Stacy and Clinton’s superior expertise, including their demand that she change from “skank to chic.” Cristina reflects to the camera in a “private” interview, “There’s something sweet and sad about the old Cristina. I sort of look back at her and think, ‘Oh honey, you were trying too hard’.” Clinton and Stacy’s tutorial teaches Cristina that her sense of self needed adjusting, that what she had misunderstood as manifestations of her identity were actually compensatory gestures masking her lack of confidence. “Maybe insecure Cristina is gone,” Cristina confides to the camera, “and this new, very confident, secure, smart, intelligent, sexy, fun Cristina is here.” Because of how often these scenes centered on concepts of the self are replicated across the makeover canon, we see that makeover shows— whether of car, body, style, kids, or home—work toward similar goals: the achievement of a certain lifestyle, a particular appearance, a codified set of raced and classed signifiers, and a professional identity that merits what the makeover deems valid selfhood.2 This self is a priori understood as worthy, sexy, empowered, confident, gender congruent, and stable. As Cristina’s story makes clear, even when subjects believe they already manifest the requisite qualities that mark identity, the makeover possesses greater powers of taste and discretion that individuals need in order to claim selfhood. Just as with Amy’s extreme makeover, capitulating to the idiom of identity expressed through the makeover is the prerequisite for empowerment. This message of salvation through submission, although similar to many other ideological and religious systems, indicates that the public instruction we receive through tv makeovers is often internally inconsistent, filled   ·  Introduction

with “ill-logics.” Typically, a jumble of contradictory ideas is stigmatized as incoherent or trivial, without cultural and intellectual gravitas. When such labels adhere to the media content found in such debased cultural forms as tabloids, soap operas, or reality tv, their stigma infects the product, producer, and consumer. I believe the dilemma may be not so much an intrinsic incoherence in the makeover but a scholarly commitment to the idea that what constitutes rationality is always immediately recognizable and constant. In this regard, the contradictory elements of makeover shows may be as much due to a hyper-rationalistic mode of interpretation as to any systemic contradiction in the makeover itself. Makeover tv thus seeks to develop a revised way of knowing that can accommodate the (ill)logics of the makeover rather than simply dismiss them as incoherent or pathological.

You—Only Better! Over the past three decades, theorists have argued that in a postmodern and media-driven society, identity and gender are fluid and contingent, or as Sherry Turkle observes, “our views of the self” have come to be represented by images of “multiplicity, heterogeneity, flexibility, and fragmentation” (178). In such a worldview, Victoria Pitts-Taylor succinctly articulates, “neither psychic self nor physical body are fixed or natural or authentic, but rather continually created or in process” (23). Makeover television, however, tells a wholly different story of coherent and stable subject positions, located in and expressed through the made-over body. Before-bodies quite often lack valid me-ness and After-bodies mark the zone of celebrated selfhood where subjects rejoice, “I’m me now!” Such exclamations beg the question: “Who were you before, if not you?” The answer from both the television makeover and a larger makeover culture, as the cover to a Ladies Home Journal proclaims, is that you can be “You—Only Better!”3 One of the makeover’s more critical premises is that it does not construct, it reveals. That is to say, the makeover does not create selfhood but rather it locates and salvages that which is already present, but weak. Though a “you” may exist, these stories suggest the “better you” can only be achieved through the makeover. In contrast to the celebratory state of selfhood available to After-bodies, the selfhood connected to Before-bodies is, by the makeover’s definition, not only worse but practically null and void. The makeover suggests there is really no choice to make about whether to engage in transformation, Into the Makeover Maze  ·  

“YOU—Only Better.” Ladies Home Journal, January 2007

since the difference between Before and After is radical. On Intervention, for example, Sara says about her self in a Before-state: “I’m not a good mom. I’m not a good daughter. I’m nothing. I’m nobody.” Following her treatment for drug addiction, she exclaims in her After-state that “for the first time in my life I feel like a person.” Similarly, on The Biggest Loser, Marty is dejected about his Before-body. In his After-body he reflects, “I came here to lose weight, but I found a new person inside of me. When I get up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror, I say, ‘I can accomplish anything!’ I feel good about myself, who I am inside and out.” The postmakeover self occupies a joyful position represented as rich in agency and self-reflexivity. After-bodies possess the language to express pride in the work they’ve done—or let others do to them—to achieve their improved state of identity. As such, they more frequently reference themselves in the first-person (“I’m me again”) rather than in the third-person (“the nose is too broad, the breasts are too small”). The fact that the makeover endeavors to offer subjects either the reclamation or the first-time-ever experience of me-ness might be one reason to praise it as a positive cultural site that is the locus of identity work. Indeed, theorists such as Kathy Davis and Debra Gimlin have transformed a traditional feminist critique of plastic surgery by demonstrating the ways in which surgery and other forms of body-work often allow women, and increasingly men, to express a self.4 Rather than being passive in the hands of surgeons or a wider beauty culture, those who choose cosmetic options often do so with a sense of agency, thus contributing to their own self-making. Moreover, it is true that to live in accord with dominant ideals about the body grants a person greater social privilege and extends to him or her a greater advantage and opportunity, which, in turn, influences self-perception. I expand on these ideas throughout the book, but I want to think more for a moment about the self that the makeover calls into being. I have already said that this self, announced through the After-body, is depicted as empowered and conventionally gendered. These two aspects of the makeover are made visible in After-footage of newly muscled men flexing their arms in bicep-bulging poses or newly slimmed women holding their bodies in a model’s stance—the man made powerful through signifiers of strength, the woman made powerful through her evocation of idealized beauty (even when she also has biceps). The makeover’s iteration of self is also marked by normative signs of sexuality, race, class, and ethnicity. Occasionally, the makeover welcomes Into the Makeover Maze  ·  

After-body as hegemonic masculine. Erik, The Biggest Loser. www.nbc.com

After-body made conventionally feminine. Ali, the first female The Biggest Loser in “Got Milk?” ad.

people of color and the working class; people who are explicitly marked as “too ethnic” or outside the middle class are given makeovers expressly to make them feel “normal.” Transformation from the aberrant to the normative is meant to increase confidence and wage-earning potential, both critical components of the makeover’s conception of valuable selfhood. Depending on the type of show, race and ethnicity are either rarely explicitly mentioned or are handled as aesthetic details that can be “tweaked” in service of the desired After-body outcome. This oblique management of what often codes as shameful in the Before-body underscores the tacit value of middle-class whiteness, which, as David Roediger notes, is typically perceived as “natural and normative” rather than “constructed and remarkable” (B6).5 Along with a discourse of whiteness, sexuality norms relentlessly swing to the heteronormative. Those subjects who have “stalled out” in romance are revitalized through the makeover’s changes, a renaissance that invariably heightens female/male erotic bonds. Though the makeover can imagine a place for the gay-coded but rarely gay-announced male stylist, it is completely flummoxed by the lesbian expert or subject. In this mediated domain that I call Makeover Nation where identity markers are expressed through style codes that collectively create an idealized citizen-subject, no space is allocated for female-female desire, even on such shows as America’s Next Top Model where, over the course of multiple cycles, several lesbian and at least one trans-woman have appeared, only to be summarily dismissed early in the competition. Such representation leads one to believe that the self arises in the makeover candidate through the effort involved in achieving a demanding goal, which shows like The Biggest Loser, The Swan, and Extreme Makeover painfully illustrate. The agony of throwing out clutter or trashing unfashionable clothes on How Do I Look?, What Not to Wear, Clean House, neat, and Mission: Organization also underscores the labor of change. Home and garden makeovers equally require hard work, both physically and emotionally, as evidenced in a scene from The City Gardener when the host puts his arms around the weepy subject Emma and asks, “Is this tears of joy or tears of sadness?” “Joy,” she answers, “Not because I’m sad but because I can’t believe this is mine.” Emma’s experience suggests that the makeover’s affective labor includes not only Before-experiences of shame and alienation but After-adjustments for self-recognition. Even on shows such as My Celebrity Home, Pimp My Ride, Trick My Truck, or Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, where teams of experts do the work of transformation, subjects have prepaid for their makeovers through the suffering they have already 12  ·  Introduction

endured, either through the loss of loved ones, the care of others, or the sheer embarrassment of enduring their Before-bodies. The makeover also indicates that the self emerges as the participant’s physical or symbolic body increasingly emits signs of the ideal. As an overweight woman takes on an hourglass shape, her sense of her own gendered identity becomes clearer, leading to statements like “I’m confident. I’m sexy. I’m a woman now!” Equally, as a young couple’s backyard transforms from weeds and overgrown grass into a “family oasis,” subjects speak of feeling they can now be better moms and dads, functioning more responsibly as neighbors, a trope fully manifest on such shows as The Ugliest House on the Block, Desperate Landscapes, and Deserving Design. Moving into fuller iterations of idealized bodies, in turn, shapes the desires and practices of transforming subjects so that both men and women talk of fully participating in scripts of bourgeois heteronormativity through romance, marriage, children, and middle-brow careers. This glorification of the normative is troubling in itself, but the larger, and to my mind more disturbing, implication of the makeover’s notion of selfhood is that Before-bodies can never rightfully claim such status. For selfhood to be the metaphoric pot of gold at the end of the makeover rainbow indicates that there is no valid self absent the After-body produced by the makeover process. Those who are sloppy, cluttery, overwrought, overdrawn, and overweight can lay no claim to legitimate selfhood within the makeover’s constitution of identity. In the makeover’s heteronormative economy, they are what Judith Butler has described in Undoing Gender as “unreal people,” those so far outside a normative frame that they have no intelligibility as valid subjects (26). Though Butler speaks here of identity formations related to gender and sexuality, specifically citizenship debates for same-sex partners and subject-legitimacy for transsexual and intersexed people, her analysis directly pertains to the makeover, particularly since citizenship and gender/sex identity are critical to the makeover’s transforming mandates. Butler leads us through a series of questions that have relevance to Before-bodies: Who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives? What makes for a grievable life? (16–17). More implicitly, she asks: Whose lives merit representation? Whose lives are outside of intelligibility? How is it possible to achieve a sense of gendered identity if self-determination comes only as the consequence of external affirmation, that is, if we are always “gendered for others” (Undoing 25)? What do you do if the norms supporting the empowered intelligible subject do not create the person you want to be?6 Into the Makeover Maze  ·  13

It seems to me that one of the critical first moves that must happen to better answer these questions and to more fully understand the makeover’s maze is a conceptual disjoining of selfhood and empowerment. Though the makeover has an investment in positioning these terms as synonymous, their conflation situates the Before-body as passive and enervated. This conceptualization of the self-in-absence allows the makeover to authorize its practices as “saving the life” of makeover participants. Though the makeover’s rhetoric is tempered by its format, so high-concept shows like The Biggest Loser or Extreme Makeover: Home Edition make claims for total life alteration, while smaller shows like Deserving Design or Carter Can make promises of new potential for living a more fulfilled life, most tv makeovers evoke tropes of identity lost and found. Further, by linking selfhood to empowerment the makeover suggests it can bring forth a material and visible element of what constitutes the self, which the evidence of desolate Before and jubilant After images in celebratory reveal ceremonies make exceedingly evident. As Micki McGee suggests about self-help discourses, the very enthusiasm of a reveal works to authenticate the invented self, since celebration bolsters both authenticity and self-mastery (167–71). In order for the transforming magic of the makeover to work, then, the self must simultaneously be represented as the most important manifestation of existence and as not fully attainable without the aid the makeover provides. Makeover logic insists that feelings of sadness, depression, and even desolation contribute to alienation from an experience of consummated selfhood, leading to the notion that “I am not me.” In so doing, the makeover positions itself as a potent cure for the postmodern condition, bringing coherence, solidity, and empowerment to the fractured and schizophrenic state hypothesized as intrinsic to our highly mediated moment. According to the messages mapped out in these narratives, altering feelings of despondency constitutes a form of self-making. Similarly, moving closer to social ideals offers a feedback loop that allows for the experience of a newly constituted experience of self. This is not to say, however, that Before-bodies lack all forms of recognition. They are made intelligible and sympathetic precisely due to their misery, which is attenuated by a mismatched ontology where outsides do not accurately reflect insides. Beforebodies are lifted to a field of sympathetic visibility precisely because they are willing to exchange their stories of misery (or frustration or discontent) for improvement. They want to be a “You—Only Better!”

14  ·  Introduction

Ideological Opportunism and Theorizing the Makeover How the makeover goes about achieving celebratory selfhood for its participants is varied, employing a vast range of ideological systems and discourses necessary to achieve its self-making goals.7 These shows therefore mobilize a wide gamut of rationales, including neoconservative and new-age religious rhetorics, neoliberal marketplace ideals, feminist and postfeminist empowerment justifications, hyperconsumerist entitlement discourses, celebrity and fairy tale transformation scenarios, interventionist antiaddiction campaigns, swat-like property raid re-enactments, talk-based therapeutic rejuvenations, boot camp behavior modifications, and medicalized cautionary tales.8 Though many of these ideological modes—such as neoliberalism and government-enforced disciplinarity—share authoritarian features that compel compliance, others like feminism or therapy offer potential empowerment and liberation. All of these discourses play a part in creating the celebrated self who emerges in the makeover’s great moment of culmination: the reveal. Despite such ideological elasticity, the makeover is pointedly not postmodern nor is it performative.9 As I just indicated, there is one place where the makeover draws strong lines of demarcation between what it aims to create and the methods it will use. Regardless of the type, makeovers ardently promote an essentialized and authentic idea of self that is stable, coherent, and locatable, where gender unambiguously correlates to sexed identity. Though the makeover authorizes change in order to achieve this stable self, such transformation is teleological and unidirectional. Beforebodies become After-bodies, end of story.10 As I discuss throughout this book, the makeover does not create a set of narratives in which transformations are random, mercurial, endless, or erratic. Though it can sometimes conceive of difference or resistance—and indeed, it uses such points of tension to reinforce the rightness of its agenda—the makeover perceives itself as an agent of care so that, as the theme song to Queer Eye announces, “things can only get better.” This idea of assistance is reinforced through a number of shows, from Shaq’s Big Challenge, Honey, We’re Killing the Kids, and The Biggest Loser, which are determined to “rescue America,” to Simplify Your Life, whose host says at the end of most shows, “Now let’s go out and help somebody else!” The disturbing implication is that those who resist such help resign themselves to lives as perpetual Before-bodies. Things can only get worse.

Into the Makeover Maze  ·  15

Given reality tv’s central role in this discourse on identity, it’s important to be reminded that the name “reality” is a bit of a misnomer. The fact that the majority of reality programs are shot and edited digitally allows directors and producers far more options about how to splice footage and create narrative tension now than they did in the days of film and videotape. Because the makeovers analyzed here are a part of reality tv, they broadcast but also efface actual events. And yet, though we would do well to remember that real people are not the same as represented people, we must also bear in mind, as John Fiske theorizes, that there is no “clear distinction between a ‘real’ event and its mediated representation.” Because of this, Fiske opines, a mediated event is “not a mere representation of what happened, but it has its own reality” (2). Makeovers are consequently both representatives of the real and representations that create our notion of the real. In this discursive construction of reality and identity, gender is central. Reality tv makeovers urge us to adopt whatever means necessary to find and fix the self and to mark it as conventionally masculine or feminine. The reassurances offered by the makeover, in turn, point to, though do not articulate, a larger anxiety about the dangerous fluidity of both gender and selfhood, a slipperyness that has translated, the makeover suggests, into a mass of people adrift in depression, desolation, and despondency. Such chaos manifests symbolically through iterations of the imperiled self: the blubbery and cellulited body that testifies to a lack of discipline and selfcare; the decrepit jalopy that barely runs down the street, indicating an inability to materialize public status markers of the self; the overcluttered, overgrown, or ramshackle home and garden that suggests an unwillingness, indeed a lack of capacity, to see ourselves (and thus regulate our behaviors) as others see us (and wish us to behave). The home makeover show, Room Service, is none-too-subtle about the interconnection between selfhood and style. “If a room is an extension of who you are,” it asks, “then what does this mean?” The screen immediately fills with images of dilapidation—cracked plaster, broken lathes, wall insulation strewn about the floor. The show answers its own question, punctuating its response by floating words across the screen: “It’s a terrible mess!” The voiceover narrator soothes: “But that’s not you. You’re vibrant. You’re eclectic. You’re creative.” We see a clear indication that the makeover includes both the shame of an imperfect self made visible and a cure for the imperiled selfas-signifier. In many ways, the makeover is a master semiotician, altering

16  ·  Introduction

the sign (self ) by changing the relationship between signifier (appearance) and signifed (perceived meaning). In addition to semiotics as a mode of analysis for theorizing the makeover, feminist theory is critical. Since a larger U.S. and international culture is similarly awash in a tide of plastic surgery options, age-reducing technologies, and transformation mandates aimed primarily at women, feminism offers a critical lens through which to interpret the surge in makeover programming.11 Not surprisingly, the increase in technologies of beautification has also given rise to a complicated chorus of scholarly analysis that ranges from rejection to praise.12 I believe it is important to bear in mind the breadth of these feminist debates, particularly those that reject the automatic conflation of beautification and passivity. This requires analyzing television makeovers, whether surgical or not, in light of analyses that caution against reversing binaries that situate aesthetic surgery patients as either completely co-opted or as always fully empowered. Such analysis, in turn, requires problematizing structure-agency binaries that situate doctors as active, knowing, and masculinized, and patients as passive, ignorant, and feminized. The problem with such a call for nuance as it relates to television makeover shows, however, is that the shows themselves seldom allow for such complexity. On occasion, makeover narratives will depict moments when doctors acknowledge they are under the same spectatorial gaze as their patients. For the most part, however, makeover narratives tend to play by fairly old-school rules of power dynamics. Doctors and style gurus are all-knowing, great looking, and never wrong; patients are miserable and depressed, aware of their short-comings, unsure of how to help themselves, willing to put themselves in the hands of experts for complete renovation, untroubled by any potential medical or financial complications, and fully satisfied and grateful for After-results. Though actual phenomena directly influence makeover narratives and so sociological analyses can offer one version of reading people’s realworld choices, makeover narratives rarely communicate the ambiguity and complexity that is part of everyday decision-making. These stories of self-hatred, submission, and rejuvenation parallel what Virginia Blum calls “plastic surgery culture” and Meredith Jones terms “makeover culture,” and yet television makeovers are constructed stories, real in themselves, but designed, like all tales, to capture interest through character, conflict, plotting, and climax. The stories, lives, and confessional moments we

Into the Makeover Maze  ·  17

see on makeover programming offer evidence, therefore, not only of a sociological reality but also of a narratological and mediated phenomenon. Overall, makeover stories are intricate cultural artifacts that demonstrate the competing and often contradictory discourses about gender and selfhood, articulated through idealizations of beauty, body image, self-love, and empowerment. If part of the larger arc of these narratives is the way that the makeover both provokes and soothes our cultural anxieties about self-making, then its reliance on multiple ideologies, which in juxtaposition often appear incoherent or illogical, illustrates the contestatory processes at play in negotiating subject-status and subjectivities. Given the makeover’s resistance to performativity, it is ironic that it just may be Butler, the scholar who put gender performativity on the map, who can best offer a theoretical language to describe the makeover’s seeming (ill)logics. “To intervene in the name of transformation,” Butler observes, “means precisely to disrupt what has become settled knowledge and knowable reality,” in turn creating an unreality or a “knowing unknowingness” that can effect material change (Undoing 27, 39). Critical for Butler—as for subjects in the makeover—is what she calls interimplication, or the somewhat paradoxical turn that “in order to lay claim to what is one’s own,” we must recognize that “one’s own is always from the start dependent upon what is not one’s own” (Undoing 100). As Amy suggests about her extreme makeover, it is surrendering to the terms of the governing authority that earns her improved subject status. The process not only provides feel-good television, it also creates an ideological zone where the very persons most hurt by judgment and exclusion become their strongest advocates, offering an important mediated case study that illustrates how perceived liberation frequently reinforces oppressive norms. And yet, as Before-bodies constantly reiterate, to be a non-me is too painful to bear. Therefore, just as participants must contend with the makeover’s (ill)logics to achieve the self it promises, we must enter the maze to understand the self it imagines, perhaps discovering in the process that, as Butler says, “paradox is the condition of [agency’s] possibility” (3).

Accounting for This Particular Makeover Madness The concept of the makeover has deep historical roots—from popular culture formats such as talk shows and women’s magazines, to high art venues such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) or Jane Austen’s Emma (1816), 18  ·  Introduction

to mythological, literary, and religious stories of transformation like the Christian crucifixion or Pygmalion (both Ovid’s from the first century a.d. and George Bernard Shaw’s from 1913). Hollywood has long been enamored of transformation stories through such films as Now, Voyager (1942) and My Fair Lady (1964), or in more contemporary fare such as Moonstruck (1987), Pretty Woman (1990), The Princess Diaries (2001 and 2004), or The Devil Wears Prada (2006). There are, however, several significant differences between other cultural representations of the makeover and reality television iterations of the same. A primary variation is that in film and novel depictions of transformation, the makeover often serves as a plot device to further a narrative larger than the scope of the transformation itself. In most cases, the makeover constitutes a thematic within the larger text, so though we might say that Bette Davis experiences a makeover in Now, Voyager, we probably wouldn’t call it a makeover movie. Pygmalion and My Fair Lady are obviously a different matter, though in many ways the transformation of Eliza is meant to be both exceptional and deplorable. If Henry Higgins were to set up a makeover factory dedicated to transforming all of Covent Garden’s flower mongers from drab to fab, if the entire country were able to witness her changes from the comfort and privacy of their homes, and if the logic of the text praised such intercession rather than condemning it, then we could see a line of parallel with the reality tv makeover. When television represents fictionalized accounts of change through such fiction formats as My Wife and Kids, Hannah Montana, That’s So Raven, Malcolm in the Middle, or, oddly, animated sit-coms such as Family Guy, Tracey McBean, and The Simpsons, characters often learn that though a makeover is nice, they were really just fine in their Before states. Fictionalized dramas and made-for-tv movies about makeovers, such as Nip/Tuck (2003–present), To Be Fat Like Me (2007), or A Very Cool Christmas (2004), similarly work to teach that makeovers of the outside reveal more important truths about the inside, including a new respect for the Before that somehow eludes reality tv. In both fictional and reality formats, currency accrues to what might be called inner authenticity as represented through a recognizable character whose outer appearance reflects the “truth” of identity. As a further point of contrast to fictional makeovers, in the reality tv model the makeover motif functions as its own genre. It’s not just the fact of change but the critical mass of a weight of programming dedicated to the repetition of makeover stories that marks these programs as distinctive. Finally, in terms of adjacent texts, Queen for a Day deserves some discussion. Airing originally on radio through the Mutual Broadcasting Company Into the Makeover Maze  ·  19

from 1945 to 1957, Queen for a Day became a local Los Angeles television show before transitioning to national television prominence in 1956. It aired on nbc until 1960 before moving to abc from 1960–64, with occasional resurfaces into the 1970s. Queen for a Day asked four female participants to compete against each other by showcasing stories of their sorrows and disappointments. Those subjects whose experiences generated the highest applause from the studio audience were anointed with a velvet robe and golden crown, given a bouquet of red roses and prizes, like a washing machine or dryer, meant to alleviate their suffering. Queen for a Day stands as a signal text for mediated confessionals of personal misery that end in celebratory “rewards” for suffering. Much like the network-produced, higher-profile, and big-budget makeovers I examine in this book—programs like Extreme Makeover, The Swan, The Biggest Loser, and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition—Queen for a Day established a mediated affective economy where miserable subjects trade stories of abjection for the bounty promised through televisual benevolence.13 It may also offer us a moment from early television where the savvy viewer was able to translate her tale of woe into a form of currency, or, in other words, entertainment value, that could yield the cessation, even if temporary, of domestic trials. Despite these similarities, the postmillennial grouping of makeover programming considered in Makeover tv differs from Queen for a Day in significant ways. Perhaps the most obvious variant is that Queen for a Day was a stand-alone text. Though other shows like Strike it Rich (airing on cbs radio and tv from 1947–58) also exploited hard-luck stories for entertainment value, Queen for a Day stands in the contemporary popular imagination as a singular forerunner of reality tv’s exploitation-as-entertainment enterprise. In our present moment, no one makeover program stands as the signal text apart from the rest of the genre. As I have said above, it is the sheer quantity of transformation-themed formats, as much as any individual program, that marks this moment as singular. We know that narrative does not exist in a vacuum. The stories that delight us and the stories that frighten us offer significant information about the particular historical moment and cultural circumstances out of which those narratives arise. Just as a transformation story like Dracula (1897) or The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) articulates fears about Victorian identity in the nineteenth century, the preponderance of makeover programming in the early part of the twenty-first century offers important information about our own moment, primarily the hope that

20  ·  Introduction

in controlling the “real” physical body made legible through reality tv we might better regulate and protect the vulnerable social body. Social theorists such as Mary Douglas and Bryan Turner have underscored the interconnection between narrative and bodies, arguing that the individual body is a microcosm of the larger social body, so that both material and metaphorical bodies influence one another. The ordering of one’s physical body extends to and makes possible forms of social control. Conversely, the very social stability out of which such control manifests is a product of individual bodies. The makeover takes such ideas and expands the constituent symbolic representatives of self, so it is not only the physical body but kids, cars, dogs, clutter, and marriages that create the web of relations necessary to produce the social body. Just as we saw in the discussion of selfhood above, the makeover’s formulation positions its interventions as a necessity—the detritus of bodily living must be reformed and regulated in order for the larger social body to be sustained. The makeover’s logic is both a truth statement and a scare tactic of the highest order, and ultimately, the makeover’s discourses set up a climate of panic that requires the elimination of impurities or pollutants that may potentially contaminate the larger social body. Collective policing of what Douglas has termed the culturally and context-specific notion of dirt is not new; indeed, Douglas sees such behaviors as the hallmark of primitive cultures. But television’s role in organizing the construction of the social body through the regulation of symbolic manifestations of the individual body marks these stories as different not only in kind but also in degree. Though the fascination with personal-change stories manifests through all cultural texts, television’s small screen arguably does a more persuasive job of selling transformational ideologies, largely because reality programming seems removed from the artifice that so saturates other forms of cultural and celebrity construction. As Su Holmes indicates, particularly on shows that require audience votes to determine outcomes, reality tv “quite literally claim[s] to invite us ‘behind-the-scenes’ of fame production” (“Starring” 16). Such glimpses into “authenticity,” in turn, obscure the fact that illusion is present. Joshua Gamson suggests that star magazines have often worked “by embracing the notion that celebrity images were artificial products and inviting readers to visit the real self behind those images.” This, Gamson contends, “partially defuses the notion that celebrity was really derived from nothing but images” (“Assembly Line”

Into the Makeover Maze  · 21

270). Similarly, in explicitly announcing the purported presence of authenticity by naming the genre “reality tv” and even inviting the viewer behind the scenes, producers are able to anticipate and deflect audience suspicion and resistance.14 The ostensible realness of people depicted within the mediated reality tv text becomes all the more vivid when contrasted with reminders of celebrity construction. Every picture of a star without make-up and every documentary exposing celebrity cellulite and starlet plastic surgeries serve to remind us of the glittering facade of fame. Reality tv is as full of artifice as Hollywood’s fictions, yet the process of watching “real” people engage in transformations minimizes the idea that such changes are constructed and, in so doing, underscores the appeal of the illusion of authenticity. Because the viewer has witnessed the entire passage from Before to After, the Afterbody, narratively speaking, stands as the moment of greatest authenticity, not to be undone or reversed by future parts in films or tabloid moments when realness is exposed. Though there is always the chance that makeovers won’t stick—that the Biggest Loser might regain all that weight or the Swan might return to ugly duckling status—the terms of the narrative allow for no such backsliding. These are teleological stories grounded in progress tropes about continual improvement. Although makeovers rarely feature moments when subjects resist transformations—when a Swan stomps out of the competition or when a ladette flashes her bare backside after being expelled—scenes of defiance often work to validate the accomplishment of seeing a transformation through to the end. If a person who makes it to the status of After-body later recedes, she or he will do so outside the scope of the narrative. Even when the makeover offers “where are they now” updates, the imagined zone of reality tv does not allow for the messiness of real lives. In postmakeover check ups, subjects may be marginally struggling, they might have picked up a pound or two, or they may be battling recurring bouts of cancer or contending with divorce. But the transformative self-making properties offered by the makeover are depicted as ever-present and final, now and for the future, the self in full residence due to the process of change as broadcast through cable and satellite services across the world. Much like the tree falling in the forest, if the After reverts to Before but the camera isn’t running, we can assume such reversal never happens. We may wonder what occurs after “the end,” but the only thing we can know for sure is what takes place during the narrative. Across the makeover canon we see repeated stories of humiliation, desire, rescue, tribulation, fortitude, 22  ·  Introduction

and triumph, all played out before the camera’s eye, and all leading to the ultimate prize of celebrated selfhood with little continuation of the narrative that might undo or problematize After-outcomes.

Messages of Normalization? Somewhat ironically, in addition to filling the airwaves with stories cele­ brating transformation, U.S. television also supplies viewers with an abundance of cautionary tales, thus functioning as both good and bad cop in the regulation economy of the makeover. Documentaries such as Plastic Disasters, Drastic Plastic Surgery, ths Investigates: Plastic Surgery Nightmares, and The Secret Lives of Women: Surgery Addicts offer a surfeit of frightening stories about plastic surgery procedures gone bad. Plastic surgery makeover shows themselves sometimes allude, though obliquely, to the down sides of their rejuvenating interventions. Extreme Makeover, for instance, noted in a follow-up of former subject, Paula, that her body had rejected its new breast implants. Likewise, in an episode of I Want a Famous Face, which I discuss more fully in chapter 5, while one subject desired breast implants to more closely resemble Britney Spears, another subject bemoaned her implants (intended to make her look like Julia Roberts) because they had compromised her immune system. On shows such as Brand New You, Dr. 90210 and Plastic Surgery: Before and After, upwards of fifty percent of each episode’s narrative time functions in the service of documenting medical consultations and procedures. Depictions of surgery on these shows skew toward the graphic, making much of the cutting, blotting, sucking, and restructuring—and all of the blood and gore—that are part of a major medical operation. Rather than normalizing plastic surgery makeovers, as some scholars have argued, such graphic depictions may function as effective viewer deterrents. I don’t mean to argue here that makeovers do not situate plastic surgery, specifically, and transformation, more broadly, as normal, for they do. But normalization is not the extent of their message, since in many ways the (ill)logics of makeovers use the discourse of normalcy to call into question the very notion of normal itself. Consider, for instance, two programs, Extreme Makeover and The Swan, both of which deploy plastic surgery as well as diet, physical training, life coaching, and style advice to achieve After-bodies. At first, the makeover rationales seem entirely opposite to one another, so that Kacie on Extreme Makeover notes, “I don’t want to be a super model. I just want to be normal,” whereas Rachel on Into the Makeover Maze  · 23

The Swan acknowledges that she is a “self-confessed average girl” and so needs a makeover because she is too normal. In this regard, it would seem that Extreme Makeover corrects deformities, converting people who consider themselves “side-show freaks” into more conventional embodied subjects. The Swan, by contrast, pathologizes the ordinary, so that to be average is something to confess. On both shows, however, postmaker outcomes line up side-by-side. When Kacie and Rachel appear at their respective reveals, their After-bodies are resplendent in tight-fitting designer evening gowns, their hair long and silken, their faces artfully made up. Both women stand on elevated platforms, overlooking adoring audiences (a throng of joyous family and friends for Kacie, a group of applauding surgeons and makeover experts for Rachel). Both have learned to pose, turning their bodies in ways to be fully seen and admired. In this regard, discourses of normalcy produce outcomes coded as extraordinary, here, quite specifically, saturated in signifiers that denote celebrity. We can see a similar tension about what constitutes the normal in shows not specifically centered on the physical body. Simplify Your Life, which aims to ease over-stressed lives, often enacts intricate makeovers of living spaces, finances, menus, schedules, and wardrobes as a way of reducing heterosexual relationship tensions. Much like the shows Merge or Designing for the Sexes, Simplify Your Life teaches negotiation and compromise skills, offering strategies for each family member’s style-expression in the shared semiotic spaces of the home. Normalcy here is marked as a place of representational balance. It is the makeover’s job to facilitate “domestic harmony” by creating the aesthetic indicators that will produce the combined personalities of a home’s owners. And yet, just as often, shows critique home spaces as too “blah” and deficient in “ooh la la.” In this case, homes too accurately signify their occupants’ personalities, and to make the subject more interesting, the markers of self in which the subject resides must improve. Makeovers are here predicated on the idea that to be “too average,” just as we saw with The Swan, is evidence of shame that must be turned to more sophisticated and class-based ends. The degree to which the ordinary merges into the extraordinary strikes me as less important for what such discourses produce (more plastic surgeries, a greater desire for home improvement) and more meaningful for how these discourses put normalcy at the center of every narrative. Whether it’s change to be more like everyone else or alteration to be extraordinary, the makeover insists that transformations are the critical 24  ·  Introduction

pathway to producing the unique and stable, read here as normal, self. In this regard, the only totally abnormal state exists outside the makeover’s self-making rejuvenations.

Why Now? The reasons for the saturation and appeal of makeover narratives are varied, and as with most sociological and representational phenomena, there is not a linear relationship between cause and effect. I can, however, speculate about a number of influences that I map out more fully in the individual chapters of this book. For instance, the increasing shift to a global marketplace has privileged employees with (typically feminized) social and technological skills rather than those possessing (typically masculinized) physical power or mechanical savvy. As I discuss in chapter 1, appearance in the twenty-first century functions as an indicator of professional competence and ability, and in an increasingly globalized economy where neoliberal subjects circulate the globe, such appearance-based citizenship is critical for business success. The makeover is thus depicted as a critical economic tool for rectifying the forms of neglect and lack of self-care that have had detrimental consequences for earning power. Coupled with such change has been women’s increasing social and economic power, which has led to a contestation of men’s “automatic” right to professionally and socially dominant positions. In this regard, men not only need the makeover to compete with one another, they require the makeover’s outcomes so that they might compete with women, giving new credence to Gloria Steinem’s adage that women have become the men they wanted to marry. It is somewhat ironic, given this, that it may be postfeminism, rather than feminism, that constitutes another factor leading to the present surge in makeovers. In her 1982 opinion piece first accounting for a rise in postfeminist attitudes attuned to the politics of personal style, Susan Bolotin noted that young women castigated second-wave feminists as “icy monsters” who had “let themselves go physically,” and thus had “no sense of style.” Susan J. Douglas observes that the term postfeminist indicates how “women have made plenty of progress because of feminism, but that feminism is now irrelevant and even undesirable because it has made millions of women unhappy, unfeminine, childless, lonely, and bitter, prompting them to fill their closets with combat boots and really bad Indian print skirts.” Charlotte Brundson further adds, somewhat tongue in cheek, that “second-wave feminism is remembered, and demonized, Into the Makeover Maze  · 25

as personally censorious, hairy, and politically correct” (112).15 Given the degree to which style thus connects to concerns about and backlashes against a feminist politics, the rise in makeover narratives might plausibly be correlated with the current hostile climate toward feminist practices. It is another sign of the makeover’s ideologic opportunism, however, that it equally claims the rhetoric of feminism in its statements of empowerment, sisterhood, and solidarity. The flood of visual messages about ideal bodies and behaviors through television, advertising, the internet, and other forms of popular culture means that both men and women experience greater demands to work toward, if not to fully achieve, perfect bodies. Celebrity culture plays a significant role in both modeling and affirming the rightness of these ideals. Constant reminders of beautiful bodies also take place amidst a social backdrop of a critical mass of middle-aged consumers (the baby boomers) who possess considerable financial means and an attitude that if something bothers you, change it. These consumers, increasingly aware of the aging body, are enacting technologies of self-care, creating cultural investments in “good health” by arresting the signs of time’s progress and actively fighting for positive self-esteem through the beautiful body. This has consequently altered, though not entirely erased, the social stigma attached to plastic surgery or other nonsurgical appearance-altering procedures such as Botox or even hair dye. Technological advancements in cosmetic surgery procedures, recent challenges to socialized and privatized health coverage, and an escalating imperative to meet market demands mean that doctors and other medical personnel are increasingly turning to cosmetic options as a way to create new revenue streams outside of insurance-based economies. Furthermore, makeover culture perfectly dovetails with other cultural trends, in particular those identified by British sociologists Anthony Giddens, who argues that the intensification of uncertainty has compelled a higher degree of self-reflective regulation, and Frank Furedi, who contends a heightened sense of cultural vulnerability, coupled with declines in tradition, religion, and politics, have led to a widespread therapy culture where self-improvement gurus take on iconic status (84–89). Given the makeover’s sweeping promises to bring about a better you and promote happier relations at home and in the office, its appeal is perhaps no surprise. And finally, in order to answer that question—why now?—we should not dismiss how changes in television itself allow for a greater preponderance of makeover narratives—and with the mandatory turn to high-definition 26  ·  Introduction

resolution, a heightened mandate for perfect complexions.16 In the last ten years, for instance, the increase of expanded cable, the diminishment of a market share typically held by the major networks, the rise of reality tv, and the flexibility of what constitutes a television season have all allowed for an unprecedented proliferation of shows, each offering variations on the same theme. Reality tv is both inexpensive to produce and appealing to viewers—and, in the wake of unionized writer strikes, reality tv, which primarily employs nonunion writers and production agents, offers a route to programming free of the labor politics that stymie big-ticket productions. The makeover further offers a basic format reproducible and exportable across specialized cable niches—so we see The Weather Channel offering green makeovers, World Harvest Television airing A New You, God’s Way, Discovery fit making space for the yoga-infused Guru2Go, and rfd (Rural Free Delivery) showcasing Animal Makeover tv. Though Discovery, hgtv, Style, and tlc lead the way in airing programming, the reality tv makeover is a democratizing medium that puts multiple networks on the map, including abc, nbc, cbs, fox, bravo, pbs, wht, food, cmt, a&e, e!, mtv, f/x, kids, ngtv, mtv2, mtv3s, tv1, vh1, oxgn, fine, diy, hsn, we, espn, hall, Sundance, Comedy Central, Lifetime, tvland, and bbc America. The preponderance of demand also offers independent production companies a toehold in a competitive media market, so that New Harbor Entertainment, as one example, sells programming to Style, tlc, and Discovery Home. Makeovers seemingly offer the cure for every woe, so as environmental concerns move into a dominant mediated position, the makeover has responded with such shows as Wasted, Outrageous Wasters, The G-Word, and Greenovate. The makeover also functions as a site of hybridity, since 2008 witnessed the introduction of a number of shows involving format blending, including Groomer Has It, which combines elements of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Project Runway, and Dog Whisperer (and is produced and narrated by The Biggest Loser’s creator and executive producer, J. D. Roth), or Your Place or Mine?, which amalgamates game show and makeover formats.

Typifying the Genre Given the sheer mass of programming, one can easily begin to wonder just exactly what constitutes a makeover and, therefore, which programs should be included in a study such as this. As a rule, I tend to be ecumenical in my definition of makeovers, grouping together shows that revamp Into the Makeover Maze  · 27

bodies, clothes, rooms, psyches, marriages, houses, behavior, cars, kids, restaurants, motorcycles, and dogs. I do this largely because the shows themselves seem aware of their like-mindedness and often speak through the same idioms, deploying similar imagery. For instance, Debbie Travis’ Face Lift or Toolbelt Diva both talk about a room that needs some nip and tuck or a table requiring a facial; Extreme Makeover suggests that a body requires a complete overhaul, and Cesar Milan on Dog Whisperer notes that a poodle has had an extreme makeover. Pimp My Ride paints subject Jason’s jeep in “glamouflage” rather than camouflage, and Beauty and The Geek instructs its beautiful women to “pimp your geeks!” Furthermore, many of reality tv’s producers, writers, and production companies work across makeover modalities, so, for instance, Thom Beers has been the executive producer of both Plastic Surgery: Before and After and Monster Garage. Though I think there are important relationships of content, theme, and affinity between such disparate shows as Pimp My Ride, Dog Whisperer, America’s Next Top Model, and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, my primary concern in this book is not so much to differentiate between the generic specifics of the makeovers themselves but to use the makeover as a location through which to better understand how television informs a gendered sense of identity. My organizing criteria has been to include all programs, no matter where produced, that air on expanded U.S. cable and satellite, including those programs such as Brand New You, Ladette to Lady, and What Not to Wear made in Britain or Maxed Out, Holmes on Homes, and Style by Jury produced in Canada. In so doing, I deliberately privilege on-air exhibition sites over production locations. Though I think there is a valuable conversation to be had about the comparative transnational differences voiced through makeover programs, in this book I focus on those shows purchased and produced for U.S. viewer consumption. I argue that their collective message speaks to and helps construct a broader cultural imagination of the liberal subject, for whom confidence, freedom of choice, and individualism are key elements of selfhood. Indeed, to describe these narratives as one of Americanness rather than American, as I do in chapter 1, further dislocates product from place, allowing any culture or nation (or production company) to lay claim to the self-making values that are a part of how “America” is conceived and manufactured. Although the shows I examine are largely produced in the United States, they, like many media products, have a wider international distribution and subsequently leave a much more vast ideological imprint. Fox’s makeover/ pageant show for women, The Swan, for instance, though cancelled in 2004, 28  ·  Introduction

was still airing as of 2009 in more than fifty countries. (It also continues to air on expanded U.S. cable). Other shows, like abc’s Extreme Makeover or Extreme Makeover: Home Edition have similar international audiences. The makeover mandate is now a core element of television programming outside of the United States, from Australian, British, Dutch, and Israeli franchises of The Biggest Loser to Holland’s Make Me Beautiful. I do not mean to indicate here, however, that all other countries derive their makeover programming from the United States. Indeed, in many cases such as What Not to Wear, How to Look Good Naked, American Idol, and 10 Years Younger, U.S. format inspirations have come from Britain. Yet, as I note in chapter 1, the narratives of triumph and self-making depicted in makeovers are often represented as distinctly American. It is worth noting, in this regard, that when the Sydney-based The Australian Biggest Loser aired its final show of the second season, it included a remote link to Los Angeles where the American crea­tor, J. D. Roth, offered blessings and congratulations to the formerly fat Australian contestants who had proactively engaged in making their lives better.17 This idea that one rises or falls on the basis of his or her effort is a critical cornerstone in the mythology of a class-free meritocracy that underscores Americanness. Overall, there are three common themes that typify the makeover genre in this book. First, the makeover must employ narratives that work through an architecture of renovation and rejuvenation. The ideological theme of these shows is therefore not only about change but also about improvement. Makeovers teach a way of being, a care of the self (as manifested through the body or dog or house or car) that can be visually discerned and popularly celebrated. The transformation, in turn, unblocks barriers that have led to dejection, sadness, and self-ridicule, instead allowing for the “free” expression of happiness, self-esteem, confidence, and optimism. This is why at the end of Pimp My Ride, Tin, a Vietnamese national, can celebrate his newly forged belief in the American Dream, saying, “Now I really do believe that anything can happen!” It is also because of the makeover’s teleology of improvement that I do not include a show like Wife Swap, which plays with but does not encourage difference, and Faking It, which celebrates plasticity, but I do include American Idol and Intervention, due to their focus on progress desired, if not always earned or maintained. Second, makeovers work on a premise that when confronted with the visible evidence of humiliating neglect, makeover subjects will become eager proponents of the beliefs espoused by the shows, which include surveillance, regulation, shame, and normalization, but also attentiveness, Into the Makeover Maze  · 29

imagination, celebration, and uniqueness. This is why I would argue How Clean is Your House?, One Week to Save Your Marriage, Trial by Choir, or Supernanny qualify as makeovers but On the Lot and Project Runway do not, though both of these contest-oriented reality shows contain elements, such as tense elimination ceremonies and narrative arcs of difficulty and triumph, that we also see in makeovers. Unique to the makeover narrative is the way that experts point out flaws in a combined gesture of humiliation and care, what I call affective domination. Though a show like Project Runway equally involves a panel of judges who are painstaking about highlighting problems, the intent of such scrutiny is to accentuate, in the words of the the show’s host, Heidi Klum, the “brutal business of fashion, where one day you are in, and the next day you are out.” Contestants thus rise and fall on the strength of their immanent talents rather than as consequence of their transformations. Additionally, though career-based competition shows like The Apprentice, Project Runway, America’s Next Producer, or Top Chef and romance-based contests such as The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Flavor of Love clearly ask subjects to risk potential failure, nowhere do we get the sense that their selfhood is at stake. On the makeover show, by contrast, subjects need the transformation made possible by the program since without the aid the makeover provides, subjects would be compelled to live abjectly in their Before-bodies forever. A third element that unifies these shows is the mandatory “big reveal” that showcases the work of doctors, style gurus, fitness coaches, dog whisperers, nannies, or mechanics. Reveal ceremonies differ in how they are staged, most suggest that the transformed subject has gained new access to a better self and a nicer life, thereby invoking images of the rarified celebrity. Celebrities themselves can either facilitate change or be the subject of makeover renovations, but I exclude reality shows that attempt to make a celebrity seem “more real,” such as That’s So Notorious, The Osbournes, or The Simple Life, since these shows do not play out narratives of change that culminate in the revelation of a celebrated selfhood. Reveals are the moments when makeovers make good on all their promises. Subjects typically emerge jubilantly to be received back into the loving arms of family and friends, all equally delighted by the changes that have taken place during the subject’s time of transformation. Whether the cere­mony offers a new body, a revamped wardrobe, a more stylish living room, or a pimped-out ride, reveals are sanctioned zones for emotional rupture, the dynamics of which I discuss in greater detail in chapter 2. For all of their importance in the display of the After-body, reveal moments 30  ·  Introduction

are largely significant for their narrative emphasis on During. The reveal stands as evidence of the combined powers of makeover renovations and the fortitude of the subject’s will, tellingly illustrated in the necessary juxtaposition between Before and After images that dominate the climax of reveals. In many ways, elongated televisual narratives offer us a better context for understanding the typically invisible space between Before and After than that provided by magazine or talk show makeovers. tv’s dramatizations of labor, suffering, punishment, and reward constitute almost the entirety of the reality makeover’s textual time, positioning the During as the heart of these programs. Though there are many conceptual differences between makeover programs, most of the shows I study adhere to a formulaic regularity that includes 1) the initial shaming of the pre-made-over “ugly” subject, 2) mo­ ments for surveillance by audiences and experts, 3) pledges from the subjects that they will put themselves fully in the hands of the authorities, 4) the actual work of the transformation (sometimes with didactic teaching moments included for benefit of subject and audience), 5) the mandatory “shock and awe” of reveals, and 6) the euphoria of the newand-improved subject and satisfied experts. Though viewers are made to understand that transformation price tags are steep, makeovers vary widely in how explicitly they enumerate actual costs and who actually pays for them. Some shows, like My Celebrity Home or Decorating Cents, build a cost ceiling into the narrative tension of the show, and so their careful accounting of items purchased plays into the overall narrative arc of the stories they tell. Other shows, like Extreme Makeover or Pimp My Ride, pay for makeovers and comment on their expenses but do not provide details in terms of dollars spent. Other shows, like Moving Up or I Want a Famous Face, purport to document but not to fund individuals engaged in costly renovations of home or bodies. Depending on the program, there are both explicit and implicit goals for the transformations, expressed by the shows themselves and by the makeover subjects. Sometimes these goals are abstract: empowerment, self-confidence, happiness. Other times the goals are concrete: “I want to smile,” says one makeover subject. At The Swan’s second pageant, DeLisa, the eventual winner, states her makeover goal as, “I’ve worked very hard for this new body and I want to show it off.” In DeLisa’s case, as with many makeover participants, positive attention is the earned payment for bodily labor.18 Attention is not the only objective. Across the makeover genre, goals are directed at achieving congruence between gender and sex: Into the Makeover Maze  ·  31

female bodies can be carved into more feminine shapes and male bodies made to emit masculine signs. The not-so-subtle suggestion is that an individual whose sex and gender markers operate in semiotic tandem will be able to function more successfully in a market economy, ideas that I examine more fully in chapter 1. As Paula on Extreme Makeover says in her postmakeover interview, “I walk differently. I look like a woman. Nothing can hold me back now.” Such regularity, both of gender types and of narrative form, tends to create a safe zone where makeover outcomes promise predicted ends, and where it is possible at all times to chart how far one has traveled in the transformation simply by noting how much narrative time has elapsed. We can also better understand what constitutes the makeover genre by attending to absence, by thinking through what sorts of stories the genre itself cannot imagine. Across the broad swathe of makeover programming, for example, there are no shows that advocate letting the pleasure principle run amok. Although there are ample narratives dedicated to enforcing order, for instance neat, Clean House, and How Clean is Your House?, there are no shows called Messy or Chaos! Similarly, though we can receive instruction on weight loss through such programs as I Lost It!, there is no comparable cele­ bratory I Gained It! The makeover genre cannot imagine certain outcomes, be it plastic surgery to create noses that look like snouts or to implant cats on the side of the head, as one Saturday Night Live skit enacted, or to arrive at reveal parties only to be met with disinterest or disappointment.19 Knowing what makeovers will not bring forth helps us better understand what they constantly endeavor to create: self-regulation, gender conformity, pleasing personalities and appearances, and power in the currency of the gaze. Moreover, countless programs endeavor to bring the aberrant into the normative—goths and punks made to look like “normal college girls” on Extreme Makeover and How Do I Look?, tomboys redesigned as prom princesses and debutantes on Made. Makeover logic can bring the margins to the center, but it cannot imagine stories of reversal that challenge the center or change only for the sake of variety and newness. Makeovers create a discursive culture that allows for a fixation on what is non-normative as a way of reinforcing the hope that we can identify and inscribe the normative on the body. As such, the makeover phenomenon closely mirrors other historical moments of panic and distress where taxonomies of order and discourses of aberrance could find a place of coexistence. The makeover, however, also speaks of optimism, happiness achieved, desires fulfilled, and confidence gained. Though fear and dis32  ·  Introduction

satisfaction fuel the makeover, the story of transformation itself appeals to the hope that we can, as Amy describes, transcend such non-normative malaise. Though individual shows tend to set up and adhere to tight formulas, more broadly makeover programming can be incredibly diverse. Given this, it is important not to treat one show as metonymic for the entire makeover television phenomenon. It is true, as Beth Berila and Devika Dibya Choudhuri have argued, that individual shows, like Queer Eye, might enact an ideology of consumerism that often plays as an unattainable fiscal fantasy and in so doing reinscribes the privileges of elite culture, yet it is not accurate to say that all makeover shows do this. Many other programs, like Head 2 Toe or Ambush Makeover, take subjects to Target, use Nice and Easy hair products, or, in the case of The Swan, Look-a-Like, Makeover Manor, and Covershot, dispense with shopping altogether. Consumerism unarguably manifests through the exchange of Before for After even when products are not mentioned or cost five or ten dollars, yet we need to be cautious about too quickly assuming that all makeovers equally enact the same consumerist ideology.

Mapping the Makeover Maze In the mediated domain of Makeover Nation, belonging functions as the most ardent goal of makeover subjects, and good looks are the primary means by which one enters into, and has power within, the democratic fold. Chapter 1 thus investigates the language of exclusion and inclusion that works to reinforce the gendered and sexed logics in the production of the citizen, an idiom of entry predicated on an ideology of Americanness. To have self-esteem, happiness, and confidence, what these shows take as a form of necessary precursors to personhood, also functions as the gateway to democratic citizenry. At the crux of this analysis are the gendered, raced, and sexed connotations of citizenship, including a pervading logic of neoliberalism that situates care of the self as an entrepreneurial investment. Sustaining the metaphor of Makeover Nation, chapter 2 examines the ways in which these discourses of belonging work through a form of critical observation, often resulting in shame. Every makeover show has an elongated Before-moment that puts the pre-madeover body on display and demonstrates why a makeover is not only desirable but necessary. These staged moments of humiliation often involve friends and family Into the Makeover Maze  ·  33

who participate in the “outing” of the unstylish, or ugly, individual. Similarly, the “shock and awe” of reveals reinforces that the body is seen and judged at all times. Though I argue that in shaming the subjects, shows often set up an unspoken critique of the style experts, the overall effect of the public censure accelerates fears of being looked at and assessed. Rather than critiquing the gaze, which the eye of the camera embodies, shows glorify it, suggesting that in the culture of spectacle, removal from the gaze is neither desirable nor, at its extreme, permissible. The only freedom is to be looked at approvingly. Such a visual economy, however, teaches potential modes of resistance, since the viewers’ gaze can often turn back on both the show and style experts, allowing for a third-space of discursive critique. In chapters 3 and 4, I look at the gendered logics that are maintained through the makeover. In chapter 3 I analyze the makeover’s goal of enabling women to be “normal,” thus making them more confident and powerful since they are now “finally comfortable in their own skin.” On makeover programs, a primary mandate is no gender ambiguity (where gender is a polysemous term also denoting normative formations of sex, race, sexuality, and class). Female bodies must look feminine, and this often means augmenting secondary sex characteristics such as the size of the breasts, the proportion of the hips, and the smoothness of the skin. Normalcy also requires reducing overly ethnic or hyper-sexual markers that attach to the body and the home. Chapter 3 in consequence examines the raced, classed, and gendered investments at stake in eradicating pathologized semiotic markers, specifically momisms and tomboyisms. The chapter interrogates an assumption of makeover programming that female subjects are motivated by the heterosexual attraction their makeovers will yield—either from new partners or in the revitalized interest of present spouses. The makeover’s use of change to achieve authentic (unchangeable) selves further offers an important cultural site that nuances our understanding of identity and performativity. In chapter 4, I look at masculinity and male body image. Since a common truism suggests that women perform their gender but men simply “are,” the makeover directly challenges the raced and classed foundational principles of American conceptualizations of masculinity. In this chapter, I analyze how the shows diffuse the threat they offer, often by giving men more screen time for resistance to experts, allowing them self-governing agency, or encouraging them to proactively participate in the makeover, often even depicting men who drive themselves to reveal ceremonies. 34  ·  Introduction

In so doing, makeovers reinforce the “naturalness” of manhood, while helping to nudge individual men a bit higher up the stratified ladder of masculinity. The final chapter builds on these ideas of citizenship, surveillance, and gender through an examination of the ongoing theme repeated across the makeover canon of attaining the appearance of movie star looks. Though, as I suggest throughout the book, discourses about averageness vary across and within the shows, the glamour of the movie star, while revealing itself as constructed, comes to stand as the signifier for an authentic, celebrated selfhood. In its use of celebrity, the makeover performs another series of interventions that it ties to identity-work, including deliberate imageproduction and active consumerism. Such objectives tie the makeover to narcissism, falsity, and commodification, and yet I argue we cannot too easily discredit such broad concepts. Instead, we must examine them for their putative roles in the construction of mediated identities. True to the (ill)logics of the makeover, not only narcissism, but so-called falsehood and targeted consumerism, collectively create the celebrated self that comprises the After-body. In each of the chapters I discuss positive possibilities of the makeover. These include the makeover’s relentlessly optimistic economy of solutions perfectly suited for the problems each subject faces; its stable of “experts,” be they stylists, surgeons, nannies, dog whisperers, architects, chefs, or interior decorators, whose lives seem to revolve around the subject in distress; and the way in which the very notion of a makeover itself underscores possibilities for agency, renewal, and self-efficacy. In the conclusion I revisit these points and elaborate on them more fully, leaving necessary time for my own contested relationship to the makeover, for although I am too aware of the (ill)logics of submission-as-salvation that govern the makeover’s ideological premise, I willfully, hopefully, and frequently enter into renewal contracts that closely mirror the narrative arcs of redemption through revision that we see on makeover tv. To close the book, I come back to those series of competing logics that started this introduction, suggesting, overall, that the television makeover functions as both aspirational fantasy and cautionary tale, ready to delight with romantic possibilities and to frighten with dire outcomes.

Into the Makeover Maze  ·  35

1 makeover nation Americanness, Neoliberalism, and the Citizen-Subject

There’s no wardrobe too bleak, no dye job too horrible, to keep us from making America a truly beautiful place. —Trinny, makeover guru, Making Over America with Trinny and Susannah Makeover professionals help families accomplish their goals and gain a new lease on the American Dream. —Renovate My Family I’m feeling so confident, so sexy! There’s nothing that can stop me now! —Erin, makeover subject, What Not to Wear

On the dvd boxed set of mtv’s Pimp My Ride, season two, there reads a compelling tag line: “There are no wheels too worthless, no ride too ragged. There is no ride unpimpable!” In this statement of egalitarian optimism comes a promise of reclamation and renewal for a plurality of ratty, tattered, and decrepit bodies. We are encouraged to believe that no body is a priori blocked from transformation. In the doctrine that no ride is unpimpable that sounds across the wider makeover genre, we hear an equally reassuring promise that once rides have been pimped, physical bodies nipped and tucked, personal styles tweaked, families super-nannied, and rooms pizazzed, these renovations themselves will entitle After-bodies

to take up residence in a territory where all citizens are beautiful, stylish, uncluttered, well-mannered, financially successful, heterosexually fulfilled, and, most of all, confident and welcoming of the gaze (a position coded as both celebrated and of the celebrity). Such is the power of transformation that makeovers empower subjects to voice wondrous statements of jubilation and reward (“I can do anything now!” “I’m going straight to the top!”). These discourses tie the workings of the makeover to broader constitutions of democratic citizenship predicated on meritocratic mobility within free markets and societies. In this chapter I argue that tv makeovers participate in projects of citizenship, where the neoliberal mandate for care of the self in service of the market fuses with values of a mythic, egalitarian America to create a new, imagined territory I call Makeover Nation. In Makeover Nation, one’s selfhood is intelligible through and on the body or its various symbolic stand-ins (cars, kids, homes, etc.) and functions as a critical element of both belonging to and participating in a democracy. Within this construction of the discerning democratic citizen who votes with his or her taste, it is not the United States specifically but an imagined version of America more abstractly that offers the ideological hub of makeover programming. Makeover Nation, as a consequence, dislocates from the material borders imposed by nation-state boundaries, making it possible within the authorizing logic constructed by the text for any person to claim citizenship status simply by complying with makeover mandates. Makeovers need not be “made in America” to carry a broader ideology of Americanness that positions the After-body as the quintessence of what constitutes a valued subject. In this case, as Judith Butler argues more broadly, to be human is “defined in advance” as “distinctly Western” and “very often American” (Undoing Gender 36, 37). Makeover tv articulates a new imagined nation of beautiful, self-assured, and self-confident people whose lifestyles, appearances, domiciles, relationships, and cars signify happiness and material security that leads, ultimately, to widespread confident visibility. In Makeover Nation, not only do all subjects merit and bask in the gaze, but those who eschew being looked at denaturalize themselves as worthy citizen-subjects.1 As Dana Heller notes in The Great American Makeover, it is no accident that the makeover would find sustenance through the tropes of expansionism and reinvention that have typified the American story. In its emphasis on progress, its desire to provide access to restricted privileges, and its insistence on a free-market meritocracy, the project of citizenship imagined 38  ·  Chapter One

across the makeover genre comes deeply saturated with Americanness and this, in turn, imports neoliberal ideologies, which position the subject as an entrepreneur of the self, who does and, indeed, must engage in care of the body and its symbolic referents in order to be competitive within a larger global marketplace. In neoliberalism, the subject performs such maintenance of the self ostensibly as a free agent with the state exempted from social welfare responsibilities. Within Makeover Nation, Americanness broadly indicates a collective set of values and goals marked by the American Dream. Formerly, this has entailed home ownership and upward mobility, but in this new mediated landscape the American Dream now extends to affective entitlements, such as confidence and swagger, as well as to a broader sense of value, visibility, and charisma marked by a celebrated selfhood, an identity formation I discuss at greater length in chapter 5. Anyone who lives in Makeover Nation has earned their citizenship through the process of the makeover itself, a figurative transformation event that yields not just a “you—only better!” but access to affective and social dividends, such as optimism and belonging. Makeover programs construct a version of the good and proper citizen as one who is self-aware, an active participant in consumer culture, marked as racially normative, and willing to alter the material signifiers of subject status to more fully assimilate into a dominant model of “American” citizenry. Though the makeover is equally committed to rectifying discrepancies between gender and sex in their subjects, thus making masculinized women more feminine and effeminate men more masculine, I reserve specific analyses on how gender and sex contribute to the ideal citizen-subject to later chapters that take up matters of masculinity and femininity. In charting the imagined community that is Makeover Nation, I consider models of personhood that the makeover depicts as transcending race, class, and gender precisely because privileged iterations of these social locations disallow their own dominance. The central questions I consider in making over the citizen-subjects include: To what degree do the goals of the makeover, both concrete and abstract, construct the model citizen and articulate aspects of Americanness? How does the concept of citizenship filter through neoliberal goals of individualization, reduced state responsibility, free enterprise, market competition, and global currencies? To what extent are power, confidence, and happiness raced and classed terms, held out as necessary precursors for full citizenry rights? To what degree are being in gender conformance (rather than in gender deviance) and having an appearance that signifies Makeover Nation  ·  39

as upwardly mobile critical to Americanness as a project? And how do million dollar smiles and movie star bodies function as currency for purchasing citizenry rights?

Making (Over) the Citizen Benedict Anderson argues in his important formulation of conceptual national identities that every nation is an “imagined community” in which members perceive themselves as individual actors within a larger collective body, since “the members of even the smallest nation will never know their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each they carry the image of communion” (15). Anderson has been criticized for the way in which his theory disallows difference, yet we can see that Makeover Nation draws its sustaining value from its imagined collective coherency, a belief in a citizenship of belonging that is largely predicated on abstract values of U.S. citizenship in its valorizing of autonomy, class mobility, egalitarianism, and self-making.2 More specifically, makeovers evoke the United States through their self-consciousness and manipulation of image, since the refinement of persons, houses, and cities has historically provided the United States a way to claim a collective cultural capital in response to and defiance of European aristocratic cultures.3 As Toby Miller observes, this performance of an “ethico-aesthetic exercise” has allowed “ ‘good taste’ ” to function as “both a sign of and a means toward better citizenship” (“Cultural Citizenship” 238). Comparing the outcome of television makeover shows with the realworld politics of citizenship may at first seem counterintuitive, since a democratic citizenry is ideally predicated on pluralism and makeover shows seem quite patently patterned on sameness. Indeed, the humiliating and shame-inducing makeover narratives are themselves hardly sites of democratic egalitarianism. At best, shows create mediated environments that are benevolent dictatorships, in which the demands of fitness coaches and style gurus must be followed if the subject is to pass into what it posits as the normative iterations of the citizen-subject. Through the process of affective domination, which I discuss at greater length in chapter 2, subjects are disciplined into citizenry through a combination of shaming and lovepower that reinforces divisions between the abject alienation of Before and the normative celebration of After. After-bodies are not simply distinctive from Before, they are different from all other bodies in a plurality that has not (yet) undergone a makeover. 40  ·  Chapter One

Whatever the criteria for inclusion in the domain of Makeover Nation’s citizenship, and no matter to what degree we are assured that “there is no ride unpimpable,” certain groups or individuals are inevitably left outside. This, in itself, models a form of double-speak endemic to citizenship discourses, where, as Linda Bosniak notes, citizenship is “commonly invoked to convey a state of democratic belonging or inclusion,” yet such discourses are “premised on a conception of a community that is bounded and exclusive” (1). Bosniak emphasizes, “citizenship status in any given nation is almost always restricted, available only to those who are recognized as its members” (31). Within a global marketplace where, as economist Alan Blinder emphasizes, “globalization amounts to Americanization,” the double-speak of U.S.-endorsed equality tears against the realities of globalization where significant numbers of people are excluded from the protections and privileges offered by the global marketplace. Claims for what constitute citizenry often, therefore, reinforce exclusion. Inclusion, by contrast, demands that one does not violate normalizing criteria. A citizenship-of-belonging confers rights of self-governance and self-representation, articulated in a real-world democratic context through the right to vote and the right to hold office, and thus to create and alter legislation. Historically, when disenfranchised groups have fought for full citizenship status, as seen in the battle for women’s suffrage, it was for equal treatment and equal value, for self-possession and self-government, the right to maintain bodily integrity as well as to own and inherit property.4 As has been more recently demonstrated in same-sex marriage debates and limited state protections for non-conventional domestic partnerships, the dividends of citizenship are applied unequally even for those with uncontested claims to national identity.5 Citizenship debates in this way relate specifically to social conventions instantiated through normative constructions of gender, sex, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class. As Lisa Duggan’s work on the history of racial and sexual violence indicates, technologies of citizenship manifested through legal and medical discourses help mobilize “a specifically American version of normative national sexuality” based on regulated articulations of gender roles, whiteness, and respectability (Twilight 5). In this regard, the television makeover show functions as a critical discourse for mobilizing a regulated citizenry. In makeover programming, there is a preoccupation with these same anxieties about sexuality, race, and class, though because of the primary focus on women’s bodies, behaviors, and appearances, one positive implication of the makeover’s citizen construction might well be its assumption Makeover Nation  ·  41

that women rightfully belong to the collective citizenry, provided they are willing to transform into signifiers of that citizenry’s values. Makeovers are by-and-large preoccupied with white female bodies, feminine affect, and feminized spaces, and therefore tend to target white, female, working-class, middle-class, and middle-aged bodies. Yet, white men are also implicated in the imperatives of a collective normativity, since shows frequently turn their expertise to remedy male complaints, salvaging the male subject’s imperiled masculinity through style renovations or mechanical overhauls. As a demographic locality, Makeover Nation is primarily populated with anxious and aging feminized white people, those concerned with getting (or retaining) an edge in a competitive romantic and professional market­ place. Race and class matter in this construction. On rare occasion people of color are included: my informal sampling suggests that makeovers target women of color (primarily African American, Hispanic, and Asian) in roughly twenty percent of episodes; they focus on men of color (predominantly African American) in approximately one percent of shows. As I discuss in chapters 3 and 4, makeovers handle race and ethnicity either by ignoring it or as design accessories, since ethnic exoticism can help pull a look together, as argues such style shows as Isaac and Ambush Makeover, while home-decorating programs, like Design on a Dime, enhance interiors through Moroccan-inspired living rooms (regardless of the subjects’ ethnic make-up). Though there seems to be a self-conscious commitment on the part of certain producers to include what might be termed people of color—and indeed, the Cuban creator and producer of The Swan, Nely Galán, strove to make the show proportionately balanced between Latina and Caucasian women—race and ethnicity are seldom overtly mentioned across the makeover canon. On home and car shows we can see some point of contrast, but not of departure, for though these shows tend to include greater diversity, their colonizing logic is one whereby middle-class racial anonymity predominates. As it concerns the making of the ideal citizen, though class messages are seldom overtly uttered, the significance of class is insistent in makeovers, since so many programs seek to improve appearance by making the body seem (or become) more refined, less shaggy, better maintained—with expensive clothes, highlights, skin treatments, furniture, computer systems, security features, and so on. Masculinity norms articulate in this class mix in very different ways than do femininity norms. For example, most men requiring transformation in style and body shows have working-class 42  ·  Chapter One

markers written on the Before-body, as in the case of a 10 Years Younger episode that featured Mike, a builder of freeway bridges in Los Angeles. Post makeover, when Mike emerges in a tailored shirt and navy blazer, the host exclaims, “You look like a movie star, man!,” which we can take as a sign that appearing both upwardly mobile and youthful co-articulate as a form of cultural currency coded as celebrity-worthy. For women, style and body makeovers are also geared toward making female subjects look more “monied,” but a woman’s value codes through a spectacular appearance that merits an appreciative and eroticized gaze. Whether the pre-madeover female body emits signs of working-class or middle-class placement, the successful makeover typically puts the woman in four-inch heels, with sparkly and skin-revealing clothing, and tinted and highlighted hair (often with expensive extensions). She is not ready for the boardroom but for the public stage—be that the red carpet, the billboard, or the runway—a world of desiring fans/lovers affirming her value. For both men and women, successful outcomes code economically, the After-body resonating with connotations of financial success and upward mobility. On home, garden, and car transformation formats, class equally signifies, since makeovers require that subjects relinquish symbolically flawed iterations of the self in order to manifest stylish glamour in Afterbodies. So, while upward-mobility shows like Property Ladder, Moving Up, and Flip It Fast proliferate, the makeover has no interest in reverse corollaries that might be called Decreased Standard of Living or Capital Losses, even amidst a real-world context of mortgage crises and recessions. Makeovers are not subtle about this connection between class signifiers and the need for transformation, as evidenced by Clinton on tlc’s What Not to Wear, who asks derisively, “Does that [before] look say upwardly mobile to you?” The answer to his question is a resolute no. Thus, a makeover intervention is deemed not only necessary but mandatory. Another elemental aspect of citizenship plays out in the metaphors of mobility and access featured on the shows. A primary conceit of most programs maintains that contestants experience their transformations in isolation. They are whisked away to Makeover Manor or the Swan Mansion or the Extreme Makeover retreat center. They are taken back stage, into the secret and hidden domains of spas, designer boutiques, and salons that only experts or celebrities can enter. They are invited to speak with and embrace the magicians to the rich and famous, the dentists, the plastic surgeons, the dermatologists who know the rarified secrets of beauty. Even on less elitely marked shows like Head 2 Toe where salon technicians Makeover Nation  ·  43

use products, like Pantene, easily purchased in a grocery store or where clothes come from the very middle-brow Mervyn’s, the larger conceit of the show maintains that makeovers happen in seclusion. Though on a program like The Swan there is evidence to suggest an elaborate community of other transforming women, support staff, nurses, and television crews, we are invited to believe that subjects undergo change in virtual isolation, with only the experts and their own thoughts to serve as company. Such depictions symbolically put subjects in quarantine until they are “fit” for full participation and visibility. By restricting “ugly” women from full citizenship status, for instance, The Swan reifies the values of an ugly/beautiful divide and affirms that those who resist normativity merit reduced privileges and rights until they comply with a hegemonic value system. The double-coding of the isolation makeover subjects experience offers a moment when the contradictory impulses of makeover mandates are made visible since removal from the mainstream functions both as punishment and reward. Style gurus and supporting friends and family often congratulate makeover subjects for their having been selected to participate on the shows. Extreme Makeover, Renovate My Family, The Swan, and Pimp My Ride represent selection as the equivalent of winning the lottery, whereas What Not to Wear and How Do I Look? quite often include poignant moments where family members reassure the subject with their tears and congratulations, “You deserve this makeover.” Trick My Truck and Trick My Trucker explicitly reward long-suffering, and typically male, truck drivers, saying “They deserve a break for what they do.” Though we can read subjects’ isolation as akin to rite-of-passage ceremonies or even nineteenth-century retreat cultures where removal from the mainstream enabled and informed the body how to be more fully a member of the dominant population, televisual makeover isolations often function less as normative development ceremonies than as penal punishments. Subjects experience confinement because of their mistakes, mismanagements, and consequent malaise. Or they are given mandatory vacations because of a string of bad luck, difficult times, or service to others that have taken a toll on their bodies or the representative signifiers of the body. Despite the fact that makeover encampments are often described in terms that would suit resort holidays or luxury getaways, makeover subjects experience a reduction in liberties that include limited mobility, agency, and choice, thus positioning the “makeover manor” experience as

44  ·  Chapter One

Lazy homeowner as felon. “Putting Greens Gone Wrong,” Garden Police. August 4, 2005.

one that happens to the subject rather that with the subject. Even in such shows where human bodywork is not the objective—such as Pimp My Ride or Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (em: he)—enforced removal of makeover recipients during the time of the transformation is a mandatory element that enables experts unhampered decision-making privilege. In the case of em: he, however, the penal colony is often called Disneyworld. If the camera gets to define the circumference of the narrative, consequently, there is no elsewhere outside of the magic kingdom for those whose house is being pimped back home. There is no nation save Makeover Nation. The notion that good looks, a beautiful house, or a pimped-out ride are requisite for full citizenship in a larger dating, employment, and social culture manifests consistently through all of the U.S.-based makeover shows. It is also evident in the British Broadcasting Company’s (bbc) Brand New You that surgically makes over “self-confessed ugly ducklings” and the Canadian Broadcast Company’s (cbc) Style by Jury that convenes a panel of one’s peers to pass judgment on makeover subjects, who function as criminals accused of fashion felonies. On the bbc’s version of What Not to Wear, the unstylish person appears as a criminal with restricted citizenship rights, doubly marked by a literal line-up conceit where “suspects” stand behind a one-way mirror and are made to step forward and be scrutinized by the style experts who issue orders through a microphone. When Garden Police “arrests” a teenager for dereliction of his lawn duties, his mug shot

Makeover Nation  ·  45

sets the terms for its own iconographic representation, the boy shown in full-face and profile shots, unsmiling, his booking number beneath him on the screen. Law-enforcement tropes, which are almost always offered in ironic jest, tacitly underscore citizenship discourses, whereby people are patrolled, policed, and punished for “crimes” against the larger social body. In the use of these citizenship tropes, an ideology of Americanness fostered on concepts of the American Dream ratifies and extends the mediated spaces of Makeover Nation.

“I am living the American Dream!” In the final moments of American Idol, season five, the winner Taylor Hicks pumped both fists in the air and shouted, “I’m living the American Dream!” The capacity crowd packed into Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre as well as the record number of viewers watching from home seemed collectively to understand his meaning—hard work, endurance, luck, likeability, and talent had all combined to make Hicks the popular choice to be the next American Idol, and the celebrity attached to his victory factored as an important part of the reward for his efforts and talents.6 Because American Idol both documents and contributes to a process of transformation that results in euphoric outcomes coded with celebrity and since the selfacceptance rhetoric built into the crafting of the American Idol persona so fully corresponds to makeover logics, I consider it a significant makeover text, particularly in its enunciation of citizenry values predicated on a shared understanding of the American Dream. Hicks’s version of the American Dream took a new tack from the meritocratic upward mobility and home ownership generally associated with Americanness, yet Hicks’s reference held intelligibility both to the American Idol faithful and beyond. A wide recognition of Hicks’s meaning was most tellingly evidenced by a slew of foreign news service reports—from the bbc to the China Daily— that conveyed Hicks’s remarks without feeling it necessary to explain them.7 As spoken here, the American Dream functions seemingly as a universal signifier—recognizable, desirable, and achievable in a global context. Inderpal Grewal emphasizes that the discourses of the American Dream circulate around the world, and in so doing serve as signifiers not just of the United States but of an imagined America (5). Both the American Dream and Americanness make reference to the specificity of the United 46  ·  Chapter One

States, but neither is coterminous with, generated only by, or specific exclusively to it. In this respect, one can participate in and produce the rhetorics of Americanness while simultaneously existing outside of either a geographically bounded United States or a legally marked U.S. citizenship. The American Dream here denotes, in Grewal’s words, “a search for a future in which the desire for consumption, for liberal citizenship, and for work come together to produce a specific subject of migration” (5). As represented by American Idol, it is not so much a human subject of migration but a media product for export that positions Americanness as a combination of more traditional values of autonomy, meritocracy, and accessibility, here fused with such affective additives as charisma, happiness, and visibility. Though American Idol found its inspiration in the British production Pop Idol, American Idol’s emphasis on transformation, coaching, competition, endurance, spectacle, and fame offers a global viewing audience a face that epitomizes Americanness. Such specific national connotations are perhaps nowhere more evident than by contrast with other nationalized pop star contests, such as China’s Super Voice Girls, which China’s State Adminstration of Radio, Film and Television tailored in 2006 to better reflect state values so that it might more successfully construct a “harmonious social society.”8 These objectives required that the show de-emphasize hyperbole, star-making, and the embarrassment of participants. The Times of London suggested that it was the “Chinese taste for having the vote” that most fully needed stifling. In an equal alteration of format to match nationalist values, other countries have created their own versions of American Idol, from Croatia, with Hrvatski Idol, to Germany, with Deutshland Sucht Den Superstar!. The import of American Idol, which runs in more than thirty different countries, however, continues to be more popular than indigenous programming, largely because, according to one press account, it is marked as American rather than local (Elber). I don’t mean to indicate here, however, that the makeover as media product is exclusively tied to the United States.9 International programming additionally indicates a fascination with makeover shows, which sometimes follow, and at other times inspire, U.S. programs. Although other nation-based tv industries, notably the UK, export makeovers-asproduct, U.S.-produced shows dominate the international mediascape.10 Programs like The Swan and Extreme Makeover air in over fifty countries, covering large geographic areas such as the South Pacific, Europe, Africa, and Latin America.11 Pimp My Ride has given rise to several international Makeover Nation  ·  47

spin-off makeover shows, including Pimp My Ride International, based in the Netherlands, a UK version also called Pimp My Ride, Italy’s Pimp My Wheels, Indonesia’s Pimp My Car, and both Germany’s Pimp My Fahrrard (Bicycle) and Pimp My Whatever (literally anything—bathrooms, toddlers, birthday parties). Further, an Arabic language version of Pimp airs in the Middle East called Ale’ Sayaratak (Spoil My Car), and Maori tv in New Zealand broadcasts Meke My Waka (Make My Car Too-Much). Extreme Makeover: Home Edition inspired an Iraqi home-improvement show, Materials and Labor, aimed at restoring war-damaged homes, thus giving globalism a new form of resonance. Americanness comes to designate a complicated arrangement of attitudes and assumptions, consumer behaviors, and perceived entitlements that help construct an imagined nation. In particular, Americanness manifests in the makeover through the tension between what literary scholar David Leiwei Li has identified in another context as the “ascriptive—or the biological and social givens that one inherits—and the acquisitional—the individual acts of both overcoming the conditions of one’s birth and marshaling the resources for self-invention” (107). It is the acquisitional— the belief that one can be remade according to a new blueprint—that most clearly associates the makeover with Americanness and the citizensubject. Makeovers articulate Americanness in the way they construct what Lauren Berlant and Elizabeth Freeman have called “fantasies of glamour and of homogeneity” that are characteristic of “American nationalism itself ” (215), so that it is the coherence of imagined sameness, rather than the messiness of plurality, that binds projects of Americanness together. To suggest that makeover shows deploy a logic of Americanness is not to attribute therefore some essential identity to those things generating from or consumed in the United States. Rather, it is to attend more fully to the way “America” is often communicated as an idea, a concept to be thought of in quotes, which, itself, can be reproduced and distributed outside of national contexts. Just as Americanness denotes an abstraction about a place, rather than the place itself, Americanness is about lifestyle, rather than individual lives. This abstraction is a point tellingly underscored by Brand New You, which sends British makeover subjects to California so that they can achieve “America’s Hollywood glamour.” As cosmetic dentist William Dorfman says to one transforming Brit, “You’ll look American!” Ideals of both national identity and democratic citizenship are thus made visible on and through the body. 48  ·  Chapter One

90210 In Brand New You’s conflation of Americanness and Hollywood glamour, the territory that broadly constitutes Makeover Nation designates Hollywood as its ideological and imaginative capital. The role that the idealized conception of celebrity plays in the makeover’s construction of image and selfhood is so critical that I’ve devoted the last chapter of this book to it. Here I want to address the imagined place that produces both the celebrity and the After-body and in which the citizen-subject can best experience belonging—Los Angeles. In so doing, I show how the self-as-glamorousproduct functions as Makeover Nation’s legal tender, its primary export, and its major industry. Given the particularities of television production, the majority of programs perform their transformative magic in Los Angeles, a city that for many is glamour central. Since the moving picture business relocated its base of operations to Hollywood in the 1910s, star wannabees have hitched their wagons to the California coast. Makeovers take this spatial teleology of star culture—you can’t be discovered if you can’t be seen, and you can’t be seen if you’re in Omaha (or hiding behind baggy clothes)—and extend it to the place itself. Simply spending time in Hollywood, shopping on Rodeo drive, or using the services of plastic surgeons and aestheticians to the rich and famous will, through an attributive theory of celebrityas-self, make one a “hot property.” Many shows, like The Swan, Extreme Makeover, Starting Over, and Brand New You, emphasize the ties between place, transformation, and luxury, accommodating subjects in mansions and high-end retreat centers. Other shows, like 10 Years Younger, Pimp My Ride, Clean House, and Style Her Famous, rely on the demographic diversity that a large metropolitan center like Los Angeles provides. There are a million Before-bodies in the naked city. Dog Whisperer showcases a Los Angeles that is heterogeneous; indeed, Cesar Milan’s dog-recuperation services take him from inner-city South Central to toney BelAir to suburban Pasadena. Cesar’s own star-as-self power infuses the show and heightens the association that meaningful transformations take place in Southern California.12 For those shows filmed in non-L.A. locations, the centrality of Holly­ wood still matters, since most programs make pointed announcements of their experts having trafficked in Hollywood’s star culture as stylists, surgeons, nutritionists, or trainers to a broad swathe of entertainment celebrities. At Makeover Manor, which never announces its actual locaMakeover Nation  ·  49

tion—indeed, we know only that getting there requires a long drive and that it is seemingly always cold13—stylists get their cred from the brushes they have had with celebrity clients like rapper Jay-Z or model Tyra Banks. On Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, though the Extreme Team, led by the now-famous Ty Pennington, drive across America searching for families in need, they often bring stars with them, featuring special benefit concerts performed by luminaries such as Hootie and the Blowfish or Mandy Moore. In 2005, Laura Bush contributed to the conflation of celebrity and nationhood by making a post-Katrina appearance on em: he designed to underscore the federal government’s endorsement of philanthropic service to the needy (if aired on network television and paid for by big business, apparently). Shows like both versions of What Not to Wear endorse a big-city chic inextricable from either New York or London, yet the code of style they proffer underscores a celebrated glamour born in Los Angeles. Just like with the reflexive relationship between American and Americanness, the “real” Los Angeles matters in the makeover mystique, but it is the idea of L.A. that factors most and supersedes even a rural and urban divide. As shows like The Look for Less or Instant Beauty Pageant that take place in malls across the country attest, achieving the selfhood made visible through the appearance of the movie star or beauty queen is only a swipe of the credit card away. Indeed, Mail Order Makeover indicates that even malls aren’t necessary since it is possible to create Hollywood sizzle through purchases from catalogues and websites.14 Whether through consumerism or consultations, makeovers put “ordinary” people in contact with those who have touched, served, or represent the “extraordinary,” creating an After-body where the features of glamorous selfhood signify for the average person with a similar semiotic intensity attached to the celebrity. The (ill)logics in this case make a certain kind of sense. If celebrity is all about appearance, and if a person transforms his or her outer features—even using the same mechanisms that a star might use—what distinguishing difference is there between the “real” star and the woman or man who just looks like one? Might not the made-over body also be eligible for the sorts of privileges and perquisites due the star? And wouldn’t this, in turn, increase one’s capacity to compete freely in a market where image constitutes a prime term of value? Given the potential dividends in both cultural and fiscal currencies, not to mention the rhetorics of self-confidence and self-esteem that run through makeover mandates, doesn’t it make more sense to engage and invest in glamour-enhancing activities than to ignore them? Indeed, if such celebrity-inspired appear50  ·  Chapter One

ances visually mark the citizen-subject, we see again how failing to shape the self as visually congruent with idealized codes of glamour imperils one’s claim to belonging.

Neoliberalism and the Makeover Mission After-bodies who constitute Makeover Nation’s citizen-subjects must be self-aware, self-cultivating, and self-sufficient, able to ascertain the flow of the market and to participate without governmental assistance in an exchange of currencies (money, beauty, power, strength) for commodities (products, love, acceptance, adulation). In makeovers we see a dramatization of Wendy Brown’s contention that neoliberalism “figures individuals as rational, calculating creatures whose moral autonomy is measured by their capacity for ‘self-care’—the ability to provide for their own needs and service their own ambitions,” thus removing this obligation from the state (6–7). The makeover enforces this need for self-care in After-bodies, while stressing that Before-bodies are incapable of such salutary management. It is, after all, only through the aid of the makeover that subjects learn a sufficiency unavailable to them in their pre-madeover states. The logic goes something like this: If you are unhappy, it is because you have not made good choices. The makeover intervention enables better self-care, thereby posing less of a burden on others. If you resist self-care, your “mismanagement” merits your unhappiness, cellulite, and sagging skin, or, as Gareth Palmer explains neoliberal logics across Reality tv, subjects’ “inability to be fully self-sufficient is crime enough in a time when we are all to be enterprising individuals managing the project of ourselves with no support from the state” (“On Our Best Behavior” 3). All told, this neoliberal stance favors the abdication of state obligations that might address obesity, poor nutrition, or bad self-esteem, in favor of individual solutions, obligations, and decisions. Although discourses of American citizenship underpinned by a logos of neoliberalism saturate these shows, I believe the makeover is too vast, complicated, and internally contradictory to be summarized exclusively through the theoretical apparatus provided by neoliberalism. It offers an important analytic for getting at one element of makeover programming, but neoliberalism is insufficiently able to account for the breadth or fascination of makeover tv’s messages about conformity and acceptance. One major problem with using the framework of neoliberalism to interrogate makeover programming is the way in which, as Brown argues, the Makeover Nation  ·  51

neoliberal citizen becomes designated as passive and complacent (7). As such, I am much more likely to endorse a notion of both citizenship and neoliberalism that follows Aihwa Ong’s, whereby mutations in ideological structure indicate the fluidity of politics, capital, and identity. As Ong puts it, neoliberalism often intervenes on “regimes of ruling and regimes of citizenship to produce conditions that change administrative strategies and citizenship practices” (Neoliberalism 6). Such an interpretation posits neoliberalism as an organic ideological mandate that mutates—it can itself both make over and be made over. Because we are talking about modes of improvement that are typically cast as beautification, a traditionally feminized cultural practice, it is important that we do not too quickly categorize those who desire or participate in makeover culture as wholly docile bodies. Susan Bordo reminds us, for instance, that when we think in terms of a totalizing culture’s grip on the body, it “casts active and creative subjects as ‘cultural dopes,’ ‘passive dupes’ of ideology.” Doing so, Bordo argues, “gives too much to dominant ideology, imagining it as seamless and univocal, overlooking the gaps which are continually allowing for the eruption of ‘difference’ and the polysemous, unstable, open nature of all cultural texts” (Unbearable Weight 260). Makeover technologies may well offer women a means by which they can modify the body as an expression of personal agency. It is largely for this reason that the makeover has been claimed (and critiqued) as a primary site of postfeminist production, particularly in its representation of the After-body that upholds the postfeminist ideals of a “savvy woman who no longer needs political commitment, who enjoys feminine consumerist choices, and whose preoccupations are likely to involve romance, career choices, and hair gels” (Mizejewski 122).15 The neoliberal technology that structures makeover programming situates primarily female citizens as agents, empowered through their control of the gaze. Participants are only eligible for such citizen-subject status, however, if they mark themselves as visibly congruent with dominant race, class, and gender norms that verge toward an elite whiteness. As both metaphor and material reality, the makeover’s neoliberal logics fuel the notion that the good citizen, here performed as the attractive, aware, and self-caring citizen, is also the successful consumer-capitalist. Adding to the neoliberal imperative is what scholars such as Tara McPherson in her article “Techno-Soap” and Jack Bratich in “Programming Reality” have separately identified as a post-Fordist construction of the “flex-subject,” whose value as a laborer is determined by the degree to which he or she 52  ·  Chapter One

can be “interconnected, nomadic, self-reflexive, and flexible,” all terms of value in the makeover lexicon (Bratich 12). The economic and labor logics of neoliberalism and post-Fordism manifest quite explicitly in television makeovers dedicated to property renewal, including Property Ladder, Get it Sold, Flip This House, Flip That House, Flipping Out, and Curb Appeal, where subjects are tutored in how to develop the acumen and agility that will enable them to increase the market value of their homes for resale. Even in the wake of the mortgage crisis, the makeover prevailed with the premiere of The Stagers, where experts “staged” a home like a stage set in hopes of enticing a buyer, with Hope for Your Home, which offered homeowners makeovers to help increase the value of their property in the sagging real estate market, and with Date My House, which conflated the house-body with the unmarried-body, suggesting that, just as makeovers could help in looking for a mate, homeowners could perform house makeovers in order to compete in the ever-fierce market. The financial rewards of transformation are equally critical to style and body programming, where overbearing and panoptic experts reprimand participants for their lethargic personal maintenance in the name of transformations that will increase their overall value. Although I think we need to be mindful of concerns that an overuse of neoliberalism as an interpretive rubric may inadvertently collapse social pedagogy into state control, thereby losing a clear sense of either, it’s evident that makeover narratives rely on prevailing market rationalities in their construction of the worthy citizen-subject who can take up residence in Makeover Nation.16 Yet it is not so much the enhancement of market-value as expressed through the body that concerns me in this chapter as the more insidious logic about the intrinsic validity of the subject. Participants—in these shows referred to as patients, marks, prisoners, cases, victims, and targets—are encouraged, even shamed, into more attentive care of the symbolic manifestations of the self. Feeding on the profiteering in fear that is increasingly part of an actual United States besieged with anxieties about conservative fundamentalism on the one hand and liberal largesse on the other, citizens within Makeover Nation watch and report on one another, creating a scenario in which a climate of generalized fear diffuses into concern about one’s neighbors, here perceived as enemy outsiders.17 The success of post-made-over appearance is, quite literally, written on the body and articulated through joyous messages of newly experienced selfhood. In this case, citizenship eligibility and market appeal articulate through good choices that create a valid self marked by increased heterosexual attention, Makeover Nation  ·  53

sustainable happiness, buoyant self-confidence, a youthful appearance, and feeling comfortable in one’s own skin. The notion of an empowered self wrought by a twofold imperative—for good choices and wise purchases—directly ties makeover mandates into neoliberal logics, while innovatively extending that rationality into the more postmodern domain of the image (and calling for the theorization of glamour as a neoliberal tenet). Brown has suggested that neoliberalism expands beyond the economic sphere so that in cultural practices “all dimensions of human life are cast in terms of market rationality.” In such a regime, the terms of value become profitability, rational entrepreneurial action, and a “calculus of utility, benefit, or satisfaction” (4). Here we might add to those terms the currency that accords to celebrity, since the fusion of glamour, identity, and commodity reaches its apogee in the spectacular visibility accorded the After-body. Makeover programming underscores the market rationalities inherent in the process of beautification by highlighting both the monetary and metaphorical value of appearance. On Ultimate Plastic Surgery: Before and After, for instance, a voiceover narrator extols, “The face is our most precious commodity.” This particular episode details a series of reconstructive interventions that have brought people’s bodies and faces back to “normalcy” after freak accidents. When Louise, an aspiring actress and model, endured a life-threatening car crash, her livelihood was literally severed since her paycheck was contingent on her bankable good looks. Though the show purported to profile the skill of the plastic surgeon whose talent restored her to model perfection, it seemed more interested in the million-dollar price tag of the eleven operations that took place over a seven-year period. The investment of time and money was worth it, the narrator informs us, because Louise can now not only reclaim her profession and income, she can also “live life to her full potential.” In this instance, market capital functions in both concrete terms (lost wages, the cost of surgeries, regained employment) as well as a metaphorical, but equally monetary, sense of value (investments of pain and hardship that yield dividends of beauty and satisfaction). Living life to its full potential becomes a currency, like money in the bank, that justifies the pain and expense of reconstructive and plastic surgeries.18 Such investments are not limited to those like Louise who make a living as a model, but also extend to people like makeover recipient, Samantha, on Extreme Makeover, who expressed concern that her “worn-out looks” might harm her career as a high school counselor. “Are you really going to want to invest thousands 54  ·  Chapter One

of dollars in a person whose image is youthful and yet the face belies that youthfulness?” Samantha asks. The voiceover narrator further reminds us that Samantha’s makeover will have positive benefits not only for her career but also for her love life, a category it holds in equal value. For both men and women, revised care of the self results in a beautiful and glamorous appearance, which, in turn, functions as a signifier of personal confidence, self-worth, professional competence, and success, which subsequently increases—the argument goes—overall productivity. Such imperatives for self-care hold true for both the patient seeking a makeover and for the practitioners who offer redesigns and rejuvenations. For instance, Dr. Bob Khanna, a cosmetic dental surgeon, acknowledges in Plastic Surgery: Laid Bare that his professional success requires that his body functions as a credible signifier of the services he sells. “If you’re in the health and beauty industry,” he observes, “you must yourself profess beauty. If you look good, you look confident. That will pay dividends.” Helen Perry, an image consultant, echoes the relevance of this notion in the corporate world, observing, “If you don’t think you look good, you’re not going to operate on all cylinders. Cosmetic surgery for one’s career is about self-esteem and optimizing who you are” (qtd. in Gurchiek).19 In both these examples, the end-goal is not beauty itself but more desirable, abstract outcomes that beauty can ostensibly purchase: positive self-esteem, confidence, and selfhood. The Before-body, however, absent the makeover’s interventions, primarily experiences anxiety and desperation. This wellness-as-investment rhetoric is established not just by makeover shows in particular but by makeover culture more broadly. As the following British ad indicates about gastric bypass surgery, care of the self constitutes both a literal and a metaphorical investment. Surgery patient Francine Hodges notes, “Since having my band I haven’t felt I’m missing out because I can still eat what I like—just smaller portions, saving me money on food—its [sic] the best investment I could have made for my health and well-being.” 20 Framed as such, becoming thinner offers both market incentive and reward. It saves money, makes one feel better, and puts cash in the pocket. As well, state coffers no longer have to contend with obesity-related illnesses. In a comparable U.S. ad, note how the image and copy push on the commodity of selfhood that can be revealed through gastric by-pass surgery.21 In Makeover Nation financial rationales similarly favor celebrated selfhood. This is particularly so since many reality celebrities, such as The Biggest Loser participants or the notorious Omarosa from The Apprentice, have Makeover Nation  ·  55

Two models of gastric-bypass surgery value. (above) British ad, Daily Mail, May 25, 2005. (opposite) U.S. ad, Bloomington Herald-Times, December 12, 2007.

bartered at the plastic surgeon’s office, exchanging advertising and visibil­ ity for reduced fees on body lifts or cosmetic augmentations. Under either a public or a privatized health care system, the prevailing logic contends that the collateral costs obesity brings are abated by “wellness” surgeries.22 Even better, surgery advertisements suggest that financial savings for the individual consumer can later be used for cosmetic surgery procedures to nip and tuck excess skin, a point made most tellingly in Francine’s ad since the surgery center she promotes performs both gastric bypass and body contouring procedures. Surgical makeover shows like Extreme Makeover, The Swan, and I Want a Famous Face have each featured abdominoplasty operations to remove hanging skin. Other shows like What Not to Wear and 10 Years Younger (both U.S. and UK versions) dedicate multiple episodes to helping formerly obese people learn to maximize their investments in new thin bodies. Given this, body modification is not only logistically possible and emotionally desirable, it is financially practical and socially responsible. Added to this logic is the notion that multiple procedures constitute better value for money. As Cindy Jackson, a virtual pop-icon due to the major operations she has undergone to make her approximate a Barbie doll, says on Plastic Surgery: Laid Bare, “If you’ve got more than one problem, why just have one solution? Why have a 5 percent improvement when you can have a 100 percent improvement?” The point here is not change for change’s sake, but modification along the teleology of improvement, a continuum along the horizon of perfection that anxiously approaches but can never fully achieve its goal. Micki McGee notes about self-help culture more broadly that a logic of anxiety and insecurity requires individuals to “invest in themselves, manage themselves, and continuously improve themselves” (12).23 Makeovers simultaneously chastise individuals for bad choices and encourage participants to believe that better judgment will bring economic strength, personal happiness, and celebratory glamour. The difficulty here, as with most investment schemes, is the soundness of the individual’s decision-making process. Clearly, all of the subjects involved in makeover programming have already been long-term participants in consumer culture. Experts on these shows are not, consequently, determined to teach makeover subjects how to spend money “correctly,” making clear that previous expenditures have led to symbolic bankruptcy, a fact rendered most graphically by the cavalier chucking of clothes into tin garbage pails on both the bbc and tlc versions of What Not to Wear. According to these shows, there are limited vestiges of good choices in their fashion victims’ wardrobes. Perhaps a 58  ·  Chapter One

pair of black pants or innocuous shoes can stay, but most style choices up to the moment of the makeover are declared incompetent, necessitating quick trips to retail establishments where the subject can be instructed in making better selections,thus underscoring Grewal’s claim that values of Americanness are cemented through consumer citizenry (218). Though not all shows are equally draconian and, indeed, some shows like I’ve Got Nothing to Wear turn a team of stylists to redesigning the subjects’ ugly clothes, a common logic operating across the genre insists that successful self-construction is predicated on an informed consumerism. This idea in itself is nothing new. Advertising has long worked to establish the ideal of a golden life that can only be achieved through the purchase of specific objects. Makeover shows, however, are noteworthy for the commonality with which they direct consumer choices, often functioning, as June Deery has observed about Extreme Makeover, as elaborate infomercials (“Trading Faces”). Commercials airing during makeovers frequently offer mini-makeover narratives, so that even on home transformation shows like FreeStyle, which simply rearrange a subject’s possessions rather than purchasing more (though even then, past consumerism is required), commercials articulate the larger logic of consumer-based transformation through weight loss products, hair dyes, skin treatments, flooring, furniture, and make-up. Adopting the makeover regime means committing oneself to consistent and long-term purchases of home furnishings, beauty products, and cosmetic procedures, yet one should not not dismiss makeover programming too quickly for its commercialism, since the rise of image as a consumable commodity has historical links to women’s increased purchasing power and greater presence in the nondomestic marketplace after the Second World War. There is a complex interconnection between consumption and imagined American womanhood stretching at least to the eighteenth century. The plethora of cosmetic options now available to both men and women link directly to women’s influence on the consumer market and a consequent skewing toward “women’s” values. The makeover’s emphasis on consumerism (whether fueled by women or men) can offer valid zones for women’s participation in and influence on economic matters, and yet the metaphor of the market naturalizes finance as the sole indicator of value. This stance positions the health of the global market as tantamount to individual well-being, where separate bodies work collectively to assure the robust health of a larger social body defined not by the state but by the global economy. Hence, makeovers become ever more urgent in their insistence that subjects “take care of Makeover Nation  ·  59

themselves” as a prerequisite to competition in a larger marketplace—new breasts, shiny bathrooms, and obedient dogs now indicating the loss of a former handicap. This connection between renovation and market-value is why we so often hear makeover subjects exclaim at their reveals, “I can do anything now!” Reminders of events in the “real” world put these “reality” economics in sharper contrast, since in this present moment we are faced with a series of economic conditions that suggest the American Dream is under siege. Coterminous with the makeover’s post-2000 surge, for instance, economists, politicians, and news pundits have been increasingly warning a potential collapse in the U.S. economy, putting both the American Dream and American economic imperialism into what has been termed a state of crisis. Alan Blinder has argued in the New York Times, for instance, that in the context of the failing dollar, the mortgage crisis, mounting national debt, unprecedented individual debt, and dwindling capacities to dominate as the “biggest, most open, most market-oriented and most competitive economy on earth,” Americans need to be convinced to embrace globalization. In many ways, the makeover show provides the perfect public relations tool to serve this function, since it fuses together market logics, Americanness, and the currency of personal style and appearance. If the logics of the neoliberal global marketplace are not only unavoidable but also good, as these programs indicate, then mediated subjects who aspire to the upward mobility and affective swagger demonstrated through the makeover perform a valued service in educating viewers about what it takes to qualify for citizenship in Makeover Nation, in effect creating the open arms that hold globalization in their embrace.

Put Yourself First for a Change Given the connection between the global marketplace and symbolic currency, it’s important to give some consideration to what outcomes makeovers esteem. In all cases, it can be concluded, celebratory visibility of the made-over body matters. And so does the subject’s self-esteem, for according to shows like Dog Whisperer and Plastic Surgery: Before and After, even dogs and babies deserve transformations that bolster self-esteem. Makeover shows consistently regard the bashful or uninterested person as pathological, “not like us,” or not a fully functioning citizen, as evidenced when the style expert on How Do I Look? critiques the subject Irene’s wardrobe, saying, “I look at these clothes and see there’s only one thing 60  ·  Chapter One

you could do in them. It’s [sic] clothes for blending yourself away, so that people don’t look at you.” Such a mandate requiring celebratory visibility equally holds true for home-improvement shows, where living spaces are castigated for being dowdy, boring, bland, and lacking in personality. Oddly, this insistence on visibility offers a somewhat revolutionary outcome, for it requires that experts dress whatever body is put before them. Since the majority of makeover subjects are women, and since the greater part of makeover shows do not employ plastic surgery technologies, the overall message these shows insist upon is that the female body is to be accepted as is: Dress the body you’re in. Don’t make self-esteem conditional on having a perfect body. Understand what works and what doesn’t, and then go from there. The same message relates to house, car, and kid shows. Subjects are never encouraged to move, get a new car, or put their kids up for adoption. These shows celebrate successful renovations and reclamations, a necessary embrace of the material body, be it a woman with cellulite and wrinkles or a home with faded wallpaper and out-of-date furniture. But whether the Before-body appears on How to Look Good Naked or Color Splash, makeover logics insist that After-bodies only have value and legibility when mediated. Thus, transformed bodies gain currency as they transmit and circulate as media products. Unfortunately, the makeover’s emancipatory possibilities are hampered by the narrow gender, class, and race codings that apply across the makeover canon. We can see this expressed most clearly on style shows. Though now encouraged to love their bodies, female subjects are told without exception that they need to be more conventionally feminine and less exotic in appearance. As Clinton remarks to his co-host on What Not to Wear, “You know what I’ve learned on this show, Stacy? ‘Eclectic’,” he broadly accentuates with air quotes, “is a euphemism for ‘I’m a mess’.” Makeover subjects should wear stylish but modest skirts in body-revealing fabrics, make-up, high heels, and good foundational garments that “put the girls on display.” Women are not encouraged to go without makeup, wear clothes that “make them look like boys,” or in any way detract from conventional forms of femininity. Women who wear clothes that are “too ethnic,” artistic, or individualized are refashioned to emit signs of middleclass professionalism and desirability. The reward for dressing like “the rest of us,” we are made to understand, is universal approval, and thus love—a woman will be seen and appreciated, she will command and deserve the gaze, she will no longer be an embarrassment to her children or husband. Makeover Nation  ·  61

And of course, the reverse is also true. If she continues to ignore the makeover rules, she deserves her exclusion. Her expulsion is a consequence of her choices—she asked not to belong. As I Lost It!, a weight-loss show often praising gastric bypass surgery, decries, “They must face the truth and lose the fat or stay trapped in unhappy lives forever.” Almost all makeover shows reify the notion that it is important to create the beautiful, and thus happy, self, rather than address larger social issues that have brought about pain or systemic disenfranchisement. Such a stance conforms with neoliberal rationalities that disallow widespread problems and therefore do little to find comprehensive solutions outside of the market. On an episode of Extreme Makeover, for instance, James seeks to have his protruding ears pinned back as one of the multiple procedures performed by the Extreme Team. Doctor Kazam notes, “Those ears were just begging to be flicked.” He believes that after surgery James will be happier and will fit in better. The transformational message suggests that the suffering person’s misery is specific, individualized, and nonsystemic. If people tease you about your ears, then change your ears. If people critique you for being a tomboy, become more girly. If people think you are always frowning, then get a brow lift or Botox. The insistence on individuated experience places the focus squarely on self-management and self-production where, as Wendy Brown notes, prime value is put on peoples’ capacity to “provide for their own needs and service their own ambitions” (6–7). One engages in such self-care, makeovers suggest, not to appease the critical eye or the taunting bully, but for the self alone. As Carmen Electra says in a mini-makeover commercial about why she takes the diet pill nv, “I don’t do it for cameras or red carpets. I do it for me.” In Makeover Nation, learning to put the self first often dominates as the major lesson to be learned from each show. In a gender-flattening move, this recent prioritization of the self holds true for both men and women, though equally, there is a sense that one cares for the self so that she or he can better please others, a value typically coded feminine. Merline’s psychological task on The Swan, for instance, is learning to “tackle her insecurities and focus on herself,” whereas single father Michael, on 10 Years Younger, must stop putting his son’s needs before his own, since the effect of Michael’s unkempt appearance has been to make his son embarrassed to be seen with him. On What Not to Wear, Laura deserves a makeover because she has been caring for her grandmother and failed to give herself equal time. Ironically, though learning to care for the self is the dominant message of most makeover shows, it is the subjects’ very negligence of 62  ·  Chapter One

self-care, particularly if others benefited from such negligence, that makes subjects worthy of the gift of the makeover in the first place.24 On Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, for example, we are told that the Teas family prioritized their camp for special needs children before their own needs. “If they got any money, they put it into the camp, not themselves.” Since, as the show’s host Ty remarks, the family “never asked for anything in return” and are “the most unselfish people I’ve ever met,” they deserve a new home. Evidence of the Teas’ self-less priorities can be seen in the house’s cracked foundation, rotted ceiling tiles, and ramshackle ad hoc construction projects featured in the beginning segment of the show—their selves clearly represented by their house. By contrast, on programming focused on the body, sagging and wrinkled skin, frazzled hair, and tiredness signify distracted care of the self. Though the overall message is clear (it’s time to put yourself first), the underlying subtext is equally insistent (you only merit this makeover because you have paid your dues in service to others and that service will not discontinue once your makeover is complete; your makeover will enable you to give more to children or charities).25 The message carries an interesting duality, particularly if we filter it through a neoliberal logic that disavows obligations of the state to address social needs. Makeover technologies, though overtly advocating self-care, make clear that an a priori value exists in, as em: he subject Paul Teas puts it, a “passion for serving others.” The insistent chorus from makeover shows to “put yourself first for a change” hinges very specifically on that phrase “for a change.” Care of the self is constituted as a secondary corrective, with care for others garnering the greater social value, a point particularly underscored by how often mothers are the subjects of makeovers, which I discuss in some depth in chapter 3. Though makeovers sometimes mark the end of sacrifice for others, they more typically signal a transition into increased social service. As Rachel Love-Fraser, the winner of The Swan beauty pageant attests, “I’ve learned how to love myself and now my goal is to bring that message to others.” Tad, a subject on Pimp My Ride, similarly avows that his new-found confidence will help as he learns to purify water for the people back home in Ethiopia. And on a reunion show for The Biggest Loser, contestants from multiple seasons—Marty, Matt, Eric, Pete, Andrea, and Wylie—all speak of their new callings as motivational speakers who lecture on weight loss and nutrition. In the blending of makeover and public-service narratives, as well as the combination of private and public health facilities, we can see the truth of Makeover Nation  ·  63

Nikolas Rose’s contention that “in the name of social and personal well­ being, a complex apparatus of health and therapeutics has been assembled, concerned with the management of the individual and social body as a vital national resource, and the management of the ‘problem of living,’ made up of techniques of advice and guidance, medics, clinics, guides and counselors” (“Governing” 37). The state can be involved in such motivations for change, as is the case of the conservative governors of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, and Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, both of whom spearhead fitness campaigns designed to encourage citizens to eat healthfully and exercise more. In both cases, however, the governors function more as celebrity spokesmen than as agents of authority (or financial dispensation). Daniels, for example, holds a prominent place on billboards and commercials. On them he appears jogging, doing pull ups, and conversing with Pam, Indiana’s contestant in The Biggest Loser. Huckabee, who lost upwards of a hundred pounds after becoming governor, equally models healthy lifestyle choices to his constituents. Both governors work to affirm the processes of change built into television makeovers, sometimes, as in the case of Indiana’s appropriation of The Biggest Loser, using tv formats to achieve political ends. In this regard, the state puts its top officials behind a public relations campaign designed to teach management of the self, with the idea that once such self-care is learned, the state assumes limited additional responsibility for the health of its citizens. Given the value put on individual and community care, makeover shows thus become positioned as the perfect extra-governmental nurturing agents since they help others by teaching self-care but also by enacting miraculous medical and structural changes. The makeover’s caretaking intervention is particularly critical given that, as Palmer notes, a subject’s desperation is often the “direct result of the fact that agencies of the state have abandoned them” (“Extreme Makeover” 166). From the cheer of em: he’s design team, “Let’s do some good!” to The Swan’s dentist, Dr. Sherri Worth, who says tearfully after giving a contestant a bright white smile, “This is why I got into dentistry in the first place,” makeovers teach people that they cannot lean on a government agency for help. Incredibly, makeovers claim to offer a bigger and better form of advice, guidance, and “public assistance” than the state possibly could. For instance, though one might plausibly argue that a social network system should help a black mother of eight who flees her abusive husband, as depicted on em: he, no one would expect the state to build and furnish a ten-room house, give her a new Ford suv, pay $50,000 toward her existing mortgage, offer her $100,000 in scholarship 64  ·  Chapter One

money for her kids, or stock her shelves with a five-year supply of laundry detergent. Equally, though the state might offer tax incentives to mothers, it assuredly would not provide a “head-to-toe Mommy Makeover” that included a trip to New York City, fashion advice, $500 in child-care costs, and $5,000 to spend on beauty. As social service agents, television makeover shows blow the state out of the water. And yet, it’s a social service available through audition only and achievable not by consensus of the citizenry but as a joint marketing venture, in the cases described above linking tlc’s What Not to Wear and Suave beauty products or as a media-corporate product fueled primarily by abc, Sears, and Disney. In keeping with neoliberal logics that require an extensive array of nonprofit and nongovernmental social service agencies, television makeovers also work in league with nonprofit entities such as The House of Ruth, Locks of Love, or the Sears American Dream Campaign.26 Neoliberalism is not only a critical content element of makeover ideologies, but it also enhances the overall makeover machinery. Neoliberalism positions makeover shows as redemptive agencies that lavishly reward those subjects whose bodies or buildings have grown shabby in service of others or as insufficiently cared for by the state. Nowhere is this more evident than in those makeover episodes that sweep in where disaster has struck. When How Do I Look? visited New Orleans to commemorate the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, they brought “new life,” “fabulous style,” and free product giveaways to three African American teachers who needed instruction in how to go from “survival to revival” since “Katrina had robbed [the subjects] of their style.” Each of the three women were depicted in Before segments as downtrodden and depressed; each received the gift of self-through-style, since, as subject Barbara said, “my clothes say who I am.” Given that the makeover ideologically ties one’s semiotic codes to subjectivity, this episode indicates that Katrina also robbed Barbara, Kimberly, and Carla of their selfhood, a discursive move that obscures the political nature of the disaster. It is the makeover’s job (as aided by companies such as Pantene, Skecher, and Post-It) to restore that self so subjects can continue in confidence and gorgeous womanhood, each overjoyed with the gift of their “revitalized new me,” a me now “jazzy” and “sassy” and ready to help New Orleans with its own revitalizing makeover. Makeover discourses might here be perceived as displacing an American health care crisis, while enhancing the neoliberal focus on the self. Yet, I think it’s more likely that makeovers feed a sense of justification, a belief Makeover Nation  ·  65

that “care of the self ” is a critical and worthwhile expenditure of energy and money that should be prioritized on par with other investments, such as retirement accounts, college savings, or stock portfolios. A July 2008 People profile of Marisa Meiskin, also a subject on Shalom in the Home, offers a helpful illustration of makeover tv’s intervention on a real-world health care crisis. Fifteen-year-old Marisa, the article explains, had battled anorexia for more than two years, in 2007 necessitating the intervention of tlc’s family makeover rabbi as well as treatment in the highly expensive Avalon Hills Anorexia Disorder Treatment Center in Paradise, Utah. Her tv therapy was free, but the inpatient treatment at Avalon Hills cost Marisa’s family $850 per day, and their insurance covered only thirty days of her four-month residence (amounting to nearly $60,000 the Meiskins paid out of pocket). People’s profile demonstrates that, “doctors and insurers are sometimes at odds over what constitutes medically necessary treatment” (82, 84). Families are “fighting back,” the magazine says, and working to show that anorexia, along with bulimia, is a legitimate mental illness that should be given the same financial coverage as someone with cancer (82). In these statements we see a reiteration of a consistent makeover refrain—how one perceives one’s appearance, home, or body has direct relation to one’s overall well-being, so that a perceptual or mental imbalance is equally legitimate as a disease of the body. According to this logic, plastic surgery or a house remodel have a direct salutary influence on health. Admittedly, the makeover’s logic puts the onus for such care on the individual rather than the state, but oddly, the makeover’s role as an agent of care offers an interesting tertiary site for how to regulate the demands of neoliberalism. Quite often, as in the case of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition or How Do I Look?, the makeover is necessary precisely because the state has failed and the individual is unable to accomplish the self-making mandates invested in transformation. Thus, another example of the makeover’s ideologic opportunism emerges, for while it endorses and speaks through the language of neoliberalism, it also departs from basic neoliberal logics by standing in for the very body of the state that neoliberalism eschews.

Exceptions That Prove the Rule The makeover’s concerted regard for feminized, white, and aspiring middleclass bodies engaged in a project of consumer-based and celebrity-oriented citizenship raises a series of compelling questions. What, for instance, can

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we theorize about how the makeover both imagines and constructs gendered, sexed, raced, and classed normativity? Do shows, such as The Biggest Loser, Shaq’s Big Challenge, Pimp My Ride, or Dog Whisperer, with a surfeit of male, nonwhite experts and culturally diverse participants, problematize my claim about the makeover’s attentiveness to anxious white women who aspire toward happy heterosexualization and upward class mobility? These questions can partially be answered through the makeover’s reliance on racial tropes of Americanness. As Diane Negra notes, the “U.S. is a nation that prides itself on the coherence and orderliness of its internal differences and invests deeply in the mythology of a variety of different ethnic groups in peaceful co-existence” (Off-White Hollywood 3). Negra explains that such collective commitment to a “monoethnic society” crystallizes “certain formations of whiteness,” which, in turn, “displace and/or neutralize the identity claims of blacks and Latinas” (“The Irish in Us” 3). One conclusion that can be drawn about the makeover’s primary concern with white bodies is the validation this attention grants to an unstated investment in a level playing field, where no class conflict or racial injustice exists that might unduly impede one’s claim to national identity or participation in a free market. The After-body is marked by what Miller defines as the profile of the neoliberal consumer: a “classless, raceless” rational subject “drive[n] to realize individual desires” (Cultural Citizenship 31). Indeed, this profile of the citizen-subject links not only to neoliberal logics but to postfeminist discourses as well, since it creates a scenario where, as Mizejewski describes, “sexual and racial differences are buried” in favor of “the pleasures of the postfeminist aesthetic, which makes way for an “egalitarian utopia in which sexual, racial, and ethnic differences among consumers recede” (123). Two major network-produced shows, The Biggest Loser (nbc) and Shaq’s Big Challenge (abc), corroborate and complicate this argument about gender, sex, race, and class while reinforcing the metonymic function the makeover plays in creating ideal (slender, confident, fit) citizens. Dedicated to rejuvenation of the self through weight loss, both of these shows select a culturally and ethnically diverse subject pool that is a composite of male and female, working-class and middle-class, African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian participants. Because The Biggest Loser sequesters its subjects at a remote ranch somewhere in the L.A. valley and since Shaq’s Big Challenge targets six heavy teens between the ages of eleven and thirteen, neither show engages directly with issues of active sex lives or consumerism,

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though these themes play in the background and in both shows a heteronormative standard is assumed. Season three of The Biggest Loser pressed on its democratic plurality by starting with fifty potential subjects “from all walks of life,” each “representing their home state, and an entire nation of overweight Americans.” Even so, people standing for other forms of difference—Asian Americans, gay and lesbians, the disabled—were conspicuously absent from The Biggest Loser’s transformation challenge, and of the twelve subjects culled from the fifty to go to “the Ranch,” nine were marked as white. The Biggest Loser’s radical transformation ostensibly offers participants an experience of normalcy through major weight loss (typically more than one hundred pounds) achieved, the voiceover narrator (creator and producer J. D. Roth) explains, “the old-fashioned way, through hard work.” One applicant representing Pennsylvania expressed her desire for change saying, “I want to be normal for once in my life. I’ve been fat since I was a little girl.” Another supplicant from Rhode Island remarked, “Personally, I’ve been humiliated by a scale enough. I’m done. I’ve had it.” The goal in this show is quite literally to use the mythic American values of forbearance, stick-toit-iveness, and determination to vanquish the enemy within, suggesting in the process that willpower triumphs over adversity. Those who are saturated with signifiers of the non-normative, here quite clearly a material excess marked by pounds and inches, do not merit entrance to Makeover Nation. Indeed, obese Before-bodies not only fail to merit citizenship, they are guilty of cavorting with the enemy and, as such, will soon be killed by the marauding invaders called high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. As Pam from Indiana acknowledges, “There’s no way around it.” And then slowly, accentuating each word, she says, “I will not be here if I don’t do something about it now.” Shaq’s Big Challenge similarly calls for a nation of normalized citizens united in its war on the enemy within. The opening of each episode, though more than a little hyperbolic in its approach, deploys metaphors of war, threat, chaos, collapse, and superpower protectionism. While a heavy and acne-scarred teenager (Walter) bites into a piece of fried chicken, the voiceover narrator intones ominously, “Childhood obesity is at war with our kids and is a battle we are losing.” The scene immediately cuts to an ambulance taking away a teen (Kit), sirens blaring, “For the first time in history, kids will die younger than their parents. Schools, families, and even the government have done virtually nothing to fight this crippling disease. Now, one man has stepped forward to lead the fight.” On the screen we 68  ·  Chapter One

see an image of a basketball going through a hoop, crowds screaming and applauding in the background. “Shaquille O’Neal is one of the world’s greatest athletes, and this will be his most difficult challenge.” Though other makeover shows, specifically Queer Eye, figure their style experts as superheroes, Shaq is uniquely and explicitly marked in ways that offer race and class information that filter through concepts of Americanness. He is the sympathetic father, the tough black man, the super-rich benefactor, the fierce competitor, the celebrity everyman, the homey from the streets, the athletic superstar, the self-made man, the social revolutionary, and the warrior who fights on behalf of children. In any given episode he can drive upwards of five different high-end vehicles, yet Shaq identifies as “from the hood,” heightening his promises to “keep it real” by refusing to eat the health-conscious cous-cous served up by celebrity chef Tyler Florence because “that’s what rich people eat.” Shaq is invested in saving six “obese youngsters” through both specific and systemic interventions: food restrictions and exercise boot camp for the kids; menu and physical education overhauls for the schools. Just as with The Biggest Loser, the goal is to offer subjects normalcy, which, in turn, will enhance and fortify a larger nation. Says the voiceover narrator, “Shaq and his team will fight for a change in the schools, and in the halls of government.” His Big Challenge, Shaq tells us, addresses America’s needs by establishing a model for change. “We in America have to understand,” Shaq explains, “that childhood obesity is the number one threat to children right now. Even more than guns, even more than drugs.” On both of these shows, scare tactics, whether through metaphors of war and national emergency or talk of morbid obesity and imminent death, function as rationales to bring subjects into alignment. These shows suggest that marking the subject as normal stands as more critical than addressing any other systemic issues such as poverty, racism, negligence, violence, or ignorance. This suggestion creates what scholars like Dana Cloud and Naomi Rockler in separate articles have termed a “therapeutic rhetoric” that “discourages citizens from contextualizing their personal problems within structural power dynamics,” instead exhorting individuals to “ ‘fix themselves’ in order to better function within the system” (Rockler 247). The real problem with Kit, whose body fat comprises fifty percent of her total weight, is that, as Shaq puts it, “She’s sort of an outsider. A lot of people would deem her as weird, or weirdo, or freak.” Kit herself phrases it like this, “People they look at us because of our appearance. It could be either weight, skin tone, it could be Makeover Nation  ·  69

anything. And what are we going to do? Stay outsiders the rest of our lives?” I don’t mean to argue that to be marked as “an outsider,” either for teenagers or adults, isn’t painful or seriously debilitating, but as evidenced here The Biggest Loser and Shaq’s Big Challenge deploy nationalistic metaphors about eradicating the non-normative that would be unthinkable in other cases. Consider, for instance, a show dedicated to racial harmony where a superstar athlete worked to help teenagers lighten their skin. Or how about a makeover premise where working-class peoples were carted off to a ranch (a.k.a. debtor’s prison) and made to be more fiscally successful before they could re-enter the mainstream? Further, consider how Shaq’s Big Challenge and The Biggest Loser so demonize fat that the threat such excess represents subordinates all other social problems. The logic quite clearly mandates that regulating excess on the individual body is the most significant curative for the social body. Again, I don’t want to minimize the life-changing opportunities born of major weight loss and lifestyle change, but the point here is the way such regulation of the body becomes situated as a nationalist imperative of calamitous proportion, necessitating that no other forms of injustice merit attention or energy. Remember Shaq’s admonition, “Childhood obesity is the number one threat to children right now. Even more than guns, even more than drugs.” Shaq’s crisis rhetoric articulates an economy of scarcity in which urgent priorities demand primary resources. In the quest to make over the citizen and save the nation, inequities of race, class, ethnicity, gender, and sex fly under the critical radar since primary attention attends to what is presented as the most dangerous threat. In this regime, the unmarked goes unexamined, and so hegemonic categories such as whiteness and middle-class status are built into outcomes without being called into visibility. As such, makeovers offer a mediated example of what Herman Gray calls an “assimilationist discourse of invisibility” that, in its refusal to allow for difference, creates a world premised on “color blindness, similarity, and universal harmony” (85). The consequence of such assimilationist narratives, Gray notes, situates race as a factor of individual experience whereby “the individual ego [constitutes] the site of social change and transformation” (85). This, in turn, favors a “subject position . . . necessarily that of the white middle class” where “whiteness is the privileged yet unnamed place from which to see and make sense of the world” (86). Within this regime normalcy codes as conventionally gendered, white, middle class, heterosexually desirable, confident, and 70  ·  Chapter One

well-adjusted. Thus even shows, like The Biggest Loser and Shaq’s Big Challenge, that strive for diversity, reify sameness.

Policing Citizens: Regulating Sameness On a makeover show such as 10 Years Younger, these values of normative citizenship, expressed through statements of exclusion and inclusion, are even more poignant. The show works on a trope announced by its title—its goal is to give participants the ultimate currency: the appearance if not of youth, then of reduced age. In the name of the transformation that is soon to happen, subjects agree to standing in a plexiglass box, their ears blocked, while the host asks a hundred people milling around on a busy street to critique the appearance of the subject in the box. Their comments are perhaps predictable but nonetheless shocking for their bluntness. “Eew . . .” says one “he’s got liver spots!” “Her jeans are older than I am.” “Oh my God!” says one person to her friend, “Look at her ugly shoes and those yellow teeth.” Though the makeover subject cannot hear the remarks, the host soon pulls him or her back into the studio where, in the guise of kindness that is also sadistic delight in public shame, the host plays back for the subject the nastiest of the remarks, all of which culminate in the worst condemnation of all: the “proof ” that a populace of strangers considers the subject significantly older than she or he is, which serves as the evidence that the subject has “let herself go” and that a makeover is now mandatory. Subjects quite often cry during their initial interviews, either as a consequence of watching critiques or in response to looking at themselves in a hand-held mirror. Says Laura, pushing up her glasses and wiping away tears as she looks at her own reflection, “That’s not the person I am inside, and I’m embarrassed about it.” The crowd of anonymous strangers call Laura grandmotherly, her pants ugly, her shoes from another era. She laughs in response but calls their remarks “harsh” and seems close to tears again when told the average guess of her age is forty-five (she is actually thirty-seven). When Milene, age thirty-four, is read by the crowd of strangers as forty-seven, she comments, “Amazing, but I guess it is true,” deferring to the collective, or at least numerically averaged, assessment of her age. Through these moments of public display and assessment, the show plays out a public referendum, the populace determining a truth that supercedes individual experience. In Makeover Nation, majority perception equals truth, so it follows that one’s public image is critical for determining and proving citizenship eligibility. Makeover Nation  ·  71

If these scenes of public shame on 10 Years Younger seem cruel, they are the requisite galvanizing moment for setting up the perceived necessity of intervention, a point I discuss more fully in chapter 2. Why suffer, the logic goes, if the technology to make your life better is at your finger tips? It’s an attitude more American than apple pie: If you can do something about your shame, you should do something. We are not a society of complainers, we are a society of do-ers. That can-do attitude becomes a mustdo imperative, which, subsequently, motivates doctors and stylists who perceive their roles as humanitarian or altruistic. As Elizabeth Haiken’s work on the social history of plastic surgery in the United States has made clear, doctors often believe that physical deformities—here defined as protruding noses, sagging breasts, or flabby thighs—“add to feelings of loneliness and rejection . . . . Alteration of . . . features in the direction of greater conformity to the social average helps overcome this sense of ‘not belonging.’ In addition it facilitates identification with certain culturally determined aesthetic norms” (194). These aesthetic norms signify coherence with a larger polity, thus offering the possibility, if not the guarantee, that through modification of bodily features, one can secure placement in the citizenry. For those inducted into citizenship, a declaration of loyalty is one of the mandatory elements of passage into belonging. As it concerns nation-state citizenship status, subjects must pass tests that demonstrate both historical knowledge and a commitment to long-term residency, ultimately vocalizing their loyalty to the ideology of the state through a confirmation ceremony. Speaking in unison, outsiders becomes insiders, declaring publicly and proudly their allegiance to a new country. In a similar way, all of these shows reinforce parity about After-outcomes. To a person, each subject is grateful, enthusiastic, delighted. Even on shows where subjects resist the particularities of change by disliking a particular outfit or paint color (though never criticizing surgical work), they buy into the larger makeover mandate, their resistance signaling only dissatisfaction with detail rather than objection to the makeover’s core ideology.27 Overall, shows repeatedly depict a subject’s recommitment to heteronormative engagements, coupled with a feeling of new access to meritocracy. As one participant on Extreme Makeover said, “I feel as though nothing could stop me.” There is an interesting democratization in this statement, a message of “come one, come all” that extends beyond the boundaries of the program itself. When makeover participants extol, “I can do anything I want to do,” or “I pretty much can conquer whatever I want,” we get the sense that all 72  ·  Chapter One

of us—with the aid of payment plans and credit cards—are eligible for empowerment through plastic surgery. In makeover logic more broadly, however, there is a homogenization in this celebration, a sense of sameness that saturates each person’s story. The overall effect leaves one thinking that individuality counts for less than regularity, a regularity now crafted onto “beautiful” bodies. In Makeover Nation, consequently, the unique and individual qualities we tend to associate with selfhood in a Western context are replaced with a patterned sameness. Makeover logic is clear that the values of democratic culture—specifically meritocratic achievement and civil liberties—are conditional on a normalized appearance. In this regard, one must change the body, the home, and the car in order to achieve full citizenship status, as coded by upwardly mobile employment, racial anonymity (which is to say a sort of professionalized whiteness), and glamorous heterosexuality. Put another way, unless the deviant body aligns with normative codes, the wayward soul who has been derelict in attending to the signifying values of the body merits reduced privileges until such a time as she or he conforms to governing, though commonly unspoken, dictates. The sheer expense of personal renovation—be it through plastic surgery or a fashion and furniture overhaul—prohibits most people from undertaking the extensive change necessary to claim entrance to Makeover Nation. This does not, however, minimize the appeal of citizenship. In a larger makeover culture, cosmetic procedures often require long-term budgeting and fiscal sacrifice. Debra Gimlin tells of a woman who, before her face lift, worked “one day job, one night job, [and] occasionally a third job” and had to “bank four weeks of overtime at her primary job so she could take time off to recover from the procedure” (Body Work 89). Costs are not limited to financial outlay, since cosmetic surgery often requires that one contend with both physical and social risks, like the possibility of looking worse after the procedure and the censure of friends and strangers who may perceive surgery as “cheating.”28 The financial, physical, and emotional costs of body alteration are a primary locus of observation for Kathy Davis, who has termed women’s awareness of the pros and cons of transformative procedures and patients’ consequent deliberative agency as “discursive penetration” (“Cultural Dopes” 34). Here again arises a marked contrast between real people and reality tv participants. On makeover shows, though subjects may have discursively penetrated the processes they are soon to undertake and so can work through potential risks, represented accounts give slight narrative Makeover Nation  ·  73

space for these deliberations. Plastic Makes Perfect, a Canadian-based series that combines comedian commentary, social experiments, therapeutic experts, and actual cosmetic procedures, also mildly practices discursive penetration by putting text bubbles containing possible adverse reactions to plastic surgery on the screen. Cognitive awareness of the downsides of surgery seems limited to the screen itself, however, since subjects do not voice their own reservations and in all cases elect to proceed with surgeries regardless of the risks. Across makeover programming, by the time subjects make it to the studio or the cameras arrive at their homes, they are depicted as unequivocally onboard, any potential risks or fears are edited out, thereby depicting them as uniformly grateful and enthusiastic. Resistance is built into the narrative tension of the shows, with subjects saying things like, “I hope they don’t make me into a Barbie Doll,” or “I’m worried about what they’re doing to our walls,” yet their hesitancy is never directed at the risks inherent in the process of transformation itself but at the potential consequences the makeover might yield. Even back-story segments that attest to the subject’s pre-made-over shame and misery don’t take up the potential downsides of renovations. In the reality tv world, makeovers produce only positive outcomes, thus tamping down on the need for discursive penetration.29 Moreover, television participants don’t have to grapple with the real-world expense of cosmetic procedures, style advice, therapeutic assistance, or extensive home renovation since these costs are typically part of the show’s budget. Yet makeover subjects still must pay in order to be transformed. In this case, their legal tender is an affective currency of humiliation, tears, and, ultimately, gratitude; to deserve a makeover, one must have suffered. Subjects must also pay for their makeovers through the loss of civil liberties, their rights to privacy and self-governance tendered in exchange for the self-esteem and personal empowerment promised by the makeover.

“Clearly I need to be taken in hand”: Race, Cost, and Control On its surface, the notion that one can achieve greater empowerment by fully surrendering to someone else’s authority is illogical. Yet show after show plays this theme out, as vividly demonstrated in the bbc’s version of What Not to Wear. In one episode, for example, Saira, a thirtyfive-year-old Asian-Indian woman now living in Hertfordshire, dresses “like a granny,” in black over-sized clothes, graying hair pulled back in a bun, and small glasses. She is told that her looks not only function as an 74  ·  Chapter One

index of her competence, both professionally and interpersonally, but that by changing her appearance she will improve her overall professional and romantic portfolio. “You’re not going to achieve with how you’re looking now,” Trinny explains. Susannah chimes in, “You’ve got to have the balls to be feminine.” These combined comments—one about professionalism, the other about gender, both about forms of power—make clear that Saira’s assets and obligations are predicated on a look that indicates work and bedroom savvy. Though Trinny and Susannah do not overtly address Saira’s race, they enact the imperialistic rhetoric in their survey, critique, and alteration of Saira’s appearance and style choices. What Not to Wear is somewhat unique for its insistence on psychologizing makeover subjects. In the 360-degree mirror, Susannah and Trinny together underscore that Saira has been remiss in her care of the self. Their critique ultimately brings Saira to tears. “What has brought you to this point?” asks Susannah, her hands on both of Saira’s shoulders. “Not caring enough,” Saira answers. “Not giving enough of a damn about what I look like. Not realizing how important it is and how it diminishes me.” She begins to cry. “I’m ashamed.” Saira turns, attempting to exit the trap of the mirror, but Susannah and Trinny, who stand blocking the exit, stop her, turning Saira back to face her own image. “You know what we have in common?” Trinny asks her rhetorically before replying to her own question, “we are both very controlling. Sometimes it’s a hell of a release to let somebody else take control.” Saira nods in agreement, still tearful. “Clearly I need to be taken in hand,” she says tremulously. Susannah and Trinny’s forcible containment leads to Saira’s surrender to their opinions. Saira concludes that she must change in order to better assimilate into a sensibility predicated on sexual provocativeness and professional competence, two values very much filtered through Western notions of race, class, and gender. In this episode, and on most others, after their style scrutiny Trinny and Susannah turn to the body, forcing the makeover participants to scrutinize objectively their shape and learn to accept it so they can realistically work with the combination of assets and debts it offers. Turning the body into a ledger sheet to be scrutinized is in some ways a practical strategy premised on the desire to claim an objective viewing position outside the body, but it also evokes a chattel economy where racialized bodies under the gaze are assessed for market value. The body itself is not bad, Susannah and Trinny tell the candidate, “You don’t like your tummy. Yes, it’s untoned. So what, that’s so easy to hide with clothing.” Their combined rational assessment of the body is in many ways underscored across the makeover Makeover Nation  ·  75

genre, because, without exception, the makeover partakes in a solutionbased economy. Experts will detect no flaw that cannot be addressed and remedied by what they have to offer.30 If it is a style show, clothes will be the solution. If it is a plastic surgery show, then alteration of the body will save the day. If it is a home design show, then an interior decorator has the magic answer. If it is a home renovation show, then steam shovels lead to enlightenment. Even in the very rare cases where more insidious and psychological problems are featured, such as in Starting Over where women retreat for a series of weeks to work on long-term problems like debt management or recovering from sexual abuse, makeovers never throw in the towel. And if on Starting Over or Made the makeover subject does not always achieve the exact objective that starts the transformation process, she or he is always better for having attempted to bring about change. As shown at the beginning of this chapter, there are no rides unpimpable; there are no hopeless cases in Makeover Nation. What we have is an optimistic, solution-based economy where success is guaranteed, though, of course, it is predicated on whitened and Westernized values. Though makeover methods often require the humiliation of transforming subjects, the end-product of heightened happiness and self-esteem makes abjection only a means to an end. Saira’s case also suggests that suffering is a necessary technology of the self that can activate self-governance, neoliberalism’s influence here indicated in the makeover’s valuation of products over production, profits over ancillary costs. Though Saira appears radiant and grateful at the end of her episode, the road to her triumph runs through humiliation. These instances of hu­ miliation underline the notion that the best way for her to come to grips with the reality of her poor choices is to be forcibly confronted with them. Back in the surrounding mirror, the goal is not only to make Saira objectively view the raw material of her body, it is to give Trinny and Susannah the supreme authority to expose her, undress her, lift her shirt to reveal Saira’s stomach and bra-clad breasts. As Saira resists being exposed, the camera pans in for a close up, Susannah and Trinny’s white hands in marked contrast to Saira’s brown stomach. Saira nervously laughs, yet she is clearly uncomfortable. Trinny pulls on the neck of Saira’s black t-shirt, ripping it off her shoulders, while Susannah pulls the new loose neckline down to reveal Saira’s full breasts. “We’re seeing a woman,” they both say, satisfied. After this moment, Saira faces the camera in private reflection, the camera in tight close-up, the film black and white to underscore the in76  ·  Chapter One

timate documentary nature of the scene. “I think it took that,” she says looking away. “As much as it pains me to say it, they were right. I had to be knocked down as far as I possibly could go for me to realize how crap I really look.” The logic here reinforces that the violation Saira experiences is for her own good. Humiliation is the price she has paid for her negligent self-care. Susannah and Trinny’s version of tough love creates a transformation process that strips makeover citizens of their rights of bodily privacy and emotional stability, exposing them to the scrutinizing and colonizing gaze of both expert and audience. Though this is done in the name of giving her something solid on which to build her selfconfidence—“You do have good boobs!”—and though Saira herself justifies the degradation because of the knowledge it has brought her, the entire scene smacks not only of neoliberal practices but of totalitarianism. Here a form of unreasonable violence enacted by white knowing experts on an “ignorant” non-white body is cast as a necessary intervention that will offer Saira the gateway to professional and personal success and consequent admission into Makeover Nation.

Subject Formation for the Nation Given that television makeovers work to articulate values of Americanness and to establish the concept of the good citizen by imposing a neoliberal rationality on de-valued bodies, an argument could easily be made that makeovers are exclusively technologies of objectification, domination, and power. Or one could deduce that makeover subjects are obliged to trade away substantive features of democratic citizenship in order to qualify for the new, degraded terms of citizenship we see modeled on these shows. It is not my aim here to dispute such ideas, but instead, to heed Kathy Davis’s call for a dialectic of power that complicates binaries of control and subjugation, of the idealized and the degraded. Davis argues, particularly as it concerns beauty culture, that “we need to abandon simplified oppression models once and for all. Women are not merely the victims of the terrors visited upon them by the beauty system. On the contrary, they partake in its delights as well” (“Cultural Dopes” 30).31 Since makeovers idealize citizenship even as they restrict who might be eligible for it, it is probably more accurate to surmise that the contested represented forms of citizenship modeled on makeover tv are part of an historical push and pull of identity practices. All who gain entrance to Makeover Nation, we must remember, are promised unfettered citizenship rights that extend Makeover Nation  ·  77

beyond legal promises to affective dividends. In its discourse, the makeover actually reclaims and extends promises uttered in the Declaration of Independence for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (and confident well-being uttered through such statements as “I can do anything now!”). And yet, I’m not sure how the concept of free choice might apply to the example of Saira. Though she is seemingly a willing participant in Trinny and Susannah’s makeover project, and indeed, she sighs with relief when selected, it is hard to watch her weeping in the 360-degree mirror, frantically pulling her shirt down as the experts insist on raising it. Saira may well have freely chosen to put herself in their hands, however, that choice, as Susan Bordo cautions, is often inflected through “intersecting and repressive discourses of feminine [and racial] inferiority” (qtd. in Fisher and Davis 13). The complicated power dynamics attendant on transformation have led Kathy Davis to speculate that, as it concerns cosmetic surgery, women’s choices can be simultaneously “knowledgeable and rational,” even as they reproduce “a complex of power structures which construct the female body as inferior and in need of change” (“Cultural Dopes” 31). In the issue of choice we vividly see the tension between the logics and illogics of makeover mandates. When the matter of choice is extended to debates about neoliberal citizenship, tensions continue to escalate. For instance, drawing from Michel Foucault and Nikolas Rose, Laurie Ouellette has argued that reality tv works through a neoliberal premise that offers a form of “cultural training” through which to govern “indirectly in the name of ‘lifestyle maximization,’ ‘free choice,’ and ‘personal responsibility’ ” (233). She does not see this, how­ ever, as leading to a form of eroded democracy but to a mode of citizenship that “complement[s] the privatization of public life, the collapse of the welfare state, and most important, the discourse of individual choice and personal responsibility” (232). Since neoliberal citizens are imagined and con­ structed as autonomous free agents, as idealized informed consumers, their conduct is perceived as being the result of their desire rather than as the consequence of an authoritative and hierarchical power network. The overall logic here absolves the nation-state or larger cultural polity of any guilt for or complicity in the pain or misfortune experienced by the individual. When citizens within a collective have free choice, what they choose is also imagined as free. “Those with ethnic skin” simply become “whitened” through a neoliberal deracination that suppresses difference in its desperation to assert equality. 78  ·  Chapter One

Though clearly, as it concerns these motivating values, the choice game is rigged, I do not mean to accuse makeover participants of having a false consciousness. Indeed, the very notion of false consciousness oversim­ plifies the complicated power dynamics invested in desire, body image, and self-worth. As close observation of makeover moments poignantly suggest, both pain and euphoria, antipathy and desire, resentment and gratitude contribute to the self-making of makeovers. If television editing in many ways works to smooth out these contradictions, we must look to the margins where it is possible to see the uneven edges of ideology’s cover. Ironically, as I show in the next chapter, it is through the very process of looking itself, through the spectatorial surveillance built into the machinery of makeovers, that these contradictions become visible. tv makeovers, overall, are fueled by what defines the imagined Ameri­ can citizen: autonomy, free-will, upward-mobility, self-determination, self-construction, and meritocracy. Concomitant to these more normative values of Americanness, makeovers endorse new dividends: positive selfesteem, optimism, and enthusiastic visuality. Combined, these produce the good citizen—one whose insides and outsides are in perfect alignment, one whose home spaces signify interiorities of interest and imagination, one whose female or male body evokes “appropriate” gender and sex information, one who is not glaringly marked as raced or working class, one who chooses “freely” to shape the individual body as a reflection of the normative social body because to do otherwise will result in deserved exclusion, misery, anonymity, and obscurity. Entrance to Makeover Nation requires that Before-bodies experience abjection, anxiety, and the willingness to change. Citizenship for After-bodies, by contrast, confers confidence, glamour, and potential celebrity. If the cost of passage to Makeover Nation is the public exposure of one’s lifelong humiliation, subjects seem more than willing to pay the fare, the rewards of belonging far outweighing the pain of isolation and critique. Makeover Nation stands as a symbolic promised land. In similar fashion to the Statue of Liberty, Makeover Nation beckons: Give me your tired, your poor, your cellulited and your wrinkled, the cluttered and the ramshackle, the huddled and ugly masses, yearning to breathe free.

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2 visible subjects Economies of Looking, Pedagogies of Shame, Sights of Resistance

Real results. The kind that let everyone you love see the new you, the real you. —Nutrisystem commercial You know, first impressions are everything. —Designers, Rock Solid I love What Not to Wear . . . it’s funny now how I walk around in public pointing out who should go on it. . . . —DemonChild, March 21, 2005 The one person that concerns me is Dr. Rey [on Dr. 90210], the little brunette Doctor that is a little ocd. —Gaby, July 20, 2004

In the previous chapter I argued that makeovers esteem idealized citizensubjects who are created to take up residence in Makeover Nation. If we attend to the patterns playing out across the many programs that comprise the makeover genre, we can conclude that the creation of such citizens is predicated on neoliberalism, or the limitation of state-sponsored social networks in favor of free market-driven capitalism, and Americanness, or the idealization of qualities, such as optimism and confidence, that are associated with, though not specific to, the United States. Both neoliberalism and Americanness influence makeover outcomes, particularly

since After-bodies are infused with the qualities ostensibly demanded by a democratic free market: self-sufficiency, rationality, upward mobility, gender conformity, racial anonymity, and heterosexual competence. Included in the construction of the self-as-citizen is the makeover subject’s new appreciation of being looked at, basking in a visuality she or he once avoided, the gaze no longer perceived as objectifying but as a tool of empowerment. Along with the subject’s recently acquired belief that, to quote many subjects on various programs, “I deserve to be looked at!,” comes a newly forged capacity to regulate the excessive emotionalism that formerly led to hopelessness, depression, and anxiety. Makeover outcomes not only build a subject who believes the gaze is merited, they construct that subject as rational, psychologically grounded, optimistic, and happy. This reinforces the idea that those who resist the makeover refuse not only status as a citizen in Makeover Nation but also status as a self, since the makeover suggests that to hide from the gaze is automatically to live a miserable and emotionally unstable life bereft of selfhood. In this chapter, I attend more closely to how makeovers rely on the device of looking in the service of sustaining the idealized citizen-subject. I argue that the surveillance network makeovers employ to construct the self-ascitizen can function as a form of shame-induced governmentality, but also that visual monitoring in makeovers is coded as a form of social care. Using what I call affective domination, the makeover relies both on shaming and love-power to accomplish its transformations. Additionally, since there are multiple modalities of seeing and being-seen built into these narratives, the makeover allows for multiple viewing positions. This means that Before-critiques can be focalized through style gurus and home designers, but they can also be more abstractly directed by the camera, the voiceover narrator, and the subject. The pedagogy of visual criticism established by the makeover sometimes spills out into the extradiegetic space of viewer engagement, where individuals register their pleasure or dissatisfaction with the makeover mandates they observe on television through a thirdspace, a public dialogue carried out on web–discussion boards.

Visible Shame Television makeovers are all about the image. And in that image, there is much to feel bad about. Unlike the more subtle life transformations brought about by education or maturation, mediated makeovers offer a condensed and immediate narrative where Before- and After-bodies are 82  ·  Chapter Two

put in sharp visual (and emotionally painful) proximity to each other. Most makeover shows spend precious textual time on an elongated Before-moment that displays the shameful pre-made-over body and demonstrates why a makeover is not only desirable but necessary. Makeover subjects often weep in intimate close-ups, explaining that they have been mistreated and ill-loved due to their looks. Even on shows where the physical body is projected onto cars, dogs, or home spaces, the shame of Before serves as a motivating rationale for the intervention offered by the program itself, as we can see on a program like Trick My Truck where the Chrome Shop Mafia ridicules a tractor trailer used to haul a Vietnam War memorial: “Look! A seventeen wheeler,” or in response to the owner’s y2k insignia, “y2k? It should say y2j for junk!” Though makeovers convert shabby rooms to chic, dilapidated vehicles to flashy, flabby bodies to tight, and dingy smiles to bright, across the makeover canon the perpetual threat posed by the shame of a return to Before manifests in an ongoing tension between Before and After. Even given the obvious narrative function that After-moments provide as testimonials of transformative success, frequent reminders of change accomplish another function: the After highlights the dreadfulness of the Before. In makeover logic, no post-made-over body can ever be considered separate from its pre-made-over form, a fact evidenced through the information presented in images on the screen: two-shots, dissolves, cuts, and split-screens of Before- and After-bodies punctuate every type of makeover show. Shaming predominates in these depictions. Though shame does not function as a universal element in all makeover shows, it is an insistent theme in most, particularly those that emphasize physical appearance.1 On 10 Years Younger, as I noted in chapter 1, the makeover subject is made to stand in a plexiglass box, while 100 strangers pass by and offer critical commentary on the subject’s age and appearance. On What Not to Wear and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the pre-makeover moment of shame on parade functions as an opportunity to ridicule and humiliate the makeover subject, all seemingly meant as good-natured teasing. On America’s Next Top Model, Janice Dickinson, the “bitchy” judge, critiques contestant Kesse, saying a photo of her “looks like she escaped from a mental institution.” She continues, “You look deranged. Your arms look amputeed, your legs look amputeed, and it looks like you have a penis, I’m sorry!” On Style by Jury, a panel of the makeover subject’s “peers” pass judgment on what sorts of first impressions the person offers, often commenting that the (usually female) subject looks “homeless” or “completely lazy.” Visible Subjects  ·  83

These staged moments of visible shame frequently involve friends and family who participate in the “outing” of the unstylish or ugly individual. “Let’s be honest,” says a makeover subject’s coworker, “she looks like a thrift store just exploded.” Gareth Palmer observes that makeover shows quite often rehearse a logic whereby the family inspires change and signals success (“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” 167). On 10 Years Younger an eleven-year-old boy confesses about his mother, “I’m embarrassed to be seen with her.” The mother and the host nod tearfully in unison, fully aware of why her dowdy appearance should bring this boy shame, a humiliation-turned-crime underscored by the episode’s title: “Guilty of Needing a Makeover.” Whether offered by intimates, strangers, or style gurus, assessments tend to be detailed and harsh, destroying the palliative that the ugly person is his or her own worst critic. Makeover subjects are often left with the unsettling realization that their internalized invective pales in comparison to what others think of them. These shows announce: the world is watching, and it is not pleased with what it sees. A show like 10 Years Younger actually works according to a quite sophisticated four-part viewing pedagogy in the Before-segment of the show that serves to complicate the duality of gazer and gazed at. At the outset, makeover subjects catalogue their body flaws. “I hate my teeth,” says one subject. “My ears look like Dumbo.” “My skin is too wrinkled and spotty.” Following their lead, the camera narrows in on these shame-saturated parts of the body, grabbing them in close-ups and creating a composite image on the screen, comprised of a collage of the parts of the face most hated by the subject. This internalized sense of appearance is quickly followed by guided looking when the show’s host asks leading questions of passersby, like “what makes her look older?” Internalized and guided looking fuse when subjects must listen to the critiques of strangers and then examine a series of old photos where the subject appeared significantly younger. Finally, there is imposed looking, when the show offers the subject an image of how she or he will look ten years later, using a camera trick they call Scientific Age Progression.2 The subject has already willingly volunteered for a makeover, yet these modes of seeing serve to underscore both shame and urgency. As the host of 10 Years Younger says about Milene, “she’s been neglecting her looks, and people are beginning to notice.” A show like How to Look Good Naked hardly reverses this dynamic. Naked, like 10 Years Younger, also asks strangers to evaluate subjects. In this case, they look at an image of the female subject’s full body (absent her head), dressed only in bra and underwear and projected onto the side of a build84  ·  Chapter Two

ing. Invariably, strangers rate the woman high, saying she has a “great rack” or “super legs.” The host, Carson Kressley from Queer Eye, uses this information to counter the subject’s diseased self-regard, instead leading her, and, the logic goes, the women who are watching, to a “perception revolution.” In a formulaic feature of the program, Carson follows the “lady on the building” moment with a scene in which the subject stands before mirrors and slowly disrobes, invariably crying, covering herself, or biting her lip as she deals with the competing vulnerabilities of her own eyes, Carson’s gaze, the camera’s observation, and the viewer’s access to her body. “Is it possible,” says Carson when looking at Natasha’s “small and narrow butt,” that “your perception is a little skewed?” To drive home the point, subjects are asked to place themselves in a line of women, also clad in bra and underwear, and also possessing the body flaw that most concerns the subject. Without exception, subjects position themselves at the “bad” end of the scale—next to a nameless woman, almost always African American, who “really” has wide hips, a big butt, etc. Carson forcibly moves the subject, re-educating her vision so that she can see she is not as bad as she had believed, commenting to Deanna that she has a “teeny tiny little waist.” These series of interventions, however, serve only to shift the woman’s place on the scale, not to eradicate the scale itself. Looking good naked, apparently, can only happen in the context of a perception revolution that makes it clear that there are still heavier or more saggy women than the transforming subject herself. Altering her way of seeing requires reinforcing the larger paradigm, thus allowing for movement within a context of stable and unchanging values about bodies and their visual signification. Across the makeover canon, the motivating necessity that initiates transformations as well as the “shock and awe” of reveals reinforce that at all times the body and its behavior are seen and judged. The makeover intervention, as so imagined, serves not to avert the gaze but to convert judgments from negative to positive. We can, again, see this visual economy most pointedly illustrated in 10 Years Younger when the postmakeover subject re-enters the plexiglass box so that a new group of strangers can assess the participant’s age and affirm the subject and the show’s transformative success. Though responses are edited to be universally enthusiastic and supportive with such comments as, “She just had a baby?! Wow!” the point remains the same: The gaze is always present, and shame falls on those who do not work hard enough to be pleasing to the gazer. As a fitness coach on a commercial for Bally’s Fitness, which ran during Extreme Makeover: Wedding Visible Subjects  ·  85

Bodies calibrated and on display. How to Look Good Naked. “Deana Spence,” January 25, 2008. “Natasha and Juanita,” January 19, 2008.

Edition, reminds viewers, the reason to get a health club membership is because, “I’m not the only person looking at you.” So here it’s not enough that we imagine characters on television as having eyes that can critique viewers; these characters warn us that others are looking as well. In addition to their visual dereliction, Before-bodies are guilty of another crime, excessive “negative” emotionalism. Certain emotions like elation and joy are mandatory in post-reveal moments, but pejorative connotations attach to most pre-made-over persons’ emotional lives since Before-states are depicted as pathologically downcast, depressed, insecure, and morose. Often complicitous in subjects’ suffering, makeover shows ask participants to describe the pain they’ve experienced, inviting the viewer to gaze at images of the Before-body that fill television screens. On Extreme Makeover LaPaula notes about this form of exposure, “I don’t want my husband to see me like this, and now I’m showing all of America.” The shame of exposure is equally experienced by, for example, the Liora family, whom Clean House deems as having the “messiest house in America.” Reliving the pain inflicted on them by their “aesthetic deformities,” design deficiencies, or cluttered homes plays as a form of moral disorder that signals imperiled selfhood. Scored with appropriate mood music and explained by often hyperbolic voiceover narration, these images of subjects’ suffering serve to establish shame, which, in turn, mark subjects as targets or victims whose psychic and emotional abjection can be neutralized through transformation. It may be necessary to offer a reminder that these are constructed sto­ ries about shame, which may or may not depict actual feelings experienced either by participants or viewers. In this case, we must understand that the reality subject functions much as does a fictional character. Though media ethnographers are working on reception studies that might indicate the degree to which audiences actually internalize the messages conveyed through these reality tales, from a narratological point of view, it is clear that the makeover spins a story of shame and redemption, which, much like a fairytale, instructs readers even as it cloaks itself in make-believe. “Real” or not, the subject’s level of emotional unease is presented by the makeover genre as reasonable and justified given the burdens these subjects bear. In fact, depression or despair function as one more compelling piece of evidence necessitating a makeover, in turn creating a causal Before-to-After narrative. As it concerns emotionalism, what interests me is not so much the “bad” feelings that motivate the makeover, but the suggestion that only Visible Subjects  ·  87

certain emotions are acceptable during and after makeover transforma­ tions. These emotions include a relentless cheerfulness and “positive attitude” and code mostly female recipients as conventionally feminine subjects who are visually attractive, socially pleasing, and cheerfully subordinate. Those subjects who remain depressed or cynical and who do not express “positive” affect are targeted for increased shame through heightened surveillance footage and one-on-one confrontations with experts. After-moments are similarly structured around shame and spectacle in the service of visual and emotional regulation. Even on shows like Pimp My Ride, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and Ambush Makeover, where makeover subjects (and style agents) become so overwhelmed by happiness that they swoon or hyperventilate, programs set up a taxonomy of acceptable affect. Prior to their makeovers, subjects can and should be miserable. During and after, they must be elated, tears signifying only happiness, while anxiety, worry, fatigue, and depression are banished. And yet, though makeover subjects universally express pleasure, their delight is visually and discursively contrasted with their earlier misery. “Remember how you looked when you came to The Swan program?” the host asks Rachel, in the process reminding the viewer of the pre-made-over Rachel. As if this verbal clue is not enough, the image of an After-Rachel on the screen immediately dissolves to a picture of a plumper Before-Rachel, standing morose in shapeless grey underwear. The host asks, “You remember you called yourself average? How would you describe yourself now?” Rachel, fifty pounds thinner, with shiny auburn hair and seven surgical procedures, is what the host calls a “full-blown bombshell.” Rachel describes herself in an incredulous delight that also voices her new sense of self. “I’m not that girl,” she says, distancing her experience of self from her Before-body. “I’m beautiful.” I will argue that in shaming the subjects, these shows set up an equal, albeit tacit, critique of the style experts, however one of the overall effects of public censure is to accelerate fears of being looked at and judged. Rather than critiquing the gaze (which the eye of the camera embodies), the shows affirm it, suggesting overall that one must conform in both appearance and affect to more fully please the critical eye, and to thus have value within the visual economy. This heightens the neoliberal logics that percolate through makeover discourses, since as Torin Monahan notes, “surveillance and security are important components of emerging neoliberal sensibilities and structures” (9). The argument goes like this: in the culture of spectacle, being out of the gaze is neither desirable nor 88  ·  Chapter Two

permissible. Both freedom and market rewards require visual subject status, which finds its genesis in the approving gaze. Kristy, a makeover subject on Extreme Makeover, makes this same point in her own words: “The only thing that ever held me back was my looks. I don’t have that to worry about now. So, I’m free.” Since Kristy’s affective behavior now signifies confidence, rather than insecurity and anxiety, the voiceover narrator reinforces that Kristy’s “freedom” comes as a consequence of her new capacity to be looked at with approval. He intones, “Kristy, at long last, as pretty as a picture” while the viewer hears a camera shutter sound effect and witnesses a freeze-frame portrait image of Kristy and her husband smiling on the screen. The (ill)logic suggests that as long as Kristy and other transforming subjects desire to be seen and please the gaze, they are free; and yet, if a woman relies on satisfying the viewer in order to achieve freedom and thus, we assume, subject status, her dependency precludes her from claiming the autonomy and self-determination generally ascribed to selfhood.

Shame as a Spectator Sport The emphasis on video surveillance through such shows as Big Brother, The Real World, or Solitary has led to an almost consensus opinion among academics that reality tv functions as an agent of governmentality.3 As Gareth Palmer argues, reality tv, in its use of shame, offers viewers “ways to patrol ourselves in line with various authorities’ choices but also in more ambivalent and complex ways to help us rethink our behaviour” (“Video” 1). In a Foucauldian sense, governmentality, as Nikolas Rose reminds us, “concerns not only practices of the government but also practices of the self ” typically communicated through tacit instruction (“Government and Control” 186).4 Makeovers thus enact a regulatory pedagogy that teaches subjects through unspoken means how to conduct themselves, so that if I, as a viewer at home, see someone ridiculed in a plexiglass box due to her wrinkles and sun spots, I fully understand that I must work to enact a makeover of myself so as to avert the censorious gaze I’ve seen demonstrated on television. By reminding the mass population that others may be watching, television creates a disciplinary technology through which the population is induced to govern itself. This notion of the gaze creates a logic that both accentuates and minimizes the force of looking, since it emphasizes the shame of being looked at disapprovingly while also suggesting that transformation alleviates scrutiny. Yet, as I’ve noted earlier, Visible Subjects  ·  89

the gaze is neither redirected nor re-educated but simply given some­ thing it can look at in admiration rather than disgust. Foucault’s theory of the Panopticon suggests that those who observe hold a position of superior power; classic gaze theory underscores this power dynamic and genders the binary so that the looker holds masculine agency, while those who are looked at are feminized objects. And yet, when the world is watching, those being looked at have a certain power since they can attract, bask in, and, at times, manipulate the gaze. The psychological makeover show Starting Over, for instance, puts six women in a posh Los Angeles home and follows their private encounters with each other, life coaches, and psychologists, working under a truism that the camera is always watching. Narrative interest guides the seeing eye and thus occasionally affords pockets of privacy. Certain events are always shown—like board of review, where women must make a case for their continued occupancy in the Starting Over House. Other elements of everyday life are never shown—from the mundane (laundry) to the sexual (masturbation or more). The important point is that though there may be zones of privacy where the gaze cannot see, shows relentlessly depict subject-defining moments as occurring only within the narratives they air. Notions of viewing are further complicated since most television makeover applications require that subjects or nominating friends submit an audition video that makes a visual case for why Before should be made After. Though a solace-seeking contestant on Celebrity Fit Club complains after she escapes to a forest for privacy, only to discover, “they got cameras all over these damn woods,” the dynamics of gazing position these shows as caring authorities rather than as exploitive paparazzi. During their transformations, many subjects speak into confidential personal camcorders, a representational trope that heightens notions of their willing participation and “authentic” conversions. In this context, to-be-looked-at-ness begins with the subject, a subject who usually enters willingly and knowingly into the ocular economy, mindful of the exchange of personal privacy for mediated transformation. Since, as Palmer notes, shaming “speaks very much to our social self as well as to our private sense of who we are,” surveillance that brings about humiliation works both as a method of policing individual behavior and as articulation of collective expectations (“Video” 3). As a consequence, we cannot easily describe makeover subjects who allow to-be-looked-at-ness to be written on their bodies as wholly powerless, victimized, and feminized, nor can we presume they are alone in their abjection. 90  ·  Chapter Two

“I see all, I know all” “This is just like Big Brother,” Katie announces when What Not to Wear hosts, Stacy and Clinton, show up on Katie’s doorstep in the Bronx, surprising her with secret footage that documents her status as a “walking fashion disaster.” Whether Katie references the Reality tv show Big Brother or Orwell’s totalitarian overseer in his dystopic 1984, her metaphor accurately establishes the kind of surveillance culture operative in a good number of makeover shows. As I’ve already suggested, secret footage often provides evidence in elaborate style-on-trial scenarios that make clear to subjects that they have been found guilty of crimes. As Rose observes, these “strategies of regulation” that comprise our “modern experience of ‘power’ ” connect entities “deemed ‘political’ with appara­ tuses that shape and manage individual and collective conduct in relation to norms and objectives but are constituted as ‘non-political’ ” (“Governing” 37–38). Under the ruse of capturing criminals, secret footage cameras function as instruments of authoritative governance. Shaquille O’Neal warns his chubby teen weight-loss participants, “I see all, I know all.” Given the number of shows that verbally play with metaphors of gov­ ernment authority through their titles—Fashion Police, Operation Style, Mis­ sion: Organization, Garden Police, Arresting Design, Style Court, Style by Jury—or through their component parts—victims and accomplices on How Do I Look?, an “aging 9-1-1” on 10 Years Younger, swat teams and stake outs on Debbie Travis’ Facelift, marks and perpetrators on Overhaulin’—secret footage videos appear to function as a policing tool of the citizenry. In this case, quite ironically, the so-called democratic principles built into Makeover Nation mandate conformity and regulation.5 Just as we saw in the discussion on citizenship and Makeover Nation, shame establishes the criterion for inclusion and exclusion by “promoting a model of social cohesion which works by excluding outsiders, cheats, and fraudsters,” thus creating a community where citizens report to “authorities after operating covert surveillance in those spaces where the agencies of the state are absent” (Palmer “Video,” 10). Such communal surveillance is as evident on Garden Police, where neighbors suggest their relief about the makeover of an “unsafe” yard filled with vicious rose bushes that are apparently lying in wait to impale young children, as it is on Made, where transformation experts enlist the help of spies to send e-mails reporting on one makeover subject’s errant tomboyisms. Visible Subjects  ·  91

Cruelty, disguised as humor, operates as the secondary aspect of visual surveillance. While Clinton and Stacy watch secret footage of Katie, they comment on her “pendulous girls” and large bottom. When looking at an image of her polyester-clad backside, Clinton jokes that he’d like to hold up a sheet of tracing paper and make a rubbing of her cellulite. Later, Katie is invited (required) to gather with her friends and watch segments of her secret footage. When the image of her dimpled backside clad in curve and crack revealing tan polyester comes on screen (an image that the viewer will see five times), Katie’s mouth falls open and she begins to cry. “There is more butt there than I realized.” This moment of recognition leads to humiliation and permits Stacy to offer her style expertise. The problem is not Katie’s size, which Stacy says is “not that big,” but her clothes’ “cheap fabric” that does not enhance Katie’s body. Indeed, Katie realizes she’s a size 8 rather than a size 10 when she learns not to “shop in cheap stores,” underscoring the class mandates built into achieving visible selfhood. Discrepancies in power and status dynamics constitute a tertiary site for surveillance and control. On plastic surgery shows, the mostly male surgeons scrutinize and touch the mostly female subjects’ shame-saturated bodies.6 With the doctor, we are invited to hold the flab of stomachs and thighs, to see through his eyes the sagging, uneven, and small breasts, to recoil at unfeminine noses and “cave man like” eyebrows. The doctor’s gaze instructs the audience’s eye, training us to see flaws and to give language to “disfigurement” and gender normativity. As Anne Balsamo has observed, plastic surgery creates a “disciplinary gaze” that regulates the “unruly female body by first fragmenting it into isolated parts—a face, hair, legs, breasts—and then redefining those parts as inherently flawed and pathological” (208). In this case, the televisual gaze heightens the visual tutorial introduced by the surgeon or stylists and accentuates the sense that inherent embodied flaws signify a femininity in crisis. These moments when the body’s flaws are put on display cast makeover subjects as not only shameful but grotesque; a conceit of degradation that similarly positions the makeover intervention as nothing short of miraculous. As so framed, these scenes illustrate the rightness of disciplining the subject’s errant choices. We are led to believe in the case of Katie that prior to Stacy and Clinton’s intervention, her bad choices ran toward cheap, bigpatterned, “nip and tush” revealing clothes. The style gurus’ stated goal mandates dressing Katie in a way that takes the “emphasis off the booty.” Their ideological objective, however, writes a version of appropriateness on Katie’s body that makes her appear upwardly mobile, self-aware, and 92  ·  Chapter Two

“sophisticated,” all while teaching Katie how to duplicate their new style standards. The camera thus functions as an important textbook in this process of visual pedagogy, taking Katie’s point of view outside of herself long enough so that she can be taught to see and discern in new ways. Her new-found knowledge of both her own body and of consumer choices lead her to develop a “new respect for her appearance” that, in turn, pleases the eyes of strangers and friends alike. Though Katie initially balks at the idea of altering her signature “Katie style,” she, like all other makeover participants across the genre, sees the error of her ways, a conversion process aided by the evidence depicted through images of her corpulent and cellulited butt. Many other style and body shows work in a similar manner, using footage to make a case for the Before-body’s shame that must be rectified through new capacities to see. On Brand New You, for instance, subjects detail their intense dissatisfaction with their looks and bodies. On the screen we see subjects’ bodies and faces, their imperfections accentuated with arrows pointing to parts of the body, such as the wrinkled forehead or the pudgy stomach, while explanatory on-screen labels announce dehydration or binge eating. As indicated in the following images, the Before-body’s imperfections not only point out the subject’s lack of self-management, but her size-A breasts signify her less-than-perfect measure of femininity. As with all plastic surgery shows, Brand New You accentuates the process of critical visual assessment when doctors use purple magic markers to indicate “deformities” and “flaws” that they will correct through surgery, the body here functioning literally as a text. Inscribing the Before-body is, of course, a necessary part of the surgical process, but given the truncation of time that occurs on most surgical makeovers (hours of surgery reduced to seconds), the camera’s fascination and consequent devotion of narrative time (usually several minutes) to the magic-marking of patients serves to accentuate the Before-body’s location as a spectacle of abnormality. One can see another example of visual pedagogy in class-based etiquette formats. For instance, in a thought-piece written for Britain’s Daily Mail, makeover subject Clare Randall, who appeared in season one of itv’s Ladette to Lady (rebroadcast in the United States on Sundance), explained to readers that it was the shame of seeing her behavior on the show that facilitated her transformation into a lady. She writes, “Two years ago, I was a tv star and had achieved a level of fame most people only dream Visible Subjects  ·  93

Labeling the Before-body’s defects. Brand New You. “Nicola,” September 4, 2005.

about—the only problem was that I was famous throughout Britain for being loud, drunken and ‘sluttish’.” The “penny dropped,” she reveals, when she was called a “slut in front of five million viewers” (qtd. in Joseph). It is not only shame, but building the subject’s self-scrutiny that assures transformation and thus selfhood.

Surveillance as Care: Affective Domination Trinny: “What we see, really, is how sad it is that someone with your fabulous shape and beautiful face has let yourself go so much.” Susannah: “So you’re projecting an image which isn’t true to yourself.” —Making Over America with Trinny and Susannah

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Marking the Site of Surgery. Brand New You. “Nicola,” September 4, 2005. Dr. 90210. “The Gilded Age,” Amy, October 22, 2007.

The use of footage to provide evidence of ugliness, bad choices, mismanagement, and error predominates across the broader swathe of makeover programming. Shows based on transformation that might not initially be considered makeovers—Are You Hot?, Nanny 911, Supernanny, Shalom in the Home, Dog Whisperer, One Week to Save Your Marriage, Intervention, How Clean is Your House?—all rely on visible evidence to make the case for expert intervention. The Right Fit even announces its nutrition makeover through the words, “lunches will be looked at.” Frequently, particularly on child-rearing shows like Supernanny or Nanny 911, footage can be quite condemnatory, showing images of impatient and sometimes abusive parents and even resorting to what Supernanny terms “the confession cam.” Visible Subjects  ·  95

However, surveillance tapes are not meant to damn subjects but rather to show them the error of their ways. It is only, for example, when Shalom in the Home’s Rabbi Shmuley takes a mother and father to his video command center (a large silver trailer parked in their driveway) that they can watch footage of their family dynamics and, with his instruction, perceive the error of their ways. Visual evidence positions the camera as not only an agent of authoritarian oversight but as a critical tool for self-visibility and awareness. Surveillance footage in this respect serves a caring function, since video images are meant to offer subjects visible evidence that will first shame and then shatter Before-ignorance, thus leading to Afterenlightenment. Perhaps the best model of surveillance-as-shame and as-caring can be found in It Takes a Thief, where two reformed house thieves wander through suburban neighborhoods in search of a house that they will pretend to rob. After tutoring viewers in the details of how to visually case a potential house to raid, the thieves then stage a robbery, which they film. While one thief carries out the crime, the other sits outside in a van, watching the footage and describing events to the audience. After the family discovers the burglary, recovers from the shock of the theft, and feels the appropriate shameful dismay due to their security lapses, the thieves play back the house-breaking footage to them, offering visual evidence for why it is imperative that the thieves, now reverting back to hosts, oversee “an allout security makeover” on the residence. Perhaps not surprisingly, such a makeover typically requires installing upwards of fifteen closed-circuit cameras within and around the home. To recap this plethora of gazing, we have camera-wielding experts and thieves who violate private spaces in the name of encouraging homeowners to make the sites of the domestic safer by installing a multiple-thousand-dollar cctv system, all shown to us through our own tvs. Chastened subjects on this show express the same sort of euphoric statements that are seen on other makeover programs, though in this case they did not possess the self-scrutiny to recognize their imperiled vulnerability in their Before-state. The camera’s evidence offers not only shaming information but also affective reclamation: After-subjects feel joy because they now perceive the Before-danger that was previously invisible to them. The process established by the makeover sets up a logic whereby a combination of shame and love-power, what I call affective domination, serves as a disciplinary tool. Richard Brodhead has coined the term “disciplinary intimacy” to characterize a change in American antebellum attitudes to96  ·  Chapter Two

ward the use of corporal punishment in child rearing. Following Foucault, Brodhead notes a shift from an ancien regime, where the body was forcibly beaten or flogged in order to compel obedience, to a more interiorized regulation and surveillance of the subject by the subject him or herself. In a disciplinary regime structured through intimacy, Brodhead notes, a first feature “requires authority to put on a human face.” A second element is “a purposeful sentimentalization of the disciplinary relation” so that the child is not “surrounded with rules but bathed in ‘genial warmth and love’ ” (71). It is this “love-power” that has the authority to control behavior. “Enmeshing the child in strong bonds of love is the way authority introduces its charge to its imperatives and norms” (72). Brodhead thus notes that in this guise “love reveals itself as a mechanism . . . not for the mitigation of authority but really for the extension of its regulating hold” (73). We see in makeover programming a variant of disciplinary intimacy, since love-power cannot be asserted until docility is established, typically through public shaming and humiliation. As I’ve noted, most shows begin with the shame, offered visually through extended evidentiary movements that testify to the subject’s need for an intervention. The brutality of this process has been well documented, and marks the makeover as a site of what Bourdieu has termed “symbolic violence,” where holders of superior symbolic capital use the power conferred by that capital against those with markedly less social currency. Angela McRobbie characterizes Trinny and Susannah from the bbc’s What Not to Wear as acting out of class-based “cruelty and viciousness” (“Notes on What Not to Wear”); David Dimbleby has called them “two of the cruelest women on television” (qtd. in Palmer, “The New You,” 182). Gareth Palmer notes that it is “difficult to disagree with [Dimbleby’s] assessment” given the “verbal brutality” and “bullying” done by both of the style gurus. The bbc’s website even calls the two “fashion witches.”7 This form of quasi-cruelty is not limited to Trinny and Susannah. I am, after all, talking about a rarifed group of bossy, opinionated, and often harsh style agents who impose their opinions and judgments on those they are “helping” in frequently quite humiliating ways.8 From the Fab 5 of Queer Eye who often make jokes about brown underwear stains, to shows like Extreme Makeover and The Swan that portray their subjects as pathetic, to the relentless style experts of Ambush Makeover, both versions of What Not to Wear, and 10 Years Younger, where hosts stare incredulously and speak sarcastically about Before-bodies and their too tight, too loose, too big, too small, too outrageous, too timid, completely inappropriate, and ugly Visible Subjects  ·  97

style choices. It is clear, then, that humiliation is part of the necessary price that must be paid in order to undergo change. Shows even underscore the affective cost of transformations, as, for instance, when one of the hosts of Clean House asks his subject, “So, was the embarrassment worth it?” Equally important if more subtle, however, is the shift from shaming authority to love-power, for in almost every case I have studied, shows that begin with a premise of critique, shame, and objectification resolve with hugs and praise. Across the makeover canon, programs accomplish affective domination in a remarkably similar manner. Much like Brodhead discusses with disciplinary intimacy, style experts often create bonds of authority and affection by “put[ting] on a human face.” As soon as the subjects have agreed to participate in the process, style experts tend to drop the harsh criticisms (or at least the frequency of their barbs) and move into a new position of advocacy. They encourage participants to accept the truism that one must endure painful scrutiny to be transformed, or that one must invest greater time in and attention to appearance, through the currencies of self-efficacy and self-esteem, in order to reap greater social dividends. After shaming rituals, both the style experts and the overall narrative development of the show become more actively interested in knowing the subject more fully, leading to an increase in what is made to look like talk therapy. “What has brought you to this place?” asks the host of 10 Years Younger. “Tell me about your husband and kids,” says one of the “celebrity” style agents on Ambush Makeover. “You’ve been depressed. We want you to rock!” proclaims Jai on Queer Eye. Style agents gain their social authority as an extension of the community of friends and family that instigated the process of change in the first place, but they can function as a sort of super-friend-cum-therapist given their stable of psychologists, hairdressers, and make up artists, their access to exclusive boutiques and designers, and their mostly unlimited checkbook for furniture, family outings, Lasik eye surgery, or more elaborate cosmetic procedures. Subjects on each show become increasingly elated at what their new friends give them. On one episode of Extreme Makeover, an overwhelmed Kacie exclaimed “oh my god!” upwards of ten times in response not only to a new nose, new breasts, and a recontoured chin, but also to a designer dress courtesy of Richard Tyler, a hair cut from Sally Herschberger, and a fellowship to cosmetology school (not to mention love with James, another Extreme Makeover subject). It is Extreme Makeover’s sister show, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, that contains the most “oh my God!” moments. When people receive new houses courtesy of em: 98  ·  Chapter Two

he, those residences come fully stocked, often with new cars and college tuitions, causing recipients to scream or faint. Continual affirmations from the subject’s original friends and family legitimate the outcomes of affective domination. Their statements are further ratified by testimonials from the subject him or herself. All of these verbal affirmations are underscored by the most important, and telling, evidence: the subject’s new comfort and ease in front of the camera. Shows often end with made-over subjects striking poses, their voices playing over the images, “I’ve got a whole new feeling of confidence. I feel terrific! This is the best thing that has ever happened to me!” “Our work is done,” say the style agents with satisfaction, their own transformations from cranky witches to good friends to benevolent fairy godmothers (or superheroes) complete. And overall, viewers are left with the message of affective domination: to better one’s self, indeed to possess a self, both humiliation and love-power are required. This is perhaps why in a different articulation of makeover culture, Valerie Bertinelli, a celebrity spokesperson for Jenny Craig, can tell People that she experiences scrutiny by fans as a form of social care. She notes, “At the market, people will peek in my cart and say, ‘Just making sure you’re doing well.’ Everyone is supporting me” (“Halfway There!” 117).

Visible Evidence The reliance on visuality continues in After-moments, since at the end of every makeover I have studied there is a pointed reveal ceremony. There is considerable variance about how these reveals are structured and for whom they are intended—some, as in Extreme Makeover, Queer Eye, and Am­ bush Makeover, are staged for friends and family; others, as in The Swan and Brand New You, use mirrors to register the shock of transformation and put the made-over body on display for the experts and home audience, while after a personal mirror moment, 10 Years Younger places the subject back in the box so that a new group of 100 strangers can validate the success of the transformation. Many home shows situate their reveals as surprises only for the viewers since either homeowners helped do all the work or are, as in the case of Decorating Cents, never featured at all. Structuring the reveals in ways that require external validation (as corroborated by enthusiastic doctors, supportive friends, self-evaluations in a mirror, or interpellated viewer approval) confers a ratifying power in spectatorial surveillance, affirming the rightness of the “people on the street’s” initial Visible Subjects  ·  99

Scientistic renderings. The Swan. “Sylvia,” December 6, 2004.

censure and critique and making their welcoming approval all the more desirable. Moreover, many shows deploy a scientistic iconography—putting subjects in 3-D holograph forms so their bodies can be rotated and examined from every angle, depicting Before-bodies on computerized grids made to approximate numerical measurements and calibrations—all of which heightens associations with technological seeing eyes. Though makeovers are predicated on plasticity, or the human capacity for change, the fact that they resolutely alter one person’s body or home to better fit the demands and expectations of a larger social order suggests an absolute lack of malleability in a more abstract conception of the ideal. The material body changes so that the idealized body might remain constant. Bodies that refuse change (or haven’t yet undergone it) are subject to ridicule, even by the makeover subjects themselves, as demonstrated on an episode of Dr. 90210 when Soledad, who has had a successful tummy tuck, says that she and her friends now “laugh at women who have flappy belly skin.” After-segments of makeover shows thus rely on an economy of looking to justify the regulation of appearance. In Katie’s episode of What Not to Wear, for instance, she acknowledges that the “outside is what you see first. You don’t see someone’s great personality walking down the street.” This new capacity to think of herself from a third-person perspective allows Katie to reflect, “There is constant attention on yourself and you can’t help but bring that attention to yourself . . . it is embarrassing . . . but it makes you think . . . to me the show should be called ‘what to think’.” 100  ·  Chapter Two

If the show were indeed called What to Think, we could conclude several things about what Katie has learned that apply to makeover messages more broadly. Chief among these: first impressions matter. Whether for a potential boyfriend or a future employer, as the cliché goes, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. And apparently, as one “style accomplice” opines on How Do I Look?, first impressions matter most because they “are the most lasting.” Indeed, the critical significance of first impressions is a bedrock truism of the makeover, expressed without qualification or doubt by both stylists and psychologists. As Dr. Robi Ludwig, the host of One Week to Save Your Marriage and Without Prejudice, informs us, “According to psychologists, you form your opinion of someone within fifteen seconds of meeting them.” Though Ludwig cites neither specific psychologists nor their research studies, her PhD-backed word is proof enough that first impressions matter, particularly in the visual economy produced and policed by the makeover. Even more important, Katie learns that style externally marks her in­ ternal competency, professionalism, and congruence with gender stan­ dards, and so it matters what strangers think of her. Since her friends know she has a great personality, it is the rest of the world she must con­ vince. Therefore, if Katie wants to succeed, she must dress in a way that conforms to normative expectations of professionalism and femininity. At the beginning of her episode, for instance, Katie’s clothes mark her as perpetual support staff, destined to function in the subordinant role of a sloppy and boyish legal aide. Stacy and Clinton make clear to Katie that her clothes are “not appropriate attire for you at this part of your life.” By the end of the episode, they praise her new professional look. Stacy exudes, “You look like a lawyer rather than a legal assistant.” Your look is “polished, feminine, current, modern” and most important, Katie’s new look both expresses and enables upward mobility, a critical tenet of citizenship within Makeover Nation. The primary mechanisms for teaching Katie what to think are technologies of viewing that enable enhanced and more productive self-scrutiny. Throughout her makeover transformation, she must learn to see herself as others see her. It is only after she has cringed at her Before-images, undergone the visual truth of a 360-degree mirror, and endured Stacy and Clinton’s teasing observations, that she can truly change and observe the image of her After-body, which, in turn, means she can now celebrate the emergence of a self. Since shame is never the end-point of makeover goals—it is only the means to an end—celebration of After-bodies is crucial. At the beginning Visible Subjects  ·  101

of makeovers, style gurus gain their authority through appeals for help in addressing “style emergencies” and “fashion 911” crises (though on a show like Ambush Makeover or Garden Police subjects are often conscripts whose personal mismanagement merits invasion). Style experts’ superiority is evidenced both through their own appearance and through their witty critiques. As I’ve noted, midway through the transformation process, style agents typically shift to more supportive roles, so that within the logic of the text, they instead function as caring friends with altruistic commitments to the subject’s overall well-being. As Nick, the hair stylist on What Not to Wear, says to Katie when she resists a hair cut, “Remember, it’s not about me. It’s about you. It’s what’s going to be best for you.” It isn’t too difficult to see how Nick’s “it’s all about you” becomes another layer in the microdynamics of power, compelling Katie’s willingness to submit to change. And yet, the shifts from critical shaming to concerned intervention to celebratory praise are seductive in their gendered teleology. At the end of Katie’s episode, for instance, Stacy, who has once belittled Katie’s Bronx style, now fawns over her sophisticated and appropriately gendered fashion sense, “I love that feminine detail.” Katie’s business suit has, “Great little details that say ‘girl’.” About another outfit, Stacy exclaims, “That red shoe rocks my world!” Stacy praises the way that Katie’s new look is now “framing you instead of masking you,” clearly valorizing being-seen-ness over invisibility. “I’m seeing green eyes, sparkly skin, and you,” Stacy exudes. As with Amy on Extreme Makeover, whose story began the introduction to this book, the makeover experience seemingly offers Katie a more congruent and confident subject position. “I feel like me but just a better me,” Katie confides to the camera. In this respect, surveillance teaches Katie how to achieve a fuller self that is marked by greater visible confidence and affective security. One might almost begin to agree that the end validates the means, were it not for how relentlessly this new self is coded as conventionally feminine. Even in her postmakeover position of visual splendor, the specter of shame still haunts Katie, a shame that can return if ever her wardrobe slips away from its newfound feminine and professional signification. Since, as a makeover segment on Speaking of Women’s Health makes clear, “the thing about any cosmetic [or style] procedure is that nothing lasts forever,” slipping is inevitable. Looking good—what the makeover takes as the outward signifiers of selfhood—requires constant self-awareness and upkeep. Such vigilance will purportedly enable

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Be an After, stay an After. Weight Watchers’ ad, 2007.

a person to “become an after and stay an after,” the slogan of a Weight Watchers’ commercials that often runs in conjunction with makeover programming. But as the Weight Watchers’ ad makes clear, if one is concerned about staying an After, the threat of Before never fully recedes.

Pathologies of Emotionalism The visual economy that underscores these stories of transformation also suggests that excessive emotionalism must be curbed in order for subjects to achieve a successful After-body. Arguably, the majority of transformation-themed shows offer narratives about “losing it,” whether that loss be of body parts, fat, unstylish clothes, negative behaviors, clutter, or old versions of the self. It is the pathologizing of emotionalism that happens in conjunction with makeover transformations that concerns me here, or, in other words, the ways in which makeover subjects’ “roller coaster of emotions” can and must be contained so as not to derail “progress.” Often and ironically, surrender to experts—whether surgeons or style coaches—constitutes the critical first step in achieving what the shows call empowerment. This form of gendered personal power where visuality signifies cultural capital, manifests, as a casting call for The Swan put it, in a postfeminist fantasy where a woman can “walk into a room, have all eyes on [her], and for the first time in [her] life, command attention with dignity, poise, and beauty.”9 Before examining the stigma of excess more specifically, I want to address how surveillance and fears of emotional excess coalesce on makeover programs into tutorials that offer viewers the language to help them articulate the threat posed by medicalized pathologies. These pathologies tend to be psychological disorders that go far beyond more common ailments such as anxiety and depression, including addiction, mania, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd), post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), and body dysmorphic disorder (bdd). Interestingly, neither narcissism nor gender dysmorphia concern these shows, though a lack of self-fascination and perceived “discrepancies” between gender and sex do demand their interest. Often shows and the surrounding media will speak the actual clinical language of such disorders. As People describes it, Flipping Out features a protagonist Jeff, who “has ocd” (Wulff 37). Flipping Out itself makes a pointed case of Jeff ’s eccentricities, going far beyond its double-entendre title. The preview special referenced his non-normative 104  ·  Chapter Two

behaviors as “crazy,” “temperamental,” “quirky,” and “psychologically unbalanced.” Since Jeff is more style guru than subject on this version of a makeover narrative, the expectation is not that his ocd should or will be cured throughout the course of the six-episode arc, but that his “craziness” gives the story a unique quality that sets it apart from other home flipping reality programs. Conversely, on other shows where the subject is depicted as pathologically troubled, makeovers function as interventionary agents. On one special episode of Clean House, for instance, experts identify the “messiest house in the country” and then “diagnose” its owner as suffering from ocd and addiction. Says one of the hosts on Clean House to her subject Sue, “This is borderlining on addiction. Do you see that?” Sue responds that she doesn’t feel her clutter-stuffed home is an addiction but just accumulation, which prompts the host to put up her hands in resignation. “I need to step out,” she says, “because, honestly, at this point all I have to do is pray, pray for you.” The appeal to a divine authority both strengthens the idea of Sue’s sickness and muddies the therapeutic waters, since there is much this show will do to “cure” Sue’s ocd, at least on a topical level. Indeed, the whole point of indicating that Sue suffers from a disease of uncontrollable hoarding and poor impulse control is to suggest that their interventionary efforts—a yard sale and mass clutter give-away as well as a home redesign—will alter the terms of Sue’s psychological disorder. True to the logics of the makeover, though it references deep psychological interiority in its allusion to clinical illness, the makeover Clean House purports to address disease by converting it to a dis-ease that can be remedied through surface-level alterations. ocd and chronic anxiety can here be cured through the tough love of a design team that compels Sue to dispense with “a house full of crap.” Sue is highly anxious about the whole process, fearful of change, and concerned that the loss of her much-loved belongings will make her feel alienated in her own home. Reassurance comes through the visible evidence provided by the television program itself. “Trust me,” says Niecy, the main host. “Have you seen my show? Do you know what we do?” The narrative underscores a trope of the subject’s irrationality in contrast to the host’s rational and visually affirmed competence, repeatedly playing clips that emphasize Sue’s instability. “I lost control,” she tells the camera about her frantic behavior at the yard sale, “complete control, and I don’t like losing control of anything.” Sue’s greatest moment of distress occurs when the design crew sells off two large throw rugs for a combined Visible Subjects  ·  105

$40 that Sue had bought for $1,000 a piece. It seems reasonable, given the circumstances, to be more than a little upset, but the show uses this moment as one more piece of evidence attesting to Sue’s emotional instability. As Sue’s daughter emphasizes, “My mother is pretty much freaking out right now.” At the reveal of her new home, Sue is further chastised for her hoarding in language that suggests her sickness is actually a sign of willfulness. “You didn’t receive as much as you could have,” scolds Niecy, “because you were holding on to a lot of things. This is a lot of mayhem and foolishness.” The work the crew accomplishes is presented as something that Sue will endeavor to protect because it is now “perfectly suited to [her] person­ ality.” Though psychological illness authorized the makeover’s intervention, the problem all along was not a basic pathology of the psyche but a crisis of representation. Sue had been experiencing a disconnect between subjecthood and signification. By eradicating her polysemous clutter in favor of a monologic style signature that evokes Sue’s essence, the makeover encourages us to believe that it has cured Sue’s illness, thereby leaving her intrinsically satisfied. Sue’s response to the makeover seems to indicate that such assumptions are legitimate: “That’s me to a T! I definitely feel like a winner. Just look around here.” We can see similar dynamics about the relation between pathology and the curative properties of representation in the makeover’s handling of Body Dysmorphic Disorder. According to the American Psychological Associa­ tion’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (dsm ), bdd is typified by an exaggerated sense of some defect in appearance, unexplained by other diagnostic possibilities such as anorexia nervosa. A preoccupation with that perceived defect causes significant stress or impairment in social and occupational settings (468). Sufferers of the syndrome check their appearance frequently and often experience particular anxiety in response to image apparatuses—mirrors, cameras, reflective surfaces. The rise in plastic surgery culture has heightened a concern that those who suffer from bdd can now capitalize on increased transformation technologies in ways that exploit their illness and make doctors the accomplices to mental imbalance. The intensification of makeover culture has, in turn, fostered anxieties that makeovers are teaching “normal” people how to develop body dysmorphic disorder.10 Further, as Victoria Pitts-Taylor discusses, the increased reliance on bdd as a diagnostic possibility has painted most plastic surgery patients with a pathologized brush, signifying them as “surgery junkies.” 106  ·  Chapter Two

Cautionary tales have thus proliferated, reporting the outrageous operations undergone by those who are unable to perceive their bodies “accurately,” as for instance in the The Independent of London’s coverage of a British surgeon who amputated the healthy legs of two “disturbed” men, a story later picked up and told again in a documentary investigating Body Dysmorphic Disorder (Heath).11 Plastic Surgery: Laid Bare maintains that plastic surgery is always addictive and based on delusional aspirations to approximate movie stars, who themselves are surgery junkies. Given their derision, it’s another element of the (ill)logics of transformative culture that Plastic Surgery: Laid Bare also touts the almost total effectiveness of cosmetic intervention. In a similar cautionary vein, People profiled the case of four people “obsessed” with plastic surgery. One woman, Heidi Moore, over the course of six years underwent an eye lift, two lip implants, a chin implant, cheek resculpturing, liposuction, a tummy tuck, two breast augmentations, and several nonsurgical procedures, such as dermabrasion, laser treatments, and Botox and Restylane injections. Inspiration, temptation, and salvation for Heidi came from the same source: television. In 2005, Intervention targeted her (by her invitation) as a “self-described surgery and shopping addict.” Part of her therapy now requires that she avoid the lure of tv makeovers: “She no longer watches Dr. 90210,” reports People (Adato and Stoynoff 138). “There is such a thing as too much plastic surgery,” Dr. Roxanne Guy, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports in People. “Too much . . . is when patients repeatedly turn to the scalpel ‘to fill an emotional need’ ” (Adato and Stoynoff 139). Such a statement presents us with a puzzle if we figure that makeovers, both cosmetic and surgical, are often designed to stem emotional distress. As we’ve seen, a motivating reason for subjecting oneself to the ridicule of style agents is alleviation of the greater pain of perceived ugliness. Humiliation constitutes an affective currency that pays for transformation. Since makeovers are very much designed to “fill an emotional need” through dramatic means, they must showcase extreme transformations without seeming to endorse an excessiveness that can be both the result of or perceived trigger for bdd. Discursively, shows manage this balancing act by casting subjects who evoke connotations of normalcy (middle-class moms and dads, typically from the Midwest), situating the makeover as singular (so there will be no need for repeat procedures), and eradicating negative outcomes (unlike the sufferer of bdd who is often disappointed after surgery, makeover subjects are elated).12 Visible Subjects  ·  107

Shows also participate in a form of damage control, as, for instance, with the special episode of Life After Extreme Makeover when Sam “The Style Guy” interviewed participants and surgeons, asking them to respond to many of the critiques lobbed at the show. “There is a wave of plastic surgery going on in the country right now,” Sam states. “Every magazine you see, every tv show, talks about plastic surgery. Do you think Extreme Makeover created this wave, or did the wave create Extreme Makeover?” Perhaps understandably in the double-circuit of culture there exists no conclusive answer to such a question. Surgeons from the show thus duck the causality and answer that “unrealistic expectations” constitute the real problem. It is not surgery itself, they contend, but a more intrinsic psychological imbalance that leads to pathology. If patients can “liberate” themselves from aspects of their appearance they find troublesome, says surgeon Jon Perlman, they can claim new forms of empowerment. Such a logic suggests that makeover transformations, unlike random plastic surgery operations, can free the emotionally downtrodden from slipping into bdd. As we saw with How to Look Good Naked, makeover shows often situate themselves as mediating therapeutic agents, using the alteration of the physical image to regulate perception of disease. Even on shows that don’t employ plastic surgery, bdd acts as a central defect that makeovers correct. On How Do I Look?, for instance, “fashion victim” Kimberly Stewart chronically dresses in oversized plaid to disguise a body she considers to be fat. While the camera shows Kim playfully modeling her attire, the host, Finola Hughes, remarks, “A serious lack of self-confidence keeps Kimberly from seeing her own beauty. She wears oversized, outdated clothing which are all plaid!” In direct-address to the camera, a serious Kimberly speaks of the fear she feels in being scrutinized, “The scariest thing about being on How Do I Look? is having people pick me apart and for everybody to see it and see the things that make me insecure.” The show deals with her fears by suggesting she is ill and needs an intervention. “My biggest concern is her body image,” says guest stylist Nellie Sciutto. “I saw her casting reel, and she actually referred to herself as fat.” The camera cuts to a black and white audition tape featuring Kimberly, in an oversized plaid shirt, her hair pulled back: “Once I had my daughter, it got impossible. I gained 70 lbs with her. I look and I still see that in the mirror.” The stylist exclaims, “Which is just ridiculous because she actually does have a great figure!”

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At the moment of her intervention, four women (the host, the stylist, and two other “accomplices”) walk Kimberly to the mirror and ask her to evaluate her own image. Kimberly: “I see [a] busy housewife. Mother of two. Just dress comfortably.” Finola: (cinching Kimberly’s shirt behind her) “Look, here’s the body underneath. Can you see what we’re talking about? Can you see what everyone else sees?” Kimberly: “I just see big hips.” Finola: “Is this making you uncomfortable?” Kimberly: “Yes.” Finola: “Why?” Kimberly: “I just don’t like looking at myself.” Finola: “OK, Nellie has an important point here that you’re really not seeing yourself the way everyone else sees you.” Kimberly nods, acquiescing, and the makeover begins. The point demonstrated here insists that Kimberly’s eye must be re-educated in order to see “the way everyone else sees.” Once she can accept the “great figure” she actually possesses, she can escape her version of bdd, shake off her delusional seeing, and thus become happy. And yet, the reason for the makeover in the first place is that Kimberly has not sufficiently perceived her fashion inadequacies. She has been obtuse to such a degree, in fact, that her eight-year-old daughter nominated her for the program. So the real problem that shows like How Do I Look? and 10 Years Younger make painfully clear is that the subject doesn’t see as critically (and accurately) as the general public. Before Kimberly can gaze at herself with self-affirmation, she must be transformed so that she pleases others. It is only after subjects undergo improvement, when they are confronted with their own arresting new appearances, that their flawed body image can heal, thus bringing with it a newly regulated emotional stasis, balanced through makeover interventions. The logic here maintains that transformation affords Kimberly a revised capacity to gaze approvingly and a consequent alteration of Before-misery to After-happiness. Implicit in this dynamic, however, is the notion that her new positive self-esteem remains contingent on social approval of Kimberly’s made-over appearance and regulated emotions. She can only claim a positive self-image if she projects a positive physical image, and

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so the anxiety about appearance, which, combined with depression, fuels body dysmorphic disorder, finds new affirmation and articulation through makeover logics.

The Shame of Emotional Incontinence on The Swan In positioning itself and its experts as medical agents who can diagnose and treat pathology, makeovers equally assume the authority to name new taxonomies of disease. As is shown in the discussion above, dis-order constitutes a dangerous disorder. Included in the makeover’s “dsm ” are psychological diseases that could be described as chronic invisibility disorder (the desire not to be seen), lack of me-ness disorder brought on through a crisis of representation (signifiers do not adequately indicate the self as a sign), letting-yourself-go disorder (occasioned by heightened dowdiness and insufficient self-care), gender/sex incongruity disorder (male bodies are too feminine, and female bodies are too masculine), and emotional incontinence (the inability to subordinate shameful emotions in the service of more pleasant affective expressions). Given its diagnostic expertise, makeovers can thus pathologize homes, relationships, and bodies, as does both Spice Up My Kitchen, when it cures a “decrepit and dysfunctional” kitchen, and National Body Challenge, when it turns the curative spotlight on “food junkies.” Turning dowdiness, fat, or clutter into a pathology allows for what I see as three potential viewer responses. The first, “affirmation by contrast,” enables viewers to see extremes that, in comparison to their own mildly cluttered homes or ten-pounds-overweight bodies, make themselve seem not that bad. The second, “concern through cautionary tale,” inspires fear that the Before-bodies depicted on the screen illustrate a future that must be avoided. The third, “self-discreditation by example,” forces home viewers to concede that their own behaviors or bodies are worse than what they see on screen, and if mediated Before-bodies express feelings of dejection and shame, how can viewing subjects be any different? These three possibilities simultaneously allow for identification—that could be me—and require distance—I’d never do that. Either position, however, balances on a fulcrum of the “I” and thus reinforces the makeover’s critical role, just like Jeff on Flipping Out, in “painstakingly and meticulously renovating” properties of the self. Nowhere is the diagnosing of pathology in the name of healthy selfhood more evident than in the makeover pageant show, The Swan. In its 110  ·  Chapter Two

regulation of emotion and insistence on glamorous poise, The Swan esteems cheerfulness, gratitude, and optimism for its all-female participants. These affective qualities are, not surprisingly, the very sorts of pleasing emotions that have straitjacketed women for centuries, emotionality frequently serving as a register through which to discredit women’s authority and trustworthiness.13 Curbing one’s excessive emotionalism also functions, Wendy Brown’s work reminds us, as critical to the projects of neoliberalism, which require subjects to be rationalized before they can operate “freely” in a globalized marketplace (6). The Swan offers an important site to witness how such fears of female emotional excess are produced and regulated through visuality. Swan contestants who are ungrateful, recalcitrant, resistant, or just neg­ ative are relentlessly portrayed as difficult. Since each episode features a competition between two women who both desire to compete in the Swan beauty pageant that culminates each season, the show makes the most of comparisons. Like a troubled sibling, a difficult woman is contrasted against her competitor, who is invariably portrayed as more cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat. Rachel, we are told, completes her surgery in relatively good spirits, while “Kelly is an emotional wreck.” In another pairing, Andrea is presented as hyperemotional and insecure, suspicious and resistant to change; whereas Belinda, who is equally insecure, is upbeat about The Swan’s gift. Dr. Dubrow praises Belinda: “She’s the kind of patient we love to see because she has such a great attitude.” Andrea, by contrast, is depicted as recalcitrant at the dentist and doctor’s offices. The show loses no opportunity to remind viewers that Belinda is the good girl and Andrea the bad. “Belinda’s got her work cut out for her but a good attitude goes a long way,” says the host in voiceover. Meanwhile, Andrea is “suffering another emotional breakdown.” Not all emotions are equally vilified. Belinda, for instance, goes to the gym, where the trainer tapes a picture of a former boyfriend on a punching bag. He encourages her to express her rage, and she says afterward, “It feels great to let out my emotions and get all of that anger out of me.” Apparently, anger can be an appropriate emotion when expressed against men in the name of female empowerment. This scene, however, is directly juxtaposed with a confrontation moment. Life coach Nely accuses subject Andrea of having a bad attitude, which Andrea denies. “That’s a damn lie. I’ve been working my ass off!” Nely then shows video clips to prove Andrea’s disobedience. Andrea responds by storming out of the room. Clearly, Andrea is angry here, but that anger is marked as excessive and Visible Subjects  ·  111

unacceptable, a point driven home when a postsurgery Belinda walks peacefully at the beach, while Andrea sits in a wheelchair disgruntled, swollen, and wrapped in bandages. The dynamic at work in The Swan is depressingly familiar. A dominant mode of regulating gender has long been used to stigmatize those actions and expressions that do not support dominant power regimes. Important feminist work has demonstrated how women historically have been regulated through multiple locations, particularly sexuality, marriage, and motherhood, thus constituting women’s bodies as sites of control.14 Carol Smart contends, for instance, that nineteenth-century “legal, medical and early social scientific discourses” colluded to “produce a woman who is fundamentally a problematic and unruly body.” This woman’s “sexual and reproductive capacities need constant surveillance and regulation,” Smart argues, “because of the threat that this supposedly ‘natural’ woman would otherwise pose to the moral and social order” (8). Ways of managing gender apparently haven’t changed much, since a good deal of these regulatory discourses continue to operate on makeover shows where the natural body is depicted as both the source of shame and a potential threat that needs to be neutralized if it is to be socially acceptable. In the context of plastic surgery makeover shows, regulating gender manifests materially on the body, so that cutting a woman a smaller mouth, as one surgeon did for Sylvia on The Swan, enacts a gendered feminine ideal about women who do not mouth off, who literally have smaller mouths. Just as in other historical moments when women have not complied with gendered expectations, there are punishments in makeover shows. In the case of The Swan, these punishments manifest in fear tactics and the ultimate negative consequence, failure to advance to the pageant. If women resist the experts, even if that resistance is expressed as merely being less than enthusiastic, we are told that these women have put their transformations in danger. For example, the host says about Andrea that “her emotional instability may affect her chances of making it to the pageant.” The camera validates this opinion, showing Andrea crying into her purple spit bib, the image teaching the viewer to regard Amanda as both pathologized and infantilized by her unregulated emotions. Similarly, we see moments of confrontation in which the resistant Swan is depicted as a difficult teenager or petulant child. “Coming up,” the male voiceover announces, “Tanya’s attitude hits an all-time low.” When we rejoin the show, Nely admonishes Tanya, “You are having extreme negativity.” Tanya immediately fires back: “I don’t give a fuck” (the expletive 112  ·  Chapter Two

is bleeped out, but you don’t have to be much of a lip reader to see what she has said). Nely looks shocked and incredulous at Tanya’s words. Later, Amanda reinforces that “Tanya’s recovery is off to a bad start.” Post­ operatively, Andrea tells the doctor that she feels horrible, which seems understandable given that Andrea has just undergone a nose job, brow lift, cheek implants, chin implants, upper lip lift, lip augmentation, tummy tuck, breast augmentation, and breast lift. “Horrible?” Dr. Dubrow scolds, “God, that’s not a great way to say hello in the morning.” Though his admonition is obvious to the point of being offensive, the more subtle intimation contends that a faulty transformation can leave the Swan half-formed. It is as if the three months of her transformation are akin to the nine months of gestation for a baby. Thwarting her own progress, the birthing of her new self is tantamount to deliberate miscarriage. The anonymous male voiceover ominously announces this logic about one contestant, Christina, in a moment awkwardly intercut with warnings from two of the experts: “Her resistance to the experts (Nely: ‘Your commitment is not here right now’) endangers her recovery (Dubrow: ‘you are developing a complication’).” In a parallel vein, we are told, “Andrea’s emotional outbursts have put her transformation in jeopardy.” The requirement for surrender figures as critical to success. Failure to comply is punished by shaming and threats of the worst possible outcome: abortion. There will be no new self. And yet, though negative emotional outbursts are clearly stigmatized, they are also desperately needed. We should not forget that these are television narratives, and so the “bad” emotionalism of the Swan contestants serves the critical function of establishing dramatic tension and suspense. Recalcitrant subjects introduce the possibility that the makeover might fail. The excesses of The Swan’s contestants (and again, these are all women) also play in pointed contrast to the confident equanimity of the experts. When, for example, Lorrie, who receives more surgical procedures than any of the other Swans, goes in for her first round of surgery, she is very frightened. Her surgeon, Dr. Haworth, says blithely, “One false move can paralyze her for the rest of her life.”15 Surgery is indeed a tricky business, and I do not expect the doctor to wring his hands with anxiety and thus compromise Lorrie’s health, but the issue of concern here is not one of complexity but of representation. Lorrie’s anxiety is made to play off Haworth’s coolness, positions that become all the more accentuated (and gendered) when she lays naked and unconscious under his knife, while he acknowledges that he could potentially paralyze her. The rational man acts; Visible Subjects  ·  113

the hysterical woman is acted upon. In this case the active/passive dynamic is made all the more egregious since her position of weakness has been “freely chosen,” even desired.16 The logic indicates that a woman should not only assume her passive position willingly and cheerfully, she should be grateful to do so. Such a statement markedly contrasts with what Kathy Davis, among others, have gleaned about how women actively engage in decision-making about real-world surgery options and procedures. Emotionalism also leads to discouragement, but a lapse in morale allows space for interventions when former Swans make brief cameos to encourage their younger sisters (Rachel for Marsha, Merline for Gina, Cindy for Kim). These scenes, when discouraged present Swans meet victorious former Swans, unfold like celebrity sightings. “Oh my God, Merline!” Gina gasps, unable to believe her eyes. The former Swans successfully talk their discouraged counterparts back into a more optimistic frame of mind, thus banishing “negative” feelings and shoring up the women’s commitment to cheerfulness. The need for encouragement additionally establishes and reifies a star system in which the makeover’s very products underscore the show’s significance while simultaneously creating its own history. It’s tautology at its finest, but nobody seems to mind. A final element of narrative intrigue that is dependent on emotionalism comes in predicting at what point each Swan candidate will break. When experts have to double-team a Swan, as in the case of Kelly whose “whiney” and “depressed” attitude requires a tandem hard-talk session with both Nely and Dubrow, there is serious resistance (and more reason to watch). One form of spectacle on this show comes not only from the reveals or even the “shameful” moments when Swans tell their sad stories or expose their imperfect bodies, but from the ways in which their resistance to change is viewed as an endurance sport. The cruelty of these moments has inclined some critics of the makeover genre to contend that The Swan, and all other transformation-themed shows, thrive on the zest for Schadenfreude, or the pleasure in watching others suffer. But I would argue that the humiliation and emotional suffering these women endure contains both a narratological and an ideological strategy, situating the makeover as a redemptive trope and agent of love-power that can save the suffering Before-body through affective domination. As we see on The Swan, makeover transformations function according to a logic that establishes a tension between ignorance and expertise, between natural and refined, between Before and After, between object and self. The process works not only to mark the incompetent ugly duckling as 114  ·  Chapter Two

more conventionally beautiful but to educate the unknowing so that they can no longer be dismissed as targets or victims. As I have suggested in this chapter, makeover subjects are frequently confronted with images of themselves, made to analyze their bodies and clothes in full-length mirrors or on screen, and then taught how to make “better” choices that accentuate conventional norms of class and race-based femininity and masculinity. The majority of makeover programming employs visual evidence in the name of regulation, using photographs, film footage (secret and otherwise), and one-on-one critiques as visual tools that teach Before-bodies how to see pathology and what it means to look and act like After-bodies. Whether such transformations involve actually changing the body through plastic surgery, dieting, or physical training, dressing it differently, or saving it from clutter, makeovers find their efficacy in compelling consent, enthusiasm, and gratitude from their “victims.” Yet, in the process of instructing subjects how to look in order to change how one looks, style experts run the risk of turning the critical gaze on themselves, for the subject and viewer, now skilled in the art of visual assessment, can just as easily criticize style agents as they can ugly ducklings.

A Taste of Their Own Medicine See Nick. See Nick argue. See Nick Lose. See Nick throw a minor hissy fit. The makeover team’s resident hairstylist is not happy with this episode’s fashion victim, Lynn, who gladly accepts Stacy and Clinton’s wardrobe advice and Carmindy’s makeup tips but won’t let Nick’s shears anywhere near her lovely butt-length hair. Since she’s about 6 feet tall, growing it that long was quite a project, and to her defiance we can only say, “You go, girl!” —“Best Bets on tv,” Bloomington Herald-Times

The dynamics modeled on most makeovers create possibilities for resistance, albeit limited, through the gaze. As one might expect, shows rarely allow for such a subversive possibility at least on camera, since transforming subjects are typically depicted as both fully grateful for and completely satisfied with their transformations. In style and body reveal moments, subjects are depicted as having nothing to complain about, their new After-bodies occupying the same visual space as style gurus, one long leg matching the other. This new parity is particularly acute on both versions of What Not to Wear where made-over subjects stand with either Trinny Visible Subjects  ·  115

and Susannah in the United Kingdom or Stacy and Clinton in the United States, three figures fused in one mirror, all in rapt admiration of the images before them. It is also evident on The Swan and How Do I Look?, where newly transformed women are embraced by the quasi-celebrity of hosts. Though makeover subjects occasionally resist style agents, their resistance typically occurs in the beginning stages of the makeover as a preamble to conversion. I note in chapter 4 that men are generally depicted as more actively resistant of style authorities, a representational device that allows men to appear to possess a certain degree of autonomy even while being subjected to alteration. As the above quote suggests, however, the shows’ overbearing hosts are often subject to ridicule, their sarcasm turning viewers into advocates against authority, even as those viewers are eager to see subjects change. I first became aware of the ways in which shows tacitly endorse a critique of the very changes they create when teaching. In a large class of nearly 100 people, mass response is evident. At the beginning of in-class viewings, students would be quiet and attentive, scribbling notes in answer to elaborate questions I had asked. Their composure would soon break down in response to the more outlandish critiques offered by style gurus, or by the less-than-subtle gender cues, typically voiced either by surgeons or narrators. It was at the reveal, however, where students erupted in dialogues with each other, criticizing style choices or contending that a patient, house, or yard looked far better before than after. Students aimed their strongest vitriol at the style agents, who they considered bossy, opinionated, and mean. For the most part, students were sympathetic to transforming subjects, but relentless in their criticism of the process. In other words, they empathized with the feelings of low self-confidence brought on by a lack of physical or symbolic beauty, they supported the idea of changing the body, clothes, car, or home, and many even desired such transformative possibilities themselves. But on average, students condemned both the shows and experts for the ways they shamed transforming subjects. I’m not putting forward my students’ response as a comprehensive reception study, and it is quite possible that their expressions of resistance were meant as either opposition to my insistence that they find something of intellectual significance in reality tv makeover shows or, conversely, as demonstration that they could enact the sorts of critical thinking strategies I endeavor to teach. I believe, however, that their reaction to the makeover genre indicates that in the process of teaching visual criticism, shows create a space for undermining the expertise of their style experts. This, I believe, 116  ·  Chapter Two

is an unintended salutary consequence of makeover programming, since it enables critical resistance and in some situations community building, both of which blossom in opposition to perceived injustice. My students are not alone. A similar sort of public-sphere critique of authorities on makeover shows predominates in chat rooms. On Fans of Reality tv and Talk City, for instance, viewers offer criticisms of makeover programming that easily rival the cruelty of style gurus. Significantly, these are web-communities disconnected from the network chat sites created by the makeover shows’ home networks, like tlc and abc, where messages tend to be hyperenthusiastic and supportive. Though postings sometimes include fans who “love the show,” many more evince the sort of critique we see modeled in the shows themselves. These criticisms are directed at both the style agents and the shows, as demonstrated through a What Not to Wear string on Fans of Reality tv. Hapa remarks, “I usually love how big the transform is before and after—like a butterfly emerges but this past time, what happened??!! Aretha still only looked ‘not terrible,’ but never achieved fabulous” ( January 8, 2003). Dicey directs criticism at the hosts, commenting on both personality and style choices: “Wayne [host in season one] may be a great stylist, but to be honest, I didn’t care for his personality on the show. It came off as unreal and at times harsh and nasty. Clinton [host in season two to present] doesn’t come off witchy at all, at least not to me. Although, I don’t like most of the shirts Clinton wears ugh” (September 22, 2003). Pandimonia concurs, “i was sooo glad when the new season started with Clinton and not that other guy. the long haired guy was the least fashionable person ever and he was supposed to give advice, yeh right” (March 5, 2004). Chat-room invective heats up when fans feel one of the style experts has been excessively unfair to one of the makeover subjects, as in the case of What Not to Wear’s make-up artist Carmindy, who scolded Ken for his unruly hair. The fitting punishment for Carmindy’s perceived brutality seemingly required that she become the victim of viewer critique, the makeover expert made over, as the following stream indicates: Likeafox: Carmindy really tore into Ken about his hair . . . on his chin, head, ears, eyebrows, and nose. She was merciless. Ken shouldn’t have felt so bad about it for the reasons he gave. She’s not that perfect. For one thing, I think she could use a hair makeover. I think it’s a little too long and possibly too blonde. Do you think that’s her true hair color? ( January 17, 2004) Visible Subjects  ·  117

Fluff: I can’t stand Carmindy. I thought she was so rude to Ken, I thought it totally unnecessary for her to be so brutal. How she has the nerve to with her appalling hair is beyond me. It’s straw like, the cut is terrible, looks like she hasn’t had it cut for years. Plus the colour is so brassy and unnatural. I think she’s a really unpleasant woman and not much cop as a make-up artist either. ( January 18, 2004) Gypsy Rose: Now Carmindy needs the next (hair and personality) makeover. ( January 20, 2004) Hapa: I’m glad someone mentioned Carmindy’s hair. imho it’s too thin and could use more multi-tonal-ness (is that a word?). ( January 31, 2004) Though it is fascinating that Likeafox and Fluff raise a discourse of authenticity to critique Carmindy, particularly since nearly every participant on What Not to Wear has their hair colored as part of the improvement regime, viewer response here indicates that harsh criticism will be met with harsher criticism. Most viewers already know how to criticize without the aid of style agents, and the anonymity of a web chat room enhances the possibility and alters the tone of criticism, yet audience disapproval articulates through the vocabulary the shows both model and employ. Punishment for cruel makeover scrutiny is, somewhat ironically, cruel makeover scrutiny. As a gender critique, the above exchange is particularly noteworthy since fans took deep umbrage at the male subject Ken’s victimization by a female expert (and a make-up artist, no less). Indeed, Hapa posts: “I really felt sorry for Ken . . . when he felt belittled by Carmindy. He was pretty bold to admit to being intimidated by a ‘girl’ on tv.” This posting illustrates what we’ve seen demonstrated in makeover logics more broadly: a world is watching, and it is displeased with appearances and behaviors marked as non-normative. In this case, viewers are watching, and they have been taught well how to dish out scrutiny in the name of conventional gender reinforcement, as demonstrated here when they censure a woman who publicly disapproves of a man. Unlike style gurus, doctors on makeover shows are seldom criticized for their bodies or style choices. In contrast to fan insistence that Carmindy’s overly harsh makeover merited a makeover of her own, I have never read a message board where fans felt a presumptuous doctor should get a nose job or a tummy tuck. Though occasionally fans on discussion boards object to patronizing statements or ironically reference the ubiquity of “Swan eyes” or “Extreme Makeover chins,” doctors on Reality tv are allowed to 118  ·  Chapter Two

pass without significant critical scrutiny. This may well be because medical doctors, as a group, are largely thought to occupy privileged status, class, and gender positions. Their standing on makeover shows therefore correlates with real-world prestige.17 Also, I suspect, doctors receive scant viewer criticism because their appraisals are not perceived as personal judgments but as scientific evaluations. Being told that one has a reverse c-shaped deformity in the nose sounds like a medical diagnosis rather than an aesthetic assessment. Cultural studies scholars, perhaps empowered by our own high levels of education and cultural capital, hold the critical lens to medical doctors without hesitation. Criticism of them is minimal in nonacademic settings. Both makeovers and fan responses to medical doctors establish a hierarchy of expertise and status that mimics a larger culture. On the lowest rung of the status ladder are make-up, hair, and fashion stylists, on many shows they are not even named and very frequently feminized or coded gay. Life coaches, designers, physical trainers, and psychological therapists come next in the status hierarchy (also feminized and often coded gay), with dentists, dermatologists, and finally, plastic surgeons holding superior positions, always coded as educated, wealthy, and frequently male and white.18 There is an added degree of complicity in such power inequity. Virginia Blum underscores an imbalance of power in her own plastic surgery experience when she speaks of her plastic surgeon’s power. “He could not have the power over me unless I turned it over,” she concedes. “But I was helpless to withhold it” (Flesh Wounds 22). The doctor’s authority, Blum explains, relies on the patient’s complicity, but that complicity is an “inevitable corollary and consequence of his cultural power” made all the more potent through classic gendered paradigms of who looks, acts, and decides and who is looked at, acted upon, and changed (22, 12). The televised celebration of the doctor’s authority on a range of makeover shows accentuates the discrepancy between the authoritative “seeing” masculinized doctor and the passive “looked-at” feminized patient, making these roles seem ubiquitous and natural, although I will consider a counter-model offered by Dr. 90210 later in this section. Plastic surgery makeover shows frequently glorify doctorly expertise by allowing the surgeon to erase the signs on the body brought about by the (usually female) subject’s poor choices or nature’s unlucky application and thus bringing about a new regime of corporeal power authorized and directed by (usually male) expert opinion and guidance. So, though the show doesn’t overtly prohibit Before-body subjectivity, it disallows the Visible Subjects  ·  119

markers—in this case meaningful choices and agency—by which a classical sense of the subject is announced. Interestingly, the language used by the doctors on Extreme Makeover sometimes underscores and sometimes effaces this uneven agency. We hear a lot of I-centered statements from doctors, “I will take some fat from your stomach and put it in your cheeks,” but we also hear second-person agency, “You want to work to get your eyes in a more pleasing shape.” These second-person statements seem to allow for agency outside of the physician, yet, in fact, they underscore the surgeons’ power because it is clear—to patient, doctor, and viewer—that the true “work” of the makeover will be done by the doctor. The patient’s work is submission. The plastic surgery show set in Beverly Hills, Dr. 90210, offers an interesting point of contrast. Perhaps because, like its fictional counterpart Nip/Tuck, doctors rather than patients function as the continuing characters and narrative pulse-points of the show, footage quite typically invites critique of the surgeons. Yet, that critique is very carefully filtered. Despite the fact that doctors are filmed as competent in the operating theater, their private lives are represented as nearly dysfunctional. Cameras capture Dr. Robert Rey and his anorectic wife, Hayley, fighting about money and his workaholic tendencies. Cameras follow a pregnant Dr. Linda Li into the operating room, not only when she is the surgeon, but also when she is the patient, lying prone on the table, crying as doctors cut into her abdomen to deliver her child. “I’m not used to being the passive one,” Dr. Li complains somewhat petulantly. We see a third surgeon, Dr. Jason Diamond, and his girlfriend (later to be his wife) in premarital counseling, their separate desires for children and marriage in tension. Overall, the male doctors typically appear narcissistic and vain, whereas the lone female doctor is quite often infantilized due to her wayward emotions or by the camera angles that accentuate her tiny Asian build. On message boards, responses to the shows are as one might expect— where the show allows for critique, fans are ruthless; where the show upholds surgeon expertise, fans rarely comment. Instead of debating the ethics of giving a woman size FF breasts, fans are more likely to discuss the doctors’ poor relationship skills, as the following web discussion about Robert and Hayley Rey indicates: Marley: I like him as a Dr . . . however, I think he is a terrible husband and father. He isn’t home much and was even late to his own daughter’s 120  ·  Chapter Two

birthday party. He promised to be home by a certain time, but was still late. (He was at kickboxing class or whatever you call it.): rolleyes I know a lot of things are edited out, but you can tell that even his wife is fed up. ( July 21, 2004) Exposed: Yes, his wife must be lonely and she’s basically a single mother. When you marry a doctor, it should be known that he will be gone for HOURS so I hope the wife has her own thing going b/c this shouldn’t be a surprise. I think by him being gone for hours is a hassle b/c when he has some free time, he’s trying to do too many things at once and to ME he’d rather exercise than spend time with the family or helping his wife out. He has some nerve to want to go in the bed with wifey and watch his surgeries! WTF! You better be making love to my a*s or asking how I’m doing or feeling. ( July 21, 2004) DjeterFan: That doctor is so conceited it’s ridiculous. I don’t know how his wife can stand him. She seems lonely and sick of doing everything with the kid and around the house herself (plus she’s pregnant!). Nice guy. :rolleyes. ( July 21, 2004 ) Even three years after the show’s debut, fans still commented on Dr. Rey’s arrogance, as in this posting from Kocky-Kamazae who wrote, “Tonight is the new season! Tune in when Dr. Rey is going to do something else that would be self-centered at the detriment of his family!” ( January 1, 2007). Interestingly, the critique demonstrated here heightens Rey’s perceived professional competency. Unlike subjects on makeover shows where being made over necessitates congeniality and passivity, doctors are allowed, even admired for, aloofness, snobbery, arrogance, and superiority. That Dr. Rey is critiqued for being conceited and arrogant only reinforces his perceived medical competence. There are, of course, important gender markers built into the notion that egotism equals aptitude. As I’ve noted, mostly female makeover subjects are pressured to be other-oriented, grateful, demure, and passive, their visible excesses of both (bad) emotion and (ugly) appearance fully curtailed. Such regulation thus creates a profile of conventional femi­ ninity that is pleasant and lovely. The doctor, in his position on the top of the status hierarchy, enacts the privilege of both his class and his gender. But even when class and formal education are removed from the mix, confidence to the point of arrogance is fully praised in masculinized experts. Visible Subjects  ·  121

mtv’s car renovation show, Pimp My Ride, offers a good demonstration. In the case of Pimp, superior authority goes to the all-male garage, the mechanical magicians who through their super-bravado transform an old jalopy into a pimped-out ride, replete with custom paint jobs, shiny rims, and thousands of dollars worth of video and computer equipment (with the occasional washing machine, espresso maker, chandelier, or pool table thrown in for good measure). Style experts on this show are depicted as inner-city “roughs,” black and Hispanic men, most tattooed, many with piercings around the lips, eyebrows, and ears. Cocky and confident, they work against a grafitti backdrop, the hard-core soundtrack accompanying their power tools and practical jokes. The host of the show is rapper Xzibit, who like Stacy and Clinton or Susannah and Trinny, conducts search and seizure overviews of Before-bodies, exposing run-down and beat-up cars that often have no seats, windows, turn signals, or functional doors. As on other shows, the Before-body becomes the shameful object of the critical gaze. Danelle, for instance, notes that when she drives her beat-up 1981 Pontiac Trans-Am, people give her “the look” to indicate both she and her car “look a little crazy.” Though this surveillance is meant to be slightly shameful, it plays as humor, participants delighted to be mocked because they know what’s in store for them. Contrary to The Swan, Extreme Makeover, Dr. 90210, and Brand New You, all of which take themselves incredibly seriously and are set in Beverly Hills locales that feature mansions and resorts, Pimp My Ride, like its cousin show Dog Whisperer, ministers to a more broadly imagined Los Angeles. And yet, for all of its democratization, Pimp offers little deviance from the makeover formula: first, choose the unhappy mark (made worthy by some sort of suffering, like caring for a grandmother or serving as a mentor to inner-city kids); second, start with surveillance and shaming; third, remove and isolate the body to be made over; fourth, feature extreme alterations performed by hot-dogging experts and unhampered by owner input; fifth, reveal the pimped body in a ceremony to amazed gasps and celebration; sixth, interview friends and family who all endorse the transformation; and last, allow the subject to express his or her gratitude (typically combined with statements of increased optimism, like “I believe anything is possible now!”). Like other makeover shows, subjects universally respond to their car makeovers with elation, even exuberance, other darker emotions or financial concerns ignored. Indeed, though Pimp does not devote narrative time to pathologizing “negative” emotions, it tacitly stigmatizes such affect through invisibility. 122  ·  Chapter Two

Interestingly, though there is much about the show to critique—like how will owners who could not afford to replace a spark plug now pay for insurance—message boards are full of praise. Some contributors question how the new tricked-out vehicle will pass inspection and a few think video screens on a car’s roof or built into headlights a bit excessive, but for the most part, postings indicate delight with both experts and the host. Xzibit and his team have street cred to burn, but they do not have the conventional protections of class and race privilege. They also, significantly, are not feminized or coded as gay, so their race and class “authenticity” coupled with their reinforcement as avatars of heterosexualized masculinity may be one reason why postings to message boards do not attack them. Also, as we’ve seen on What Not to Wear, since fan attacks largely coalesce in defense of subjects who are considered to be unfairly treated, minimal criticism about Pimp My Ride might also be attributable to the fact that cars are far enough removed from bodies that style agents’ critiques seem impersonal and thus not as harsh. Finally, that fans do not write severe postings in defense of makeover subjects may be a sign of reverse race and class prejudice because they may feel these mostly young people of color from working-class neighborhoods in the unfashionable areas of Los Angeles truly need the new splendor of their tricked-out cars.19 Even given all of these reasons for limited fan critique, I believe Pimp My Ride protects its own authority by positioning shame differently than do style or body makeover shows. A program like What Not to Wear, as Hapa writes, uses shame as a strategy to coerce new behavior, “I used to hate how mean Stacey and Wayne were to the ‘victims’ but I’ve come around to how much they need to shock people out of their old habits. They are building an experience that is so horrible, the victims won’t go back. Then they add their fashion advice and are so lavish with the compliments when the victims get it right that they reinforce a whole new set of habits in place” ( January 8, 2003). Though maintaining a car requires similar upkeep and improved habits, the pimped-out car is so steeped in hyperbole that attention alone is insufficient to keep it pristine. Pimp My Ride thus functions as more fairy tale than cautionary tale, and viewers respond to the makeover experts’ bravado with appreciation rather than criticism. Such a response is built into the show’s tacit instructions that authorize a happy gratitude. Even on shows that create scenarios asking for excessive joy, such as Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, where recipients weep and scream when they see their made-over homes, such euphoria constitutes a singular response to an extraordinary event. Normal life, by contrast, is Visible Subjects  ·  123

characterized by modification and restraint, a point made most telling in the makeover-themed commercials that air between makeover programming, such as an ad for Special K snack bars that depicts a tempted mom, repeating the restraint mantra, “Donut? Do Not. Donut? Do NOT!” Demonstrated in these moments are the ways in which the makeover’s tutorial teaches a modified form of critical viewing that is itself predicated on rational restraint. Even when the critical apparatus sometimes turns back on the show itself, the overall makeover mandate remains solid. Both web board and student responses indicate that viewers actively attack agents of authority if they perceive that those agents have crossed a line. And yet, neither web responders nor students resisted the makeover’s underlying ideological mandate—that one must appear and act in a way pleasing to the seeing eye. You only get the “right kind of look” when driving around a pimped-out ride or body.

Subjectivity or Subjection? Given this scenario in which we have an emphasis on the gaze and circumscribed emotionalism combined with tutorials that advocate regulation, what can we conclude about the makeover’s messages about subjectivity? Foucault argues more generally that the spectatorial gaze functions as a disciplinary agent, regulating the individual body through technologies of hegemonic control, thus largely denying subjects of subjectivity. On a show like The Swan or Extreme Makeover, neither the gaze nor the subject radically depart from this model. Participants are what Foucault has termed “docile bodies” to be “subjected, used, transformed, and improved” (Discipline 136). Though seemingly they must authorize the process of transformation for it to take place, participants are not depicted as actors in their own transformation, but as flawed canvases on which doctors, stylists, or mechanics work. This passive state is sometimes commented on and even laughed about on other makeover shows, but on most plastic surgery programs, it’s clear that makeover subjects are nothing more than docile bodies, even when they are white males.20 Some might argue that who authorizes and performs change is less significant than the fact that change happens at all. Perhaps by celebrating plasticity through its narrative of transformation, makeover shows signal the disappearance of a unitary subject and the appearance of a radical new subjectivity that is fragmented, fluid, and flexible. If so, couldn’t this shift be a cause for celebration in the way it breaks down boundaries, denying 124  ·  Chapter Two

phallogocentric dualisms, and allowing for a sort of difference that we’ve seen theorized by Luce Irigaray and Jacques Derrida, or, more recently, in Judith Butler’s sense of gender performativity? It doesn’t seem so, for a fixed performativity doesn’t quite qualify as performance at all, but as an expression of innate and authentic selfhood. The use of video technologies to bring out this inner self has led Palmer to observe about Reality tv more broadly that participants are cast as “willing victims” who “welcome the instruments of surveillance.” One consequence of such representation, he notes, is to “trivialise people, to present them as out of control, accepting they deserve shame,” all of which culminates in their “deliriously grateful” thanks for a new form of self “designed for normalization” (“On Our Best” 3). Pleasing the camera’s eye, as I’ve argued, also constitutes the makeover’s end goal to write a form of social acceptance on bodies by curbing them of their ungainly appearances and emotionally incontinent behaviors. In this regard, After-bodies are saturated by a shame forever linked to Before-bodies. In their insistence on spectatorial surveillance and tutored improvement, however, makeover shows also teach subjects and viewers how to develop and deploy a critical gaze. While this gaze can and must be internalized and used to police other fashion felons roaming freely in the world, it can just as readily undermine agents of authority, specifically style gurus. Governance technologies ask individuals to regulate themselves through the gaze, yet they also perform an unwitting subversive act by potentially giving socially discredited individuals new capacities for selfhood through visual self-affirmation and authoritative critique. Given the multiple nodes through which the makeover’s technology of seeing might take place, the larger transformation performed by the shows may not be of the subject’s body and behavior but of the subject’s capacity to see and thus assert selfhood. For not only does the economy of seeing regulate appearance and affect, it also teaches subjects (and viewers, in the most literal meaning of that term) a new critical visual vocabulary. That using such vocabulary requires the regulation of both derelict appearance and excessive emotionalism constitutes only another element of makeover logic, since it also offers a new form of celebratory selfhood. In the end, we are left with our own unsettling (ill)logics—feelings of anger at the subjugation participants endure combined with feelings of complicity and delight as we peer at new subjects now “free” and “empowered.” They smile, incredulous and relieved, standing in front of mirrors as self-affirming agents, welcoming the gaze with what they call poise Visible Subjects  ·  125

and confidence. Indeed, I don’t think we can simply dismiss their selfassessments as false consciousness or editorial trickery. For makeover participants, empowerment comes when they can convert their desires to be unnoticed and their fears of uncontrolled emotionalism into dreams of being seen as subjects possessing affective equanimity. On The Swan, this allows Marsha to move from a Before-statment of “I want to be invisi­ ble,” to an After-exclamation of “I want to be in the spotlight for once.” Transformation enables Kristy on Extreme Makeover to likewise happily embrace the gaze, “Tonight is going to be the night where everyone’s eyes are on me.” As After- bodies, Marsha and Kristy know they attract the gaze, but the makeover’s transformation means they can also gaze in delight at themselves. Rather than such self-affection registering as narcissism, a disorder that would necessitate the makeover’s regulation, it plays as the celebration of Marsha and Kristy’s unique selves. And according to the images displayed on the screen, both are quite happy with the selves that they see.

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3 “i’m a woman now!” Race, Class, and Femme-ing the Normative

It’s never very good to be a woman and have a mustache when you have a very elegant hat on. —Jean Broke-Smith, Etiquette Expert, American Princess [A] female police officer is too mannish. —How Do I Look? About subject, Nicki I’m kind of weirded out, actually, by the fact I am about to become a woman. —Kacie, makeover subject, Extreme Makeover

Since visual regulation of gender is so critical in the making of citizensubjects who populate Makeover Nation, in this chapter I discuss the gender politics at work when makeovers concentrate on women, reserving a comparable consideration of men for the next chapter. One way to begin our examination is through a closer analysis of what’s at stake in “creating the woman.” Ambush Makeover, for example, surreptitiously identifies “unsuspecting [mostly female] targets on the street” and treats them to a glamorous makeover courtesy of a team of subversive celebrity style agents. As with most shows, a self-imposed deadline requires that both style agent and unwitting fashion victim run from location to location, crazed in the attempt to create a total image transformation in a completely arbitrary block of time, typically an afternoon. Outcomes closely mirror those established across the makeover canon—a confident sense of self predicated on either

a renewed or a first-time-ever awareness of one’s perfectly articulated sex, gender, and “normal” heterosexuality—all as supported by largely tacit imperatives about race, ethnicity, and class. As Roni, a woman of color who is one of Ambush Makeover’s “tomboyish” targets, remarks postmakeover, “I feel sexy. I feel feminine. I feel like a woman.” Limited transformation time suggests that the makeover can only refine rather than intrinsically alter. The makeover doesn’t create but brings out one’s inner woman, which in Roni’s case is coded as a reformed tomboy who now possesses a “polished come-hither look.” Because of the fluidity between insides and outsides constantly referenced on these shows, however, external change, even that which happens in a matter of hours, allows for a newly constituted interiority. Looking like a woman thus paradoxically creates and expresses one’s already present, but previously blocked, womanhood. Across the makeover genre, rule number one mandates that there be no gender ambiguity. Female bodies must look and behave according to the terms of conventional femininity. In a home and garden show, such femininity expresses through verbal pointers highlighting “soft feminine pastels” or “girly accessories.” On a kid or marriage show, femininity articulates through a woman’s concern for domestic harmony, good nutrition, and the well-being of relationships. On a style or plastic surgery show, conventional gender often requires augmenting either the appearance or the actuality of secondary sex characteristics such as the size of the breasts, the proportion of the hips, or the smoothness of the skin. Programs suggest that there is shame in being female but not in looking and acting feminine. Given this, rationales for change are often couched in imperatives about gender (and implied sexual orientation and desire): “I need to give her a more feminine nose,” says one doctor. “Her block-like figure makes her look like a man,” says another doctor. “This space is too masculine,” say interior designers, “let’s girl it up!” Though gender is of primary concern across the makeover canon, gender is always supported by implicit biases about race, ethnicity, and class. As I discuss in chapter 4, male ethnic and racial identities are largely handled in makeover shows through absence. Such diminishment of race and ethnicity can also be true for women, though makeovers often perceive both race and ethnicity as a means through which to heighten beauty in the service of greater femininity, womanhood, and heterosexual appeal. Makeovers also work to eliminate signs of working-class-ness from female bodies, most typically represented through ignorance, decay, or neglect (as dem128  ·  Chapter Three

onstrated by an episode of Style by Jury that replaced Donna’s broken teeth and removed tobacco stains that she had accumulated from a smoking habit begun at age eight). After-outcomes seek a fusion between exotic otherness, Western beauty practices, and classed looks and/or living spaces that, in its privileging of sameness over difference, underscores what Herman Gray defines as a white middle-class subjectivity. The female made-over body thus indicates a postfeminist egalitarian utopia where sexual, racial, and ethnic differences between women subordinate to a primary identity as consumers. Though employing postfeminist tropes, the makeover often refuses the performativity that is associated with girl power. As depicted through the makeover’s narrative, the transformation process offers women a confirmed, stable, and permanent sense of their gendered identity. Such affirmations are depicted not only as positive, but also as a tremendous relief. It is as if women makeover subjects can now be sure of something about which they have long been uncertain, which makes these stories as much about “mature” women seeking resources for empowered stability as it makes them about riot grrrls desiring postfeminist declarations. Given the relentless reassurance that the makeover can produce the secure normative identity locations of (female) sex, (feminine) gender, and (hetero) sexuality as aligned with middle-class style codes and as unmarked by excessive indicators of race or ethnicity, one can conclude the hegemony of gender, sex, and sexuality norms are in many ways contested and at risk. Much as Michael Warner and Adrienne Rich have shown through their respective discussions on heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexuality, the makeover’s very insistence that it will offer stability serves to remind both subject and viewer of stability’s absence. Since the makeover posits that such solidity is a critical prerequisite for a woman’s confidence, happiness, and, ultimately, selfhood, it defines the normative subject as she for whom aspects of identity are not dynamic or performed but rather are constant and inviolable, immediately and accurately readable by a larger viewing world. Though markers of sex and gender can be changed, the makeover indicates that the femininity it bestows is grounded in female essence, thus offering a mediated refutation, even if unwittingly, of academic theories of gender performance. In this regard, though the makeover clearly believes in social construction, it is no advocate of performativity, where camp and parody contribute to a version of gender that operates as a copy with no original, as Butler discusses it in Gender Trouble. On tv makeovers, a woman can change but “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  129

only to become “truly” who she already is. Such an idea sounds across the makeover canon, be it from Diana on What Not to Wear, who says of Stacy and Clinton, “They’re going to transform me into the person I really am,” to Michel, on Extreme Makeover, whose friends say at her reveal, “It’s not just Michel but super-Michel,” here indicating that Michel’s female essence is released through tomboy-blocking cosmetic surgery. Most women will find themselves beckoned by the world of the makeover, but there are particular women depicted as desperately needing the interventions these shows offer. Makeover themes therefore cluster around certain harmful tendencies, which are pathologized through the makeover’s very attentions. These detrimental propensities include: those who dress inappropriately for their age or their professions; those who have grown drab, dowdy, and powerless in service to others; those who have neglected prudent behaviors and are now “paying the price” for sun bathing or clutter; those who dress themselves or their homes in monochromes; those who do not recognize the health hazards represented by their poor style, sloppy houses, or reckless children; those who have endured a vast number of hardships from cancer to infertility to deaths of loved ones; those who have never been the center of attention or the belle of the ball; those who “deserve” the confidence that comes with a beautiful body, a stylish home, or well-behaved children; and those who look older on the outside than they feel on the inside. Notice in this list, not marked explicitly by gender, sexuality, race, class or ethnicity, how the makeover imposes what all women should experience. Universalized normative expectations include commanding the gaze, controlling one’s body and environment, projecting a perpetual youthfulness, and mastering the management of one’s individually produced semiotic and social networks (in this case, clothes, kids, and homes). Notice, too, how trauma and inconvenience, danger and style choices, all collapse into each other, so that enduring cancer, living on welfare, experiencing social ostracism, or suffering through twenty years of dingy clothing equally contribute to building a universalized subject in crisis, which, in turn, merits makeover interventions. On one episode of Garden Police, for instance, the interventionist garden makeover squad conflates the dangerous with the boring, identifying “safety hazards” and “crimes” that authorize its surveillance and intervention. The Garden Police thus cite homeowners, but in particular the wife/mother, for a number of infractions, including poisonous azalea bushes and an all-grass yard area termed “guilty of being boring.” Makeovers frequently use this language of the intervention, 130  ·  Chapter Three

staged either by the state or by concerned friends, to suggest that unacceptable behaviors cannot be allowed to continue. So again, discourses of a technology of citizenship insert themselves in the service of Makeover Nation, all for the subjects’ “own good.” In the case of Makeover Nation’s female subjects, interventions become mandatory when the signifiers of a woman’s gender, sex, and sexuality fail to emit signs of the normative. Thus, of the many pathologies that qualify a woman for potential citizenship in Makeover Nation, the most dire mark her as manly (heterosexual with masculine features), tomboyish (suppressed sexuality due to nonfeminine appearance or behaviors, often coded but never articulated as lesbian), or mommy-esque (mothers who fail to transition well to “body after baby”). The overall logic in many ways draws on essentialist claims remarkably similar to popular and early academic discourses of transgendered and transsexual identities that suggested people engaged in sex-change transitions to claim a more authentic self. But such notions of female essence also lay out a tentative space where selfhood can be experienced outside of conventional social roles, so that it is a woman’s active commitment to finding and revealing her “true self ” that motivates the makeover. In this chapter I trace out the implications of these gendered narratives about women, selfhood, and normativity, beginning with the race and classsaturated ideologies espoused in the makeover’s interpellation of “normal” gender. I then move on to more explicit discussions of the represented horrors of manly women, tomboys, and moms. The remediation of each of these “traumas” works to sustain a (re)invigorated sense of gender that is underscored by active participation in and desire for heterosexuality. Conducting this analysis within the context of the consumer-based cultural citizenship, neoliberalism, and spectatorial surveillance already established in chapters 1 and 2 indicates other ideological apparatuses at work in the makeover’s gender politics, specifically how the makeover draws on feminist, postfeminist, and what might be termed nonfeminist ideologies to structure the idealized feminine/female self.1

Making Over Women of Color: “I was always that cute little Filipino girl.” Though roughly twenty-five percent of makeover subjects might be termed women of color, a subject’s race and ethnicity are seldom overtly mentioned in style and home-improvement shows, the black, Hispanic, Jewish, or “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  131

Asian woman universalized into an After-body where being “drop-dead gorgeous” contributes to identity formation more than might race or ethnicity. Though, for example, the hypercritical Stacy and Clinton critique their African American subject, Dara, a psychologist, as “beyond clueless,” and chide her for reluctance to reveal her legs and “great ta-tas,” their cruel-to-be-kind comments are all in the name of increasing the greater gender quotient Dara will emit postmakeover. This heightened sense of femininity, they argue, is communicated through a desire to be seen. Before her makeover Dara notes in tears, “I do wear my clothes big for a reason. That’s so no one can see what’s underneath. I’m afraid to dress. I’m afraid to be seen.” Being-seen-ness here translates as a necessary aspect of normative femininity and femaleness, which will enhance Dara’s confidence and sexual availability. Nowhere does the makeover allow for the collusion between race, visibility, and vulnerability, which in this case would recognize that Dara’s reticence to expose herself may well be a factor of the hypervisibility she experiences in a body marked by both sex and race. Makeovers depict this movement from the invisible to the visible as a salutary and necessary consequence of putting the femme in female. It is a transition considered positive for all women, regardless of ethnicity, as evident when Irene, a Polynesian subject on How Do I Look?, desires to alter the hypermasculine attire and demeanor that have marked her as a “gangster girl.” On the bbc’s What Not to Wear, as I noted in chapter 1, Asian-Indian Saira, whose drab style has compromised her professional and romantic engagements, seeks Susannah and Trinny’s help to write a Western code of beauty on her body. In this case, as Maxine Craig observes about beauty practices writ large, “Racism and sexism intertwine in the form of a normalizing discourse that marks women of color as abnormal and flawed” (164). The stereotypes that attach to images of black women’s bodies have often coded them as “grotesque figures,” coded deviant through their represented hypersexuality (Hobson 88). The tv makeover’s homogenizing gesture, which codes all women as universally similar, thus purportedly disallows for the particularities of racial and ethnic experience, even as it aspires to offer women access to their unique selves. The makeover’s failure to account for difference evokes both neoliberal and postfeminist rationalities, which eschew practical and material politics in favor of idealized individual bodies that can compete in a global marketplace. But I think in this case the makeover’s refusal to mark difference is intended as a gesture of color-blind egalitarianism: all women are 132  ·  Chapter Three

welcome to the empowerment makeovers offer. Given this, the makeover has no investment in determining or differentiating between the political ideologies that give rise to difference or dysfunction. The makeover instead deals in the pragmatic world of concrete change, saving conceptual alterity for individualized (and typically nontelevised) therapy sessions or feminist projects. In this respect, conquering the trauma that has caused a woman to desire invisibility requires making the woman look “better” so that she will enjoy being looked at more. It all makes one wonder under what circumstances would it be acceptable for a group of predominantly white people to watch and critique secret footage of a woman of color? The answer, as we see on these shows about appearance, is when that woman’s gender—and through gender, her selfhood—is perceived to be in peril. One indication of the way in which non-normativity invites visual policing comes, somewhat ironically, from Nely Galán, herself a “proud Latina,” and The Swan, her makeover pageant designed as a showcase for diversity and female empowerment. The Swan identifies one makeover subject, Sylvia, as Latina, but the particular country Sylvia calls home is less significant than that nation’s high-calorie dishes, materialized in the cellulite on Sylvia’s thighs, stomach, and buttocks. We are told that Sylvia has endured a lifetime of romantic rejection because of her poor body image. In documentary-style footage, Sylvia surveys her own bikiniclad body in front of a mirror, speaking of her desires for smaller thighs and less pronounced ears. Off camera, Sylvia’s boyfriend acknowledges that they have a limited sex life because of Sylvia’s body issues, which are exacerbated by the food culture in which they both operate. “It’s always been a challenge for Sylvia to stay in shape, and it is simply because the Latino community, when it comes to food. . . .” He need not finish his sentence because the camera does it for him, immediately cutting to Sylvia in white sweat pants, standing outside of a food truck parked in an urban area, from which Sylvia buys and then eats a dish made of corn, butter, cheese, and mayonnaise. The panel of Swan experts who are watching this moment on a television monitor in a mansion-like set respond incredulously. The host of the show jokes with the fitness trainer, “Something tells me those desserts and Latin food won’t be on the menu at the Swan program.” Sylvia’s “plan” includes multiple gender-enhancing cosmetic procedures that address what surgeon, Randall Haworth, terms her “bland bone structure.” The surgeon explains that she needs a chin implant and cheekbone lifts, as “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  133

well as extensive liposuction in seven areas of her body to give her a “more feminine look.” Dentist Sherri Worth adds, “Her teeth are too big for her face.” She proposes putting veneers on all of Sylvia’s teeth to “make her mouth look a little smaller” and thus more feminine. All of this and some psychotherapy, the panel concludes, will make Sylvia “pageant worthy” in three months time.2 In its handling of Sylvia, The Swan implicitly labels Sylvia’s bumps and bulges as the consequence of her vague ethnic origin. Though all of The Swan’s thirty-six contestants, save one, “need” liposuction, it’s only for women who are marked as ethnic that excesses are attributed to cultural and genetic factors rather than simply “bad” habits. The Swan ratifies the legitimacy of Sylvia’s visual critique of her Before-body by altering that body to better fit a beauty ideal that is seemingly politically neutral, unmarked by race, ethnicity, or class. Surgery does not, of course, erase Sylvia’s ethnicity. She is still as fully—and as ambiguously—Latina as she was before the operation, but surgery ultimately undoes the way that ethnicity writes excess on Sylvia’s body. In her debut as an After-body at the end of the episode, Sylvia poses in a sequinned gown amidst the opulence of the Swan mansions’ chandeliers and marble staircases, basking in the congratulatory applause of the doctors and trainers who have created her. We get the sense that in order to claim her new identity as a “gorgeous woman” Sylvia had to lose her fondness for eating fattening “ethnic” food from a truck as much as she needed to “feminize” her appearance. On The Swan, race and ethnicity mark the Before-body’s need for regulation, while on a show like Extreme Makeover, race and ethnicity offer elements of a woman’s body that can be “tweaked” in order to enhance her overall gender signature and consequent heterosexual attractiveness. In this regard, race and ethnicity are not erased, as Sue Tait argues, but are instead recycled. For “those with ethnic skins,” as Extreme Makeover’s only African American surgeon, Anthony Griffin, phrases it, special operations can enhance femininity by heightening racial and ethnic features. These include a Brazilian butt lift that gives a black or Latina woman “more junk in her trunk” as well as other potentially controversial procedures, such as reducing the size of lips and noses. Surgeons on Extreme Makeover tend to deal with ethnicity as one more tool they have to work with in the gendering process. Says surgeon Jon Perlman about Filipina Tess: “I’m not trying to make her look younger, I’m just trying to make her look better. I want to retain the ethnic look of her nose. We want her to still look Asian.” Increasing the size of Tess’s nose bridge so that it will be more 134  ·  Chapter Three

aquiline or giving her larger breasts and a smaller stomach are depicted not as Westernizing procedures but simply as improvements. Elizabeth Haiken’s work on the social history of plastic surgery asks us to be critically cautious of such language that categorically labels changes to the body as improvement. Haiken notes that surgeons and patients alike “generally use words like ‘prettier’ rather than ‘Caucasian’ or ‘white’ to describe the look they want” (213). This is demonstrated in not only plastic surgery makeover shows, but in a larger makeover culture. An Ebony feature on the increase in plastic surgery for black patients suggested, for instance, that historically, aesthetic operations for African Americans were curtailed through fears of appearing “ ‘too White’ or ‘too European’ ” and thus “turning your back on being Black” (Davis). Plastic surgeon Emily Pollard tells Ebony that things have now changed for patients of color. Since the primary value for her black patients is a rejuvenated look of “vitality and vigor,” she believes “it’s also a myth that plastic surgery robs you of your ethnicity. I don’t know what’s ethnic about bags [under your eyes]” (Davis, brackets in original). Similarly, in Black Don’t Crack, a documentary examining the politics of race and cosmetic surgery, the husband of one African American woman who chose to have plastic surgery reflected, “I supported her because it was something that was going to make her feel better and feel happier.” The tensions at play when race, ethnicity, appearance, and identity are all ontologically located in and expressed through the body reveal the troubling teleology implicit in makeover transformations. Since words like “prettier” and “better,” or in this case “happier,” announce, even as they avoid, comparison with some unnamed (whitened) ideal, they obscure more complex questions about how certain appearance norms came to be instantiated. Haiken theorizes that the issue is not so much ethnicity itself but “too much ethnicity” (225). So the desire of plastic surgery clients and the goal of their doctors become not erasure but refinement, a coded word that sustains class- and race-based ideologies. The television makeover’s relation to these complex debates about race, ethnicity, identity, and cosmetic surgery is simultaneously direct and unclear. Black Don’t Crack argues that in the wake of such plastic surgery makeover shows as The Swan and Extreme Makeover, black participation in cosmetic surgery, both male and female, has risen exponentially. Surgeon Anthony Griffin notes in this documentary that, in the past, people believed, “Somehow if you had plastic surgery, you weren’t satisfied with being black.” tv plastic surgery makeovers, he argues, have brought such “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  135

procedures “out of the closet” for black viewers since it suggests to them, “I don’t have to be afraid of losing my ethnic identity.” Whether we concede the same sort of cause–effect relationship that Griffin posits, it is clear that social theorists, be it in television documentaries or academic texts, cannot address the rising phenomenon of plastic surgery culture without also addressing the tv makeover’s significance. Interesting to me, moreover, is that for all of the richness of the debate about plastic surgery in the real lives of women in contemporary culture, in the mediated world of the makeover things are much simpler. Back on Extreme Makeover where Tess undergoes her alteration, the redemptive story of shame to salvation occurs unclouded by extenuating considerations, since Tess’s ethnicity works in secondary service to her femininity. After Tess’s cosmetic procedures, which include laser skin resurfacing, a nose job, breast implants, and a tummy tuck, the style team uses Tess’s ethnicity to enhance her gender, first by dressing her in what Sam the Style Guy describes as a figure-revealing blouse that “embraces Tess’s Polynesian side with a gorgeous floral print and strong rich color” and then by staging Tess’s reveal “in a lush and lavish paradise,” in this case Disney’s Polynesian Resort—nevermind that Tess is from Southeast Asia rather than Polynesia or that Disneyland is by definition make-believe. The makeover’s discourses here announce the categories of the authentic and the fabricated but collapse their meanings, since we are told that honoring Tess’s intrinsic Filipino heritage requires transporting her to a reveal ceremony in an “authentic native canoe” at this constructed Disney theme park. In striving to keep categories separate, the makeover actually blurs distinctions. It’s as if Tess went down the rabbit hole and ended up in Makeoverland, where definitions are upside down, a fact made most telling when Tess asks the hair and makeup artists for “something natural,” and receives hair extensions and false eye lashes. In this regard, Extreme Makeover exploits the notion of ethnicity to turn Tess from “sub-par to sublime,” her After-body signifying what Sam calls “hot and young and fresh and sexy.”3 Enhancing an ethnic look as a style gesture is not exclusively the domain of fashion and surgery shows. Deborah Phillips suggests, for instance, that British home-design shows often use “elements of the subject’s own history and individuality” as design features, so that “a Scots family is left with elements of tartan; an Afro-Caribbean family [is] redesigned in ‘tropical’ colours” (224). Such markings of national and/or ethnic heritage occur less commonly on U.S.-based shows. Though Shalom in the Home’s 136  ·  Chapter Three

Rabbi Shmuley may send his subjects to synagogue as part of their family makeovers or homeowners may ask designers to create a room that reflects their Caribbean heritage on Mail Order Makeover, it is more likely that explicit markers of ethnicity are detached from individual bodies so that they can be associated with a universalized body. One good example of the dislocation of ethnicity from identity manifests in Find Your Style, a room makeover show that describes people’s tastes through descriptions such as “Contemporary Mexican Hacienda” or “Ethnic Modern” that signify style typologies rather than identity locations. To summarize, I’ve offered two main arguments for how the makeover manages race and ethnicity. First, makeovers tend to treat issues of race and ethnicity obliquely, either not referring to them at all or only making reference to race and ethnicity as a style element that can be accentuated to heighten the gendered appearance of, for example, a person, a room, or a body. Second, even when the makeover does articulate race and ethnicity, doing so still contributes to a discourse of style as substance. Given this argument, it’s reasonable to ask if there’s any “right” way for the makeover to reference race and ethnicity. The answer it seems to me does not lie in the issue of whether to comment on race or pretend it doesn’t exist. Instead we must examine the undergirding power network that structures the makeover. As I’ve noted, makeovers offer quasi-religious narratives that begin with abjection, work through suffering, and conclude with redemption. Because the makeover begins with Before-bodies that are insecure and lacking in subject-defining qualities and ends with Afterbodies resplendent in confidence and selfhood, the makeover’s ideology requires that it traffic in a teleology from bad to good. Any quality that marks the Before-body, therefore, necessarily contributes to the shame of that Before-body. This puts makeovers in a perilous position of appearing racist since the governing progress trope from Before to After would also indicate that race and ethnicity factors contribute to the subject’s premakeover desolation. One way to better understand this point is through two contrasting examples, one from an adjacent genre and the other from a model of an unusual articulation of the makeover motif. Project Runway starts from a premise of its designer-participants’ fully formed selves. As with the makeover, Project Runway showcases participants’ trials and triumphs, but it primarily spotlights talent. Within such a context, the show both features and allows for a great diversity represented by the contestants: foreign nationals and Americans, urban dwellers and country folk, gay and straight “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  137

(though still no lesbian), male and female, amateur and professional. There is a good degree of racial, ethnic, and national hybridity represented on the show, and participants frequently reference these factors as they dialogue and tangle with others about their visions, backgrounds, etc. Though designers must adapt to stay in the competition, Project Runway suggests that such change is a consequence of self-driven capacities for flexibility. Race and ethnicity, as well as the whole messy complication of their lives, contribute to their skills as designers. Equally, Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance, which I consider to be an atypical makeover show, offers “full-figured women” the opportunity to embrace their curves by competing in a beauty contest. F.A.T. women, denoting Fabulous and Thick, are invited, in the words of their equally curvaceous mentor Mo’Nique, to “join the movement” and recognize that big girls can be sexy, feminine, and legitimate selves. Unlike The Swan or The Biggest Loser where Before-subjects speak of their misery and desolation, F.A.T. girls are energetic, exuberant, and for the most part confident. They have issues about their size and consequent femininity, but these are depicted as the result of a larger culture’s fat oppression rather than any intrinsic lack of self-worth. The show engages women in a transformation process, promising that subjects will not be the same when they leave as when they started the program. The makeover is here depicted as embracing “fabulosity” as a political gesture intended to subvert a mainstream idealization of thin women. Race is not overtly mentioned as part of the oppression these women have experienced, yet it cannot be overlooked since the panel of contestants noticeably skews toward “women of color”—black, Hispanic, and Polynesian women with ample hips and breasts (though no cellulite!) who want to “represent for the big girls.” By contrast, the more typical makeover conceit maintains that change is desired by the participant but cannot be attained by her alone, and so it must be imposed on the Before-body by style agents, surgeons, family therapists, and design experts. Since race and ethnicity sustain from Before to After, their identity-informing properties not only jeopardize the complete separation the makeover ostensibly produces between Before and After, they trouble the idea of a universal signifier represented by the After-body. Adhering to an ideological goal that posits democratic citizen-subject status as a reward for beauty requires that the majority of makeover shows suppress the difference represented by race so that they can accentuate the seeming harmony represented by gorgeous womanhood. This is as true for the F.A.T. pageant as for The Swan, where 138  ·  Chapter Three

women compete for the affirming and subject-granting qualities of the gaze. Such elaborate representational gymnastics suggests a good deal of selfreflexivity on the part of those who produce makeovers. The makeover’s handling of race and ethnicity equally suggests that it interpellates what Cressida Heyes terms a “politicized viewer,” who is concerned about whether the televised depictions of transforming nonwhite bodies contribute to a racist eugenics (“Cosmetic Surgery” 23). Although Heyes dismisses the possibility of such race-conscious viewership, the makeover’s complicated discursive gestures suggest that it is not quite sure how to acknowledge race without discrimination. The makeover’s solution is to diminish the specificity of individual bodies in the name of a universalized, and, one might argue, essentialized, gorgeous Woman, who is sexy, happy, and confident in the gaze.

Classy Lady: Of Moneyed Looks As with race and ethnicity, class is an equally significant though largely unannounced value on makeover shows. Both Gareth Palmer and Deborah Phillips have argued for the manner in which British lifestyle television, programming that focuses on altering interior domestic spaces as well as individualized style choices, inculcates subjects and viewers in class-based messages about taste that “confirm the superior knowledge and cultural capital of the designated expert” (Phillips 213). Though Phillips argues that British makeover programs of both style and home overwrite the subject’s “personal identity, history, and cultural practices” with “designer-approved commodification of taste and style,” U.S.-based programs, like a larger U.S. culture, tend to operate under the myth of a classless society (Phillips 224). Class-based messages and their implications about cultural legitimacy are rampant on U.S.-based makeover television, yet these messages are generally tacitly uttered, only barely obscuring the makeover’s investment in a deeper tie between normativity, gender, and socioeconomic status. Moreover, while it is true that the “superior knowledge and cultural capital” of the experts are meant to inform subjects, it is also true that style gurus themselves often occupy discredited social locations marked by sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and perhaps even economic status. Cultural capital, in this case style savvy, functions as a necessary survival skill rather than the privileges of class. Unlike the elite for whom the ways of cultural capital are naturalized, these experts have had to learn their know-how, which is precisely why they possess the self-awareness “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  139

to transmit such knowledge to subjects. In most cases, as in shows like This Old House, makeovers allow for the possibility that subjects recognize good taste without tutoring; they simply have not known how to incorporate such style statements into their lives. This indicates, then, that makeovers do not always supersede a set of taste judgments nor do they completely obliterate “personal identity, history, and cultural practices” but, instead, they potentially add to the registers of these identity-forming zones. Interestingly, when U.S. makeovers want to make more overt classed points, they often employ British (quite pointedly English) experts, like Kim and Aggie on How Clean is Your House?, who have “crossed the pond to clean up one filthy American house at a time,”4 or Jo-Jo the Supernanny, who rides primly around in her London Executive Sedan, looking for disheveled families with child-rearing issues. Or the makeover might deploy the low-brow meets high-brow strategy used by American Princess, which asks working-class girls to compete at a chance of becoming royalty, or My Bare Lady, which sends porn stars to London where they learn “how to pull off a whole different kind of climax” by acting in a Shakespearean play. English style hosts might be a dividend of transatlantic television production, but they equally suggest the degree to which notions of class in U.S. programming are tied to an old-world imagining of social regulation that has no place among the free-ranging egalitarianism of Americanness.5 Rather than explicitly saying that women should look and act like they reside in an upper-class socioeconomic location, as does, for instance, the British Ladette to Lady that takes “bad” girls and prepares them for garden parties and debutante balls, U.S. makeovers tend to voice class messages through cautionary tales and shame-based admonitions.6 This is evident on a program such as Honey, We’re Killing the Kids that uses scientific age progression to show parents “alarming” mug shots of their children at age forty. Without the intervention of the makeover, these images promise that chubby kids will turn into burn-out losers with sallow faces, mullets, missing teeth, paunches, and a general air of felonious misery. These shows are meant to interrupt downward class movement, allowing subjects and their families a stab at the American Dream by keeping them from sinking into a working-class and obese American nightmare. Such a goal is made apparent when Adrianne, the winner of America’s Next Top Model (cycle one), celebrates her transformation as a guarantee that she will never go back to waitressing. Tearfully she says, “Screw serving ever again. I’m going to have a good life now. A lot is going to change. And it kicks so much ass,” 140  ·  Chapter Three

suggesting, at some level, that the makeover’s notion of class focuses on the altered image rather than on linguistic decorum. Style shows employ an adjacent menagerie of scare tactics directed at class. For instance, when Stacy on What Not to Wear chides style victim Liz about her plastic handbag, she scoffs, “I don’t know what prison made this. You’re not doing as moneyed a look as you need.” Clinton corroborates, “If you want a million bucks, you’ve got to look like a million bucks.” Though Liz resists Stacy and Clinton’s advice throughout her transformation process, at the end of the program she concedes, “Once I did give myself over to you guys . . . I was happy.” Appearance, Liz affirms, “speaks volumes to people about who you are and what you represent.” Writing what Clinton calls “upward mobility” on the body allows Liz to claim a position that is classier, more feminine, and thus happier, and, as we will continue to see, happiness functions as a necessary affective prerequisite to the female self. Though generally operating in an obliquely articulated netherworld, the significance of class is critical to U.S. makeovers, as evidenced by the preponderance of programs that seek to assert improvement through high-end purchases. In Liz’s reveal, for instance, her more “moneyed” look consists of a $700 power suit, a $200 camisole, a $220 pair of pants, and a $240 velvet jacket. Given that Liz has forfeited the entirety of her wardrobe in order to be eligible to receive What Not to Wear’s style instruction and the $5,000 meant to purchase enough clothes to fill a new closet, here she’s setting herself up for participation in a different makeover show, either The Look for Less, where women are retrained to mimic designer styles without overspending, or A Makeover Story, where subjects are often critiqued for too few clothing options in their closets. Whether the makeover writes a moneyed look on a woman’s body or makes her a symbol of combined fiscal prudence and fashion savvy, the logic works to underscore what Palmer identifies as a democratizing momentum that posits smart consumerism as a primary characteristic of good citizenship (“The New You” 174). This idealization of a moneyed look takes place even on shows like Material Girls, Junk Brothers, Decorating Cents, or FreeStyle that advocate small financial outlay. The goal is to look like a million dollars, not always to spend it. Programs also articulate class messages in how they position subjects’ opportunities, or requirements, for confession and disclosure. Both Mark Andrejevic and Nikolas Rose have theorized the ways in which selfreflexivity and self-management engage with a diverse set of class indices. As Andrejevic has noted about reality tv more broadly, where, when, and “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  141

to whom subjects reveal themselves communicate classed information. Though not all makeovers equally rely on the device of the confessional, those that do most often use personal revelatory moments as testimonials of Before-body abjection, articulating what Helen Wood and Beverly Skeggs describe as a “grammar of conduct,” that is “self-authorizing” in its rehearsal of “trauma, stress, attitude, intelligence, self-esteem, fulfillment, and self-realization” (206). Because, they argue, such self-reflection is a middle-class coded capacity, televised moments that depict self-reflexivity serve as “redemptive narratives that overcome social positioning” (Wood and Skeggs 207). The very attempt to articulate one’s intersubjective experience thus recodes a heretofore working-class subject as more middle class. Given such a supposition, even without grandiose alterations of style and extreme makeovers of mind, home, and body, disclosing one’s inner thoughts marks the body as residing in a middle-class position. I think Wood and Skegg’s argument is well-grounded, but makeovers tell a more complicated story about self-reflexivity and class position, for in most cases what’s at stake in the makeover is not if one can tell her own story but what sort of story she tells. So, for instance, themes about suffering and endurance, American meritocratic achievement, and earned cultural capital run through premakeover confessionals. Subjects often voice resistance to the regulations style gurus impose, yet they seem less reluctant to confide their inner thoughts and feelings, either to those very style gurus or to “private” video cameras positioned to capture their inner reflections in deep close-ups. The formal properties of disclosure built into the shows not only class-code the subjects through confessionals but also bring them into an intimate space with the viewer, predicated on the idea that the revelation of private experience enables greater shared solidarity about what it means to effect personal change. Clearly the makeover writes a certain appearance of middle- to upper-class-ness on its subjects. It is not clear, however, that the makeover conceives of class, and in this case what it terms the “put-together lady,” in any way that is outside of appearance, image becoming, quite literally, the most salient feature of one’s classed identity. Since verbal gaffes or bad grammar might break the illusion of the made-over woman’s newly signifying class status, After-bodies say very little. Most makeover shows end with limited statements of joy as augmented by multiple visual displays of the woman’s new look in photo shoots, at reveal parties, or on billboards. Given all of this, an interesting version of class operates in the makeover, where issues of cultural capital, consumerism, socioeconomic status, 142  ·  Chapter Three

intersubjective interiority, and appearance hotly contest but also build upon one another. Whether the pre-made-over female body emits signs of working-class or middle-class residency, the successful makeover typically puts the woman in high heels, in body-revealing clothing, and tinted and highlighted hair. Though makeovers tend to be about the business of making women look more elite, such After-outcomes are often more tied to celebrity placement than specifically to class status. The made-over woman is poised to “let her inner celebrity shine,” as Style Her Famous puts it. In this case, the makeover subject need not be a tastemaker herself, she simply needs a good stylist. The distinction suggests that makeover outcomes are predicated less on achieving a middle- to upper-class sensibility than on simply looking like one has a lot of money, as with a celebrity who doesn’t need college or good grammar to walk the red carpet. Even in the wake of such manner-based programs as Ladette to Lady, Mo’Nique’s Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School, American Princess, and Mind Your Manners, or such psychological renewal formats as Starting Over, the majority of makeover programs do not perform makeovers through time-intensive elocution lessons, deportment training, or formal schooling. These programs are thus radically different than such quintessential makeover texts as My Fair Lady. Successful tv makeover outcomes are predicated almost entirely on image appeal and elation, of both the subject herself and an admiring audience who are able to ratify the subject’s new signification of gender-based selfhood.

Over the Top: Class Regulations through the Makeunder Makeovers draw a harsh line with those women considered excessive and out of control, usually in a highly sexualized way. Concomitant with eradicating markers of working class-ness in the name of achieving femininity, then, is erasing what the makeover considers a lack of class altogether, that which is garish or trashy, a leitmotif of the makeover termed a makeunder. Most fashion-oriented programs devote several episodes to makeunders, telling women with revealing clothes, as do Stacy and Clinton with Liz, “I don’t need to see every nook and cranny of your tuchus” or reprimanding Christina C., “When you dress like trash, what do you attract? You don’t attract jewels.” One episode of How Do I Look? articulated its intentions to makeunder style victim Kathleen through the description of the episode, “a single mother enjoys wearing skimpy outfits.” Even in Las Vegas, where it seems one ought to be able to get away with a little erotic eccentricity, style gurus are on the prowl, as one former “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  143

Barbie-doll impersonator named Alexis discovered when Ambush Makeover got her in its sights. Alexis, dressed in fishnet stockings and a transparent black body suit, with long platinum blonde hair, is depicted as being altogether too sexy and provocative to be a sales representative for a timeshare condominium conglomerate. Says the celebrity stylist about Alexis’ style, “I just want to tone it down and make her absolutely gorgeous.” Comments such as this suggest, as we saw with Sylvia on The Swan, that gorgeous womanhood functions as a site capable of eclipsing, though not fully erasing, race and class markings. Though Alexis resists a makeover, insisting that she enjoys being someone whom others stare at, she ultimately concedes to the transformation because her fiancée, who is also her boss, wants her to “look professional but also like a woman.” Similarly, on a different episode of Ambush Makeover dedicated to the makeunder, style agent William ambushes a bartender, Robin, whom he calls a bar-temptress. Grabbing Robin, William promises with maniacal glee, “I’m going to have her back here tonight looking like a lady.” Doing so requires dressing her in a champagne-colored satin suit (all the better to tend bar in), cutting her hair, and “chipping off” her excessive make up. At her reveal, friends praise the new toned-down Robin, who is now “very classy, very ladylike.” Makeunder incidents like these indicate a very specific class-based conception of femininity that is put-together, refined, and, most emphatically, sexy but not hypersexual (and, remarkably, announced by the vestigial term “lady”). To see this demonstrated even further, I turn to what is explicitly designated as a makeunder moment from an adjacent reality program, Judge Hatchett. According to the Sony Pictures website, which produces her show, Judge Glenda Hatchett has her own “unique way of determining justice that ultimately changes people lives.”7 Judge Hatchett’s trademark juridical system includes creative “intervention segments” that help almost exclusively African American “litigants better understand the implications of their actions.” In this regard, Judge Hatchett joins the multicultural bench of those who dispense television justice, offering, as Laurie Ouellette has observed, a televisual mechanism for creating neoliberal practices of self-governance seemingly authorized by but completely outside of the state. On one episode, a concerned and angry mother brings her fourteen-yearold daughter, Sasha, to Judge Hackett because the teenager “enjoy[s] wearing tight, revealing clothing.” As Sasha enters the courtroom in low-rise jeans and a revealing pink top, the voiceover narrator announces, “Sasha is so desperate for attention from guys that she lost her virginity when 144  ·  Chapter Three

she was only eleven years old. She says men constantly offer her money and drugs for sex, but she swears she’ll never turn into a prostitute, so her mother has nothing to worry about.” Judge Hatchett’s courtroom, apparently hearing the voiceover, erupts in laughter, their amusement escalating when Sasha turns to face the bench, and they see a fuscia-colored thong peeking above the top of her pants. When Judge Hatchett catches sight of the thong, she sends Sasha out for more appropriate clothes. “Obviously, you can see she dresses very trashy,” says Sasha’s exasperated mother, who thinks Sasha must be performing sexual acts to get the money to buy such clothes. Returning in a lumpy orange sweater, Sasha stands before Judge Hatchett, who notes that Sasha has been called to court because of the way she dresses—her style, like many of the fashion felons in Makeover Nation, reads as a crime requiring policing, citation, and punishment. “Does it bother you that people think you’re a prostitute because of the way you dress?” asks the judge. “No,” responds Sasha. “I think I look pretty.” Judge Hatchett does not agree. Your daughter is “suffering from some low self-esteem,” she tells Sasha’s mother. The judge’s sentence? “A dramatic intervention that opens the eyes of this promiscuous teenage girl” in the form of a “life-changing makeover.” Were we not already versed in the makeover’s reverence for celebrity, we might be baffled by Judge Hatchett’s choice of a style guru to conduct Sasha through the world of sartorial knowledge: Queen Aisha, a comedienne, who to my knowledge has no training as a stylist or life coach but does seem impressive to the otherwise implacable Sasha. “What’s of most importance is self-respect and self-image,” says the Queen, holding up a pair of Sasha’s silver short shorts. “All of these clothes here, Sasha, are basically attention grabbers.” The Queen calls in a “celebrity stylist,” Madeline, who schools Sasha in the finer points of fashion semiotics. Madeline begins by relating her own personal makeunder story: “When I was your age, I thought I had to dress really sexy in order to get attention from young men. Look at the way you’re dressed. I almost got raped. By no means am I saying that rape is ever a woman’s fault. What I am saying is that I wanted this young man to like me, and he only wanted to have sex with me.” Madeline’s story apparently hits the mark because Sasha acknowledges that she does not want to be raped, thereby strengthening a causality claim that provocative clothes invite sexual violence. More subtly, however, Sasha’s transformation teaches both her and the audience that though femininity requires being looked at, it is not feminine to “grab” the gaze or to draw negative attention. “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  145

When Madeline puts together a focus group comprised of black male teenagers, Sasha experiences her true moment of conversion. Madeline asks Sasha to model for the camera and invites the young men to offer their first impressions: “Slut. Prostitute. Stripper. She’s looking dirty. Fast freak. No respect for herself. Her first impression makes me not want to get to know her whether she has a good personality or not. She looks like she has about twenty stds.” Madeline then performs a makeover on Sasha, dressing her in clothes ostensibly more appropriate for her age. Postmakeover, much like Style by Jury, the group of boys reconvenes to offer its impressions: “She looks like she’s got more respect for herself. She still looks sexy but the good sexy, not the over the top, slutty kind. She can be a doctor, lawyer, whatever she wants to be. If you want a man to respect you as a woman, you have to respect yourself.” These statements articulate an array of positions that mirror the makeover mandate writ large. Sasha’s insecurity and desperate desire for sexualized attention are believed to manifest visually, the signs of her diminished selfhood clearly apparent on her body. Though the makeover endeavors to teach women how to attract and bask in the gaze, it limits such ocular exchanges to chaste appreciation and marital sexual response. The wildchild resistance of the over-the-top dresser—be it Sasha, who does not care if people think her a “ho or a slut,” or Alexis, who enjoys drawing sexualized attention—are reigned in through the policing gaze of style agents and fellow members of the community. Indeed, when Sasha hears the boys’ comments she is shaken by people’s perceptions. “Were you shocked when you heard those guys talking about you?” Judge Hatchett asks when a made-over Sasha returns to the courtroom. “That hurt my feelings,” Sasha concedes, “I thought I looked sexy, and I thought everybody else thought I looked sexy.” Judge Hatchett corrects her, admonishing that sluttiness was “the signal you were sending out. Are you clear about that now?” This moment, which offers Sasha a harsh lesson in semiotics, confirms a heterosexist dynamic in which the critique of boys carries more weight than the disapproval of girls or women. It is a moment, moreover, that suggests the makeunder has been successful in rescuing Sasha from what the program imagines as a life of certain sexual violation. And now that she is being read as a potential doctor, lawyer, or perhaps even a judge, the ideological line of the program suggests that the makeover not only de-sexualized a promiscuous fourteen year old but provided her with the means for upward mobility.

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In this example we can see fully manifest the investments of class, race, and gender drafted into the technologies of selfhood inherent in both the makeover and the makeunder. Through her intervention, Judge Hatchett teaches Sasha a lesson in self-regulation and self-presentation, both very middle-class and some might argue whitened values. And though Judge Hatchett ultimately gives Sasha a hug and tells her, “Before you go, I want you to take this make up off, and look at yourself in the mirror and see how beautiful you are,” we get the sense that Sasha’s beauty is conditional on her obedience, an imperative perhaps acceptable for a teenager but much harder to tolerate when extrapolated to the adult manly women, toms, and moms who wait at the gates of Makeover Nation.

m2f: “She’s on the verge of looking masculine, and I need to feminize her face.” Manly women are those for whom heterosexual desire and practice is sufficiently, if not always accurately, established through husbands and boyfriends, children, or even divorces. These are not “drag kings” who revel in their masculine signification and celebrate what Judith Halberstam has termed “female masculinities.” They are, or at least they are depicted as being, females besieged by unwelcome masculine characteristics: whiskers, barrel-shaped torsos, un-lady-like walks. The “problem” of the manly woman is not her race, class, sex, or sexuality, it is that her outsides do not accurately reflect her insides and as a consequence the world misreads her as a man. Tiffany, one of the proud albeit butch sisters on Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance, acknowledges, “What hurts about not being able to get in touch with your feminine side has to do with other people’s expectations of you. Them thinking that you’re He-Man, Rock of Gibraltar. You don’t have any feelings.” Michel on Extreme Makeover tells a similar story: “I like being a female, but when people perceive me initially, it’s kind of androgynous. It’s a gender identification issue, and that’s one of the reasons that I’d like to complete this process of a makeover.” Much as Elizabeth Haiken’s work demonstrates about people who chose plastic surgery to make their external features reflect their inner sense of identity, Tiffany and Michel’s comments suggest that the makeover they seek will save them from being continually misrecognized at the level of gender. As Tiffany says, transformation will allow her to “really understand what it’s like to be a lady.” On surgery makeovers, those features of the body

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that obscure beauty—a pronounced “ethnic” nose, a man-like jaw, decayed teeth, or “disfiguring” cellulite—must be altered, thus effecting a maleto-female transition. Although style shows do not employ such draconian measures as plastic surgery for altering gender signifiers, their messages are essentially the same: outer gendered style should reflect and enhance inner sexed identity. It is never possible for a woman’s inner identity to be anything but female, which, in turn, requires a “normative” signification of femininity, race, ethnicity, heterosexuality, and class. When style shows take on manly women, they tend to focus on subjects, who they contend have been masculinized by their professions or interests: athletes, police officers, security guards, stunt women, military personnel, fire fighters, and zoo keepers. Consequently New Attitudes made over an African American “lady copy” Debi, saying her job required her to “be tough and look tough” and this, in turn, had seeped into Debi’s overall appearance. Debi tells the audience in voiceover, “In my job, that’s been a problem with a lot of females. We tend to lose our femininity.” Debi desires a new look, “something sophisticated but sexy.” Fashion expert, Audrey, assesses Debi’s closet, clearing out the clutter. “I want to see her in flowing little skirts and tiny little tank tops,” Audrey says, taking Debi shopping for more feminine attire at Sears. Such a low-brow shopping choice is quickly reversed by sending Debi to a “swanky salon” in Manhattan, where stylists who work on a wide range of African American celebrities use their skills to make Debi look like she “spent a month on the beach in Jamaica.” As we saw in the discussions of class, the goal here is not to change Debi’s classed knowledge but to alter her class signification, so that the privileges of leisure and luxury might be granted to her on the basis of her appearance. The makeover suggests that this alteration will heighten Debi’s femininity, according her external feminine signification with her internal female essence. At her reveal, wearing her silvery Sears dress, Debi exclaims, “I feel great. I feel sexy, I feel sophisticated. I feel like I have a whole new attitude.” Debi’s new-found femininity is heightened all the more by her dumbfounded husband, now grown aware of his wife’s beauty. “I’m going to have to start carrying a gun around,” he says, presumably to fend off other men, but perhaps such a phallic metaphor is his own form of gender makeover. Theorizing on gender and sex has long held that gender is culturally constructed and thus malleable, whereas sex, in its ontological link to the body, is biologically determined and difficult to alter. Though we under148  ·  Chapter Three

stand the ways in which, as Judith Butler discusses, the body is itself a social construction, there has been little recent work that examines how media representations of gender often underscore a lack of performative possibility. The abstract concept of the makeover may indeed, as Mark Poster suggests in the documentary Reality Made Over, illustrate a version of self “as becoming, as process, as a continuing set of transformations.” But the mediated makeover allows for such transformations only in the service of drawing closer to one’s authentic sex-based essence. Makeover interventions, like those I described above, are largely invested in a truism that gender is constant and the body (including its race and class-based significations) must be altered in order to emit signs in congruence with conventional gender expectations. A woman can change her gender signification, but she cannot perform it. Makeover outcomes are thus represented as singular, irrevocable, and permanent. Though The Swan’s Galán remarked that she sees cosmetic surgery as a form of maintenance akin to painting one’s house every seven years (Goodykoontz), depictions on her makeover beauty pageant instead tell a story of one-time-only interventions designed to release womanhood. No female subject, on The Swan or any other makeover show, declares at the culmination of her makeover, “I’m a woman for the time being!” or “I’m a woman until I need my next Extreme Makeover” or, more ludicrously, “I celebrate my transitional and performative identity.” Though clearly such theoretical language would not be the vernacular of these programs, the ideas themselves are not foreign to television. Of note on makeover programs is the manner in which edited remarks underscore a woman’s new perpetual placement in sublime and unchangeable femininity, suggesting that once she has found true womanhood, she will never again lose it. Such a code sets up a discourse of the normative, wherein gender is not a matter of performance but of residence. In saying this, however, I do not intend to discredit or dispute poststructuralist feminist theory that recognizes performativity as a necessary, and often emancipatory, aspect of doing gender. Rather, I seek to extend those theories by attending very specifically to modes of representation that evince a belief in and desire for Western-based dimorphic sex/gender systems. Whether one labels this phenomenon a nostalgia for something that never was, a reflection of a critical mass of viewers, a culturally specific set of norms, or an indoctrination into a way of imagining mediated gender that conflicts with the fluidity of lived experience, the pervasiveness of makeover tv’s insistence that gender is a stable and locatable attribute of female selfhood cannot be denied. “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  149

At stake in this formulation of the normative is not what actually exists premakeover or what might exist post-transformation but what participants—and through them a larger culture—believe should exist and will therefore work to enact. Makeovers feed the idea that humiliation can be assuaged and normativity achieved if a woman attains beauty, and through beauty self-confidence (because, of course, there is no such thing as a lovely but insecure woman). And yet, the ideal by definition resides outside of the normal. In this regard, makeover outcomes create an unattainable fantasy of selfhood where beauty, confidence, womanhood, and personal empowerment all come together in an After-body unmarked by excessive ethnic, racial, or classed signs. Put another way, absent a gender refinement that marks a woman as gorgeous, a female can claim neither womanhood nor the subject status made available to her through the makeover. The treatment of women on makeover shows who are represented as on the verge of a masculine breakdown best epitomizes this discussion of a gender normativity so insistent that it threatens to parody itself, pushing the feminine into the hyperfeminine. Mostly male doctors on plastic surgery shows are relentless about the horrors of looking masculine, their language and their scalpels directed at hirsute chins, heavy brows, broad noses, over-large mouths, and too-small breasts. “The key to getting Rachel to the pageant,” says The Swan’s Dr. Randall Haworth, “is bringing out her femininity. It’s going to take a lot of work.” His statement simultaneously denigrates Rachel on gendered grounds while complimenting his own hardworking masculinity. In this case the logic and language of loss articulates ideal femininity as smallness (except of the breasts). Gender regulation becomes the rationale for surgical procedures that require lopping off parts of the body. This, in turn, ontologically links and limits feminine/ female identity to a very specific articulation of appearance, heightening the imperative that women’s cultural currency is ever more welded to her ability to signify a conventionally beautiful appearance, a conflation that feminism has long critiqued. Doctors are not the only ones who push for the objective of a femininity that is consonant with femaleness. Makeover participants themselves are on board with this gender objective. They have lived in a world where their bodies’ resistance to hegemonic beauty ideals has been punishing. On The Swan Marsha sadly tells of her experience, “It makes me feel completely unfeminine to have to shave my face every single day. . . . I’ve been called sir. I’ve been asked if I was a boy or a girl. It was devastating.” To accentuate Marsha’s “embarrassing personal problem,” there are no less than 150  ·  Chapter Three

seven scenes depicting her shaving. In these moments of intra-episode redundancy, the makeover heightens the very form of gender scrutiny it promises to reduce. On Extreme Makeover, Liane, a Montana rancher, describes her perpetual exclusion from what she considers to be normative femininity: “I do the job of a man. I’ve never been the belle of the ball. I’ve never stopped traffic when I walked into a room. I’ve never had every eye on me.” These are but a few moments that illustrate a collective makeover commitment to eradicating masculine signifiers upon female bodies in the name of normative femininity. The entire discourse about masculinity and femininity on these programs reveals a knotty set of interlocking logics, given their commitments to dichotomous sex and gender differences and the notion that only in reconstructing the natural can one catapult from the normal into the normative. It is not only the makeover that has such investments. “Western culture,” Anne Fausto-Sterling explains, “is deeply committed to the idea that there are only two sexes” (20). Given this, one’s gender identity (and generally one’s sexual desire) has been assumed to be derivative from one’s genitalia, a penis denoting male, a vagina designating female, both adding up to “normal” heterosexuality. In this duality, one’s sexed identity and sexual orientation have also been considered the touchstone for one’s gender, leading to the not-so-tacit assumption that biological males should behave in masculine ways and biological females should behave in feminine ways, and that when gender and sex are in congruence, they will yield a happy stable heterosexuality. Susan Stryker significantly nuances this debate, noting that “ ‘Gender,’ as it is lived, embodied, experienced, performed, and encountered is more complex and varied than can be accounted for by the currently dominant binary sex/gender ideology of Eurocentric modernity” (3). Although cultural critics argue for a fluidity of both gender and sexed identity that make these dimorphic dualisms fictional, such binaries hold a popular appeal that is much harder to do away with. Indeed, as Halberstam notes, it is “gender’s very flexibility and fluidity” that “allow dimorphic gender to hold sway” since the broadness of gender’s potential application allows for no body to evade legibility within a gender binary system (20). Within the dualistic gender/sex paradigm of the makeover, ugly ducklings with “masculinity issues” pose an ideological problem since they suggest it is possible for biological females to be coded with markers of maleness. Much as in the case of intersexed remediation, where doctors surgically “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  151

The shame of women shaving. Aegis ad, Bloomington Herald-Times, September 22, 2007. The Swan. “Marsha,” December 6, 2004.

“fix” the sex of ambiguously coded babies at birth, plastic surgery shows eliminate gender/sex ambiguity by altering the body.8 For makeover participants, the markers of masculinity are not presumably the primary sex characteristics of penis and vagina. Secondary sex characteristics—those elements of the body such as breasts, muscles, body hair—tend to capture the gender normalizing gaze of the surgeons, as do other parts of the body not normally saturated with sex or gender meaning, such as the nose, mouth, and teeth. The problem of excess flesh is also a gender/sex matter since for women the release of estrogen at puberty activates breast growth, but, combined with childbirth and aging, estrogen can also increase the amount of body fat in hips, thighs, and buttocks that, in these shows, must invariably be sucked away. Furthermore, as I’ve suggested, abject excess on the body is often coded as a factor of race, class, and ethnicity. Whether in plastic surgery or style shows, makeover logics suggest that hidden beneath frumpy mommy bodies or masculinzed blocky bodies are beautiful confident feminine women. All that is required for these women to emerge from hiding is expert tutoring, individual commitment, and, frequently, the skillful use of a scalpel. When Paula, a forty-three-year-old mother and aerobics teacher who has always been troubled by her small breasts and large nose, receives an Extreme Makeover, she is astounded by her new femininity and sense of empowered womanhood. Near the end of her seven-week makeover, she faces her fear of shopping (which in itself marks her as not womanly) and heads to a boutique with the stylist Sam. When Paula exits the boutique’s dressing room wearing a white, figure-revealing sleeveless blouse, Sam exclaims, “This is fantastic, and feminine, and beautiful!” Paula remarks, tearfully, “I just feel really feminine. I just never had that feeling. I’ve just come back into womanhood. I’m a mother and a wife, and those things I’ll always be, but I get to get a little bit of a sense of self, and that’s what Sam just helped me do.” Paula’s words suggest that she perceives a distinction between her identity location and her social roles as wife and mother, indicating that an aspect of her concept of self lies beyond the heteronormative script that her service to children and husband denotes. In many ways we might consider Paula’s experience the perfect expression of postfeminism since she experiences empowerment through a combination of shopping and sexuality. At forty-three, however, Paula’s age puts her outside the typical demographic celebrating girl power. Indeed, Paula’s experience of renewal is quite clearly coded as a form of empowerment for a “mature” post-baby woman, whose never-before experience of feeling “really “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  153

feminine” combines with a sense that she has gone “back into womanhood.” Paula underscores that her made-over sense of gendered identity offers her a form of personal power that will translate into real-world efficacy. Entering her reveal where family and friends await, Paula notes, “I walk different now, I walk like a woman. Nothing can hold me back.” In this regard, the makeover has equipped Paula for meritocratic competition in Makeover Nation by making her a feminine woman. Though Paula’s grasp of her newly experienced femininity makes her feel confident as she undertakes her immediate goal of attending college, a more disturbing set of questions play at the edges of her statements. Why could she not claim her womanhood or her sense of self before? Is the self only available when you are a size 4, but elusive to those who, like a pre-made-over Paula, are a size 12, or larger? Is the self a by-product of one’s cup size or hair style? Can a woman not claim selfhood if she feels insecure or anxious? Can a female be a woman if her large “Romanlooking” nose resembles her father’s? Paula’s transformation answers such questions by indicating that the feminine/female self only manifests through the joyful After-body. Tying the experience of self to celebratory outcomes, moreover, necessarily suggests that her subject status will diminish when Paula experiences inevitable feelings of doubt or depression. So again, we see a moment in the makeover when normative femininity, significantly marked as a place of consummated selfhood, brings a myth of perpetual happiness uninterrupted by anxiety or concern. Eliminating the masculine thus serves as one way to achieve this happy fictive ideal.

Toms: “If you’re not wearing a dress, how do you know if you’re a girl?” In many ways it’s completely arbitrary to make a distinction between those the makeover considers manly women and those it considers tomboys. Often, the two categories contain the same people, and the distinction is one I’m imposing rather than one the makeover readily announces. For their purposes, all women with “masculinity issues” are tomboys. For my purposes, I use tomboy to indicate those women whose sexuality is not clearly established and whose bodies and behaviors “need” adjusting so that a made-over relation between feminine and femaleness will yield heterosexuality. Some might consider my classification splitting hairs, but it is the only way to get at the more tenuous topic of women’s potential

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same-sex desire, since the lesbian is an unannounced and, indeed, mostly unmentionable topic on makeover tv. Though gay-ness is frequently coded through many of the male style gurus, their intimate relationships and women’s same-sex orientations are rarely addressed. In my viewing experience, I have seen only two acknowledged gay men undergo a body makeover transformation, one on Extreme Makeover and the other on I Lost It!, though at one point Queer Eye was looking for pre-outed young men to feature on their show. Similarly, I have seen very few self-identified lesbians experience makeovers. These included Ebony on America’s Next Top Model and Chaz Bono on Celebrity Fit Club, though in the 2007 season of American Princess, Yvonka codes herself as potentially lesbian when she tells the camera her three favorite things: “cheeseburgers, dildos, and women.” Only the short-lived program Queer Eye for the Straight Girl actually articulated the word lesbian, and that through its style guru Honey Labrador, who at one time had selfidentified as straight. The tomboy, then, must do the work of representing masculinized women whose “natural” heterosexuality has “stalled” due to their appearance. In this regard, these women may be lesbian or they may simply desire in ways not intelligible to the makeover genre. We simply do not know, since the makeover refuses to acknowledge sexuality outside of heteronormative scripts. Like a shot of adrenaline to the heart, the gendered logic behind the makeover is that it will dramatically reanimate the dormant heterosexuality in a woman’s body. Such a premise heightens the stigma attached to non-normative sex practices considered so aberrant that the makeover cannot even name them. In theorizing the tomboy, Halberstam has reflected that tomboyism in girls and early adolescents is often tolerated since it frequently signals “a ‘natural’ desire for the greater freedoms and mobility enjoyed by boys. Very often it is read as a sign of independence and self-motivation, and tomboyism may even be encouraged to the extent that it remains comfortably linked to a stable sense of a girl identity” (6). C. Lynn Carr’s work to establish the sociological relationship between tomboyism and lesbianism equally suggests that tomboys reject femininity because “to be a girl was to be vulnerable to male violence, boys and men enjoyed more privileges, and fathers and male role models bestowed more attention on boys and ‘boyish’ behavior” (121). Though we cannot deny the perks and privileges accorded to the masculine, tomboyism becomes a threat, according to Halberstam, when it extends into adulthood, since this suggests that the

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tomboy has resisted the socialization of her “blossoming womanhood” (6). It is the makeover’s job, in this regard, to step in and re-socialize the woman, teaching her the necessary gender conditioning that will allow her to shed her tomboy ways. This intervention is particularly important when, as in the case of Irene on How Do I Look?, being a tomboy is depicted as the consequence of an early childhood trauma. In her confessional moment with the style host, Finola Hughes, Irene concedes while crying that she dresses like a tomboy as a shield. “I grew up in a house with a lot of screaming and yelling. When you feel all alone . . . you don’t know what to do. So I had to rebel against everybody and [I] resent them for not being there for me.” How Do I Look? offers Irene a way out of her troubled past, rewriting the childhood neglect that resulted in her tomboy affect by redoing her appearance. The style accomplices behind Irene’s makeover—her sister, friend, and a professional stylist—tell Irene that she needs more feminine clothes in her wardrobe. Says her sister Sarina while in tears, “It’s hard for me to see you like this. Everything we’ve gone through with our family, this is what made you like this. It makes you have a tough exterior.” Irene agrees, painfully acknowledging, “I don’t want to have this guarded shield anymore. I just want to shine, and let people see the real side of me.” Once the terms of a gendered selfhood have been established as a basis for transformation, the results are fairly predictable. Irene must dispense with her comfortable sports-oriented clothes that hide her body; she must learn to walk in heels and carry a purse; she must wear make up and fix her hair; she must play up her Polynesian ancestry in ways that enhance her femininity. At her reveal, all are stunned. Finola congratulates Irene on her “my fair lady transformation” that will make the “guys drop dead.” When Irene complains that her new high heels hurt her feet, Finola says with a laugh, “Welcome to our world,” the feminization of Irene here made material through her aching tendons and blistered toes. When tomboys are indifferent or actively resistant, the makeover works its magic in different ways. Made, a mtv product geared toward a youth audience, typically features high school and college-aged students, who sign on for a period of rigorous coaching in order to be made into radically new articulations of themselves that, at first consideration, seem impossible to achieve—an overweight chess geek, for instance, who wants to be made into a male model. Like the makeover genre more broadly, Made encapsulates the values of Americanness. “Made is all about making dreams 156  ·  Chapter Three

come true,” reads mtv’s website. “We want to prove that with hard work (and a little help from mtv) any goal is attainable.”9 Made is one of the few makeover shows where desired results do not produce certain outcomes. As they note, “Whether our chosen candidates succeed at their goals or not, Made’s message is that it is better to try and be unsuccessful than not to have tried at all.” Into the pantheon of adolescents desiring to be made, enters the Caucasian and upper middle-class Marissa, a first-year student at Michigan State University, who is “sick of being treated like a boy . . . sick of being yucky.” She desires to be transformed into a “girly girl.” In ways that are none too complimentary to men, Made uses Marissa’s friends and family to attest to her tomboyish ways and therefore make an argument by absence about what constitutes femininity. We are told that Marissa is smelly and dirty; she likes to shove and wrestle; she swears a lot, cracks her knuckles, farts, and burps. “When I met you,” says one of her male friends, “I thought you were a guy.” He tells the camera, “Marissa is definitely more manly than me. Whenever she’s around we just talk about sex and, you know, farting. Marissa is definitely not dateable . . . because she’s a man.” Another guy remarks, “I never thought Marissa was very dateable because she just likes to hang out with the guys.” Marissa amplifies their readings, “I don’t just look like a grungy guy. I act like one too. I’m basically a very dirty, foul person.” Even the camera offers visual evidence, showing Marissa in stained sweat pants and a hooded oversized sweatshirt, pushing a guy in a playful but aggressive manner. “I guess because of my bad habits,” Marissa admits, “guys don’t exactly consider me girlfriend material. All in all, I’m just your typical teenage boy.” Though there is no confusion about the “legitimacy” of Marissa’s sexed identity—no one is arguing, for instance that she is genetically male or hormonally intersexed—the messages here all work to underscore that Marissa’s social performance of gender is too discordant from her sex for her to be in any redeemable way either feminine or female. This is true even given that Marissa’s raced and classed codings put her squarely within the normative. It is her cartoonish set of masculine behaviors that lead both Marissa and her friends to label her male. And though Marissa has not yet met her Made coach and so has not been fully tutored in the terms of femininity, what makes the woman has already been tacitly stated for the audience: a truly feminine woman cares about hygiene, she doesn’t swear, she does not engage in physically aggressive or grotesque behaviors like shoving, spitting, or farting, she seeks the company of other women, “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  157

she desires the attention of men, and she works hard to make herself attractive to the male gaze. For Marissa, as with most tomboys, it is her developing female body that motivates her to retrain her tomboyish behaviors. “I’ve reached the stage in my life where I’m ready for a change,” Marissa says in voiceover. “Got some boobs, and suddenly you’re a girl.” But the ways of femininity are foreign to Marissa. “When I try to be girly, I don’t know where to begin. The way I look and act on the outside is impacting the way I feel on the inside. When I am in a situation where I really should be more proper and it’s a more formal situation, I can’t handle it.” For Marissa then, just as we saw with Michel, the desire to enact a more convincing femininity stems from the cognitive dissonance and resulting discomfort that accompany a mismatch between gender and sex, here articulated through class-based behaviors that link the proper with the feminine. It is only after Marissa, with some effort, sheds her slovenly ways that the show allows for the possibility of her being attractive to men. Jubilant in her newly claimed girly girl status, Marissa observes, “I thought it was so much fun to be a jerk and smash things and spit. And that’s like reckless fun if you are ten-year-old boy, but now, I’m a lady!” While watching Marissa’s story unfold, I found myself feeling that there was something truly perverse and bizarre being enacted through her transformation. mtv is the premier network for a hip and edgy youth generation that prides itself on teenage rebellion and indy spirit. And yet, as demonstrated on this episode, one of mtv’s flagship programs not only embraces but also celebrates the concept of a lady to such a degree that Marissa’s Made coach, Ashlan, wears pearls and white gloves, calls Marissa darling, and invites her to afternoon tea. I wondered if this is really the epitome of femininity to young women, or is the concept itself so much of a joke that Made is here playing in stereotypes, freeing Marissa to burp and swear all she wants because only an anachronistic fool would wear pearls and white pumps, sipping tea with her pinky raised. BeforeMarissa seems to me much more engaging and funny than her coach. After-Marissa is certainly more conventionally feminine, but she is also incredibly boring. I turned to my students for answers. For the most part, they were sympathetic to my resistance, but they stood behind the gender rationales that back the show. Though the feminist and lgbt-aware students in the class recognized the harm in compulsory gender instruction, most students acknowledged that gender deviancy leads to painful social ostracism. For 158  ·  Chapter Three

these students, the makeover is not just a form of entertainment, it is an exercise in social engineering that they live daily. Indeed, for young women who contend with issues such as anorexia, cutting, or other forms of socially influenced, self-inflicted harm, the rhetorical question that authorizes many makeovers, “Are you finally comfortable in your own skin?” has a relevance both poignant and immediate. As savvy viewers and cultural practitioners, my students know that modifying the way masculinity reads on the body will not address the larger social issues that make the doing of their gender a topic of scrutiny and regulation. They are also attracted to the makeover’s suggestion that relief can be achieved by becoming more conventionally girly. It’s a fantasy both about gender and about simplicity, about a version of life unassaulted by the complexities of living, knowing, and hurting. For me, this desire to live a less examined life in the name of reduced pain may well be the single-most important element that defines what we more broadly term postfeminism.

Moms: “She’s got mommy syndrome, bad.” Even when manly women have turned feminine and tomboys fully girly, the woman is not out of danger, for motherhood enters her into the makeover’s most insistent category of need: what Clinton and Stacy call the “lumpy, dumpy, frumpy, schlumpy” mom. Given the makeover’s near total commitment to heteronormative narratives, it never considers that a woman might not choose to be a mother, echoing what Diane Negra in What a Girl Wants connects to a postfeminist trope that necessitates marriage and glorifies pregnancy for young women. And yet, motherhood is here posited as a universal condition of womanhood, much like aging, that must be altered in order to be endured. If gender-change surgeries and style interventions insist, as I’ve argued in this chapter, that gender and sex converge, the makeover overdoes its own logic, writing a code of feminine and female aberrance on the very women who are most firmly located in sexed bodies—moms. On plastic surgery shows, these are makeover subjects who possess the stretch marks and excess skin that testify to the body’s experience of pregnancy.10 Most subjects are displeased with their breasts, which after nursing babies have shrunk. As a doctor on Extreme Makeover says about Tricia’s breasts, “kids sucked the life right out of ’em.” Dr. Rey from Dr. 90210 notes about Jenny’s breasts: “Breast feeding really damages the body. It’s amazing.” Subject Jenny can thus affirm: “Having breast augmentation is like a new beginning for me. I feel like I can close “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  159

the book to the ugly duckling story.” On style shows, “mom targets” are those whose time, energy, and imagination are given over to children. As a consequence, these women have grown dowdy, their appearance signaling they have “let themselves go.” Although the ravages of motherhood to the physical body are a consequence of childbirth, makeovers suggest that the mommy blues can happen to almost anyone: biological mothers, adoptive mothers, married women, single women, pregnant women, even infertile women and fathers (single-dads who are feminized through their care of children). For the makeover, moms are the perfect symbol of a subject in distress, and if enormous catastrophes, such as a hurricane or limb amputation, are the tickets to admission for such shows as Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, then motherhood indicates that most women need rejuvenation before they can enter Makeover Nation. Whether on surgery, style, home, or kid shows, mother makeover subjects acknowledge that they are no longer on their own list of priorities. Consequently, the makeover’s objective is to help these women reclaim themselves as worthy sites and subjects of attention, as yummy mummies rather than dowdy moms. Such messages about self-reclamation open a productive conversation about female selfhood outside of the domains of socially scripted roles, but the makeover is clear that its aims are corrective, not celebratory. This isn’t about women putting themselves first from the very beginning of their lives; it’s about encouraging women to pay attention to themselves only after their other-oriented-ness has been fully established. On Operation Style, for instance, forty-six-year-old Fran wants to “learn how to do something for me because I’ve forgotten how to do that.” The makeover endeavors to help her with this goal, and she merits such lessons because she is a single mother who has devoted herself to the care of a teen-age daughter with cerebral palsy. Such a position complicates and conflates the feminist, postfeminist, and even nonfeminist statements voiced by many tv makeovers. Operation Style indicates that it is Fran’s long-endured service to her disabled daughter that merits her empowerment through style renewal, an empowerment in this case put to heteronormative ends since the makeover readies Fran for a blind date. Though still working through the discourses of power and change that fuel both feminist and postfeminist logics, Fran’s renewal is not predicated on politicized or even women-centered outcomes but on the emergence of her intrinsic feminine and female self. Such a move positions politicized discourses as irrelevant to the makeover mandate. 160  ·  Chapter Three

Yet, when the language and concepts of either feminist or postfeminist ideologies serve the makeover’s ends, as in the case of the F.A.T. pageant, the makeover is only too eager to put them to good effect, as we can also see when The Swan features postmakeover Marnie’s exclamation, “This is the true meaning of ‘I am woman hear me roar’!” It is through the figure of the mother that the multipurpose ideological apparatus of the makeover best reveals itself, which we can see by returning to Tess, introduced earlier in this chapter. Tess is a single mother of three children. abc’s website explains that “multiple pregnancies and a large cesarean section scar ruined the body of this former pageant queen.”11 Tess herself says, “I have had three children that have just left my body in a shambles.” Tess, like most makeover subjects, desires not only to reclaim her pre-baby body, she wants to attract male attention, “I want to feel and look sexy.” The website narrative notes, “As Tess is a Filipina, the Extreme Team works with her to accomplish her makeover dreams despite the challenges she faces with the concerns of ethnic plastic surgery.” For Tess, such salutary, and, one might argue, postfeminist changes are expressed in an After-body indistinguishable in size and shape from her seventeen-year-old daughter. Says Tess at her style fitting, “I can’t believe Lorne and I are the same size. We’re mother/daughter, but now we’re like sister/sister. This is pretty wild.” In the case of Tess, the makeover’s redemptive skills can only unmark the marked, or put in other language, the makeover renaturalizes a mature mother’s body, one that through the “natural” processes of childbirth and aging became “unnatural.” Youthful, thin, and beautiful, Lorne herself would have been ineligible for a makeover; her mother, however, is the perfect candidate. Tess’s makeover is presented as ideology-free—her young appearance not meant as a statement of feminist empowerment or postfeminist exuberance but as a nonfeminist correction of the body to make it, and the self, more femininely female.12 In this regard, the makeover has greater interest in making born-again female bodies than in birthing them in the first place. Similarly, the makeover has less investment in staging new ideological platforms than in reinforcing old ones. For greater evidence of this, I turn to Plastic Surgery: Laid Bare, a British documentary that is one-part cautionary tale and two-parts advertisement for cosmetic wellness. One segment of the documentary follows Stacy, a mother of two sons, who traveled to South Africa for breast augmentation and a tummy tuck. Stacy’s desire for plastic surgery parallels the quite understandable reasoning that motivates many women who seek cosmetic surgery. “You might look OK on the outside,” Stacy says, “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  161

“but when you strip off you look dreadful. I can’t imagine what it would be like to look normal. Yeah, just normal.” For Stacy, looking normal does not come from occupying a body marked by pregnancy; instead normalcy requires that one look great undressed. By the end of the documentary, Stacy says that except for when she birthed her two sons, this day, when she births her new self, is the best day of her life. In a similar way, style shows prepare moms to be reborn as women. On What Not to Wear, Laurie observes that her mom-style is a consequence of two factors, her prioritization of her daughter and a sense that she no longer has a body worth revealing. In voiceover, she remarks, “When you’re a mom, and you’re paying for a kid, it’s hard to get those fashionable clothes. You wear bigger clothes than you did because you’re afraid your body might not be like it was before you had a child.” Clinton and Stacy are completely unwilling to accept either rationale. Says Clinton, “I haven’t met a mom yet who, even though she might be busy, wanted to give off the vibe of frazzled mom. The idea is to look like you have it all.” But Laurie initially resists their mandates, feeling that if she turns her attention to herself, her daughter’s well-being will suffer. This, in turn, heightens Laurie’s congruence with codes of domestic femininity while allowing the style hosts to re-educate her. Since Stacy and Clinton have already administered their mandatory cruelties, they can turn to empathy in reshaping Laurie’s outlook. Says Stacy, “A lot of women who’ve had children really do not feel that their body is familiar to them anymore, so they don’t know how to dress it.” Her message is meant to express understanding and compassion. Further references through the show, both visually and discursively, however, situate Laurie as delusional, her resistance a factor of an inaccurate self-image that borders on bdd. “If you are trying to change my distorted version of what I look like through form-fitting clothes, it’s not working,” challenges Laurie. “Let’s not think of yourself as a mutant,” chides Clinton. In this representation, it is only when Laurie releases control, allowing herself to be made over, that the show equally relinquishes its reading of her as suffering from a psychological problem. By the time Laurie has been turned into an After-body, she fully announces the values that Stacy and Clinton have sought to teach her. Laurie says: “I think everybody out there needs to know this isn’t just about dealing with fashion. It’s about dealing with your insides as well. I feel like me again. I’ve always been Caitlin’s mom, and Laurie the hr manager, but no Laurie. In the past I’ve had issues about how I look in the mirror, and now they are starting to go 162  ·  Chapter Three

away. I think this is going to make me a better everything. A better mom, a better person, a better everything in general.” Laurie’s transformation clearly enables her to claim a subject position that both contains and transcends motherhood. In this expanding of the constitutive building blocks of self, I believe the makeover offers women empowering possibilities for experiencing a self. Yet, just as we saw in the case of Paula earlier in this chapter, selfhood is presented as a condition exclusively experienced by the After-body. “Look at the old you,” says Clinton to Laurie, “so drab, so boring, so unflattering. Before, you looked like you could just ignore that woman. Now you look like you’re proud of yourself.” However true that the makeover experience has given Laurie something to notice and celebrate, the hidden content of Clinton’s message serves to condemn the Before-body, diminishing the likelihood that the pre-made-over body can signify normativity or support the scaffolding of subjectivity. This is particularly true when we turn to the foremost proof of the makeover’s success: heterosexual desirability.

Hets, Trans, and Gender Queer As I have noted, it is a pervasive assumption on makeover programming that female bodies must always be feminine and male bodies must always be masculine and that both men and women—regardless of race, class, or ethnicity—are motivated by heterosexual desires. Given the endless verbal and visual cues that underscore the “naturalness” of heterosexuality, makeovers for both men and women are typically motivated by the heterosexual attraction that their transformations will yield—either from new partners or in the revitalized interest of present spouses. For men, such attention constitutes a bonus; whereas for women, it is a necessity. As the theme song to Pimp My Ride makes clear every week, “So you want to be a player, but your wheels aren’t fly, you got to hit us up, to get a pimped out ride. Damn right!” Now, Pimp My Ride is one of the more playful makeover shows on the air, so their blaxploitation-inspired theme is both a literal reference to players as men who have (and misuse) women and an invitation to women to join the player fold, which is marked by a cocky sense of self-confidence and a “fly ride.” Though technically you don’t have to be straight to be a player, Pimp’s playful self-irony doesn’t seem to extend to homosexuality. The overall message, as we see in the rest of the makeover genre, maintains that successful transformations yield confidence, and confidence brings desired heterosexual attention. “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  163

As a further reinforcement, many makeover episodes end in subject voiceovers, where women announce their new preparedness for the dating and romance scene. For instance, Dana remarks at the end of her extreme makeover, “Now I’m much more open to dating and hopefully to find[ing] the right guy.” Dana’s friend reiterates the value of her new heterosexualized features: “Now she’s going to get the looks. She can’t help but get the looks.” Other statements suggest that sexual attention from men functions as the most significant form of female power. So, for instance, a woman police detective who undergoes an extreme makeover tells Oprah that a younger man had made a pass at her. “[A] young man came up to me and he—he said . . . I had a lovely smile and would I like to go to lunch? And it’s—you know, the first thing I’m feeling is just stunned, disbelief” (“Inside Extreme Makeovers”). As if to testify to the After-body’s newly merited gaze-worthiness, a man reflects off-camera about a different Extreme Makeover subject’s transformation, “There’s a couple of guys who are wondering what’s going to happen next. I wish I never broke up with her.” These messages of heterosexual desire are insistent: the pay-off of transformation is a new gendered platform for subjectivity, augmented by the appreciative male gaze. Through a trickle-down theory of empowerment, the romantic dividends of the makeover also yield women greater competence and agency in the world, localized primarily at the site of gender. Accordingly, the makeover logic suggests that being looked at in an appreciative or sexualized way affirms a woman and, in turn, allows her to be a more confident wife or mother. In her state of increased confidence, she can assert herself more, get more done, and stop hiding herself. Just as with the makeunder, however, being too confident or too sexualized is not acceptable. For example, on an episode of the bbc’s What Not to Wear devoted exclusively to making women over so that they can attract “Mr. Right,” Lisa, who people take to be a prostitute, and Lynne, whose Before-body is often “mistaken for a bloke,” both desire to be what Lynne describes as “normal, more feminine.” For Lisa, this requires showing off her “tush and tits” but not letting them “all hang out.” At Lisa’s reveal, Trinny exclaims with delight, “You look kind of inviting, like someone just wants to nestle in your bosom and marry you.” For Lynne, achieving normalcy requires that she dispense with all behaviors and clothes that make her seem manly. At the end of her episode, she stands before the mirror, staring incredulously at her new feminized reflection. Just as was shown with the Extreme Makeover subjects above, Lynne, in her increased affirmation of heterosexual desirability, also commands 164  ·  Chapter Three

greater powers of confidence and competence. When Trinny asks, “Do you feel now that you could even go up and talk to a man?” Lynne responds that her more feminine appearance makes her braver. In this regard, the makeover offers as its most compelling piece of evidence for success a woman’s newly developed confidence that enables her to invite and participate in heterosexual desire. When Trinny and Susannah departed What Not to Wear in the fall of 2006, the new presenters, Lisa and Mica, continued the heteronormative gender mandate. In an episode dedicated to making over “women with younger men,” Lisa and Mica encouraged subjects to outwardly manifest “control” and “self-love” as a powerful means of retaining their younger male partners. At reveal moments, both style gurus exclaimed that the subjects could now, “get any man you please!” Although these shows speak through a language of self-acceptance and overall body love, the relentless insistence that After-bodies will “naturally” attract and desire the male gaze throws a wrench into the “feminist” empowerment messages voiced through makeover logics. This is particularly so if we factor postfeminism into the debate, since for many this most recent, and highly controversial, contribution to feminism lays out a terrain where, as Ruth Holliday and Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor note, young postfeminist women do not dress with the objective of attracting men but of actively asserting their power and autonomy (190). For many theorists, specifically Angela McRobbie, Sarah Banet-Weiser, Laura Portwood-Stacer, Sadie Wearing, Martin Roberts, and Sue Tait, makeovers articulate the quintessence of a postfeminist ideology that seeks to define the liberal subject as the consequence of “individual choice, technological transformation, and celebration of the body” (Banet-Weiser and PortwoodStacer 263). Clearly, the many examples discussed here make evident those connections between postfeminist iterations of the self and the makeover. And yet, the overdetermined heterosexuality combined with the utter lack of performativity built into ideals of the After-body situates the desired result less in postfeminist empowerment than in prefeminist (or at least pre-second wave) nostalgia, where a mixed wistfulness for something never fully achieved becomes the object of desire. In this, we might find one of the makeover’s more adroit moves, for it is not so much the man himself as the man’s attention that signifies as the object of desire. Much as Virginia Blum notes about female plastic surgery patients on I Want a Famous Face who desire bigger breasts so that they might become Playboy models, there is no indication “that they hope being in Playboy will make them more desirable to men. Rather, being hired by Playboy seems to signify “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  165

some accomplishment of physical perfection” (“Objects” 50). So while it is their own empowerment they seek, that very power is conferred only through the male gaze. To make the matters of sex, gender, and sexuality all the more complicated (and also ironically fascinating), the end-product of the makeover process creates women who could easily be taken for drag queens, particularly on high-concept vehicles like Extreme Makeover and The Swan. On these shows women emerge for their final reveals in staggering high heels, dramatic makeup, and glittery, form-fitting clothing. Many look like female impersonators, absent a camp flair that would mock the very notion of authentic sex and gender codes. Indeed, there is not a hint of camp in the air, the gravitas of the transformative moment articulated at each level of these programs, from selection through alteration to reveal. On shows like The Swan, Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance, or Instant Beauty Pageant, makeover subjects are all trying to be beauty queens. My question here is the degree to which being a beauty queen or an After-body also requires that subjects be drag queens. Roger Baker makes a distinction between female impersonators, or those in “real disguise,” and drag queens, those in “false disguise,” to underscore a difference between enacting femininity believably or in a mode designed to be transparent (15). Carole-Anne Tyler, on the other hand, suggests that all women play the role of female impersonators and that, indeed, “woman’s masquerade sustains man’s” since she does not “see through his deception as he does through hers” (20). And, as is well known, Judith Butler has argued that no sexed or gendered identity is essential, that being is always a factor and consequence of doing. After-bodies introduce a slippage into this debate because there is no indication that post-transformation subjects are anything but real and natural women. Unlike a drag performance, there is no sense of artifice, no hint of collusion between the performer/program and the audience, no wink at the moment of reveal where wigs come off to expose the “real” body behind the performance. The surgeries and makeover instructions are not presented as campy burlesques but as legitimate, singular, and core-level interventions that have altered the fundamental nature of each of these women’s sexed and gendered identities. After-bodies are, quite emphatically, not presented as performed or performative but as unaffected, artless, and genuine (not incidentally, a string of adjectives that has long been used to sanction and regulate women’s behaviors). They are different in kind, not in degree. 166  ·  Chapter Three

As such, the makeover’s After-bodies here articulate a relation between sex and gender that has much similarity to popular and early scholarly narratives about transsexual and transgendered identities. Historian Marisa Richmond has noted, for example, that for many “trans” individuals, transition means “no longer performing gender.” Whether through surgery, pharmaceuticals, or identification, she notes that a trans location often allows for “just the opposite of performance” since “the real performance is in having to project a gender role they don’t necessarily feel comfortable with.” The antiperformativity that has been emphasized in discursive representations of the trans person’s experience of gender has opened critiques that such a notion of gender is both essentialist and retrograde. As Susan Stryker notes, “merely to use the word [transgender] is to take up a polemical and politicized position” (2). Thus, Stryker calls for an understanding of transgender that posits it as “concerned with anything that disrupts, denaturalizes, rearticulates, and makes visible the normative linkages we generally assume to exist between the biological specificity of the sexually differentiated human body” (3). Such a definition also implicates one’s “subjectively experienced relationship between a gendered sense of self and social expectations of gender-role performance,” as well as “the cultural mechanisms that work to sustain or thwart specific configurations of gendered personhood” (3). Given such a call, the makeover may seem an enigmatic text for trans examination. Makeover shows depict made-over women as possessing a natural, confident femininity that is articulated through and made stable by the body. Far from being gender queer, mediated After-bodies reify the “naturalness” of gender/sex dimorphic separations. Makeover subjects’ statements underscore that gender and sex are not only binaried, they are the key to subject-status. Consider, for instance, Michel, who speaks about desiring gender-change surgery through language that references authenticity and realness: It really started out as a joke, but now, you know what? How would I feel wearing a dress, wearing high heels, having people look at me like I’m so beautiful. I want this extreme makeover because I feel there’s more potential in me than I’ve actually gotten to. . . . Maybe I want a kid. Maybe I want a husband. [crying] It would mean the world to me to be able to show you all what I am and express all that I am in the most honest and real way. And for me to lead this life of being this strong chic is not really who I am. “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  167

Essentialist? Yes. But false, I’m not so sure. Though Michel’s remarks were carefully edited to create a narrative that underscores “true” identity, we must look at the preponderance of such mediated messages to better ascertain the significance of Michel’s concerns. The overwhelming number and intensity of statements voicing desires for a gender that is authentic and not performed saturates makeover tv. Subject after subject is depicted as desperate to claim her womanhood by learning how to communicate femininity effectively. So again, though scholars know that gender, as it is lived and imagined, is complex and varied, tv makeovers continually depict “real” people who have quite different investments.

You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman Across makeover programming, transformations are largely concerned with writing gender normativity onto primarily female bodies, and, as I’ve noted, gender is here an umbrella term that imports “normative” values of race, ethnicity, and class. Before-bodies marked by class and racial/ethnic signs or by indicators of excessive or inappropriate sexuality, as well as by other “aesthetic deformities,” are refashioned in the name of both confidence and beauty. Conflating appearance with gender, sex, and sexuality is particularly troubling since the logic mandates that a woman must possess beauty before she can claim selfhood or be eligible for citizenship entitlements. Through a system of equivalencies, beauty enables the woman to “purchase” other valued qualities—good mothering, a satisfying job, heterosexual attention, an abstract kind of happiness, and, most importantly, selfhood. Increasing what makes the woman beautiful ostensibly expands her base of power. As Galán noted in a private interview, “The sense you have about yourself, your confidence about your looks and about who you are, is really the most powerful thing you own. For men, power comes from a very different place. But for a woman, owning a room, whether it’s through beauty or through confidence, is the greatest power you have” (Wegenstein “Nely”). In this matrix of female power where confident beauty predominates, the prerequisite terms for that power remain tied to the same values that feminists have long critiqued—being a lovely object that can captivate the male gaze. Though we are reminded on Toolbelt Diva that “chix can fix” and that women can be empowered through practical knowledge, the former-model and personal-trainer host, Norma Valley, is as remarkable for her beauty as for her construction know-how. Indeed, that this diva’s 168  ·  Chapter Three

sexed and sexualized identity is announced both by her name and appearance, suggests the degree to which a “normative” gender/sex signature is critical in Makeover Nation. Even if a woman’s power offers her a newly constituted site for expressing selfhood, that experience is contingent on achieving and maintaining a narrow version of attractiveness that is unwrinkled, symmetrical, and eternally youthful, devoid of ethnic and class extremes. As signified by the After-body, the postmenopausal “old crone” is pushed even further into the abject, becoming not just powerless but horrifying. Though occasionally makeovers offer theme shows on menopause, on mid-life crises, and on septegenarians that indicate an ongoing investment in women who are aging and elderly, the discourses of the shows reveal a deeper interest in making women of all ages uphold the mandates imposed by a heterosexualized gaze. As Trinny and Susannah announce in unison: “Even for greyhaired grannies, it’s never too late to learn what not to wear!” I applaud their willingness to include older women—since doing so suggests that these women can claim the self-status the makeover believes it offers—yet I shudder at a logic that allows no woman to be exempt from the mandates of sexualized visibility. In this case, whether the woman be young or old or somewhere in between, eligibility for the status of womanhood requires participating in what Head 2 Toe calls, “a rite of passage for women.” Their meaning in this regard is a pampering pedicure that prepares the “tomboy Veronica” for open-toed summer shoes, thereby “femme[ing] her up a little.” In all, makeover logics claim the female-normal as those women who go through beautification rites of passage, while marking as abject those who opt out of beauty work. Clearly the relentless demands for normativity in makeover shows suggest that our collective anxieties about fitting in and female excess drive much of these programs. To achieve what it posits as normalcy, makeover logics suggest that the body must be figuratively and literally cut and reshaped so that it can more fully transmit gender codes, which, in themselves, are presented as immutable and timeless. The overall message is clear: in order to eradicate the separation between sex and gender and to do away with female bodies that do not act or appear feminine (even, quite ironically, in those bodies deeply connected to sexed femaleness), it is necessary to alter both the materiality and the signifying properties of the body. This alteration is paramount—above behavior modification and other forms of socially constructed action. It makes gender an immutable imperative, rather than a consequence of socialization, and in so doing “I’m a Woman Now!”  ·  169

underscores a notion that sex or biology is malleable while gender is constant. Even if we allow that a woman expresses agency and self-making capacities in her decision to undergo surgery, it is only when she is the direct object at the end of the preposition—under the knife, on the table, of the gaze—that makeovers allow for her full share of femininity. Though the makeover quite clearly endorses social construction, it does not believe in performativity. Extrinsic changes may enhance a female essence but they do not create it. Yet, since, as the makeover mandate itself announces, so many women are in need of makeovers, without intervention there can be no “authentic” womanhood. As Hobson notes, this notion of normativity situates the body beautiful as the necessary consequence of alteration, which, in turn, “renders unmodified female bodies . . . ‘unnatural and abnormal’ ” (11). Simone de Beauvoir told us long ago that the woman is made, not born. In this mediated world where gender, sex, and sexuality melt into a single signifier of the gorgeous female subject, the woman finds her most “natural” iteration only when she is made over.

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4 what makes the man? Masculinity and the Self-Made (Over) Man

We just want to bring out the you in there. —Stylist Zoo to Subject Trell, Makeover Manor Did you hear the one about the sensitive condom? It’s tremendous. It will stay and talk to the girl after you leave. —Scott Baio, Scott Baio is 45 . . . and Single

As I have suggested thusfar, makeover interventions largely write gender normativity onto female bodies in the name of achieving the femininefemale self. Whether it is transformation of clothes, kids, rooms, psyches, houses, relationships, or the physical body, makeover narratives tell stories largely considered feminized in their emphasis on domesticity, interiority, and appearance. Ironically, the gendered genre signature of the makeover is highly masculinized in its top-down authority structure, relentless demand for surrender from transforming subjects, and its near total insistence on a spectatorial economy. This masculinist trope situates the makeover as the hero to the Before-body’s damsel-in-distress. Determined experts intervene on weak Before-bodies to create triumphant After-bodies, or, as one expert on The Pick-Up Artist vowed, “I’ll be damned if I let you leave here unchanged.” The makeover’s role as masculinized hero creates a subordinated gender position for the makeover subject. Understanding this symbolic interaction is critical to analyzing the transformations undergone by men admitted to Makeover Nation. Indeed, though makeovers clearly

skew toward “women’s concerns,” the genre’s commitment to dimorphic sex and gender categories indicates that men and masculinity are as critical to the makeover mandate as are women and femininity. To say that the number of men in the makeover machine is rare is something of an understatement. Of the approximately 2,500 hours of makeover programming I have analyzed, roughly ten percent depict men. Though they are more likely to appear in shows that transform cars or spaces, I focus here primarily on their participation in style and plastic surgery programs since such shows offer a greater point of contrast to the genre’s more typical makeover of women. As we have seen, makeovers position themselves as deeply concerned with matters of selfhood. The fact that the makeover focuses predominantly on women may be one indication that more women than men are excluded from subject-status and therefore merit assistance in their struggles to become selves. However, the makeover’s attentiveness to women also reinforces a truism that women become selves only through appearance and with the aid of others. Men have historically had a more varied set of factors to rely on as indices of their selfhood, including financial success, heterosexual triumphs, physical strength (if not always physical appearance), and self-determination. The increasing presence of men in makeover narratives suggests that all of these determinants may no longer by themselves be sufficient. This is particularly so given that “the advent of media culture,” as Jeffrey Louis Decker notes, has made physical appearance “an integral part of narratives of self-making,” especially as related to the American concept of the self-made man (127). The self-made man, as I later explore, is a typology of masculinity anchored in the iconographic representation of someone like Abraham Lincoln and his journey from the rustic to the presidential. Makeover tv offers a variation on what makes the man by both expanding the base of who can help (he is allowed to need the expertise of others) and limiting the expectation of what he must achieve (like women makeover subjects, the made-over man must only be unfettered to compete in meritocratic culture; he does not need to be the “top dog” in order to claim gendered selfhood). tv transformations open an imaginative terrain apart from the traditional homosocial male sites of change, such as the military training facility or the athletic practice field, where men are invited and compelled to undergo alteration in the name of improving their gendered subject status.1 It’s important to note that in makeover programming all notions of gender binaries are very much tied to corresponding sex differences, with no 172  ·  Chapter Four

room for intersexed or intergendered expressions. As I discuss in greater detail in chapter 3, makeover shows thus do not create a viable space for female masculinities, and so my discussion in this chapter is necessarily limited to a masculinity articulated through male bodies. Inviting men to the (operating) table creates a fascinating cultural space, demonstrating how male selfhood is imagined through gendered discourses about masculinity that extend through neoliberal logics of free-market competition and heterosexist conditions for sexual success. As scholarship on the representation of men indicates, one of the priv­ ileges of masculinity across cultures has been its retention of the unmarked or normative category, and thus the capacity to go unexamined.2 Given this, the makeover poses a threat since it reveals, quite literally, what makes the man. Further, since the conceptualization of manhood often relies on self-determination and being the active gazer rather than the passive gazedat, the makeover offers a puzzling enigma in that it enacts a technology of gender specifically designed to heighten men’s masculinity through a process that requires them to receive assistance in full view of an audience. According to the rigid gender dimorphisms of makeover logics, the made-over man consequently occupies a feminized position, since he must be the object of the gaze and be willing to accept externally determined change. Ironically, it is the very unbending nature of these gender and sex codes that require new ways of conceptualizing masculinity. In this chapter, therefore, I examine how a process that makes men’s bodies both visible and docile offers if not a completely new configuration of masculinity, then diversified possibilities for thinking about men and gender. Paying particular attention to race and class, I begin my consideration with three shows that typically transform women, and so offer a sharp point of gender contrast. I approach these shows in the order of their increasing closeness to and alteration of the physical body: What Not to Wear, which alters wardrobe, hair, and grooming, 10 Years Younger, which offers dental and nonsurgical procedures as well as style and grooming advice, and Extreme Makeover, which hands over multiple plastic surgeries as well as moderate physical training and style direction. I then turn from these shows to consider how the exclusively male makeover Queer Eye for the Straight Guy engages with these constructions of masculinity, concluding the chapter with a more detailed analysis of makeovers for male subjects in genres other than surgery or style shows. For all of these programs, I look particularly at four sites: 1) the creation of opportunities for resistance; 2) the instantiation of professional competence; 3) the insistence What Makes the Man?  ·  173

on heterosexual appeal; and 4) the reverence toward the male body. Before turning to the shows themselves, however, it is important to lay out what’s at stake in the raced and classed conception of American manhood that stands behind these manly makeovers.

The American Manolith “The self-made man [is] a man whom America made out of the very earth . . . unprivileged, unknown. The story of Abraham Lincoln is the story of the American dream—the ability to rise from the simple beginning to one’s highest potential.” —Plaque at the home of Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace, Hodgenville, Kentucky

American masculinity has long been predicated on the values of the selfmade man, the concept that manhood, a social formation posited as synonymous with selfhood, finds its greatest source and definition in discipline, self-determination, autonomy, and individualism. As the above quote from Lincoln’s birthplace indicates, it is not only Lincoln’s stature as a war-time president during an epochal moment in American history that makes him important, it is his very embodiment of American principles of masculinity—his rise to fame and power, his transformation of mind and body that took him from the plain log cabin where he was born to the most prestigious (white) house in the land. As Richard Dyer reminds us in White, these associations of Americanness come saturated with insistent messages about race and class. Speaking about the white man’s muscle, Dyer notes that the bodybuilder, in its allusions to Greek and Roman statuary, signifies a “Caucasian whiteness of the classical world” but equally evokes associations of the United States and an “a fortiori Californian life-style” that characterizes “health, energy and naturalness” (148). Like the makeover itself, the built male body functions, according to Dyer, as an “aspirational structure,” evoking a teleology of perpetual upward mobility, of “bodies forever striving upwards” (151, 152). This, he suggests, comes freighted with associations of whiteness and class privilege precisely due to the white body builder’s constructedness. It is because the white man does not always possess a “naturally” built body, in contrast to attitudes about the primitive athleticism and muscularity in the working class and men of color, that the white man’s efforts for muscularity signify as achievement. The possibility of white 174  ·  Chapter Four

bodily inferiority, then, does not undermine the legitimacy of white male power, indeed it enhances it, since “white men are distinguished above all by their spirit and enterprise” (147). This, Dyer contends, confers an added significance to the white man’s muscle. And here I believe we can productively substitute “made over” for “built” and arrive at a conclusion similar to Dyer’s. Since, he notes, “the built white body is not the body that [most] white men are born with; it is the body made possible by their natural mental superiority,” the made-over body functions as evidence of the white man’s capacity for somatic mastery and with it, greater access to the rewards conferred by the American Dream (164). As it relates to makeover shows, such a formation presents us with a problem. Though grasping the abstractions promised through the American Dream in every way fuels these transformations, the white man’s Afterbody results not from his own mastery over his body but of his passivity to subordinated and feminized others who alter the material signifiers his body emits. In the process of transformation, he must submit to a feminizing process and run the risk of being feminized himself. If manhood is a term synonymous with selfhood, the feminized man cannot claim a legitimately gendered self. Although I later detail how makeovers frequently offer men a partial way out of such subjugation, I first want to think specifically about the ways in which race and class, though critical to the teleology of selfhood in the making of the man, often fall out as active terms of discussion. As already noted, the number of men who appear on makeover shows is low. Of the perhaps ten percent of aggregate programming that depict men, between five and ten percent portray men of color going through transformation, and most of these (though we are talking about roughly twenty episodes) show African American men in the makeover machine. Only a few programs in the many hours I have watched make room for other ethnic categories for men, though women are allowed greater racial and ethnic diversity. Statistically, this puts men of color on makeover programming in a negligible category of less than one percent of the primary population. But rather than too easily ascribing invisibility to men of color, I deliberately foreground episodes in this chapter that make over men of color, believing, as Halberstam suggests, that it is only when masculinity leaves the white middle-class male body that its contours become legible. Shows rarely acknowledge skin color in their making of male citizens to populate Makeover Nation, at most conceding that darker complexions wear pink well, though this, in other contexts, can give rise to incendiary What Makes the Man?  ·  175

reactions. For instance, a web discussion generated under the title “the feminization of the black man” attacked rapper Killa Cam for appearing publicly in a bright pink coat that many web posters thought looked “ridiculous and unattractive.”3 The discussion board split about the degree to which wearing pink, and in this case lip gloss, signaled a black male body that was “clownish and feminine in appearance” and therefore a “signal to whites that our men are not as threatening” (Black_Wisdom August 11, 2006). Others aggressively dismissed the feminized superfly attire as gay, some reacting with discursive violence, “I really would like to meet him somewhere and just beat the hot piss out of him for wearing some shyt like that” (Abm August 11, 2006). This is only one conversation, yet it underscores the semiotic sensitivity of style and image, further suggesting that the fashion advice offered on makeover shows has far-reaching ramifications that intensify formations of raced masculinity. Black men, in particular, are no strangers to intrusive surveillance or to the social punishments inflicted on deviant bodies, as occasionally addressed by popular media. Reporter Erin Texeira, for instance, profiled a number of black men who commented on their already keen awareness of how their bodies were read and the need to modify their physical presentations so as to better palliate a dominant white culture. In the article, Ohio lawyer Keith Borders states, “I end up putting my hands in my pockets or behind me. I stand with my feet closer together. With my feet spread out, it looks like I’m taking a stance. And I use a softer voice.” Another man, Bill Fletcher, notes that such style markers extend to affect. “If you’re a black man who doesn’t smile a lot, they (whites) get really nervous. There are black people I run across all the time and they’re always smiling, particularly when they’re around white people. A lot of white people find that very comforting.” In a forum on black American men published in Esquire, Nelson George and Nathan McCall offered their combined sense that color influences how men enact masculinity. Nathan: All men have problems, but Black men manifest their masculinity problems differently than White men do. . . . White men manifest their masculinity in the corporate environment, where they can run things and control people’s lives. The truth is that the brothers ain’t running nothing! Nelson: Black men tend to flex in the streets and in interpersonal relationships, where a premium is put on arrogance and personal power. 176  ·  Chapter Four

This leads to friction with other brothers, which is why there’s so much violence. (Golden) Whether we fully agree with the causal essentialism Nathan and Nelson lay out, these examples from popular discourse offer two potential reasons for why makeover shows would steer away from black men as subjects: black men already possess the self-surveillance mechanisms that makeovers endeavor to teach, and a black man’s survival may require that he have access to the more “natural” violence and male aggression that makeover shows overwrite. More likely, I think, is that racism is far beyond the fixative properties offered by shows. Makeovers excel in presenting only the problems they might resolve. Consequently, in the handful of episodes that take on men and the even smaller number of shows that engage men of color, makeover transformations largely deal with race by denying it. This repressed regard for race is evident, remarkably, even on a show such as From G’s to Gents where race is the dominant subtextual factor necessitating transformation. Premiering in the summer of 2008, mtv’s From G’s to Gents billed itself as the U.S. and male equivalent of the British import, Ladette to Lady, but conspicuously, advertising for the show did not reference its vh1 competitor’s Mo’Nique’s Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School or The Pick-Up Artist. Each of these shows— G’s, Ladette, Charm School, and Pick-Up—are premised on the notion that unruly, sexually promiscuous, socially awkward, and/or drunken young people are a blight on the social landscape that can best be rectified through the faux apparatus of a school setting, complete with a master-teacher and several professors of behavior modification. But in most episodes of these shows, the lessons are so shallow, the uptight behavior of the experts so much less engaging than the ebullience of the subjects, that these “learn to be proper” shows in many ways rebuke the very transformations they portray, in effect flipping the bird at the ladies and gentlemen they strive to reproduce. G’s takes its title from “Gangsta,” street slang meaning Gangster (not to be confused with a different makeover show The G-Word, where G denotes environmental green). In many ways G’s explodes the makeover’s transformation-as-identity premise, since it draws its Before-bodies from a broad range of primarily but not exclusively black urban personalities, including gang-bangers, the homeless, and male strippers, each of whom speaks to the camera in his or her “authentic” appearance (in street gear and using slang), while such scenes are intercut with moments where they are dressed in navy blazers as they learn to mimic the behaviors of What Makes the Man?  ·  177

the gentleman (including lessons in eloquence, chivalry, and gallantry). Still working through an idiom of the authentic subject, From G’s to Gents implicitly suggests that the gangstas know far better how to “keep it real” than do the highly constructed gentlemen they learn to perform in an elaborate white-face. Indeed, given the insistent rap back-beat sound track that plays throughout the show and that carries over into the broader spaces of mtv, any G who takes the transformation to Gent too seriously will find himself seriously without street cred, a fact the show—and I would guess its viewers—knows all too well. More broadly across the makeover spectrum, makeover goals are held out as desirable and necessary for all men, because shows do not make distinctions between subjects. Indeed, U.S. makeover shows typically write American-style masculinity onto a male body and universalize the resulting After-body as an everyman. The denial of race creates, perhaps unwittingly, a scenario where what is not named reverts to a default normative zone, where Americanness conflates with whiteness and upward mobility, and, as Decker observes, where “blackness is negated and whiteness is unmarked as the norm” (129). As Herman Gray theorizes about television texts more broadly, such depictions create discourses of assimilation that subordinate the “messiness, confusion and tension caused by racism and inequality,” instead reinforcing values of a “shared and universal similarity” based on “racial invisibility and color blindness” (85). Though in a social world, black men may often be the avatars of distinctive and trend-setting fashions, in the represented world of the makeovers, whatever style sense they possess flattens into the background.4 With their receding style also goes pervasive stereotypes of the black man as buck, thug, rapper, criminal, and pimp, but these tend to be replaced by a version of black men on makeover shows who are feminized through their eager, soft-spoken pliability. Consequently, when a show such as Makeover Manor makes over the man, it must mitigate concerns that the makeover will feminize him. One episode transforms Trell, a twenty-five-year-old construction worker, who in his free time, says his cousin Clarice, “always wears jogging suits, jeans, sweat suits. I would love to see him in a suit.” Trell in his Before-moment wears a Sean John sweat suit, itself an important style marker. Yet Sasha the Diva, the host of the show, calls in the troops to alter Trell’s unacceptable appearance. Chief among her helpers is Cory “Zoo” Miller, who only emerges when men are made over. Zoo’s role is both to serve as a guide for Trell and forge an empathetic moment through

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assurances that nothing girly awaits. Equally important, Zoo underscores, is that “perception is kindof everything, man.” In the name of the heterosexual allure and corporate success that will soon follow, Zoo tutors Trell’s submission while signaling his own overcome resistance. “Trust me, I let them dress me, but it’s not always easy, believe me. . . . [w]e just want to bring out the you in there.” The key to bringing out Trell’s “you” rests in altering his “street” look, which apparently does not express his inner self. Instead, Zoo advocates a “nice business casual.” Later Trell meets with the fashion stylists, Jason and June, who ask him to go “all the way” in a dark grey pinstripe suit. June notes, “You have to have a suit in your closet. Why? Because you might have meetings. Some guys have casual Fridays, even on Wall Street.” Jason agrees, “You have to sell a certain perception to the masses. Even though you may be a laid back person, even though you may be a very street or urban looking guy, sometimes you need to sell this look. So give that perception to your audience. And your audience is everyone who sees you.” Though Trell is a manual laborer, the makeover clearly values pleasing the gaze of corporate culture, seemingly made possible by changing one’s clothes. As Zoo notes at the conclusion of Trell’s episode, “He came in as a construction worker, and we reconstructed him, hopefully to go out in the world and get a new thing goin’.” Again, the makeover here denies larger systemic networks of both education and privilege. It can dress Trell in business casual, but Makeover Manor ignores the deeper intricacies of race and class oppressions playing at the edges of upward mobility and hegemonic masculinity, suggesting that success is simply a matter of attitude and wardrobe. A man’s selfhood directly correlates to his domination in a world of images where the “masses” are watching. Though the Americanness of Makeover Nation offers Trell the land of opportunity, he must play to the perception of his audience in order to successfully enact the trope of the self-made man. As Michael Kimmel’s work indicates, the raced, classed, and gendered archetypes of the self-made man did not emerge from a vacuum but were the result of a consolidated series of choices that heightened how the new nation wanted to view itself.5 The United States, a nation marked by its declaration for independence, needed men who were similarly stand-alone types. This model of manhood could not depend on inherited material wealth or social power. The man had to make himself on his own by proving himself through physical strength and material success. Of course, slavery

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constituted an impediment to such notions of egalitarian self-realization that the founding fathers proved inadequate at addressing. American manhood, much like American citizenry, thrived on the concept of universalized equality, of “all men are created equal,” even in the face of its exclusion of women and people of color. As Lisa Duggan notes, the “identity marker white . . . cordoned off indigenous populations and non-Anglo-European immigrants from citizenship,” thus relegating the institution of slavery to a “private economy” in which slaves were regarded as property (Twilight 6). Similarly, the “identity marker male” created a comparable economy of the domestic that operated “under the authority of the white male head of [the] household” (Twilight 6). The historical inheritance of the selfmade man, then, comes steeped in the teas of racial and class bias. Susan Faludi further contends that this historical model of the self-made man still operates, since “a man is expected to prove himself not by being part of society but by being untouched by it, soaring above it. He is to travel unfettered, beyond society’s clutches, alone—making or breaking whatever or whoever crosses his path” (10). Quite often, as Kimmel notes, “anxiety, restlessness, and loneliness” are the by-products of this commitment to masculinity, and yet such disaffection itself becomes the evidence of the man’s successful negotiation of gender (23). This model of what has been termed hegemonic masculinity is both specific to and outside of what constitutes the cultural history of the United States.6 Despite the fact that Americanness informs hegemonic masculinity, the goals of neoliberal market achievement, racial anonymity, and professional success mark a twenty-first century globalized political and gendered economy, what R. W. Connell has identified as a transnational business masculinity. Connell notes that, “To the extent particular institutions become dominant in world society, the patterns of masculinity embedded in them may become global standards” (Men 45). This is marked through the body, Connell observes, by the fact that “almost every political leader in the world now wears the uniform of the Western business executive” (Men 45). In a similar way, the concept of the selfmade man—and all of the rugged individualism, lack of self-reflection, and emotional distance that goes along with him—may have reached its fullest articulation in the U.S. iteration, but it is in no way isolated to U.S. experiences.7 How U.S.-based media products conceptualize and celebrate this man, positing him as an exemplar of a universalized and homologous masculinity that is fit for competition in a neoliberal economy, is at the heart of the makeover. So, too, is the man’s very body, since the body itself 180  ·  Chapter Four

offers the text on which physical, and, increasingly, social power can be written.

Making Male Bodies Though not always the same across race and class lines, the body is a critical link between hegemonic masculinity, male self-regard, and overall notions of power and success. Susan Bordo argues that we have long been encouraged to regard the natural male body as a strong and aggressive machine (The Male Body). Connell emphasizes the link between male privilege, hegemonic masculinity, and the body, suggesting that the man’s physicality is the locus of his cultural power and sense of self-esteem. Given the body’s centrality in signifying male strength, intelligence, and virility, men are increasingly a critical consumer base for industries that cater to appearance. These industries consist of typical male activities, such as body building, but now also include traditionally female preoccupations, like weight loss, fashion, and plastic surgery. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, between 1997 and 2005 there was a nine percent aggregate increase in cosmetic surgical procedures (such as buttock lifts, abdominoplasties, and lipoplasties) for men. During the same period, men increasingly sought out nonsurgical procedures (such as Botox and dermabrasion) at a rate of increase of 749 percent.8 In Beyond Plastic Surgery, a documentary on cosmetic alteration that often verges on cautionary tale, the message is clear: men are as equally obsessed with self-observation and body perfection as women.9 Plastic surgeon Richard Fleming reflects, “If you had asked what percentage of men came into the practice seeking plastic surgery about ten years ago, I would have responded about ten percent of our patients were men. Today it’s fifty-fifty.” The preponderance of men seeking surgical solutions to embodied anxieties does not come without stigma. Taboo: Body Alterations considers plastic surgery for men a “social taboo”; People called one adolescent boy’s gynecomastia (enlarged breasts) a “private shame.” The article’s ambivalence about the boy’s breast reduction only turned sympathetic at the end of the piece when his mother exclaimed with relief, “He’s more outgoing—now he can be himself ” (Triggs 106). Surgery in the name of masculinized selfhood thus overwrites connotations of the shameful feminine. Men now face new cultural, social, financial, and physical pressures demanding that their appearance should match perceptions of what What Makes the Man?  ·  181

masculine selfhood looks like. As we saw in chapter 1, for both men and women, youth-enhancing cosmetic surgeries are often considered a necessary business strategy to keep one competitive, but they also produce signifiers of competence, strength, and trustworthiness, qualities with particular currency for male subjects. This emphasis on men’s appearance means the stakes are now a bit different than in the past. As Beyond Plastic Surgery notes, “The ideal for men has always involved strength. Nowadays, for some, the appearance of strength may be enough.” According to the documentary, this means that men increasingly use silicone implants to simulate muscular contours and hardness (including calf implants and abdominal silicone six packs). Interestingly, makeover shows, either of style or of the body, have been reluctant to give the man ersatz muscular or phallic strength. There have been no cod pieces or under-the-clothes muscle prosthetics, as we saw in the Elizabethean period or even in Robocop and Batman, neither have there been cosmetic procedures to write masculine strength onto a “weak” male body through silicone implants, though most shows are very eager to write a similar femininity on female bodies through breast implants. The penis is conspicuous for its absence, particularly on plastic surgery shows where phalloplasty would be an easy procedure to include. Operations on the penis are not completely forbidden on expanded cable television programming such as Dr. 90210, Drastic Plastic Surgery, or the fictionalized Nip/Tuck. For the most part, the manly makeover on basic cable concentrates on what we might consider the phallic body, here designated through the face, pecs, and abs. Such attention correlates with what surveys of male body image find to be the more salient places of concern for men. Franzoi and Shields found, for instance, that men’s body image connects to three qualities: physical attractiveness (face and facial features); upper body strength (biceps, shoulder width, arms and chest); and physical conditioning (stamina, weight, energy level). And yet, as social historian Lynne Luciano notes, as long ago as 1995 “American men spent twentyfour million dollars on penis surgery,” suggesting that the hidden zone of a man’s private parts may, indeed, still constitute the ultimate marker of masculinity, or at least of male body satisfaction (185). Let me offer one other interpretation here. tv makeover shows are not documentaries about the social phenomenon of men’s embodied experience, though they surely may offer such information. Instead, they are cultural texts that speak to, and sometimes shape, fears and desires. The unmentioned penis, in this regard, does not lessen its symbolic value, but 182  ·  Chapter Four

merely suggests that within the stories being fashioned about men and body image on makeover tv, the hidden penis takes a secondary position to the more visually prominent features of muscles and facial features. In this regard, then, makeover tv may offset one of the larger sites of unease and insecurity for men—the challenged phallic power of the penis—through the very culture of images in which the desire for improved physical appearance thrives. In other words, the makeover genre that resolutely ignores the penis in favor of other elements of the body may offer men one escape from the more literal tyrannies of castration anxiety and phallic impotence. This suggests, quite importantly, that the makeover is not simply another nail to seal the coffin of male narcissism or postmodern hyperreality, but a significant re-routing of long-held embodied anxieties experienced by men.

Manly Makeovers? I’ve suggested that there is an enigma at the heart of makeovers for men, since masculinity, and through it a man’s subject-status, is often construed as natural, independent, competitive, physically dominant, indifferent to external or internal pain, not self-reflexive, nonemotional (except for anger), and in every way separate from femininity. Conversely, the television makeover mobilizes around an awareness of one’s appearance, consequent psychological pain, social acceptance, and the desire to achieve a happier emotional state through the help of others. Given its demand for male submission and its link to women’s interests, the concept of the manly makeover flies in the face of hegemonic masculinity. This is somewhat ironic given the shows’ objective to release the real man. I emphasize the word release rather than construct because a founding principal of hegemonic masculinity presumes a biological essentialism: Man is not created. Man simply is. As Connell phrases it, “masculine embodiment” stands in for the possibility and limits of masculinity, which “being ‘natural,’ can never be changed” (Men 65). Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark further observe, “the male’s seeming exemption from visual representation” reinforces “the cultural fiction that masculinity is not a social construction” (3). Makeover tv similarly positions masculinity as the natural dividend of a male body and thus already present, if not fully manifest. The job of the makeover is, thus, not to create masculinity but to accentuate it. But here we encounter a paradox. As so conceived, masculinity is predicated on a natural or “real” manhood grounded in the body. Since altering What Makes the Man?  ·  183

that body threatens to reveal that a man’s bedrock authenticity is fictional, the makeover must develop a secondary premise that artifice can be more masculine than the man’s natural body. Whether it compromises a man’s claim to authenticity or not, we are made to understand that some men are clearly better off if they employ the mechanism of the makeover for improvement. This, in itself, directly challenges a monologic paradigm, which allows for no valid articulation of masculinity outside of itself, even while a complicated “hierarchy of masculinities,” as Connell phrases it, demands that men compete, often through force, to rise in the ranks (Men 217). The notion of a series of subordinated masculinities, all aware of and eager to claim the dominant position, gives sustenance to the concept of the makeover. And yet, since one of the founding tenets of hegemonic masculinity dictates that the man requires no assistance, the makeover subtly undermines its own success. Shows quite often diffuse the threat they offer by slightly altering the terms of how the makeover transpires for men. We can see how the makeover caters to masculinity in the role resistance plays, the significance of professional confidence and heterosexual appeal, the degree of decision-making authority and active participation asked of each makeover subject, and how the male body is referenced.

“He’s a reluctant student” On most makeover shows, female subjects respond to their transformations eagerly. The makeover is represented as a gift or a reward, and subjects are predominantly shown as desiring difference and feeling grateful for advice. However, because we are talking about significant personal change as depicted through a television narrative, conflict of some sort is not only inevitable but necessary. Given this, resistance to the makeover plays a key role in how the advice unfolds—each subject’s form of recalcitrance calling forth greater powers of persuasion, or humiliation, from the experts. In this context, white men are generally given more screen time than women, regardless of race, in which they actively resist experts. Men of color are more typically depicted in feminized terms as chastened and grateful. On What Not to Wear, though women, particularly those marked as “passionate Latinas,” are also depicted as feisty or recalcitrant, white men typically resist longer and are more outspoken. In response, style experts and voice-over narrators comment on, and thereby accentuate, the male subject’s reluctance. On Extreme Makeover and 10 Years Younger, white male makeover subjects quite often critique the advice given to them by experts. 184  ·  Chapter Four

They do this insistently, with repeated intratextual moments that serve to remind the viewer of the importance of the man’s resistance. Women and men of color on the shows are, by contrast, more consistently thankful and obsequious. They do not scrutinize advice, neither do they express reservation or judgment. For instance, when 10 Years Younger’s host, Mark Montano, offers Dane, a thirty-two-year-old swimming pool contractor whom the general public reads as forty, a pink shirt with a broad daisy pattern, Dane exclaims no less than four times, “Flowers? Pink flowers?!” Similarly, when the make-up and grooming expert, Damone Roberts, insists that Dane shave his heavy dark beard, he balks, “I just grew it back. I just had to shave it for the acid peel”—a scene repeated three times. The voice-over narrator states the obvious: “Dane is reluctant to let the glam squad make him over.” As in this example, the mostly white men on makeover shows are quite often depicted as resisting experts who are aligned with subordinated positions, typically women or men who are marked as “ethnic” or gay, or even both. In the above-described moment, Mark is Hispanic and Damone is black; both enact, even if they don’t overtly claim, semiotic behaviors that code them as gay. When “straight” white men of high class and status—generally surgeons—give advice, neither male nor female patients resist. So, by depicting white men resisting experts who in themselves are represented as occupying positions coded as subaltern, shows offer the transforming men a position of power by putting them on a higher rung of the social hierarchy than their discredited makeover gurus. It is these same subordinated experts, however—the saucy and sarcastic Stacy and seemingly gay Clinton on What Not to Wear, the falsely sympathetic and seemingly gay Mark on 10 Years Younger, the peppy and seemingly gay Sam the Style Guy on Extreme Makeover—who have the power to heap shaming invective on the makeover subject. Critiquing Charlie’s underwear, Clinton asks, “When was the last time you were a lounge singer in Vegas?” Sam reminds the viewers that before Extreme Makeover both James and the girlfriend he meets on the show were “unlucky in love, in looks, and in life.” Across these shows, the gay style gurus function as a foil against which to read the emerging hegemonic masculinity of the made-over man. Much as with Queer Eye, putting gay men in positions of authority doesn’t undo the relentlessly heteronormative goals of the makeover, even on one episode of Extreme Makeover whose male makeover subject had a long-term same-sex partner.10 For both men and women, the overall logic of the makeover requires that subjects experience mortification before transformation What Makes the Man?  ·  185

can occur. Allowing men to resist the shaming they receive from the gay style gurus enables these shows to minimize any potential weakening of the made-over man’s claim to masculinity while visually heightening his submission. Though these moments of resistance seem intended to substantiate the man’s masculinity, they actually problematize it, allowing for conventional forms of both strength and weakness. Resistance suggests that the man is strong, opinionated, and willful. As subject Terry says on What Not to Wear, “I play by my own rules.” Given this resistance, the man’s participation in the makeover cannot be seen as an indication of his weakness since it takes strong measures to subdue him. Resistance is also a crucial technique whereby the makeover narrative itself asserts its own masculine dominance over the transforming subjects. As Charlie says about his makeover experience, “Don’t ever recommend somebody for What Not to Wear unless they have a good thick skin, because it’s really tough. I can take a little criticism, but hours of it, over and over again, with pictures and video. What Not to Wear is not for sissies.”11 In this regard, makeovers iterate a culturally valued form of authority-as-domination, gaining credibility through its masculinist structure. The makeover therefore functions as a masculinized technology of gender, much like the army or the marketplace itself, that creates the man by forcing him into submission. Charlie regards the makeover as “not for sissies,” strong enough to test a man. Like Chris, who initially believes What Not to Wear is “a girls’ show,” Charlie’s initial resistance and newly earned respect for the phallic power of the makeover creates a gendered hierarchy to which he is willing to surrender. The makeover’s devices for instruction include not only the public shaming that women endure, but also a series of scare tactics about how important it is, even for manly men, to take care of themselves. The fact that 10 Years Younger’s Dane must be “scared into going to the dentist” through dire pronouncements that he has created a breeding ground for infection and disease in his gums simultaneously presents him as both strong and weak. His resistance heightens his congruence with codes that mark the man as indifferent to pain, but the representation problematizes conventional formations of masculinity by suggesting Dane can be frightened. Overall, the makeover mandate is clear: even if it disturbs his sense of masculinity, the man must actively engage in appearance-enhancing practices if he is to claim strength. A similar imperative on Extreme Makeover announces itself when James comments on how strong and confident he feels postmakeover. “I’ve changed. I’m more confident. I can talk to any186  ·  Chapter Four

body now,” he notes. His words, while establishing his confidence, serve to remind the viewer of his previous trepidation and tears. Success for James, then, requires that he proactively address his anxieties through a willing reliance on doctors and stylists. In the cases of Dane and James, the shows set up a logic whereby both have a compromised sense of self-esteem because of the literal scars each bears from the hands of other, more violently dominant, men. Dane’s heavy beard obscures scars from “fights gone bad.” James, as we will see, feels his scar is a shameful reminder of being jumped. In this regard, their respective failures to compete successfully against other men leave scars that necessitate the makeover. By altering the appearance of their scars, the makeover holds out the possibility that it can change how those earlier physical altercations are read on the body and thus how they contribute to Dane and James’ respective senses of self. In many ways, though, the erasure of experience on the body—through scars or signs of aging—constructs the ideal male body as a perpetually innocent surface on which no experience has left its mark. Such a semiotic landscape directly contradicts a historical reading of male bodies that accounts for character, knowledge, or physical power through wrinkles, grey hair, and battle scars. The makeover narrative circumvents this dilemma by refusing to lose the pre-made-over body. Indeed, the makeover narrative, for both men and women, is not one of stair steps whereby an old look can be transcended, forgotten, and left behind. It contains simultaneous visual realities where the old and new bodies signify, in tandem, that the After-body is inseparable and meaningless without the Before-body. By showing the image of the After-body on the same visual screen as the Before-body, the evidence the makeover provides substantiates its value. The “made” body can never be separated from the natural or else it loses its meaning as a product of expert, even masculine, intervention.

“I can take on the world!” Though a male subject’s emotional distress might trouble his gender, the makeover promises an overall improvement in his professional status and sexual allure, thus reinforcing conventional masculinity indicators. This double emphasis on the market and romance offers tacit evidence of what Micki McGee describes as a “new insecurity” in neoliberal America where, in the wake of decreasing social welfare, “it is imperative that one remains marriagable or employable” (12). The successful makeover outcome What Makes the Man?  ·  187

therefore requires heightening the man’s professional status and heterosexual desirability, all meant to offset whatever destabilization has occurred to the man’s gender ego through the process of transformation itself. 10 Years Younger offers a good example. As if to underscore Sally Robinson’s contention that heterosexual “male power is secured by inexpressivity” (134), Dane deadpans when he sees himself, “Wow.” The host Mark interjects, “That in guy talk means WOW!!!!” To remind the audience of the status discrepancy between the heterosexual Dane and the tacitly gay expert, editing emphasizes Dane pointing to Mark’s T-shirt that depicts the silhouette of two nude women, “How did you end up with the naked girls and I got the flowers?” This moment is immediately followed by putting Dane back in the box where he can again be scrutinized by an anonymous public, now all uniformly admiring. Dane’s wife approaches him with kisses, exclaiming, “He looks like a college kid,” a statement indicating that his body, whose sun damage formerly indicated manual labor, has now shifted its class signification, which to the image-based logic of the makeover, enables upward mobility. Extreme Makeover echoes this same theme of making the man by pushing him up the class ladder, simultaneously accentuating his youthfulness and sexual allure. Nathaniel, for instance, though college educated, had been rejected for “decent jobs because of his appearance and terrible looking teeth.”12 Arthur had been prematurely aged through the loss of his wife, his job, and his hair. Postmakeover, both men claim the energy of recaptured youth and all of the romantic and professional opportunity their new appearance allows. Even when actual age is not a factor, the makeover functions as a way of giving a man the power, optimism, and self-confidence of youth. Before his makeover, twenty-three-year-old James worked as a stereo salesman, which he considered to be a “dead-end job.” His large nose, protruding ears, and weak chin held him back both professionally and personally, he argued. His looks created a toxic situation that eroded his self-esteem, since it made him unable to approach women and too willing to befriend a group of men who, six years earlier, turned on him, broke his nose, and scarred his forehead. In addition to a nose job, cheek and chin implants, scar removal, and having his ears pinned back, James requires “extreme dentistry.” Surgeon Harvey Zarem speculates about James, “I think he’s going to feel very good about himself, and as you know, if you feel good about yourself, you’re handsome.” Of course, were Dr. Zarem’s words true, James could have willed himself into handsomeness, saving a lot of pain, expense, and swelling. Conveniently, the doctor’s pronouncement comes 188  ·  Chapter Four

to fruition, so that by the end of the show James can believe himself both good looking and self-efficacious: “I always thought I’d have the no chin, the floppy nose, the scar. Now I’m ready to move on and get my life going. This is the kick in the butt I’ve needed.” Fortunately for James, another transforming body offers an Extreme Makeover first: true love between two fully realized heterosexual makeover recipients, which seals the deal on the After-body’s signification as the avatar of both romantic and professional success. Similarly, Will, one of the few black men to be made over on What Not to Wear, says postmakeover, “I feel great. I’ve got so much more confidence than I usually do. For me in the future, it’s going to be straight to the top.” Will holds a job as an architectural engineer in North Carolina, but his testimony cited here suggests that his education and employment are vastly inferior to What Not to Wear’s efficacy at moving him up the corporate ladder through a manly makeover tutorial that also includes class-inflected lessons in how to shake hands. Since the makeover enhances Will’s confidence, the logic contends, just as we saw with Trell on Makeover Manor, that the black man’s achievement of the American Dream through professional advancements is wholly a matter of individual factors—confidence and clothes. The makeover concedes that appearance signifies in matters of success, but it cannot allow for the systemic racial oppression. This, in turn, reveals the makeover’s reliance on neoliberal rationalities, which, as Duggan argues, structure “material and political life in terms of race, gender, and sexuality as well as economic class and nationality, or ethnicity and religion” but “actively obscure the connections among these organizing terms,” in turn favoring a myth of a universalized free-market competition (Twilight 3, italics in original). In the example offered by Will, the particularities of his race are overwritten by the values upheld for all men in the makeover machine: heterosexual appeal. The host Stacy reinforces Will’s new sexual appeal by stroking his shoulders, cuddling next to his side, running her hand up and down his leg, and asking for hugs. In this moment, Stacy’s fawning both underscores Will’s sexual allure and limits his power, since he can be desired but not desiring (so, for instance, the show does not tolerate Will caressing Stacy in a similarly eroticized way). Whether white or black, male makeover subjects can be touched but cannot touch; their sexual appeal is meant for the larger female world and not for the masculinized experts who oversee and conduct the makeover. Carmindy, What Not to Wear’s make-up specialist, reinforces this gendered power dynamic when she tells Chris, What Makes the Man?  ·  189

“You’re slowly moving from the guy I wanted to beat up in school to the guy I wanted to date in school.” The makeover enables these men to claim what Nathan and Nelson would identify as a whitened masculinity that will have material effects in the bedroom and the boardroom. But, ironically, men can only claim such status after they have undergone a feminizing transformation in the name of increased performance (or a decreased chance of getting beat up by a girl). This same heterosexualized/professionalized logic plays out in an episode of 10 Years Younger with Steve, a white middle-aged executive for a market research firm. Steve desires his makeover not out of insecurity or failure, he says, but as a way to keep his edge. “I have 40 people working underneath me,” he tells the host, “I have a big crew. Most of the people who work for me are people right out of college.” This episode departs from other versions of 10 Years Younger I have studied in two significant ways: it takes the camera to Steve’s home, giving the audience visual evidence that he is a good provider, and it makes physical strength a part of the makeover regime, in this case introducing Steve to a personal trainer who coaches him on how to run a marathon. We are made to understand that unlike many of the other men (and all of the women) who appear on this show, Steve is not a pity case. He is a good provider, heterosexual (with wife and children mentioned and shown), and physically active. The makeover will therefore help him preserve his dominance by making Steve’s appearance more fully conform to what a boss should look like. However, the boss’s need for assistance undercuts his authority, again problematizing the possibility that a makeover can make the man.

The Man of Action A similarly complicated discourse occurs in how the shows depict male agency. While women typically receive procedures rather than decide what will be best for them, men evaluate their options. For instance, on What Not to Wear, Chris authoritatively informs the camera, “I agree with [Stacy and Clinton] on certain points, but I want them to understand that I have a certain sense of what I am and what people think about me. They say that they got some good stuff planned, but I’ll be the judge of that.” In addition to making choices about their transformation procedures, men more actively participate in the makeover. On a show like Extreme Makeover, men are, literally, put in the driver’s seat when they drive themselves to reveal ceremonies, often in high-end sports cars that attest to their new 190  ·  Chapter Four

status as financial achievers. Women, by contrast, live-out either princess or movie star fantasies, as they are typically chauffered to their reveal ceremonies in limousines or horse-drawn carriages. By emphasizing these binaries, makeover shows tacitly reinforce stereotypes of men as active agents and women as passive, even infantilized, recipients. Because men are depicted as vigorous, which is in accord with hegemonic masculinity, their gender ego is seemingly not at risk. For the made-over man to fully claim a hegemonic position, however, he cannot need a makeover in the first place, a separation that the makeover narrative, by definition, cannot provide. As I have noted, the makeover, as a consequence, must be designed so as to enhance a masculinity already present, rather than to create manhood altogether. For a point of contrast, one need only look at how often surgeons on The Swan and Extreme Makeover attempt to correct a woman’s “block-like masculine body.” Even when men have lots of breast tissue or no muscle mass, they are not described as “like a woman.” Extreme Makeover recipient James gets new porcelain veneers that are shaped to look “more masculine,” but nowhere is there a sense that without the veneers James had gone about the world with feminine teeth. In this regard, then, the makeover preserves the sense of an immanent masculinity that emerges naturally from the male body, even while the makeover sets about altering that body.

“You’ve got a cute little figure. I mean, you’ve got a great body.” As this discussion makes clear, the man’s body is central to the version of masculinity the makeovers attempt to draw out of him. All three of these shows typically reference the pre-made-over man’s body as flawed and weak, something and someone to be disregarded as juvenile, unserious, or, a common trope for Stacy and Clinton, crazy. On What Not to Wear, Ed has a remarkable zest for fashion—going so far as to create new names for the colors of his clothes. The show describes him, however, as walking the fine line between “quirkiness and just being psychotic.” Not incidentally, the show’s soundtrack during Ed’s appearance mimics blaxploitation movies, suggesting that Ed’s “pimp-like” eccentricity is not only psychotic but inappropriately racialized. In terms of the body, another episode of What Not to Wear characterizes a different makeover subject, Charlie, as looking like a bum in need of a soup kitchen. On Extreme Makeover, Dan describes his own face as like Charlie Brown’s—weak, round, and chubby. What Makes the Man?  ·  191

On 10 Years Younger Dwayne, one of the few African American men depicted on this show, confesses his pitiful state: “I don’t like my grey hairs. I don’t like my complexion. And I don’t like my teeth. I’m basically a modernday hermit. As far as companionship, golf has become my girlfriend.” The host, Mark, asks, “Why don’t you have a positive image about yourself ?” Dwayne answers, “It probably goes back to when I was a kid. I was short and fat. People used to pick at me. I just never really had a positive image about myself.” Mark counters, “You’re not short and fat now.” Dwayne responds, “I know but after twelve, fourteen years of being called every name that’s associated with a fat person, it sort of sticks. And then my dad always had this thing about boys are not supposed to look at mirrors, so I am what I am. I try to avoid mirrors at all cost. And I don’t like people to look at me.” Mark tells him he is surprised by this, that he looks like a guy who is tough and doesn’t care what people say about him. Dwayne nods his head sighing, “No, that’s the image I project.” Were it not for his gruff exterior, Dwayne concedes, “I’d be a puddle of tears all the time.” This episode featuring Dwayne is particularly telling for its tacit commentary on race and class. Dwayne’s primary problem is here situated as a lack of self-regard, grounded in his hyper-masculine father’s insistence that boys do not look in mirrors. Though Dwayne’s insecurity about his appearance has not impeded his capacity to hold a job (we are not told where he works, but spending his leisure time at a golf course suffices as reassurance of his middle-class status), Dwayne’s insecurity about his looks have “hermatized” him in terms of romantic and social connections. 10 Years Younger does not specifically indicate that race could be a factor in Dwayne’s discomfort with being looked at, but it does evoke connotations of slavery by putting Dwayne in an elevated box on a busy street corner, and asking strangers, all in this case white, to evaluate his worth, even going so far as to examine his teeth. As we saw in chapter 2, the economy of seeing established here refuses to critique the power dynamics invested in the gaze itself, instead suggesting that the only freedom from critical assessment comes not through evading the gaze but in pleasing it. When Dwayne appears at the end of his episode, hair dyed, face shaved, and dressed in a suit, he says he is revived and invigorated, clothes quite literally making the man. Significantly, Dwayne is a man now dressed in the phallic armor of transnational masculinity that to many signifies the values of white Americanness but also of global neoliberalism (although in Dwayne’s case, his suit is white, which is supposed to better represent a black man of style). 192  ·  Chapter Four

Dwayne in the box. 10 Years Younger. “D’Nice,” September 13, 2005.

Through these many examples we see evidence of the makeover situating itself as coming to the assistance of male bodies in crisis, which are weakened by their own self-scrutiny, threatened by the judgments of father figures, undermined by an awareness that they must pretend a strength they don’t possess. Much like the motivation for women who engage in makeovers, transformation ostensibly brings the outside and inside into harmony. Yet, makeover programming clearly indicates that by improving the outside, one can make the inside better. Given this, it is not congruence between inside and outside that a makeover subject needs but heightened internal confidence created by an embodied expression of conventional modes of attractiveness, which, for men, requires a body that is lean, strong, young, and physically able. Authenticity is the key to masculinity, but illusion is the stuff of mediated makeovers, or, as Trinny and Susannah say to their male subject Tommy on the bbc version of What Not to Wear, “Alright, so you’ve got a large tum, but that can be hidden so easily with the right clothes.” It is at the level of the body, moreover, that we can see the three makeover shows I’ve selected for case studies begin to fissure and separate, differing in their messages about how much the makeover technologies they offer can alter the materiality of the body. On What Not to Wear, for example, the overall credo is don’t wait to lose weight, dress the body you’re in. For men who undergo makeovers through What Not to Wear, the typical advice is to buy smaller clothes. A repeated refrain to men insists they will look bigger if they throw away (literally) What Makes the Man?  ·  193

their over-sized pants and baggy sweaters and instead buy clothes that fit. As Stacy says, “You’ve got to go smaller with the clothes if you want to look bigger.” The show’s male “fashion victims” receive this advice with trepidation. Dave says to the camera while trying on a shirt, “I don’t think I’m a medium. I think Clinton is flat-out wrong.” But, of course, it is Dave who is flat-out wrong. Similarly, Will who’s “got a great body, but we can’t see it under all of those clothes,” mumbles in his facing-themirror soliloquy, “All of this booty man. Just eats up pants. I’m worried about the crotch.” For both Dave and Will, wearing clothes that fit becomes the way for their “great bodies” to be more readily intelligible to the outside world, a world always conceived of in terms of potential employers and lovers. As Clinton warns Will, “You’ll never know who you’ll see on a night out. It might be a potential boss, a potential colleague.” Such statements underscore that the man’s body registers both his worth and weakness, indicating, by inference, that the sloppy or slovenly man is no man at all. Clinton does not acknowledge, however, that in showing his “great body,” Will may undermine his professional success by reminding his employers of his ontological saturation in blackness and his consequent stereotypical connection to heightened aggression and sexuality. 10 Years Younger, as one might expect from its title, emphasizes youthfulness. There are minor procedures that can make a world of difference—new clothes, teeth whitening, maybe a facial peel. Because the show can make greater changes than style allows, it does. The logic, then, doesn’t require accentuating the body you’re in as we saw in What Not to Wear, but enhancing the body through non-surgical interventions. In this case, however, since these procedures are exclusively focused above the shoulders, the face functions metonymically for the body. Or at least it does when women are being made over. Quite often, when men move to center stage, their bodies come with them. So, as I’ve noted above, narrative time is devoted to Steve running in a park; whereas for women makeover subjects, the camera stays in the studio. It is in this visual-cinematic coding, however, where 10 Years Younger begins blurring the lines between sex and gender. When men like Michael, who cries in his pre-makeover interview, or Dwayne, who admits he could likely be a “puddle of tears,” are made over, they are so resolutely coded feminine that their makeover stories quite often follow a similar trajectory as the dominant story for women, with limited opportunity for resistance or chances to explode the narrative frame by taking the body into the public sphere. When women are coded masculine in this text, as is Kimberly, a stocky postal worker, we see footage of her 194  ·  Chapter Four

delivering the mail. Significantly, the show works to bring gender and sex into greater alignment by de-emphasizing and restricting the physical mobility of the masculinized female body, while emphasizing the range of movement and physical strength of the masculinized male body. The feminized male, however, is left in a gender/sex netherworld, supposedly reclaimed by the makeover guru, and yet still not fully occupying a secure position. These moments underscore the ways in which, as Toby Ditz has noted in his review of masculinity studies, “gender order itself is as much about relations of domination and subordination—and competition and affiliation among men—as it is about the subordination of women” (3). On Extreme Makeover, true to its name, the level of intervention is extreme, yet there are still a series of tacit brakes in place. Yes to nose jobs, liposuction, and facelifts. No to penis enlargements or sex change operations. Extreme Makeover is serious about the business of gender. For a man, as I’ve noted throughout this chapter, being so fully at the mercy of the doctor’s hands threatens to undo his masculinity. Hence, the discourses of the show work to reinforce traditional values of masculine self-determination. For instance, Anthony, who must lose weight in order to receive surgery, is described as having “earned” his makeover through his diet. The surgeon, Dr. Jon Perlman, compliments Anthony, “You’ve done a great job! I don’t think we’ll have to do any liposuction in your chest, but we can increase the tone [in your abdomen] just to supplement what you’ve already done.” In this moment, we see the transforming man’s stock rising through the praise an older man in a superior position offers him. Dr. Perlman, the father figure, establishes Anthony’s gender credibility by underscoring that his efforts have performed the primary work of the transformation, giving Anthony credit for being a self-made (over) man. As point of contrast, not two seconds later, Perlman consults with a woman makeover subject, La Paula, who has also been dieting in order to be a candidate for surgery. Looking over her body, Perlman observes when examining her eye lids, “we need to remove some of the fat here. Even though you lost weight, that fat doesn’t usually go away with weight loss.” Indeed, the rest of La Paula’s interview with Perlman consists of him pointing out that the work she did on her own only makes his surgical interventions all the more necessary. In this regard, then, we can see an ordering of hierarchical status based on notions of gender and sex. Dr. Perlman constitutes the hegemonic male, immediately followed by Anthony, who is commended for his movement up the scale, and clearly far below him rests La Paula, who is feminized in her inability to exert the What Makes the Man?  ·  195

same sort of control over her body that Anthony achieves. In this episode Extreme Makeover tells us that masculinity’s core values of self-control, physical strength, and autonomy can be preserved even when the male body itself lies passive and anaesthetized under the surgeon’s scalpel. For all of the shows, the goal is to achieve the appearance of a naturally strong and youthful body, fueled by internal self-confidence and marked by earning capacity and heterosexual allure. Ironically, given the emphasis on self-awareness, the goal for men is to look natural, as if they in no way had knowledge of their transformations or collusion with their transformers. Make-up artist Carmindy expresses this ideal most succinctly when she tells Dave, “The key phrase for guys is a little goes a long way.” Jamie, a female style expert on 10 Years Younger, notes that the transforming subject, Mike, is a “rugged guy, and you can tell he doesn’t even think about his wardrobe. It’s unconscious for him.” Modifying Mike’s style, then, requires teaching him wardrobe tricks, like rolling up his sleeves, which are meant to signify a lack of concern. Seeing Mike’s shorts and t-shirt replaced with a fitted shirt and jacket, Jamie reinforces the naturalism of studied disregard, “I’m not taking you away from anything that doesn’t feel naturally good with you.” Even on Extreme Makeover, where radical alteration is built into the transformation, the goal for men is to look rugged and authentic rather than over-processed and “feminine.” The made-over man must pass as a natural man, visually signifying what the un-altered body could not. Exposing the made-over man’s constructedness, however, does not bankrupt the signifying value of his new look, since, as Dennis Allen cogently reminds us, “the fantasy of the male as an unmarked subject is a persistent one . . . and whether or not any individual man occupies this position, the position itself still exists as a cultural expectation or ideal” (par. 18). Watching a man be made over, then, does little to alter the fantasy of the real man as unmediated and “natural.”

All in Favor Say (Queer) Aye Of all extant makeover shows, perhaps none has received as much critical, popular, and academic attention as bravo’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, complete with more than one playful pun, echoing mine above, that performs its own form of verbal camp. Several scholars, both academic and popular, have persuasively made the case for the ways in which Queer Eye operates as infomerical, using the spectatorial Eye to create a new consumer-based male “I” that functions in objectified and commodified 196  ·  Chapter Four

terms.13 Indeed, the relentless emphasis on product placement, smart shopping, and stylized consumption is difficult to miss on Queer Eye, given the less-than-subtle product endorsements and the endless message that the right leather sofa/herbal shampoo/torte pan/cashmere coat makes the man. Straight subjects have by-and-large been white men, the vast majority with wives or girlfriends, living in New York City apartments or suburban houses, leading Jose Munoz to observe that race functions outside the spectatorial lens of these queer eyes. Beth Berila and Devika Dibya Choudhuri similarly note that for all of this emphasis on gay/straight relations, Queer Eye “reproduces economic, racial, and sexual power inequalities” that vex a broader U.S. culture (1). As such, Queer Eye works not so much to disrupt conventional gay/straight stereotypes as to reinforce them. Though I believe such an interpretation is valid, Queer Eye does more than simply reproduce inequities along economic, racial, and sexual lines that feed notions of hegemonic masculinity. Indeed, Queer Eye works to create a logic that compels consent, approval, and agreement about the validity of those social discrepancies, and, like other makeover programming, to establish a judgment culture where failing to conform is a punishable offense. It does so with a difference, in that it puts five gay men in a position of authority to which straight men must surrender. We can see this most pointedly by analyzing the show according to the four premises already outlined here: resistance, professional competence, heterosexual appeal, and the male body. A bit of Queer-orientation first. Unlike other makeover programming, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has often made over its own format, including officially changing its name to a shorter Queer Eye at the beginning of its third season in 2005. Posed as style superheroes, the Fab 5—Kyan, the “Grooming Guru,” Jai, the “Culture Vulture,” Ted, the “Food and Wine Connoisseur,” Thom, the “Design Doctor,” and Carson, the “Fashion Savant”—would rush in to save unwittingly clueless straight men from their slovenly ways. The show followed a narrative formula much in keeping with the makeover format: begin with spectatorial overview and critique; move on to quasi-secret ambushes, quickly followed by search and seizure (and mocking); bring in individual tutorials with the Fab 5 in grooming, cooking, style, etiquette, and home décor; and conclude with amazing reveals, usually themed around heterosexual events (marriage proposals, weddings, romantic evenings, etc.). Because the show unabashedly put gay men in the public eye and since the style squad was often, quite literally, greeted with open arms by both the straight man and his family, What Makes the Man?  ·  197

the show received more accolades than other television makeovers, even winning an Emmy and a gladd award in 2004. In its third season Queer Eye began remaking itself by taking on new themes: The Fab 5 goes to Vegas; Queer Eye surveys England; the gay gurus get straight guys to the church on time. In its penultimate season (fall 2006), the theme turned to ridding straight men of fat, according to the voice-over, their “toughest challenge ever.” It is on this series of episodes dedicated to reducing the waistlines of straight men that I want to target my focus, since in many ways the thematic makeover both moved Queer Eye away from the formula followed by other makeover shows and positioned it closer to producing the same After outcome. As I have noted about What Not to Wear, 10 Years Younger, and Extreme Makeover, when these shows put men in the makeover machine, those men are depicted as more actively resisting transformations, which, in turn, allows male subjects a toe-hold on a rigidly hierarchical gendered ladder. Though the man who relies on the assistance of others in many ways controverts the effortless authority invested in hegemonic masculinity, the makeover’s gendered reasoning contends it is better to advance a rung or two on the masculinity ladder through the aid of subordinated others than to languish at the bottom of the ladder. On Queer Eye, no such resistance factors into makeovers. Subjects and their families are elated to see the Fab 5’s black suv pull up at the door. Subjects register no opposition when one of the gay men suggests they are cute, or, as typically performed by Carson, puts a hand down a shirt front or on the butt. Critics have argued that such depictions desexualize this team of gay men, unproblematizing their presence by limiting the threat they represent and creating transformation in the service of the straight man’s heterosexual agenda. As such, style gurus function much like fairy godmother eunuchs, harmless in themselves, but critical in getting Cinderella to the ball. Somewhat ironically, in this seemingly desexualized zone, double entendres fly, sometimes in the form of male-male sexual activities, “I like going bareback with you,” says subject Todd, while giving Carson a piggyback ride. Othertimes, the sexual implications reference a broader range of non-normative sex acts, not necessarily specific to same- or opposite-sex encounters. In an episode that pits subjects Adam and Steve (a double entendre in itself ) against one another, for instance, the Fab 5 comes up with a fun way to burn calories: dodge ball, or, as they remind the audience, Smear the Queer. Teams divide up and the Fab 5 names one side The Blue Balls and the other The Golden Showers. Does the audience here need to 198  ·  Chapter Four

be told that bare backing, blue balls, and golden showers are all slang terms referencing, respectively, unprotected anal intercourse, sexual frustration when men get erections but do not ejaculate, and heightened eroticism by urinating on one’s partner? I don’t think so. For in many ways the point is not so much that the audience gets the joke, but that the audience sees a world where guys laugh together about sex. This puts both straight and gay men in the same discursive field, united by their “guys will be guys” humor that is irreverent and non-conforming (and exclusionary of women). As so depicted, straight men thus have nothing to resist in their style gurus, since they are all men, bonded by their shared maleness. That some of those men are trying to help others alter the signifying values of the body plays more as community-building than as top-down authoritative control or gay seduction. Indeed, in defusing the concern that these five men plan to recruit for more than metrosexuality, the show in many ways gives conventional masculinity a new solidity, since it creates a mediated space where homophobia, a founding tenet of hegemonic masculinity, no longer threatens. In addition to minimally defusing homophobia, Queer Eye plays many of the same tunes about professional competence as the other makeover shows I have analyzed here. Upward mobility constitutes a crucial component of desired masculinity, and one’s appearance functions as the most reliable signifier of both cultural status and earning capacities. A bit different from other shows is the degree to which the men of the Fab 5 not only pitch products, but they are also entrepreneurs who have translated their success on the show into personal material wealth. For example, there are a number of books, dvds, and cds, available through the Queer Eye imprimatur, though this is also true about other makeover shows, including the Extreme Makeover and What Not to Wear franchises. Individual members of Queer Eye are highly successful, such as Thom Felicia, the owner of Thom Felicia, Inc., a design studio located in Soho, New York. After the cancellation of Queer Eye, Felicia became the host of the fashion and home makeover show Dress My Nest. Carson Kressley is popular on the lecture circuit and in films, including The Perfect Man (2005), and in 2008 began hosting a new (to the United States) makeover show, How to Look Good Naked, as well as serving as a host on the mother-daughter pageant contest show Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants and The Miss Universe Pageant. Jai Rodriguez was a finalist on Fox’s Celebrity Duets as well as a recurring character on One Life to Live, the former host of Styleyes, a co-host of Ultimate Style, a makeover subject on Dr. 90210, the host of the contest makeover show What Makes the Man?  ·  199

for dog styling, Groomer Has It, and the drag queen/prisoner in a different manly makeover narrative, The New Guy (2002). And Ted Allen frequently appears as the culinary expert on such shows as Chopped, Top Chef, and From G’s to Gents. Though perhaps not millionaires, these men already possess the material success they attempt to teach to their pupils. More than the style gurus on other television makeovers who float incestuously between shows ( Jay Manuel on America’s Next Top Model, Fashion Police, and Style Her Famous; Tanika Ray on Head 2 Toe and Extra; Mark Montano on While You Were Out, 10 Years Younger, and My Celebrity Home), the Fab 5 have taken their knowledge straight to the bank. I use a currency metaphor deliberately since Queer Eye has largely been criticized for its reinforcement of consumerist logics, which, in turn, as Dennis Allen rightly indicates, sells “the notion that shopping is progress” (par. 7). And while, as I’ve mentioned above, such consumer-based exhortations are clear elements of the show, the logic of commodification, and thus of what constitutes both capital and material success, are quite complicated on this makeover show. I do agree with Allen that Queer Eye works to conceal the spatio-temporal sites of labor (by working according to a conceit that a day is sufficient time to not only make over one man but also to clean out the dreck, buy new furniture, paint the rooms, and get it all installed). Allen further contends that Queer Eye creates a no-limits spending economy where there are no prices, “If there’s no labor, there really can’t be any money,” thereby creating a phantasmic “consumer capitalism from which even the capitalism has been removed” (par. 10). And yet, though there may not be production and money in a literal sense, I would contend that a different exchange of labor and currency take place on Queer Eye. As I’ve discussed with other programs, Queer Eye banks on a notion of affective currency, so that subjects “pay” for their makeover transformations through abjection, shame, surrender, enthusiasm, and gratitude. Most makeover programming simultaneously highlights and obscures the nature of this transaction. “You don’t get anything for free,” says Josh, a host of 10 Years Younger. “In exchange for this makeover, you need to do something for us.” Josh wants a promise that the makeover subject will take better care of himself, seemingly then, positioning the show as a kind and altruistic authority only invested in the overall well-being of the social body. There is a deeper power message at work, since it is not so much the postnarrative and off-camera commitments of the After-body that the show desires but its pre-makeover humiliation.

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On its weight-loss episodes, the Fab 5 stakes out a similar position of benevolent authority and extracts comparable demands for payment in affective currency from its subjects. As Jai says to the overweight and outof-work Eric, “We want to give you a swift kick in the ass and get your life going in the right gear. Will you do your part?” When Eric’s enthusiasm wanes, the Fab 5 moves into high gear, transmogrifying into life coaches: Jai: “He was so enthusiastic, but he’s really fallen off the program.” Carson: “I’m going to play bad cop.” Thom: “I’m going to be nurturing and sweet.” Kyan: “I’m going to take him for a hair cut.” Ted: “Come on, guys, we’ve got to get him through this.” Later, Carson meets with Eric, playfully bad copping him into enthusiastic participation in his own makeover, “We’re giving you an amazing opportunity. There are kids in China who do not have Equinox [a New York City gym].” In this exchange, labor is not effaced, it is affective—the work of encouraging and motivating. Similarly, the subject must pay to be transformed, not in money but in chagrin and apologetic recommitments. Since Eric is willing to expose, and thus turn into affective currency, the shame of this threatened masculinity—his weight, his financial dependency on his parents, the fact that he uses Elmer’s glue as hair gel—the Fab 5 offer him their product: knowledge capital. In so doing, they underscore their own market value, thereby claiming a superior rung on the male ladder of success. Like What Not to Wear, 10 Years Younger, and Extreme Makeover, Queer Eye equates heterosexual appeal with masculine success, and this has offered grounds for another critique of the show. Since most makeovers culminate in reveal ceremonies where wives and girlfriends can stare in rapt amazement at their newly made-over men, the Fab 5 seem only facilitators to a larger heterosexual telos. Though there is merit in such an analysis, the virtual elimination of women during the makeover process (and the majority of the narrative time) actually creates a homosocial space where men mold men, and where women are pushed out of the picture altogether. It is, after all, because women have been ineffective at domesticating these unkempt, sloppy men that the gay squad is needed in the first place. When the Fab 5 goes through dirty refrigerators and piles of soiled laundry, when they laugh at baggy clothes and poor eating habits, they are critiquing both the men they will make over and the failed women who share those men’s

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lives. The underlying logic of the show contends that men need environments of like-to-like in order to improve. Even so, Queer Eye cannot completely do away with the degree to which heterosexual appeal stands as a cornerstone of hegemonic masculinity. One of the ways it manages to underscore such a value is through a bit of discursive transvestitism. Each of the fat episodes, for instance, creates a symbolic heterosexual space by coding men, gay and straight, as symbolic women. “Come on, girls!,” yells Thom, as the Fab 5 runs to the straight guy’s house. While playing dodge ball, he questions, “How in the world are we getting beaten by a bunch of women?” Though using “girls” and “women” as a derisive insult is certainly not limited to gay discourse communities and in fact here reinforces male sports rituals, the coding of men as women reifies a hierarchy in which those things that are feminized are degraded. Given this, it is important to note that when Thom calls his opponents women, they are not only other members of the Fab 5 but the straight male subject and several members of a professional dodge ball team, coded straight. Though using “girls” and “women” as a form of address between gay men in every way works as an utterance of playful camp rather than as a literal reassignment of sex, by similarly coding all men as discursive women, the show allows for the possibility that men can fulfill women’s roles, making women unnecessary altogether except as witnesses to male work. Women on Queer Eye are sometimes called in as nutrition or fitness helpers. Nevertheless, primary knowledge, expertise, and authority reside in male characters. Heterosexuality, like currency, therefore loses its literal meaning and functions here more as a symbol. In this homosocial space, heterosexual appeal finds its locus more firmly in men’s desire and approval of other men than in women’s interest or affirmation. At the same time, however, the Fab 5 constantly underscores the straight man’s heterosexual prowess with its references to sex. “Don’t come a knockin’ when the king size bed starts rockin’,” says Thom about newlywed and African American Eric. When Kyan asks Eric about his daily activities, Ted prompts, “Sex! You have a lot of sex.” Again, one can see in this exchange a flattening of sexual and racial differences in the name of shared masculinity. It doesn’t matter whom the man has sex with, only that he has sex, lots of it, and in a dominant position. Manhood, in this case, is defined not by women’s interest and involvement but by a heterosexualized logic that situates the “real man” as the agent of desire. In a similar way, Queer Eye positions the male body as a marker of male sameness. In the case of these makeover subjects, it is fat and sloppiness 202  ·  Chapter Four

that mark shameful difference and that demand intervention. For instance, when the Fab 5 gathers in its suv at the beginning of Adam and Steve’s episode, the style gurus ponder how the other half lives: Ted: “They drink a lot of beer, they eat a lot of hoagies, and they smoke cigarettes.” Carson: “All day long they eat and have a stromboli-thon.” Thom: “They probably eat six foot subs everyday.” Ted: “I’m sure it’s like bacon and eggs in the morning, ziti for lunch . . .” Thom: “Chicken fried steak.” Ted: “They drink beer at work!” Carson: “They are the poster boys for overindulgence.” Queer Eye is a text rife with camp and hyperbole, yet this line about over­ indulgence plays as a “straight” statement of fact. It strikes me as significant that, without irony, five gay men castigate two overweight men for their excesses without also referencing a stereotype of gay male excessive sexual appetites. In the guise of makeover expertise, such connotations recede in support of the larger makeover mandate for regulation of the body, and the five gay men speeding through the streets in their suv serve as avatars for such restraint. In their discussions about why these male subjects need makeovers, the Fab 5 employ the very sorts of neoliberal logics I’ve discussed throughout this book. Signs of excess on the body indicate a lack of maturity and responsibility, an abdication of one’s necessary entrepreneurship of the self.14 “It upsets me to see Todd being overweight and being lazy,” says Todd’s brother, the thin twin. Such lack of responsibility, it follows, disallows the subject from active participation in a gendered marketplace. Style guru Ted notes about the unemployed Todd, “If he could take care of the weight problem, he could be more confident to be ambitious.” Such statements establish the citizenry discourse of Makeover Nation: the gay style gurus, in this case, reside in the in-group, possessors of specialized knowledge that becomes inscribed on their bodies, making them legibly congruent with a larger social body. As Susan Bordo has shown in her discussion of the cultural politics of the slender body in Unbearable Weight, obesity serves as a marker that one does not comply with social expectations and as such functions in willful disobedience that deserves public censure and merits social remediation. The ideology espoused in these Queer Eye weight loss episodes additionally maintains that a man has an obligation to his wife, his family, and the larger social body to curtail and control his appetites and What Makes the Man?  ·  203

thus to possess a body that visually signifies his congruence with normative behaviors. Such an idea is put to words through one subject’s wife, “We’re a family now. You’re not just thinking about yourself anymore and what you want to do for fun. You have to think about the other people in your family and how it’s going to affect them.” Kyan concurs about Adam and Steve, “They kind of like do all the wrong things. They eat too much, they drink too much and they smoke.” The job of the Fab 5 is to make these straight men do all the right things. Unquestioned is the degree to which five gay men can speak as credible experts about normative behaviors. Overall, the Fab 5 teach straight men assimilation skills, how to alter the signifiers of the body so that a larger culture will affirm the material markers that denote masculine achievement predicated on a model of American-styled selfhood. This, it seems to me, is a fairly radical turn from a reading that dismisses the show for its retrograde politics by arguing the gay style gurus function, as Judith Roof argues, in roles that are “clearly, almost cornily a literal ‘hetero’ narrative (par. 23).” Though, indeed, Queer Eye evinces a fairly conventional and perhaps even politically conservative ideological investment in the After-outcomes it writes on male subjects, it strikes me as progressive to see representations of straight men learning from gay men, who already possess both the knowledge capital and the financial success to which “all men” aspire. Scholars such as Katherine Sender and Joanna Di Matta might concur, since, as Di Matta notes, the mediated lesson of a straight guy taking lessons from “bodies considered deviant and even un-American suggests a crisis in the policing of boundaries between homosexuality and heterosexuality” (133). So though Queer Eye may not be even remotely queer in its politics, it does perform a transgressive act by resolutely emphasizing its capacities to expose and reorganize the masculine system, thus eliminating the automatic subordination of gay men in the male power hierarchy.

“Usually I can tell who wears the pants” As I’ve argued, style and surgery shows have a particular investment in making over the man so he can retain what the shows posit as his innate manhood, while also increasing his quotient of masculinity. Through the assistance provided by the makeover, the man can ascend a masculinized ladder of success, stature, and ultimately, selfhood. In this section I turn more specifically to those shows outside of the style or surgery framework to determine if their models of the manly makeover contradict or affirm 204  ·  Chapter Four

these findings. As one might expect, for instance, vehicle transformations offer plentiful depictions of men in makeovers through such shows as Pimp My Ride, Overhaulin’, Monster Garage, American Chopper, Trick it Out, Trick My Truck, and American Hot Rod. These programs tend to reify stereotypes of masculinity as expressed by productivity, engine power, homosocial bonding, and female attention. In my opinion, there is no better model of hypermasculinity than the testosterone-fueled Monster Garage, which turns “ordinary street vehicles into monster machines.” On one show featuring an “all-midget build” (literally, mechanics who are “little people”), the team was unsuccessful in bringing forth the transformation it sought. No matter, since Jesse James, the host, used the opportunity to haul the micro-car to the California desert where he destroyed it, using contraband fifty-calibre assault rifles that the voice-over narrator gleefully calls “some of the biggest deadliest rifles ever crafted by mankind!” As with vehicle shows, child-rearing and relationship programs, such as Shalom in the Home, Supernanny, Nanny 911, Honey, We’re Killing the Kids, Relationship Rehab, and One Week to Save Your Marriage, often reinforce masculinist truisms that men are emotionally obtuse and infantilized by their own limited maturation, even as these shows endeavor to teach new communication skills. When an episode of Honey, We’re Killing the Kids called “Crisis Cholesterol” lays out a family’s nutritional problems, for instance, we see a “healthy” wife besieged by her junk-food-eating kids, as well as her husband, whom she calls her “forty-four-year-old child.” Jo-Jo the Supernanny regularly must confront the domineering male presence in the house to make him understand how to wield his authority in a way that is supportive of his female partner and nurturing to the children. Personal romance development shows, such as Scott Baio is 45 . . . and Single and The Pick-Up Artist, lay out a double, and in some ways mutually exclusive, imperative: to be a man one must be heterosexually active (forty-year-old virgins go to the Pick-Up Artist training camp in a bus marked Destination: Manhood), but as Scott Baio’s dilemma announces, if a man is still a player by age forty-five, he has failed the normative demands of manhood. Scott Baio’s case merits extra consideration. Scott ostensibly undertakes an eight-week course of change to make him into a “family man,” yet the episodes equally insist that the viewer be well versed in Scott’s history as an emotionless and commitment-phobic playboy, who, aided by celebrity, has had sex with seemingly every busty blonde in the 90210 zip code. Scott hires a life coach, Doc Ali, who presents him with a series of challenges intended to force him to confront his intimacy issues. From the surface, What Makes the Man?  ·  205

his quest for self-awareness and emotional resilience might suggest that Scott Baio is engaged in forging a newly constituted form of manhood that can be sensitive, monogamous, and secure. That he does so for the heteronormative rewards of wife and family might equally indicate that men are in the makeover machine precisely because women, who have worked so hard to refine themselves in the name of self-empowerment, demand nothing less than a man who will do the same. In this vein, Bonnie J. Dow makes a compelling case that, at least within a heterosexual economy, “representations of postfeminist women require particular representations of postfeminist men,” by which Dow means men who are invested in family (127). But Scott Baio offers a different possibility. In his series of encounters with former girlfriends, designed to give him insight on his past behaviors, Scott learns that he has been callous, insensitive, shallow, and emotionally stunted, more intent on sexual conquest than on meaningful connections. We are told that he would use women with abandon, looking through Playboy Magazine and “picking out girls like it was a catalogue.” Scott tries to explain himself, “Anything I did was never malicious. I was just being me.” In another moment he remarks, “I was just doing what guys do.” In so saying, Scott here deploys the defense of his own subject position grounded in his manhood. The narrative suggests that Scott’s present problem is not his former dismissive regard of women but the anachronism of trying to live in his forties like he did in his twenties (with little critique of the perils of enacting the sexual abandon of the 1980s in the postawareness of hiv/aids in the 2000s). The fact that Scott Baio can be forty-five and single presents him as a male who is not fully a man because his behaviors code him as non-normative, a contention seemingly at odds with codes of the alpha male whose masculinity is singular and stable precisely because he makes his own way. Yet it is clear, Scott must be made over. “Not married, no kids,” he bemoans. “How much longer am I going to go on doing this?” Doc Ali reinforces that his inability to function in a normative relationship makes him less of a man. Confronting him, she says, “Do you want to go through life like that? With people not knowing who you are? Is that the kind of man you want to be?” Her challenge suggests that a “real man” desires family and does not suppress his feelings, which, in its emphasis on domesticity, Dow might take as the marker of the postfeminist man. The narrative, however, immediately interrupts Doc Ali, privileging Scott’s voice-over response: “I’d cuddle with an eggplant if I didn’t have to listen to this dizzy broad anymore.” In a different episode on dating, he says in voice-over, 206  ·  Chapter Four

“Listening to women talk about your flaws all day is just as exhausting as it is annoying.” So here, since he possesses the power of narration and the prerogative of being executive producer, the man reasserts his masculinity by discrediting both the female and the feminine. What makes the man, then, is not developing new emotive skills or familial ties but keeping pace with a set of behaviors that other “real men” exhibit (a conceit made all the more evident in the next installment of this show, Scott Baio is 46 . . . and Pregnant). In this case, we are provided with information that reinforces conventional conceptions of masculinity: the man is emotionally removed (even if aware of his distance), in charge of his own story, and tied to the homosocial approval of other men. Indeed, across makeover programming, gendered logics cannot allow for stories of salutary change without also importing cautionary tales insisting that men enact masculinity in ways that do not disrupt normative scripts, since to do so would threaten the symbiosis that links manliness and subject-status. Just as for women, makeover shows communicate messages of gender regulation that instruct viewers in “appropriate” and “dysfunctional” iterations of gender predicated on conventional typologies. Even on a program like Shalom in the Home, where Rabbi Shmuley often directly confronts Western constructions of masculinity, his authority finds validation in the very patriarchal structures he critiques. So, for instance, when Shmuley visits the Maxwell family, he takes father Craig aside for a man-to-man discussion about parenting. Craig, an avid videographer, has filmed more than a thousand hours of footage that document his threeyear-old son Zachary’s life, images he then posts to a website (www. zacharymaxwell.com). Since the airing of the show, a new son has been born into the family, and thus a new website (www.lucasmaxwell.com). The Rabbi argues that Craig has turned Zachary into a “Hollywood diva” out of Craig’s misguided attempt to assert his own masculine importance through the number of hits the website receives (the website is now password protected and only available to “friends and family”). Craig reacts defensively to the Rabbi’s criticisms. Shmuley responds with an appeal of authority, indicating that he has written books on this subject, is a much-in-demand public speaker, and, obviously, has his own show about childrearing. The rhetorical move here re-establishes the very topdown, one might even say alpha male, structures that Shmuley criticizes. Furthermore, Shmuley believes that Craig is a poor father because he lets his fears direct his behaviors. These fears make Craig both withdrawn (the seeing eye behind the camera) and too eager to please (the father What Makes the Man?  ·  207

who acts more like a friend). “There is not equality between parents and children,” Shmuley instructs. “Parents have to assert their authority.” In so saying, Shmuley establishes his own authority, a direct instantiation of male hierarchies conducted through a discourse of a “new masculinity” that critiques itself only enough to reassert its relevance. The home-renovation show provides another place to see the quasicritique of masculinity demonstrated more fully. Men play important roles on room and home makeovers like Man Caves, Deserving Design, Hammer Heads, or Home to Go, either as the designer specialist, the demolition expert, the eager homeowner subject, or the authoritative judge who can affirm the rightness of the renovation. Their job is often to make things “man-tastic!” or to feature “cool tools.” In the case of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition it is often the man’s absence (through death or soldiery) or his symbolic castration (through illness or amputation) that merits the Extreme Team’s intervention. Holmes on Homes features a no-nonsense, bicep-bulging, overall-wearing Mike Holmes whose manly mission is to “make it right,” fixing the mistakes contractors have left in their wake. In all cases, shows are clear about differences between masculinity and femininity, as, for instance, when the host of Moving Up continually asks homeowners to evaluate the masculine or feminine feel of a room. “Too much estrogen,” says new homeowner Mark, pointedly coded gay, about a pink room. Makeovers additionally indicate that masculinity signifies decision-making authority. After-bodies in the masculinized makeover are those who “wear the pants,” as one Mail Order Makeover designer put it when describing whether the husband or wife would select the design motif (the implication being that the male homeowner is insufficiently manly if he allows his wife to choose the winning design).15 Shows further reinforce the scaffolding of normative masculinity by obliquely referencing both sex and sexuality. My Celebrity Home, for example, uses a design team of three people: two men and one woman. The show continually emphasizes that its host and lead construction person, Peter, is a “man’s man,” who knows nothing about decoration but everything about demolition and building. The other male expert, Mark (whom we met above as the gay-coded stylist on 10 Years Younger), designs with an “eye for style.” Though the show does not overtly queer Mark’s eye, it makes sure the viewer understands the differences between Peter and Mark. Peter therefore conducts his construction projects alone, he doles out money to his feminized subordinates, and he performs the hard labor of hammering and sawing, sometimes removing his shirt to reveal his 208  ·  Chapter Four

muscles and tatoos, inadvertently, perhaps, making himself the object of the scopophilic gaze. While he works, the other designers report to him on their status throughout the day and at the conclusion of their spending sprees, bring him handfuls of receipts. Much like Scott Baio, Peter has the power of voice-over narration, functioning as both character within the text and author of its development. Mark, by contrast, is responsible for working with the subjects, his people skills as important as his design and shopping skills. He is presented as weaker, smaller, and image-oriented rather than task-centered. The contrast between Peter and Mark underscores the distinction between dominant and subordinate models of masculinity, particularly the ways that subordinated masculinities accord with the feminine. On one episode, for instance, where two sisters are given “every girl’s dream,” a living room renovation to approximate that of Kimora Lee Simmons’s 2,000 square foot “high-class and expensive-looking” closet, Peter struggles to select “girl stuff ” accessories, choosing items like daggers. Mark, by contrast, has no problem figuring out that flower vases, candles, photos, and lots of make-up constitute girly signifiers. On another episode devoted to giving to the subject, Sam, a living room “duded up” to match that of Mario Lopez, Peter labors with power tools while constructing a room divider. He assigns Mark the task of glueing. Mark complains, while working with the assistant Kelly, “I don’t know why people don’t think I can use a power tool. What’s up with that?” Kelly agrees, “It’s so stereotypical.” Mark deliberately evades her meaning, in turn pointing to the significance of a sexuality marked by invisibility, “Like short guys can’t use a power tool? Is that the stereotype?” In this respect, Mark’s coded sexuality plays as an open secret, a joke that can be known but cannot be spoken.16 Mark’s gay coding both enhances his expertise as a designer and duly feminizes him, so that Peter, whether actually straight or gay, can symbolically take his place in the text as the strong, dominant father figure whose wisdom and authority govern the makeover’s trajectory, unchallenged either by the feminized Mark or by the equally feminized male subject, who waits for whatever changes the design team will write upon his living space. These narratives of masculinity play out across the room-renovation canon. Power goes to a hypermasculine style host, who authorizes activities, directs changes, makes decisions, and supervises construction. That room designers are often female does not alter the gendered dynamics at work here, since homeowner men are typically represented as being feminized—“on board” with their wives or girlfriends, or in desperate need What Makes the Man?  ·  209

of the expertise women designers possess. On an episode of Restaurant Makeover, for example, we are told that not only Tim’s business but also his male identity require saving. Tim took over the family restaurant, but he’s “doing half the business that his father did.” As if this Oedipal crisis weren’t enough, the show informs us seven times that Tim still lives at home with his parents, a statement meant to communicate the shame of his stalled masculine independence. The makeover of the restaurant is therefore Tim’s chance to “prove to his father that he can do it on his own,” a message of some contradiction since Tim must rely on a makeover team to assist him in his self-determination. The designer, Marilyn, leads an all-male crew of exuberant demolitionists, who gleefully engage in destruction by throwing chairs at light fixtures and whacking walls with sledge hammers, all while shouting “yee-haw!” as they push each other around on dolleys. The implication here is fairly obvious: boys will be boys, while women must exert the discipline that channels boyish excess into manhood. But, not to interrupt its own essentialized logic, the makeover contends that women will only hold this power until such time as men are capable of asserting their “natural” masculinity. In this case, what is “natural” can only be expressed through the transformative properties the makeover provides. At the show’s conclusion, updates scroll along the bottom of the screen telling us that after the makeover Tim received great restaurant reviews and also moved out of the parental home. Just as we saw on the style and surgery shows featuring men, the makeover’s masculine agency allows Tim to subordinate to its authority as a way of heightening his own masculinity, here predicated on competition with the father, financial success, and eventual independence. Although the male resistance we saw modeled in style and surgery shows is rarely an element of men’s behavior on room-renovation shows, a different form of opposition to the “girly” imperatives of home décor manifests through makeover parodies that ridicule home design as oldschool and metrosexual. For instance, Viva La Bam, a spin-off from the boys-behaving-badly show Jackass, follows the antics of Bam Magera as he systematically destroys his parents’ possessions (not to be confused with another Jackass spin-off, Dr. Steve-O, that subjects male makeover subjects to hazing rituals). One episode saw Bam “pimp” his mother’s P.T. Cruiser, much to her consternation, and Bam also painted everything in the kitchen his father’s favorite color: blue floors, blue ceilings, blue toaster, blue coffee pot, blue sugar bowl. Homewrecker follows a similar pattern of gleeful

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destruction through makeover transformations, filling a guy’s room with a hammock made of jock straps and thousands of pairs of used undies, including those cut off the camera crew. Junk’d, another prank makeover show, depicts two men who pretend to offer garden makeovers, only to reveal a pile of stones and rubble, gaping holes in former grassy back yards, and a series of rage-provoking mistakes and miscalculations. These parodies establish a logic of indifference that mocks the feminine and expresses masculinity through a harsh humor depicted as “all guy.” On Homewrecker, for instance, the tattooed expert Ryan enters a male subject’s tidy room and denigrates it for being “fruity” and “totally metrosexual.” Since the room contains “zero dude” signification, Ryan “shove[s] a little rock and roll down [the subject’s] throat.” mtv’s website describes Homewrecker as the “ultimate in anti-makeover reality shows,” but it could just as easily be described as a public forum for male-male gender instruction, which in this case requires both verbal and physical violence.17 The subject on this episode is punked for having played a joke on a friend, but the show makes clear that his girl-like room merits the homewrecking he receives (turning his neat bedroom into a dive-bar, complete with open garbage dumpsters and drug addicts invited from the street). Ryan’s homewrecking callousness articulates his heightened masculinity in contrast to the subject’s overserious and overattentive, and therefore overfeminine, investment in style. Ironically, Homewrecker must exhibit the same attentiveness to style as what it critiques, since to “dude up” a room requires an awareness of how to manipulate the signs of masculinity.

Concluding with Crisis? Overall, it is apparent that makeovers link manhood to selfhood in such a way as to continually remind and instruct viewers of the normative behaviors expected of men. It is critical that the man assert qualities that have historically linked him to American-style selfhood: emotional distance, financial upward mobility, heterosexual prowess, and rejection of the feminine. He must do so, moreover, while communicating a lack of concern about his condition of self, thereby reinforcing his subject-status through disaffectation, which makeover and anti-makeover alike suggest is critical to a naturalized performance of masculinity. In the visual economy that governs Makeover Nation, we’ve seen evidence that passage into citizenship requires writing normativity onto the body. If, as for Tim

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who lives in his father’s house or Scott Baio who resists monogamous scripts, a subject’s manhood is in question, the makeover positions itself as an agent of discipline and transformation that can solidify selfhood by making (over) the man. Though a man’s need for help defies the code of self-determination and even alpha male domination built into male selfhood, makeover logics indicate that moving slightly higher on the male ladder is better than wallowing at the bottom. Doing so doesn’t come without complication. A common truism contends that the metrosexual was effortlessly born out of shows like Queer Eye, which made shopping, grooming, smelling good, and looking fabulous “safe” for the straight guy, but the shows I examine here suggest that the made-over man must learn a complicated dance: how to improve the way he looks without seeming to have done so. Anything more will too flagrantly point to the aid and intervention offered by the feminized mechanism of the makeover. Anything less will too overtly compromise the ways in which masculinity is grounded in indifference. In sum, makeover television for men offers another cultural arena where the dream of male privilege tries to find its meaning. The gendered dynamics of the makeover seem to give credence to the growing contention that masculinity is in crisis, or as Faludi has put it, that “manhood [is] under siege” (6) since these messages contend that “men cannot be men, only eunuchs, if they are not in control” (9). Indeed, men’s very awareness of and concern about their bodies has led medical researchers, such as Harrison Pope, Katharine Phillips, and Roberto Olivardia, to argue that “there’s a widespread crisis among today’s boys and men” in that both are “preoccu­ pied with the appearance of their bodies” (xiii). Though clearly there are troubling pathologies of the body that both men and women experience and that are outside the scope of my discussion here, I believe we should be cautious about too quickly accepting the prognosis that masculinity is in crisis because men are invested in their appearance and through it their gendered selfhood. As I discussed in chapter 1, crisis rhetoric works through scare tactics that compel a citizenry to direct all of its resources to the site of danger. If men are in crisis, nothing else merits attention. Rather than seeing the makeover as an affirmation of crisis, I’d like to conclude here by suggesting that the complexities of the makeover instead reveal the basic contestatory tensions at the heart of masculinity. Made-over masculinity does not indicate a crisis moment when action must be taken to avoid a complete disaster or breakdown of the American

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“manolith,” but instead points to the conflict and contestation that is part of the continual (re)making of gender. Makeovers, in turn, for all of their seeming emphasis on vanity and image, offer a critical site for observing how conventional masculinity is linked to projects of the self, and thus why critiques of masculinity often serve to reinforce gender regulations that serve normative ends.

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5 celebrated selfhood Reworking Commodification through Reality Celebrity

I’m going to shine like a star! —Monique, makeover subject, Pimp My Ride Three months ago I was definitely a very average woman working a forty-hour job, but now I feel like Cinderella. —Michelle, winner, season one, American Princess

Throughout my consideration of makeover tv in this book, the celebrity has been an insistent figure. Along with the star’s ubiquitous presence comes all that the celebrity stands for: the spectacular body, the glamorous lifestyle, the epitome of success and achievement, the desired product of and model for consumerism, the embodiment of self-worth, the gazed-at object of desire (though also of criticism), and the apogee of the idealized love-object. In many ways, celebrity represents the culmination of all of the major themes I’ve discussed here. It is the celebrity who, we have been told by such scholars as Richard Dyer and Leo Braudy, constitutes the greatest expression of Americanness, a form of identity as celebrated product that extends neoliberal logics into a globalized marketplace where image and charisma combine as currency. It is in celebrity, as well, where being out of the public gaze essentially robs one of value and subsequently, in the terms established by the makeover, of selfhood. It is through celebrity

that we receive one of our most dominant modes of instruction about how to “do gender,” as Judith Lorber puts it, as well as how to live in appropriately sexed and sexualized bodies. This form of gender instruction exists even, and particularly, if celebrities violate normative codes, since the famous person’s status as a representational figure, as both like us and not like us, works to reinforce and make intelligible larger messages about appearance and behavior.1 For a genre called “reality” that purports to depict real people, celebrity still matters—even the degraded zone of fame commonly called the D-list.2 Within the reality tv makeover fold, celebrity cachet is equally critical though it operates differently in Makeover Nation than in the more generalized mediascape. Although it is helpful for makeover subjects to heighten style gurus’ celebrity by saying, “Oh my God! I tivo’d you last night!,” it is not mandatory that such recognition take place. Summarily, on a show like Makeover Manor, for example, the primary style host goes by the very star-evoking name Sasha the Diva, although her recognizability factor seems quite low, a fact underscored when none of the makeover “victims” gush about being in her presence (while many remark on the opulence of the manor house). Some makeover subjects achieve a level of reality celebrity simply by appearing on these shows, even though most programs do not tie After-success to being recognized on the street. Instead, releasing one’s “inner star” serves as the makeover’s goal. In this respect, celebrity saturates After-body outcomes across the makeover register through on-screen reinforcements, such as having subjects walk and pose on elevated red-carpeted catwalks, while supportive style agents utter exclamations including, “Girl, you are red-carpet worthy!” In its ties to celebrity, the makeover often works according to a series of ideals that it links to identity-work, including self-awareness, deliberate image-production, and semiotic modification through visual consumer choices. Such values, however, also link both the makeover and celebrity to narcissism, falsity, and commodification. Makeover discourses seem fully aware of the cultural stigma attached to celebrity. They neutralize such negative connotations by setting their sights not on fame itself, but on a form of selfhood made intelligible through fame. Consequently, the makeover does not create the star but crafts a form of celebrated selfhood, an image-based, visually confirmed embodiment of confidence, allure, glamour, and success that can attach to the makeover subject because of the reclamation and the revitalization of that subject’s inner self, a self marked by celebrity. 216  ·  Chapter Five

“Celebrity,” in this regard, works as a recognizable label that makes visible new citizenship in Makeover Nation. Celebrity also functions in these discourses through its conventional meanings as a group of special (if often spoiled) people and a zone of rarified existence that is a combination of fairy tales and the divine. Overall, the makeover relies on celebrity for its capacity to make the self recognizable, but it equally dismisses celebrity for a generic reproducibility tethered to the manufactured image. One labors for the celebrated After-body, then, not to enact the sign of the movie star but to be both signified and signifier united, the celebrated self in one coherent body. In this body there resides a self now fully eligible for those dividends afforded the celebrity: elegance, luxury, indulgence, adoration, and love.

Charting the Stars Makeovers work through five major themes related to celebrity, and because celebrity is so critical to the validating logics of the makeover, it’s helpful to have a basic map on which to chart these stars. Theme One: It Could Happen to You  manifests on such shows as I Want a Famous Face, Style Her Famous, Flab to Fab, Look-a-Like, My Celebrity Home, and Ready, Set, Change!, which eagerly announce their affection for specific celebrities and their desire to showcase narratives about achieving approximations of the appearance or home of these famous people. Doing so, these shows suggest, does not mimic or clone the star but enables the subject to become star-like. Theme Two: A Star is Born  purports to create the image of the celebrity—or in a convenient transference, the supermodel or beauty queen— who is represented as one step below the movie star’s celebrated appeal. The theme is best seen on such shows as Covershot, The Swan, Instant Beauty Pageant, A Model Life, tv Candy, America’s Next Top Model, and American Idol. Evidence of successful star-like-ness in these shows manifests through what might best be termed presence—typically, a poise-and-performance-under-pressure image best expressed through opportunities for posed visuality such as photo shoots, modeling sessions, runway walks, or beauty pageants. Theme Three: Celebrity on Board  positions the style gurus themselves as celebrities, their fame earned either prior to starring in the show (à Celebrated Selfhood  ·  217

la the soap actresses Finola Hughes, Lisa Rinna, and Alison Sweeney on, respectively, How Do I Look?, Merge, and The Biggest Loser, the rapper Xzibit on Pimp My Ride, and the comedienne Niecy Nash, from Reno 911, on Clean House) or as a consequence of the makeover show itself (such as Stacy and Clinton from What Not to Wear, Queer Eye’s Fab 5, or em: he’s Ty Pennington). The style-guru-as-celebrity theme is particularly evident in such shows as Isaac, Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance, Shaq’s Big Challenge, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, Dog Whisperer, What Not to Wear (bbc and tlc), Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Ambush Makeover, The Ex-Wives Club, and Queer Eye. A variation on this theme is the makeover-guru-as-kidof-celebrity, demonstrated with Dr. Phil’s son, Jay McGraw, the host of Renovate My Family or Joan Rivers’s daughter, Melissa Rivers, the host of both the weight-loss program, The Craze, and the how-to-look-likeyour-favorite-television-character makeover show, tv Candy. Another variation is the makeover-guru-as-former-butler-of-celebrity, as in the case of Paul Burrell, butler to Princess Diana, and host of American Princess and Australian Princess, or the star as creator of makeover, such as Courtney Cox and David Arquette with Mix it Up. Theme Four: Caution! Falling Stars  works to transform celebrities, typically has-been or B-list luminaries, such as former child stars or 80s pop idols. These shows include: Celebrity Fit Club, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, Dancing with the Stars, Scott Baio is 45 . . . and Single, Celebrity Duets, and Skating with Celebrities. In many ways these shows offer makeoverslight, showcasing a reduced version of pain and suffering than that endured by more “average” subjects in makeover shows (except on Celebrity Rehab, which seems to enjoy putting its drugged-out celebrity subjects in unflattering situations). We are led to believe that celebrities participate in such shows not only for celebrated selfhood but for career enhancement and, thus, the currency offered through the media exposure provided by the show itself.3 Theme Five: Red-Carpet Worthy  conflates the makeover’s outcome with being “red-carpet glamorous” or “Hollywood fabulous.” Included here are such programs as Extreme Makeover, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Save My Bath, Makeover Manor, 10 Years Younger, What Not to Wear (bbc and tlc), Head 2 Toe, A Makeover Story, Fashion Police, and The Look for Less. Such renderings of star-like appearance manifest across the makeover canon, from style shows, where subjects must learn how to dress for

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and pose on the red carpet, to home shows, where rooms are continually made over to reflect Hollywood glamour. Throughout this chapter, I will make repeated reference to these themes, suggesting that they filter through the ongoing discourses about selfhood, transformation, and celebrity that are part of the makeover. Unlike my listing here, these themes do not function as separate and distinct markers in the makeover maze, but often as overlapping and at times contradictory sign posts in the labyrinth, which, in turn, indicate the overall ideological complexity of both the makeover and contemporary iterations of the self. To best demonstrate the way that the makeover’s use of celebrity can enact multiple themes at once, I turn to The Ex-Wives Club (xwc), which featured three somewhat famous women once romantically associated with more famous men (Marla Maples to Donald Trump, Angie Everhart to Ashley Hamilton and Sylvester Stallone, Shar Jackson to Kevin Federline). In this we see both the Celebrity-on-Board and the Falling-Stars themes. Though not all three of the women were actually married to these men (and so oddly dispute their own nominative authority as exwives), they were each dumped by their respective partners, a rejection that required they undergo a period of depression and self-scrutiny akin to that experienced by the subjects they propose to help. Their experience allows the ex-wives to serve as celebrity facilitators to change. We might call this a variation on the It-Could-Happen-to-You theme, perhaps an ItHappened-to-Me-So-It-Could-Happen-to-You motif. As After-bodies, Marla, Shar, and Angie function as survivors from the makeover trenches who “counsel and inspire” by offering advice, new business contacts, angerrelease workshops, style makeovers, and opportunities for new romance (“Ex-Wives”). In effect, they set the stage for the subject to undergo a reclamation of a normatively gendered self through what the show calls a “Hollywood makeover,” and which we might call the activation of the Red-Carpet-Worthy theme. In xwc we see not only multiple modalities for configuring the importance of celebrity, we also witness a logic by which celebrity becomes invested in both reforming the problem at hand and offering the subject a selfhood released from his or her Before-ness. Consider, for instance, Lynn, who needs the help of the xwc because her husband left what she believed to be an “all-American marriage” for the perhaps equally all-American affair. In her audition tape, Lynn bemoans the loss of her Celebrated Selfhood  ·  219

feeling of self: “I feel like I’ve lost me. I have lost me. I don’t even know what me is because I haven’t had it for so long.” These are mobilizing words for the revitalization trio, who immediately rush in to teach Lynn how she might “get angry, get even, and get on with it.” Lynn’s makeover is both internal and external, necessitating the assistance of Hollywood life coaches, stylists, and beauty experts. The ex-wives lead Lynn through a series of cleansing rituals: anger therapy, where she “releases toxins” by shouting her rage and burning mementos; revenge, where she participates in the destruction of her former husband’s boat (by dousing it in gasoline and setting it on fire); and revitalization, where she is treated to a trip to Hawaii and romantic pampering. After the ex-wives’ intervention, Lynn voices a new sense of her personal presence, calling herself a “vibrant person with tons of energy and tenacity.” It’s a position of empowerment brought by the combined effect of personal transformation and the attention she receives from other celebrated women. Watching her former husband’s boat explode into smithereens, Lynn says with enthusiasm, “If I can do this, I can do anything!” Though we might resist the empowerment-through-pyrotechnics modeled here, both this particular show and the larger makeover oeuvre develop a line of logic bolstered by and reliant on celebrity as a validating pathway toward celebrated selfhood.

Of Narcissism and False People The concept of fame, which we might take to mean a posterity conferred on or through greatness, has been a part of social interaction since before Homer sang of Trojan wars.4 The notion of widespread celebrity is, therefore, not new. Fairly new (though by new, I mean within the past two hundred years) is the combination of unmitigated disdain and adoring fascination accorded to celebrity. As anyone paying attention in the twenty-first century knows, even as celebrities are loved and idolized, they, along with celebrity culture, are often dismissed as meaningless, inconsequential, and escapist, a derision typically predicated on larger divisions between high art and popular culture, between an academic or class elite and the hoi polloi, between a masculinized agent or producer and a feminized object or commodity. In the mid-nineteenth century, notions of celebrity (at that time already being used as an interchangeable term with fame) were both idealized and critiqued, but it was not until the twentieth-century boom of media technologies through the mass production of print and images, 220  ·  Chapter Five

and the development of movies, radio, television, and the internet, that celebrity as we know it became so prolific, and so reviled.5 Particularly within the past two decades, we have seen a surge in celebrity studies that take seriously the cultural work performed by the production, consumption, and proliferation of fame. Richard Dyer’s analyses, though not without some critique, indicate how the concept of celebrity reconciles the ideological tensions that mark specific historical moments, or, as Su Holmes puts it, Dyer’s thesis contends that “rather than simply some ‘special,’ ‘magic’ quality of the individual, a star’s ‘charisma’ is a product of the ways in which their image engages social issues and dilemmas” (“Starring” 12). I return to both Dyer and Holmes later in this chapter, but to ground my conversation on the function of celebrity in the television makeover, I turn to two theorists who are often referenced but infrequently analyzed in discussions about celebrity culture: Daniel Boorstin and Christopher Lasch. Boorstin’s The Image (1961) and Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism (1978) have both widely influenced theorizations of fame in a contemporary context; their major concerns with narcissism, meritocracy, authenticity, and commodification make them central to analyses of makeovers. In The Image Boorstin argues that Americans are being increasingly duped by false realities, including pseudo-events (press conferences, staged photo shoots, etc.) and pseudo-people (celebrities). Boorstin coined a phrase that has become almost cliché now: “The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness” (57, italics in original). I hesitate after writing that quote, wondering if I should write “[sic]” after Boorstin’s gender noninclusive “his,” the male pronoun in this case standing in for the celebrated man. Instead, I hope to call the reader’s attention to the way in which fame has largely been constructed and analyzed outside gender considerations. As I will demonstrate throughout this chapter, gender offers a critical way of reformulating the valences of contemporary celebrity. Regardless of his pronoun choice, for Boorstin both fame and celebrity operate in the province of the male. Fame confers to heroes, he argues, but celebrity is popularly awarded, and thus, to his mind, degraded. “The hero is made by folklore, sacred texts, and history books,” he writes, “but the celebrity is the creature of gossip, of public opinion, of magazines, newspapers, and the ephemeral images of movie and television screens” (63). We can get a sense of how Boorstin’s contempt for celebrity also invokes gender anxieties in his examination of the two modalities he identities: 1) the hero, an outgrowth of a patriarchal mythic construction bolstered Celebrated Selfhood  ·  221

by history and notions of the sacred; and 2) the celebrity, the deliberate construction of an entertainment culture fostered by highly feminized notions of desire and amusement. One is the progeny of truth, the other the bastard child of gossip. In this culture of celebrity the feminized fan, rather than a sacred text or historical record, confers celebrated status.6 Part of Boorstin’s outrage at the degradation of fame, then, surely comes from the feminization of celebrity, both in who might become famous and in who determines such acclaim. Boorstin’s distrust that accrues to those things feminized and popularly loved also extends to a suspicion of the speed and constructedness that is a part of twentieth-century celebrity. He distrusts those “artificial” mechanisms that “give a man ‘fame,’ ” indicating a belief that fame arises naturally and is never premeditated or fabricated (47). Boorstin’s ideas indicate a nostalgia for an illusory moment when fame came naturally, when a man earned his fame without specifically seeking it, and thus when all greatness could be considered authentic and deserved (how a woman rightfully possessed fame is seemingly outside Boorstin’s concerns). Boorstin argues, as a consequence, that in the new proliferation of pseudo-realities, Americans are at the mercy of our “extravagant expectations” and outrageous delusions that cause us to “deceive ourselves” into believing that we are all eligible for the rewards that fame confers (5).7 In 1978, Christopher Lasch added to Boorstin’s critique of celebrity with The Culture of Narcissism, which announced to an academic and popular readership that the United States was so immersed in materialism, consumerism, and personal infatuation, that the entire country was at risk of developing a narcissistic personality disorder predicated on a grandiose sense of extravagance and entitlement.8 Lasch was fairly comprehensive in his indictment of the “decadence” he saw prevailing in all manner of social locations, from corporate culture to self-help movements, expressing particular invective against what he termed the “cult of celebrity.” The media, he argued much like Boorstin, had so glamorized a notion of celebrity, that they had taught the citizen to identify “with the stars and to hate the ‘herd,’ ” thus making it “more and more difficult for him [sic] to accept the banality of everyday existence” (21). Lasch spoke from a position marked as the New Left, yet his statements endorsed what we think of today as conservative values, particularly his insistence that “hedonism” had crowded out family-oriented concerns (xv). Lasch’s work has been both much quoted and frequently criticized. Even so, it has, like Boorstin’s book, somewhat ironically earned a highly visible place in the 222  ·  Chapter Five

culture wars, functioning as a celebrated figure, even as it decries a cult of celebrity. Though we must read both Boorstin and Lasch as an opening salvo rather than as the definitive statement in this conversation about twentiethcentury trends and desires, I do believe they identified critical elements that manifest in the twenty-first-century proliferation of television makeover shows. Boorstin condemned the culture of celebrity, for instance, largely for what the makeover show extols: plasticity. The star’s mere existence, Boorstin contended, “proves the perfectibility of any man or woman. Oh wonderful pliability of human nature, in a society where anyone can become a celebrity! And where any celebrity . . . may become a star!” (161).9 It was the indeterminacy of the celebrity’s “ ‘real’ personality” that earned Boorstin’s invective and through this pliability some sense that there were no hard-and-fast rules for what constituted fame. Such concerns have particular relevance in our own moment. Indeed, Sofia Johannsson notes that the “proliferation of ‘ordinary people’ on reality tv” has fostered objections, much like Boorstin’s, that “contemporary fame is divorced from talent or achievement” (“Editorial” 4). As I’ve discussed throughout this book, despite its seeming endorsement of constructed identity, the makeover show is equally invested in the concept of a real and authentic self, and therefore of reality celebrity signifying the earned dividend of meritocratic achievement. Consequently, the makeover deploys its transformation and celebrity-enhancing machinery as a way to reveal the inner self, celebrity here depicted as an element of the unfettered subject’s immanence. Indeed, the logic indicates that it is only in releasing one’s interior star that selfhood becomes possible. As one participant on the Houston episode of Instant Beauty Pageant expressed, the makeover enabled her to “bring out my inner celebrity,” suggesting that each of us possess an interiorized authentic star that marks the place of selfhood. The makeover’s goal is simply to polish that star and reveal it to the world. So, though makeover logics dispute the notion that celebrity itself is bankrupt, they underscore a similar priority laid out by Boorstin in valuing that considered to be the intrinsic and “real,” rather than the constructed and “fake.” Similarly, Lasch’s book connects to makeover themes in his discussion of the narcissist’s relation to power and authority. A significant portion of Lasch’s critique attaches to a “therapeutic sensibility” made explicit to the me generation of the 1970s largely through self-help books. The therapeutic sensibility, he argued, created a social model of authority, whereby a “guise Celebrated Selfhood  ·  223

of ‘participation’ ” replaced hierarchical organization (185). Lasch argues that such a model did away with (benevolent) top-down power structures, instead creating a web of domination that wielded a tacit coercive authority too potent to subvert. In this, he argued, “[U.S.] society demands only conformity to the conventions of everyday intercourse, sanctioned by psychiatric definitions of normal behavior” (185). In the name of achieving the normal, Lasch argued, people were increasingly more self-conscious about how they presented themselves and thus more willing to submit to “therapeutic experts” who could guide more “appropriate” expressions of self. As we have seen repeatedly demonstrated with the discourses of the television makeover, subjecting oneself to experts in the name of the normative is critical to the makeover’s objectives. Lasch would likely argue that the pervasive appeal of the makeover derives from the manner in which both the show and the style agents are invested with therapeutic authority, which encourages and trains subjects to act like and believe they are celebrities, in turn, heightening a culture of narcissism. Indeed, one of the defining elements of the pervasive insistence on narcissism that Lasch identified is the subject’s total dependence “on others for constant infusions of approval and admiration” (40) coupled with a fear of aging and mortality. “In a society that dreads old age and death,” he argued, “aging holds a special terror for those . . . whose selfesteem requires the admiration usually reserved for youth, beauty, celebrity, or charm” (41). We need only look as far as 10 Years Younger to see all of these concerns—the desire for outward affirmation, the pursuit of signs of youthfulness, the conflation of success and celebrity—built into the makeover narrative.

Producing the Star: The Celebrity as Product In addition to the critiques offered by Lasch and Boorstin that make of celebrity a tangled mess of duplicity and narcissism, we must add a third element that has largely sealed celebrity’s fate as a discredited cultural arena: commodification. The notion that a coterie of press agents, entertainment companies, and tabloids have all conspired in making a product for mass consumption called the star has situated celebrity, as perhaps no other cultural modality, as the stand-in for that considered unnatural, a frothy creation concocted to appeal to popular tastes (even as it captures the dollars of that public).10 The business of show has given credence to the claim that image functions as a tool for material gain. As Richard 224  ·  Chapter Five

Dyer notes, “Stars are made for profit” (Heavenly Bodies 5). This positions celebrity as both an idea that feeds consumption and a commodity to be consumed itself. Continuing in Dyer’s words: “Stars are involved in making themselves into commodities; they are both labor and the thing that labor produces” (5). Indeed, as Joshua Gamson notes, the idioms of the entertainment industry speak “predominantly the language of sales and marketing. ‘Everybody has to be sold’ ” (Claims 64). Though the star is constructed as a commodity for profit, Dyer reminds us that the constructedness of the star does not make that star or the cultural work that stardom performs any less real since “how we appear is no less real than how we have manufactured that appearance, or than the ‘we’ that is doing the manufacturing” (Heavenly Bodies 2). Others seem less persuaded of his point. As we saw with Boorstin, both popular responses and much cultural studies scholarship evince a deep suspicion that the made-over body, be it the movie star or the makeover candidate, is not real but instead a floating simulacrum crafted to make the rest of us buy.11 In this regard, stigma attaches to the assumed causality between beauty and fame, between money and prestige, since the celebrity’s status has potentially come without merit. Since consumer practices factor so prominently into the makeover mandate, commodification allows for another telling connection between celebrity culture and makeover culture. In both the movie star and the makeover subject, we see similar tropes operating: The overt construction by stylists, the adoration of the beautiful image, and the seeming story-book conclusion of happily-ever-after tales, all bolstered through the right kinds of purchases. These themes saturate what constitutes the successful After-body, an idealized location that is both transcendent and incandescent. Indeed, though he doesn’t overtly make the connection to celebrity, Toby Miller theorizes that the promises of transcendence offered on Queer Eye operate through a combined use of “commodification and governmentalization” that brings the male makeover subject “into the bright light of narcissism and purchase—a comparatively enlightened culture of consumption” (“Metrosexuality” 117). Makeovers work according to a logic that enlightened consumerism can lead to enlightenment, in connotations both metaphysical (to be filled with new understanding) and celestial (to be a body of reflective light, a star). Guy Redden contends, for example, that at the levels of “narrative, character, and theme” makeovers teach the “modification of attitudes, behavior, and lifestyle” as a means of “enhanc[ing] personal wellbeing,” which is accomplished “largely via Celebrated Selfhood  ·  225

participants learning how to select and consume goods and services appropriately” (150). In addition, as June Deery notes, “Makeover shows amplify the commercial imperative to purchase in order to improve,” in turn creating a logic that “attracting attention” stands as something “one can sell, thus creating not just a society of the spectacle but of the commercial spectacle” and clearly also of the consumable celebrity (“Interior Design” 160, 161). Such an idea may well connect us to Jean Baudrillard’s theories of hyperreality, particularly his contention, as Miller phrases it, that “truth is displaced by false information” through a series of capitalist exchanges promulgated through advertising that thus make it impossible to discern distinctions between what is truth and what are lies (“Metrosexuality” 116). I don’t wish to be glib or to discredit the sorts of critiques I’ve referenced that connect celebrity and makeover culture to that which is empty, selfabsorbed, and commercialized, or what William Egginton calls “star culture in all its vapid vacuity” (186), but I wonder if we’ve overly demonized that which is narcissistic and commodified, and by proxy also discredited that which denotes celebrity.12 It is easy for scholars (myself included) to decry makeovers as the vehicles for rampant consumerism and narcissistic selfabsorption, but the age-resistant and celebrity-enhancing technologies bound up in televised makeover narratives do something important for the image-conscious people Lasch might label narcissists. If we take subjects’ statements at the end of each show as evidence, makeover participants appear to be offered the reclamation of their own most-loved, but lost, selves. As countless makeover subjects say in celebration of their newly made-over appearance, “I look like me again!” or “I love being back in my body.” We must be mindful, however, as I’ve noted previously, of deliberate editing designed to amplify participants’ euphoric attitudes about their outcomes; representation offers its own truth. To that end, I don’t believe we can fully discredit the fact that Before-subjects speak of experiencing a dislocation from identity that involves an alienation from the materiality of their bodies. After-subjects, by contrast, claim ego-states that, narcissistic or not, find their fullest expression through the body and are only achievable with the aid of the makeover, often through tutored consumerism. Admittedly, adopting the makeover regime means committing oneself to consistent and long-term purchases of style, beauty products, and cosmetic procedures, but it’s not as if makeover subjects lived free of the market in their Before-states. Like it or not, we are all consumers. Makeovers do not necessarily advocate more buying. Indeed, in many cases, such as the 226  ·  Chapter Five

debt-reduction makeover program Maxed Out or the clutter-elimination shows Clean House and Mission: Organization, they clearly insist on less. Even the über-shopping makeover show, What Not to Wear, has targeted subjects such as Diana, whose excessive consumerism created an eclectic wardrobe devoid of a single unifying style. The voice-over narrator calls Diana “a shopaholic,” a “lady with a thousand themes,” who possesses an “operatic wardrobe.” She calls herself a “slave to fashion,” who will “go broke to buy a jacket.” One might think Diana’s commitment to consumerism and Before-interest in style codes and appearance would exempt her from the makeover’s mandate. The reverse is actually the case. She needs a makeover, the hosts argue, because the random eccentricity and make-believe motifs of her wardrobe (she likes to dress in themes—opera singers, army personnel, Russian princesses fleeing to exile in Paris) fail to communicate a stable identity. An “identity crisis” is also diagnosed for another What Not to Wear subject Jeanine, an Anna Nicole Smith impersonator and nurse, whose “real” identity vanishes when she is not on stage or at the hospital. Much as Boorstin bemoaned, it is plasticity, or in this case too much variation, that must be regulated through the makeover. Doing so, moreover, will yield these women the most valuable perquisite accorded to the star: loving attention directed at their celebrated selfhood. The makeover process allows Diana to feel “like a star,” she tells the camera in direct address, it “makes me feel important.” And this, in turn, allows Diana to feel, she says, more “like me.” tv makeover narratives advocate targeted consumerism in the name of building an image that will produce a “look” that can be read and will be treated as star-like. In these cases—as well as many others—buying still functions as the critical element in organizing one’s world so as to invite happiness and contentment. So it is buying wisely instead of buying widely that many makeovers encourage. Instead of simply acquiring more, the makeover desires smart consumerism, though “smart” is clearly skewed toward choices that enhance appearance as a form of value made concrete through the attention one draws. As I noted in chapter 1, the market tutorial offered through the makeover is one predicated on neoliberal logics focused on entrepreneurial capitalism where even celebrities, as Gareth Palmer contends, are “evaluated as the products of an enterprise culture that encourages us all to maximize the self as a project” (“Undead” 37). Since, as the makeover’s logic goes, appearance is a primary factor in establishing confidence, and confidence matters both for financial and romantic success, the prudent consumer, just like the successful celebrity, Celebrated Selfhood  ·  227

will devote resources of time, energy, and money toward those things that will improve what the makeover labels overall well-being. If we take such shows as Maxed Out, Clean House, and What Not to Wear as guides to the makeover’s larger ideology, well-being clearly requires developing a discipline that establishes a coherent gendered identity that can be gazed at in appreciation, even if doing so actually requires less buying. Significantly, as I’ve noted, these shows don’t teach us how to buy but how to shop, and in the education about better uses of our money, we are likewise being educated in class-based notions of improvement. That this is all authorized through the achievement of an otherwise unattainable selfhood strikes me as one of the more ingenuous and insidious elements of the makeover text. Though one might argue the makeover promotes a form of identity-as-product that it only calls selfhood, labeling the process as primarily about narcissism, falsity, or commodification misses the equally compelling messages about celebrity, gender, and identity that feed makeover logics. It also misses the significance of labor in the economy of production and consumption that contribute to the makeover’s message.

Style Her Famous: The Job of Being Looked At Moments when subjects gaze in the mirror and announce themselves as star-like could well be read as epitomizing the consumer narcissism I have discussed thus far. When, for example, Christina stares at herself in rapt fascination on an episode of Style Her Famous (shf), she wonders where the paparazzi are, thus confirming her new to-be-looked-at-ness. The evangelical appeal that runs through this particular shf episode underscores pervasive discourses of shame, surrender, and salvation that are part of achieving the makeover’s born again body.13 As such, it might be possible to discredit what we see in Christina’s makeover as a new sort of opiate of the masses, a way of combining delusional systems—narcissicism, commodification, false realities, celebrity—into a belief in core-level and permanent change that is actually superficial and fleeting.14 Her After-body would then not be real but in its correlation to image, hyperreal. Indeed, the host of shf, Jay, underscores the connection between mediated image, celebrity culture, and successful makeovers, saying about all the makeover candidates: “Every week we do our part to help America’s fashionably challenged by giving one lucky fan a star-studded transformation that captures, not copies, celebrity style. And when our fan’s new look is just 228  ·  Chapter Five

right, we put her where she belongs, in front of the camera, in her very own photo shoot.” Again, we see that the subject rightfully inherits the celebrated gaze through the combination of the stylists’ expertise and the camera’s attention. But also depicted on this as well as other shows employing the star-isborn thematic is the notion that hard work goes into embodying celebrity, thus challenging at some level Miller’s claim that, particularly on makeover shows, “Commodities hide not only the work of their own creation, but their post-purchase existence as well” (“Metrosexuality” 116). Posing before the camera as the culminating moment of celebrity-inspired transformation requires that both subject and viewer develop a new recognition of the previously invisible forms of labor involved in being the supermodel, the cover girl, the movie star. Sites of labor thereby become sightings of labor. Says Clare, a subject on Style Her Famous who desires to look like Drew Barrymore, the photo shoot “makes me appreciate models a little bit more and what they are able to do.” The work of being looked at is demanding, as It-Could-Happen-to-You themes attest. Christina, for example, struggles through her shf photo shoot while covered with glitter, dressed like an angel with six foot wings, and hoisted in the air to appear ethereal. Similarly, subjects on Look-a-Like are often frustrated in their attempts to pull off a star-infused photo shoot, and on Covershot the single and suffering mothers, who make up the vast majority of the show’s participants, awkwardly attempt to look sexy for their After-images on a Times Square billboard. Even, and particularly, the aspiring models of America’s Next Top Model, The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, She’s Got the Look, Make Me a Supermodel, and A Model Life demonstrate the labor involved in being looked at, quite literally modeled to the viewer when, as just two examples, they must do bikini shoots atop a Manhattan skyscraper in subfreezing temperatures or stand provocatively on a rock-sharded beach. These images are meant to capture the totality of the makeover subject’s new empowerment, but they often make a harsher point. As former supermodel and creator of America’s Next Top Model (antm) Tyra Banks says while laughing as her protégées shiver on the rooftop, “Welcome to the beautiful glamorous world of modeling! Now you see this business is no game.”

antm offers an ideal site for tracing out the labor of being the object of the gaze.15 In every cycle (or season) of this show, “learning moments” make the point that glamour is hard work. Whether it is freezing on a rooftop, waking at the crack of dawn, modeling under water, or looking sexy while a snake slithers around your neck, being a top model is a job Celebrated Selfhood  ·  229

with an extensive mandatory skill set that involves not just beauty but personality, charisma, and an incredible work ethic. Notes fashion photographer Douglas Bizarro in cycle one: “A model is more than just a pretty face. They really have to be confident inside. They really have to be able to give it in front of the lens.” Posing before the mirror functions less as a narcissistic exercise than a form of preparation and training that enables a model to do her job well. As Bizarro says approvingly about one model, “Giselle did a great job. You can tell when a girl has practiced in front of the mirror.” antm offers a window into the mode of production behind the high-fashion model (as distinct from lesser, and from the show’s point of view derided, categories such as the catalogue model, the Playboy pin-up girl, the pageant queen, or, as Tyra describes it, “the normal everyday pretty girls on the street”). As Tyra says in her haughtiest of voices, “People think supermodels are born beautiful and not created. How naive.” Like the rest of the makeover mandate, consumerism is critical in making the model’s After-body. antm heightens the terms of such market exchange by reminding viewers that the women depicted on screen are players in a commercial exchange of images for dollars. Models are incessantly chided for behaviors that potentially harm the consumer transactions built into their business—taking off coats too quickly on the runway, resisting hair extensions or style makeovers, letting personal tastes or moral scruples intervene in the production of the After-outcome. Stylists, coaches, and agents frequently remind the women that their appearance is no longer their own, that they don’t have a choice in how they will be made over, that their resistance and ignorance costs others money. As one of the models, Ebony, acknowledges (ironically, on her elimination episode), her task is to project the “image that will sell the product.” We might then argue that these models’ selfhoods are completely subordinated to the processes of objectification inherent in commodification, their personal worth tied to their professional success and consequent fame. Such a claim certainly parallels Graeme Turner’s contention that those in the public eye, “develop their public persona as a commercial asset,” market concerns taking precedent over personal growth (35). Yet, the perceived division between a private self and a public commercial asset raises an interesting question: Why does it not increase subject status to produce the terms where the market’s demands are most efficiently met? Surely, if these models were doctors or engineers, their efforts to build the terms of professional skill into their lifestyles and appearances would be both emulated and admired. As we saw with discussions about visuality 230  ·  Chapter Five

and male makeovers, men who use transformation technologies to increase their professional competitiveness are often praised for doing whatever it takes to get ahead. I believe we discredit the potential rewards in subject status that accrue to being looked at on grounds of falseness, narcissism, and commodification. As I have suggested, these are terms that have equally been vilified through their link to celebrity and to that considered feminine (so even the rare male model on these shows is coded feminine due to his participation in the gendered optics of modeling). America’s Next Top Model articulates the processes of commodification, the desires for to-be-looked-at-ness, and the feminized currency in beauty in a more overt way than perhaps any other makeover text. And yet, I hesitate to call it the ur-makeover. This is not because Tyra and crew labor to produce sign boards for selling, but because antm’s mode of conceptualizing selfhood suggests that most pretty women intrinsically lack “what it takes” to be an After-body. Such a notion departs from the rest of the makeover message and in so doing violates the makeover’s most sacred touchstone: All transformations yield a better, healthier, happier self, an internal state that is immediately and accurately legible through an external pleasing appearance. Since, according to the logic of the makeover, appearance and confident selfhood are inextricably linked, contestants on model shows disrupt the visual economy of the makeover that marks the “ugliness” of Before-bodies as obviously legible and the “beauty” of After-bodies as a sign of not only transformation but enlightened selfhood.

antm further resists larger makeover messages by providing a moment for the display of gender performativity that contradicts the essentialized mode of imagining gender prevalent across the rest of the makeover canon. This is particularly evident on episodes where gender performance becomes visible on the show, when models are asked to “act like a lady” or “dress like a man”—all as part of creating the pliable presence necessary to project an image and sell a product. The makeover’s essentializing logics are further confounded by the fact that antm depicts beautiful women whose career aspirations offer identity consummation more than the conventional tropes of appearance/confidence and marriage/motherhood. As, Adrianne, the winner of the first competition says, “How can any man be more important than being a supermodel?”16 America’s Next Top Model’s goal of career above all provides a significant moment where the makeover yields a counternormative outcome: the beautiful female body evincing a gender fluidity and desiring a professional fame that is outside the gender economy that marks successful After-bodies across the tv makeover genre. Celebrated Selfhood  ·  231

Star Power: Labor as Expiation for Fame Though makeovers quite often announce their intention to teach participants how to “empower the celebrity within,” there is a risk in transforming a pretty girl into a beautiful woman who earns money and fame through her appearance. The makeover contends with such peril through a side-step: the goal is not to make the movie star but to approximate the appearance of the movie star. As we saw with gender, the makeover does not create what it considers to be essentialized, and therefore unmalleable, it allows for one’s inner princess, inner movie star, inner super model, and inner diva to emerge, accentuated by, but not constituted through, the processes of the makeover. But here we have a problem. If the makeover leads to a glorified self that reveals one’s inner celebrity, how does it depict the desire for change without conflating such desires with ambitions for fame? Makeovers contend with such competing ideological demands by depicting makeover subjects as not actively desiring fame. Instead, they can only have it thrust upon them or applied by association. As a consequence, postmakeover After-bodies might look like a movie star and garner a certain degree of reality tv celebrity, but subjects themselves are never depicted as actively seeking fame as the sole dividend of the makeover. Even on such it-can-happen-to-you and a-star-is born shows as American Idol where fame is clearly part of the reward of competition and success built into the framework of the makeover, participants speak of desiring professional skill and the satisfaction of public approval more than the fame itself, accentuating the pejorative connotation linked not to fame but to the ambitions for fame.17 Such ways of conceptualizing celebrity are consistent with larger cultural ideas about acceptable iterations of fame. As Leo Braudy notes, to be “famous for yourself, for what you are without talent or premeditation” allows for the terms of fame as one’s “rightful inheritance,” thus allowing star aspirants to shirk the stigma of hubris connected to calculation (7).18 The difference is one between metaphor (I am a star) and simile (I am like a star). Makeovers further neutralize the possibility that desires for change will be read as a lust for fame by accentuating the work involved in achieving an After-body. What Not to Wear’s shopaholic Diana notes, for instance, “It’s a job putting a look together. You’re working.” Surely, the groaning, sweating, crying, heaving, hyper-ventilating, and fainting across the makeover canon attest to the notion that transformation, be it psychological or 232  ·  Chapter Five

physical, can be grueling. Just as we saw with shame, such labor constitutes not only the affective but the somatic currency that fuels the economy of the makeover and lessens the unearned notion of celebrity. The rewards of labor can then be spent on the elusive commodities for sale in Makeover Nation: happiness, confidence, and selfhood. This exchange of effort for outcome, payment for product, fully guarantees that the commodity most greatly desired—the celebrated self—can be paid for and, therefore, merited through a logic of consumer individualism. “I feel more like me than I did before,” says Diana, reveling in her new image. Stylist Clinton asks, “How could you look more like yourself now than when you were dressing yourself ?” Diana answers that she had to learn to “say goodbye to the old me” and to better learn the “job” of self-presentation. Doing so is totalizing, involving both attention to interiorities and surfaces. “You go through an emotional roller coaster,” Diana says. “You’re dealing with your image, your self. There were times when I wanted to cry, but there’s no gain without pain.” Despite requiring that participants endure the hardships of transformation, the makeover is prepared to offer advice. “Ever wish you had effort-less celebrity style without all the effort?” asks Jay on the “Drew Barrymore” episode of Style Her Famous. “Well, I’m here to tell you it is possible. Today we’re revealing Hollywood tricks that will turn a fashion no-no into a Hollywood boho [bohemian plus Soho].” Those tricks include choosing the right shades and variations of clothes and makeup, elongating the leg, accentuating an hour-glass figure, and wearing simple jackets with a nip at the waste and a slight kick at the hip (a seemingly universal piece of makeover style knowledge and perhaps the reason why, after years of research on these shows, I now own upwards of two dozen of such jackets). Makeovers offer a set of instructions and assistance that make the extraordinary life of the celebrity more ordinary; and though they position such instruction as effort-less, a great deal of exertion is clearly required to achieve After-outcomes. Tips range from how to pose on the red carpet to how to manage the paparazzi to how to keep a slinky dress in place to how to care for enhanced body parts (new breasts, for instance, need massaging). Star tips tie to and disconnect from consumer culture. We get the sense that the right styling gel or lip gloss or platform shoe will complete a celebrity look, but the makeover is clear that these superficial appurtenances can only gild the lily, they cannot create the flower. Such a message differs from a mini-makeover narrative contained in a commercial for hair removal cream that frequently airs between makeover Celebrated Selfhood  ·  233

Alyssa Milano, Veet. 2007 Veet campaign.

shows. “Everyone loves a good Hollywood secret. Here’s one of mine,” says Alyssa Milano, a star perhaps best known for being Tony Danza’s daughter on Who’s the Boss? (1984–92) or one of the witches on Charmed (1998–2006). In one version of the ad, Milano lies provocatively over a champagne-colored couch, her legs attractively displayed above her, crystal chandeliers hanging in the background, posed in a classic Hollywood display. Because on the surrounding makeover narrative (regardless of which specific show), we have just seen how difficult such posing is, we know her seeming effortlessness requires professional skill. Alyssa’s Hollywood secret is Veet, a hair-removing product that can “make your legs touchable” without the harm or inconvenience of a razor. In itself, this message is not unique. It has long been an advertising technique to suggest that products can function as a form of intermediary currency that will enable the user to purchase a desired lifestyle. And yet, the logic of this ad both coheres to and differs from the celebrity appeal depicted in makeovers. As in the larger makeover narrative, the commercial suggests that what the star desires tangibly—in this case smooth beautiful legs that do not trouble a male co-star with stubbly prickle—are what the average woman desires. It also implies that buying the product will secure more abstract outcomes: the allure and beauty (and the luxury bordering on indolence) of the star’s life. This particular commercial stops here, whereas the makeover pushes on, for the makeover insists that the pay-off is not celebrity status but something far more valuable: the coherency of identity represented, seem234  ·  Chapter Five

ingly without irony, through the image the celebrity (re)presents. Such a statement about the celebrity-marked self may appear oxymoronic. Alan Lovell, for instance, has described the celebrity as “the polar opposite of the solid bourgeois citizen.” It is the celebrity’s very “capriciousness,” Lovell argues, that epitomizes the postmodern rather than a unified, stable identity (261). As such, the celebrity would be the least reliable model for an iteration of the self that is coherent and authentic. Su Holmes, Richard Dyer, and P. David Marshall argue in separate publications, however, that fame and individualism are often referenced together, and thus the notion of celebrity articulates more widespread understandings of personhood. Dyer’s work indicates that stars reinforce “the notion of the individual” while “registering the doubts and anxieties attendant on it” (Heavenly Bodies 9). As such, celebrity functions as a playing field on which a fascinated and perplexed culture negotiates sites of identity. This stance on the celebrated self within the makeover allows a “real” person to occupy the knowingly constructed persona of a star but to make that persona an intrinsic element of personhood, more real than the celebrity’s representation of self. As the voice-over narrator says about participant Penny’s celebrity-inspired makeover on Brand New You, “This isn’t just the story of a Hollywood nip/tuck. It’s the reality of creating a brand new you.” A commercial for the skin-care product, Proactiv Solution, makes such negotiations evident, particularly as related to narratives of transformation. Drawing on a large stable of celebrity spokespeople, including Jessica Simpson, Lindsey Lohan, Vanessa Williams, P. Diddy, and Kelly Clarkson, Proactiv Solution lays out a narrative of change requiring that one proactively solve problems so that the self can circulate confidently in a wider world. Says Jessica Simpson in a close-up direct-address indicating both seriousness and intimacy, “You can say acne is a small thing, but if you have it, it’s not. It’s humiliating. It changes you, and you want to retreat, to hide out.” Jessica is flanked by verbal and visual testimonials from both ordinary people and other stars, each speaking of the limitations brought through acne. Says an average girl, “I would take a look in the mirror, and I would say there’s no way I’m going out like this.” Says another average girl, “I felt unwanted, and I felt I didn’t fit in. I had to hide myself.” These problems of self-consciousness and self-imposed isolation are also those experienced by the star. Confesses Jessica in a demonstration of her affective payment: “I had skin issues, and all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole.” For celebrity spokespeople whose work requires visuality and selling products, the public confessional offered through the commercial Celebrated Selfhood  ·  235

constitutes both their affective and somatic payments. When such payments are tendered, both the extraordinary and the ordinary can pass into the land of the After-body. Enthuses an average boy, “All of the sudden, I want to meet people, and I want to talk to people, and I’m not afraid to show my face in public.” The commercial here lays out many of the terms we have encountered throughout this book: to hide oneself constitutes a form of pathology that leads to a cognitive dissociation between body and selfhood, intervention requires that one take responsibility through a proactive solution aided by miracle products and trained experts, transformation requires payments in both affective and somatic currencies, and success means entering the public sphere in joy rather than apprehension, welcoming the gaze and celebrating a new selfhood. Even celebrities desire the transformation the product brings. As Jessica says, “You know there’s so much to do in this world, so much fun, so much joy. And you don’t have to miss out on it because of acne. I’m more me now thanks to Proactiv Solution.” Fellow spokesperson and actress Jennifer Love Hewitt reinforces the symbiosis between selfhood and the beautiful body. Proactiv Solution leads her to exclaim, “It’s my skin again!,” indicating, at least semantically, that blemishes on the exterior body lead to a crisis of interior subjectivity. As so presented, it is not greater fame or intensified professional success that makes Jessica and Jennifer grateful for Proactiv Solution; it is the product’s capacity to increase their access to a celebrated self. Overall, the makeover works according to a premise that through desire and hard work the average person, typically female, can claim the glamorous image and presence of the star. In so doing, the makeover suggests, she will also achieve a coherent, stable, and joyful self, made intelligible through the combination of beauty and confidence that are dividends of the transformation process. This new self is depicted as surpassing the obviously constructed image projected by the star. The logic suggests that in striving to become “like” a celebrity, the subject can leap-frog into a position of transcendent happiness where one experiences selfhood unmitigated by anxieties about one’s self-worth. Actual celebrities are not precluded from such identity work as we see in such celebrity-on-board themed shows as Celebrity Fit Club or mini-makeover narratives such as Proactiv Solution. But celebrated selfhood is only open to celebrities when they reveal their own embodied insecurities—the affective currency—and engage in the labor of production—the somatic currency—necessary to claim their After-bodies. 236  ·  Chapter Five

Counterfeits and Impersonations Though the makeover positions itself as creating a celebrated selfhood that transcends the celebrity’s constructed image, it needs star power, either through stylists or the imaginative work the idea of celebrity fulfills, in order to accomplish its goals. In other words, in effort to lead subjects to a place of identity predicated on but transcending the constructed image of the celebrity, the makeover requires star power so that it might make such a transformation possible. It contends with this puzzle through a logic of escalating values. “Real” people can find their intrinsic celebrity qualities and thereby know a celebrated selfhood, which, in turn, will allow them to vault over the constructedness of the star. But “real” celebrities are always a race apart. Such a move appropriates the allure of celebrity while retaining its separation from that which is ordinary. One of the ways makeovers shore up the inimitable qualities of the star is, ironically, through the very a-star-is-born shows that purport to create celebrity appearance. As I’ve already noted, the makeover carefully states a goal of achieving celebrity-inspired looks aimed at making a person look star-like; these are not celebrity-clone programs designed to replicate the star. That is well and good as far as it goes, though shows like American Idol, America’s Next Top Model, America’s Got Talent, or even The Next Big Thing, a celebrity-impersonation show, often lose track of the divide between starlike and star-clone. And indeed, though most of the top models who have won America’s Next Top Model have gone on to less than star-like careers, American Idol has had phenomenal success in creating music stars welcomed by an adoring public. So we can see that though the makeover claims a clear division between the star and the star-aspirant, the very processes it offers blur such distinctions. Star-maker shows deal with this dilemma narratologically, by indicating through the stories they tell that subjects and celebrities are intrinsically incommensurate. Let’s take as an example the many programs on which Britney Spears impersonators or look-a-likes desire a makeover to accentuate their similarity to her. mtv’s somewhat notorious makeover show, I Want a Famous Face, purports to document a plastic surgery operation intended to heighten the resemblance between an “average person” and a celebrity. Mia, a pharmaceutical sales rep by day and a Britney Spears impersonator in the off hours, pursues breast augmentation surgery to help her make the transition into full-fledged celebrity impersonator status. Mia has already invested considerable resources of time, money, and energy Celebrated Selfhood  ·  237

in creating herself as Britney, including a $1,000 beaded costume, voice and movement lessons, and assiduous practice to capture Britney’s dance moves. Indeed, the camera is quite fascinated with Mia’s labors, showing her attempts to memorize lyric lines and repeatedly airing scenes of Mia in her small living room as she reaches to the ceiling and then falls into a crouch, while breathlessly mouthing Britney’s famous line, “I’m not that innocent.” Mia tells the camera that it is not just a matter of professional imitation that draws her to Britney, but also one of shared tastes. “She likes blue and I like blue. She likes cookie dough ice cream and I like cookie dough ice cream!” The show seems clearly to be mocking Mia in this moment, making the real Britney look better, smarter, and less constructed through contrast with this Britney aspirant. Indeed, I believe I Want a Famous Face critiques more than glamorizes the choice to cut the body in order to achieve celebrity likeness. This particular episode about Mia’s breast implants, for instance, is intercut with a mini cautionary tale in which Kacey bemoans her decision to get breast augmentation so that she can better approximate the appearance of Julia Roberts (so much the worse for her that it is not the somewhat flat-chested Roberts she desires to look like, but a highly padded Roberts playing the busty character of Erin Brokovich that Kacey admires). Formerly a highly skilled softball player, Kacey has endured considerable pain and lethargy since receiving breast implants and now finds herself watching from the sidelines—her attempts to gain a glamorous new life a dismal failure. The answer for Kacey is to have her size D implants removed, thus, the narrative implies, more fully accepting “who I really am.” When we return to Mia’s story following this cautionary tale, then, we are doubly prepared to be critical of her transformation choices. After Mia’s surgery, her breasts are indeed bigger, and this inspires Mia to more actively pursue her goal of being a professional celebrity impersonator, including hiring a pr firm and competing in celebrity look-a-like contests. The camera follows her to one such contest and depicts a rather painful performance as the now full-chested Mia performs Britney’s sultry song and dance moves in a way that clearly signifies Mia’s amateur skills. A similar trope plays out in other Britney-impersonation moments on Instant Beauty Pageant. As with Mia, edited clips accentuate the banality of contestant Ashley on the Las Vegas edition of Instant Beauty Pageant. During the bathing suit competition, for instance, Ashley notes about her camouflage bikini, “I went with an army motif, and it’s something I take pride in, supporting our country.” During her talent show where 238  ·  Chapter Five

she performs a Britney song, Ashley is pleased that she has been able to serve as a role model, “I pointed at a little girl in the audience. That was an amazing thing to share with a little girl.” Highlighting such eye-rolling moments may actually suture the comparisons between the real Britney and her impersonators, yet on these shows, women who bear a strong physical resemblance to Britney expose their counterfeit status when they try to sing and dance. They cannot hit the notes, they often stumble around on stage, and their attempts to look sexy typically backfire by looking cheesy. All sing the same song with the line, “I’m not that innocent,” but they might as well be singing, “I’m not that talented.” Indeed, these moments in the makeover, augmented as they are by poor production values, shoddy lighting, and unflattering sound bites, contribute in ways both ideological and formal to Britney’s merited star-status in contrast to these lack-luster pretenders (given the real Britney’s performance mishaps at the 2007 Video Music Awards, which took place roughly a year after the Instant Beauty Pageant episode aired, amateur performances may grow in authenticity as time goes on). The distinction between real and pretend stars operates fairly consistently for other celebrity look-a-likes who engage in makeovers, whether it’s an Anna Nicole Smith double, Jeanine, on What Not to Wear, or Dolly Parton and Joan Rivers impersonators on Plastic Surgery: Before and After. Though each of the shows acknowledge that the subjects (in the above case two women and one man) make their livings through the plausible replication of the celebrity, shows contend that it is necessary for the subjects’ “true self ” not to be lost in performing celebrity personalities. This is a particularly difficult sort of separation to uphold in the cases of Dolly Parton and Joan Rivers, who have both engaged in extensive plastic surgeries. As the voice-over narrator on Plastic Surgery: Before and After informs us about Sandy, who plays Dolly Parton: “For Sandy, maintaining her stage persona means embracing Dolly’s philosophy on plastic surgery.” Furthermore, it is Dolly’s career aspirations that have diminished Sandy’s appearance, the show contends, since, “Over time, the late nights have taken a toll on Sandy’s appearance.” I imagine, as for Dolly, it is the process of aging itself that has taken the toll on Sandy’s appearance, however the logic leads us to conclude that Sandy’s physical integrity and consequent psychological well-being have been harmed by her professional career, including previous plastic surgeries to keep up with Dolly, which have led to Sandy’s “Snoopy Dog deformity” (a sagging of the nipple over a breast implant). After her surgery, Sandy exclaims to the camera that she feels ten years younger and Celebrated Selfhood  ·  239

delights in her new-found confidence, which will enable her to continue in her career as a Dolly impersonator. “It’s all up here,” she tells the camera, while pointing to her head and clearly indicating that her transformation is more mental than physical. Such a statement, as enigmatic as it seems on a show dedicated to changing the body, indicates that in effort to achieve Dolly’s appearance, the makeover has actually been identity-forming for Sandy, offering her new mental clarity about her intrinsic self-worth, even as her external fiscal worth becomes more convincingly star-like. In trying to look more like a star, then, Sandy takes hold of her self, thus keeping the positions of celebrity and celebrated selfhood quite separate. The style makeover show Look-a-Like accomplishes a similar outcome in its transformation narrative designed to “make you a star, or at least make you look like one.” Each episode begins with a series of supplicants, who stand before the panel of style-agents-as-judges, trying to make a case for the necessary criteria that will offer them entrance into the makeover. In this case, the minimum requirements for admission stipulate that potential subjects already possess a look, a body, and a degree of the same sort of talent held by the celebrity. As the contestants cycle through screams to impersonate actresses in horror films ( Jessica Biel), swaggers to represent pirates ( Johnny Depp), operatic glissandos to stand-in for singers (Celine Dion), or poses to indicate models (Tyra Banks), the judges stare at each other with eyes raised, sometimes impressed, usually appalled. Regardless of how “good” the contestants are, from the outset we know that these are not stars, which can radiate their own light, but second and third-rate moons, which reflect the light of others. The majority of Look-a-Like’s narrative underscores this difference between authenticity and counterfeit. So, for instance, as each of the makeover subjects sit in styling chairs while “A-list” hair and make-up artists demonstrate their skills, the visual narrative cuts away to images of the “real” star, who apparently needs no making over in order to project light. Amanda’s transformation to better approximate the appearance of Jessica Biel, then, becomes a moment to learn more about the actress and less about Amanda. Throughout the process of transformation, inter-titles and images of the stars are liberally on display. “Jessica believes in living the balanced life,” reads one inter-title. Though we know that what constitutes a “real” star is itself a construction, the discourses of authenticity and artifice spoken by this show creates a mediated reality where the makeover subjects are clearly constructed (after all, we watch the whole process transpire) but star bodies are natural. 240  ·  Chapter Five

As I noted with Style Her Famous, the culminating moments of Look-a-Like where the newly star-like makeover subject must prove herself by posing for the camera further indicates the division between star and moon. For all of the hard work that the A-list stylists have done to approximate the appearance of celebrity, most makeover subjects have difficulty projecting star power when faced with the photographer’s lens. It is only when Look-a-Like subjects experience their transformations as subject-making, rather than star-imitating, that photo shoots go well. Says Amanda’s friend about her transformation into the image of Jessica Biel, “I think today’s transformation is going to teach her a lot about letting herself out.” At her photo shoot the friend exudes: “People were cheering. There was a new-found Amanda.” Similarly, when Camilla, a shy personal trainer, goes through a Look-a-Like makeover to approximate the appearance of Halle Berry, she finds the process makes her “become more me,” thus increasing her own sense of confidence. The makeover, she says, has allowed her to “be myself,” and to “show who I am.” Her consequent claiming of the beautiful/confident “I” that is part of the makeover’s celebrated selfhood leads her to excel in her photo shoot. Says the make-up expert, “I didn’t know how much style Halle had until I saw Camilla doing her today.” Rather than this moment serving as a case of the made-over celebrity aspirant equaling or surpassing the always-constructed celebrity, Camilla’s newly discovered selfhood serves as a foil against which to appreciate the radiance of the “real” celebrity more fully. Halle’s star status stays firm, while Camilla’s star-like labors purchase her selfhood. As with other shows, such as Fashion Police or Isaac, makeovers keep the positions of those who are stars and those who are ordinary very clear. They do so through their reverence for “real” celebrities’ homes and appearance, their assumption that celebrities themselves engage in beauty practices but never require on-air interventions, and their juxtapositioning between fashion advice for ordinary folk and praise (though sometimes also criticism) for stars. The suggestion here indicates that stars are fully complete, whereas ordinary people have work to do. These dynamics where the makeover engages in star-is-born activities only to reify a celebrity/ ordinary apartheid are equally present in home improvement shows devoted to giving living spaces Hollywood makeovers. Room, home, backyard, bathroom, patio, and even restaurant makeovers are all intent on bringing flair, intrigue, imagination, and charisma to otherwise uninteresting spaces. Sometimes a show like Ready, Set, Change!, which predicates its room renovations on recreating stage sets from movie and Celebrated Selfhood  ·  241

television shows such as the living room on The Brady Bunch or one of the doctor’s offices on Nip/Tuck, articulates its Hollywood-themed intentions clearly. On other shows, such as Save My Bath, the star makeover weaves into the logic of the narrative. On one episode called “Icky Industrial Bath,” for instance, a “prison-like” bathroom “receives a makeover fit for Hollywood.” In a $20,000 renovation that includes heated subflooring, marble tiles, and crystal chandeliers, the bathroom goes through a redcarpet fairy-tale transformation. Though I doubt that even in this anthropomorphized zone, the bathroom experiences a celebrated selfhood, the mother and daughter who use the bathroom, conveniently two aspiring actresses, earn a postmakeover heightened sense of confidence since they no longer feel embarrassed about their bathroom’s dinginess. Further, the bathroom sets a new bar of celebrity taste for the actresses to emulate. “We’re going to have to class up our act to use this bathroom,” says the mom, suggesting, again, a difference between those who are celebrities and those who are celebrity-like, between those who already possess the class such a bathroom signifies, and those who must become classier to use it.19 We thus see demonstrated that even when spaces take on features marking them as star-like, they are clearly derivative of celebrity-inspired style rather than the “natural” consequence of celebrity. This, in turn, helps to articulate clear distinctions between such states. Nowhere is this division more evident than on My Celebrity Home, which attempts to give “ordinary” people an approximate duplicate of a room in a celebrity’s home, using only a budget of $3,000 and a timeline of two days (again, quite arbitrary limitations).20 My Celebrity Home typically opens with the celebrity welcoming cameras into normally protected interiors. As Cameron Mathison, an actor on All My Children and all-around makeover show host for such programs as Instant Beauty Pageant and Your Place or Mine?, says to the camera: “It’s a little funny being classified as a celebrity,” thus underscoring his ordinariness even as he speaks from his multi-million dollar brownstone in upper Manhattan. We discover from the celebrities’ open-armed tours of their homes that, as the tabloids have promised, celebrities are just like us: they have bedrooms, they have kids, they have dining room tables, and they have kitchens (though they don’t, apparently, have unfolded laundry or dirty bathrooms).21 Sean Redmond contends that reality tv provides the perfect format for “hot and cold” celebrities to reaffirm their cultural value, since it presumes viewers can witness the stars “free of the chains of performativity and artifice” (28). 242  ·  Chapter Five

And yet, as Josh Gamson asks, if celebrities are so much like us, why are “they so elevated and so watched?” (“Assembly Line” 266). The makeover solves this conundrum by suggesting that celebrities are distinct unto themselves. Indeed, each episode of My Celebrity Home works to underscore a truism that the celebrities featured possess a unique, natural, and untutored sense of style, a form of cultural capital, as Bourdieu has termed it, that speaks of classed knowledge. Each of the celebrities featured on this show are incredibly house-proud and style-savvy, evincing a commitment to and knowledge about appearance that validates their “rightful” inheritance of fame. In a series of I-centered statements, for instance, celebrities speak of their deliberations over fabric types and design motifs, each underscoring the care, discernment, and taste that went into making his/her celebrity home. Cameron acknowledges that most of the style choices were his, “I’m kind of metrosexual that way,” he confesses to the camera. “Please don’t tell anybody.” The makeover recuperates this tongue-in-cheek assault on Cameron’s masculinity by suggesting his interior decorating interests emerge from and are augmented by his celebrity. Indeed, one’s home spaces are meant to signify the star’s intrinsic essence. Mario Lopez, an actor on The Bold and the Beautiful and Nip/Tuck, for instance, has a home that “reflects Mario’s Latin roots, his masculine good looks, and his charming personality.” By giving an ordinary person the markers of self articulated by the celebrity’s domestic spaces, My Celebrity Home offers an exchange whereby the star’s celebrated identity as manifested through taste judgments replaces the ordinary person’s drab essence and consequent domestic style. Doing so requires the intervention of a style team that can read the terms of the celebrity’s home and translate them into the ordinary person’s domicile. Included in this team are Peter Marr, a stand-up comedian, who has also served as a makeover guide on Kitchen Accomplished and Mark Montano, who hosted While You Were Out and 10 Years Younger and served as the couture expert on The Modern Girls’ Guide.22 Interestingly, the style team not only mediates between celebrity and makeover subjects, it functions as the stand-in for those subjects, paying through their own anxiety and hard work the affective and somatic currencies necessary to participate in the makeover’s economy. Makeover experts Peter, Mark, and a woman (so far filled by either shopping-savvy Nicole or sewing-skilled Kelly) embark on the often strenuous task of planning, negotiating, shopping, sawing, pounding, crouching, crawling, sweating, swearing, and worrying that constitute the work of the makeover. We are meant to understand that their labor is Celebrated Selfhood  ·  243

critical to the success of the transformation, a point tellingly underscored when the show shifts its format so that Peter changes his job description from contractor (who oversees) to carpenter (who does the work). We never get the message that any of the members of the style team have actually visited the star-homes they are duplicating. Indeed, as if to create a televisual illustration of Walter Benjamin’s contention that in the age of visual reproduction originals lose their saliency, the style team carries photos of the celebrity’s home from store to store, hoping to match new purchases not to the material artifacts but to their photographic representation.23 Such an idea of replacements becomes all the more attenuated in the case of duplicating objects in celebrity homes that have personal or sentimental value. On his coffee table, for instance, Cameron has a handcarved wooden platter stacked with hollow coconuts that he considers a memento from a trip to Columbia. In a gesture of style over substance, stylist Mark takes the makeover subjects to Target where they find a platter and wooden balls that fully approximate the celebrity’s memories. Lest we be persuaded, however, that celebrities don’t participate in the same sort of consumer-driven signifiers of experience, we need only look at the Buddha sculpture that Cameron has in his living room, which he jokingly suggests is from Tibet but then concedes was purchased for $1,000 in the West Village. Mario Lopez’s house also contains artifacts from around the world, which we later find out were bought at a pricey L.A. boutique. In this case, neither celebrity’s worldly markers function as reliable signifiers of his own experience, and in all cases, what can be purchased at high-end retail establishments that traffic in “movie star prices” can be bought in mass-produced form at places like World Market, Z Gallerie, and Target (where they have two $40 Buddha statues). The logics of commodification here indicate that objects themselves do not reliably signify either history or value; they do, however, underscore My Celebrity Home’s motto: “You don’t have to be a celebrity to live like one.” Or at least, to appear that you live like one.24 All of this star-imitation happens with the full endorsement of the celebrities whose homes are being duplicated. Not only do they invite all of us into their domestic living spaces through the auspices of the camera, on many episodes they avidly follow the progress of the makeover, watching footage on a portable dvd player (that looks remarkably similar to the device Stacy and Clinton employ on What Not to Wear to engage in spectatorial surveillance of their fashion victims). Each episode ends with the stars sending a specially chosen gift to the makeover recipients, 244  ·  Chapter Five

though the present is apparently paid for out of the $3,000 budgeted for the makeover. The one-sided nature of this gifting serves to underscore the larger premise of the show: stars are the ones who give, ordinary folk are those who receive; stars have the style, ordinary people need the style. Even as My Celebrity Home speaks of the common ground between makeover subjects and celebrities made intelligible through consumer purchases, it explodes the terms of their sameness through the narrative that unfolds. As with gift-giving, the movement and the direction of the transformation is always uni-directional and top-down, taste, guidance, and approval moving from star to subject. We know full well after watching these shows who has taste and who needs taste, who merits celebrity and who simply gets to experience a “taste of celebrity-inspired style.”

Star Lovers Even given the celebrity/ordinary apartheid enacted in these shows, I would argue that makeovers allow for an important turn on the idea of celebrity since they may offer one of the few mediated sites that allows for a version of requited love between gazer (fan) and gazed-at (star). Redmond contends, for instance, that in a contemporary context, fame “speaks and is spoken about through the language of intimacy” that establishes “circles of affective connectivity” (36). The star, Virginia Blum notes, is the “place of saturation, where a superabundance of love and attention come to rest on this one luminary” (“Objects” 47). Blum associates the gaze between star and fan, much like that between two lovers, with a consummating recognition, one available to the star but denied the ordinary. In this hyper-repository of love, she argues, “we ordinary people remain anonymous while they are loved by strangers. No, they never love us back—it’s part of their narcissistic allure that they accept our devotion but never return our gaze or know we exist” (“Objects” 47).25 Television makeovers, however, reverse that one-sided dynamic, for in these shows in which style gurus are stars in themselves or celebrities observe breathlessly as stylists duplicate their tastes for ordinary folk, we watch a fantasy narrative unfold where the celebrity’s greatest investment, indeed his/her entire reason for being, is to make over average people. All of the famous style gurus—Trinny and Susannah, Stacy and Clinton, The Fab 5, Ty and the Extreme Team—have derived their celebrity primarily from making over the ordinary. Soap operas as a genre have often blended the life of the stars with the “real” lives of “ordinary” people by doing such Celebrated Selfhood  ·  245

things as offering walk-on parts to contest winners or an All-My-Children day at Disneyworld. Reality tv offers a new zone for soap opera celebrities such as Finola Hughes, Lisa Rinna, Alison Sweeney, or Cameron Mathison to extend their visibility while providing a place where the famous not only mingle with the ordinary, but are invested in helping (or controlling) them. In other formats, reality tv plays out similar tropes. If we see these shows as devices that give a visible boost to diminishing celebrity, they are also zones where the celebrated and the ordinary can mingle with one another. In this economy where attention equals value and value merits love, even the humiliation that frequently accompanies the makeover’s early stages constitutes an acceptable cost in order to achieve the dividends of a more glamorous star-like After-body that comes complete with hugs, gifts, and (air) kisses from stars themselves. Very few of the celebrities on makeover tv are what might be called A-list celebrities, which allows for the very distinct impression that in the hierarchy of fame, only those stars in the lower firmaments will gaze at ordinary people. And yet, even here the makeover has an answer. If it cannot offer up Brad Pitt or Jessica Simpson as a style agent, it can provide the stylist who dresses Brad (Sam Saboura on Extreme Makeover, and Real Simple. Real Life) or gives Jessica her signature golden locks (Ken Pavés on Style Her Famous). Indeed, these stylists themselves have catapulted to if not fame, then certainly a widespread visibility, as evidenced by Ken Pavés’ domination of the hair extension market and the fact that his picture is coupled with Jessica Simpson’s in places as far from Hollywood as Melbourne, Australia. On Style Her Famous, where the whole conceit is to offer a woman a starinspired look, the stylists who actually apply Gwyneth Paltrow’s makeup or select Scarlett Johansson’s shoes work the same magic on the makeover recipient, typically with messages of good luck, phone calls of support, or goody bags of new style products sent by the celebrity herself. This connection between stars and the rest of us finds its apogee in a related format, episodes of the Oprah show where makeovers, both spiritual and stylistic, are a rite of passage. One Oprah episode, for instance, showcased the film Beauty Shop (2005), a Queen Latifah vehicle that itself depicts the particular community offered to women through transformation and beauty culture. On this episode, the stars of the movie—Queen Latifah, Andie MacDowell, and Kevin Bacon—all worked with Oprah to surprise three unsuspecting women with makeovers. It’s telling that in the case of Queen Latifah and Kevin Bacon, recipients were long-time fans of the 246  ·  Chapter Five

Jessica Simpson and Ken Pavés, Melbourne. Worldwide ad campaign, 2007.

celebrities. Makeover recipients thus experienced their transformations star-struck and stammering as their movie star stylists made choices about new hair and clothing styles on their behalf.26 While watching, I was struck by the fantasy playing out in this exchange—the devotion of intense fan-love rewarded by the returning gaze and touch of the star. The resulting After-body is depicted as being lifted to the pantheon of stardom itself, fully redeemed (and removed) from race and class codes that marked the subject as working class, or perhaps even worse, dowdy. The point of new star status is made most tellingly when makeover recipients not only had their reveals on national (and international) television, but were invited to attend the red-carpet premiere of Beauty Shop as the Queen’s special guests. These sorts of moments tellingly attest to a mediated zone offered through and contained within the mystique of the makeover that situates the transforming subject not only as star-material but as a person who fascinates, and, one presumes from all semiotic clues, is accepted and loved by the stars themselves. And yet such Celebrated Selfhood  ·  247

moments, like Cinderella at the ball, are pointedly limited in time, marking the makeover subject as star-like rather than a star herself. The outcome of lasting value, then, is not celebrity itself but the celebrated selfhood that comes as the by-product of the celebrity’s attention and love. Again, we see the connection between celebrities and selling, between makeovers and product consumption, however the makeover here packages more ethereal commodities not typically for sale—love and selfhood. Though we might argue that the love—and perhaps even the selfhood— depicted on these shows is ersatz, no more real than is celebrity itself, I’m not sure it matters. The clear ideological mandate of these narratives indicates that makeovers produce a subject worthy of love. Just as we don’t necessarily expect Cinderella and Prince Charming to live happily ever after—indeed, we don’t really know what happens after the after since the story is not told to us—the makeover narrative does not have to be truthful about reality in order to convey a compelling truth claim that may apply to real lives. In this case, the stories of suffering and loneliness, of desperation and fear, of assistance and intercession, of transformation and renewal, and of celebration and selfhood create a genre that is more romantic comedy than factual documentary.27 These stories of made-over selves are both related to and extrapolated from lived experience, which marks reality tv as a mode of cultural production that—just as with cinema, “quality” tv, or literature—offers readers/viewers interpretive narratives that frame, even if they do not replicate, their everyday lives.

“A fairy-tale red-carpet adventure” If we follow makeover stories through to their end, we find that most reference the successful After-body through an amalgam of fairy-tale character, royalty, and deity that culminates in the movie star.28 On Style Her Famous, for example, church-going and plain Christina seeks to adopt the “feminine sophistication of Katie Holmes.” Christina is twenty-one, Asian-American, and daughter to a devout Christian missionary. One of her major problems, she concedes, is people look through her, as if she were invisible. Her friend reinforces that Christina’s “dowdiness is a barrier to connecting with people.” Christina desires to look both Godly and glamorous so she can attract positive attention, primarily that of a boyfriend. After her makeover, she gazes at herself in the mirror, remarking with delight, “I think it’s just perfect for a church setting. It’s very Katie. When I saw myself in the mirror and my hair was done, I felt like a princess. Where’s the paparazzi at?” The 248  ·  Chapter Five

hair stylist affirms, “She just looks gorgeous. Movie star beautiful.” The fashion stylist adds, though not without some irony, “She’s ready for her red-carpet church entrance.” This overlapping of narratives is perhaps not surprising, given the polysemous characteristics of the star, which parallel the cultural work performed by heroes and myth or iterated through religious practices and cultural hierarchies. Moreover, Christina and the style team’s comments clearly indicate the operative terms of value in her makeover story: Cinderella-like princess, Godly, feminine sophistication, glamorous movie star, celebrated selfhood. The significance of the star and its relation to other idealized cultural forms is equally pronounced on those shows not specifically about styling the anonymous into the famous. On What Not to Wear, Clinton and Stacy decide that their fashion victim, Sherily, a single mother, who has a closet stuffed with hand-me-downs, deserves something beyond the makeover and style services they normally extend to the meek and dowdy. To put more “sparkle” into Sherily’s After-experience, they decide she needs a makeover that is “red-carpet fabulous,” an “unforgettable fairytale experience,” essentially adopting the role of “fashion fairy god parents” to Sherily’s “modern-day Cinderella.” Stacy and Clinton determine that in addition to their regular makeover services, they will send Sherily “and a celebrity dream date to walk the red carpet with some of Hollywood’s hottest stars at the Dream Girls movie premiere.” Sherily is thus given a second allotment of $5,000 to pay for a designer gown, shoes (though not glass slippers), and accessories. During Sherily’s hair transformation, the stylist, Nick, reinforces the connection between the celebrity and the subjectgranting capacities of the makeover: “I want you to be a bombshell,” Nick whispers in her ear. “So, how are you feeling about walking the red carpet?” Sherily responds that she is nervous. “Celebrities are going to be there. And I’m just a nobody.” Nick corrects her, “Not anymore!” At Sherily’s private reveal moment, Nick turns her to face the mirror, uttering a statement that again establishes the conflated terms of value between fairytale, royalty, celebrity, and selfhood: “This is what it’s like to be a movie star,” he tells her. “You’re a princess.” Sherily is stunned as she looks at herself. “You made me pretty!” she exclaims. In tears she struggles to speak, “Thank you. I really appreciate it. From the bottom of my heart.” Then, sobbing, “I am deeply deeply appreciative.” Later, more reflective, Sherily notes in direct address to the camera, “Hearing them speak about how they can actually put a dress together for me and make me look beautiful made me feel like a princess. And it’s going to be me, Celebrated Selfhood  ·  249

and all me, and only me. Miracles can happen, and your dreams can come true. And we all can find the prettiness in us.” The voice-over narrator reinforces, “If you dream hard enough, fairytales really can come true,” here suggesting that faith and optimism are the requisite forms of currency that must be exchanged for the emergence of Sherily’s inner prettiness and with it the terms of her celebrity-inspired selfhood. The causality implied between desire, hope, and outcome is a critical component of the makeover mythos, expressed across the makeover canon in statements about homeowner’s dreams for their rooms in Mission: Organization and Surprise by Design as well as in subjects’ dreams for their bodies and selves in The Swan, Extreme Makeover, and The Biggest Loser. As one mini-makeover commercial for Home Depot encourages, “If you can dream it, you can build it. You absolutely can build it.” Back on What Not to Wear, the end of Sherily’s episode depicts not only her public makeover reveal to friends and family but Sherily’s “date” with Jacob Young, an actor on All My Children, who tells her there’s nothing to walking the red carpet, “just be yourself.” Fortunately for Sherily, now that she is on the After-side of the makeover, she has a self ready to display on the red carpet, a fact underscored both by the ersatz paparazzi who call out to her “Sherily! Sherily!” and by Jacob’s adoring appreciation of her new look. The final moments of the show feature Sherily reflecting on her fairytale makeover as we see images of her and Jacob frolicking through Manhattan’s nightlife, “It changed the way I feel about myself. I wasn’t as confident before, but now I feel pretty. I feel more feminine. I can walk around with my head up. I used to always say, ‘Oh, men don’t look at me. I look like a little girl.’ Now I feel my age. I look like a woman, and it’s a new-found attitude about myself.” What fascinates me about this “special” episode called “Made in Manhattan” is the way it concretizes the themes that we see running through all episodes of What Not to Wear—indeed, throughout the entire makeover oeuvre. The makeover promises that appearance, pampering, transformation, fairytales, and celebrity will all collapse into one seemingly coherent narrative that, in turn, leads to the stable subject—the confident and beautiful “I” made legible, much like a young girl at a princess party, through dress up. As I discussed in chapter 3, gender and sexuality are ever-present in this formulation through messages, both tacit and overt, that the woman who most fully expresses a femininity that is consonant with her femaleness will, in turn, gain a confidence that will buy her selfhood and attract a man. Says Sherily in repeated segments at the beginning and end of the 250  ·  Chapter Five

show, “I want to be confident. I want to be me.” Perhaps what is most compelling, and somewhat disturbing, however, is the manner in which the makeover conflates such a position of stable personhood with the celebrity, again suggesting that absent confidence or celebrated acclaim neither subject status nor an interiorized subjectivity is possible.

And They All Lived Happily Ever After As we’ve seen throughout this chapter, an ongoing theme repeated across the makeover canon is the fantasy of attaining an appearance that approximates that of the celebrity. Though, as I suggest, discourses about averageness vary across and within the shows, it is clear that the movie star’s glamour comes to stand as the signifier for not only normative beauty but for a highly prized iteration of celebrated selfhood. Makeover logics suggest that surgical, stylistic, and structural transformations catapult “normal” people into the pantheon of celebrity. Once there, successful After-bodies are fully loved. Mandatory to an identity location marked through celebrity is a constant form of access to the fan’s gazing eyes, since, as Redmond argues in relation to Nick Couldry, to be “offscreen, offline, or out of print” is “no longer satisfactory, or empowering, in a world where the acquisition of fame is the affirmation of the self ” (29). The final message of the makeover is consequently one we’ve had as our companion throughout: to hold celebrity as the outcome and evidence of successful selfhood requires suturing oneself inextricably to the culture of the gaze. If, as I argued in the introduction, the makeover is an elaborate maze, it’s part of the (ill)logics of the makeover that it loops like a mobius strip and always takes us back into itself. Escaping that maze thus requires we enter it more fully, which brings us back to the mouth of the labyrinth.

Celebrated Selfhood  ·  251

conclusion

can this makeover be saved?

You might get addicted to looking like a new you. —Jai Rodriguez, Ultimate Style You are the energy you project—from the inside! —Cesar Milan, Dog Whisperer It’s time for you to wake up and see the new you. —Nick, hair stylist, to subject Christine, What Not to Wear

By way of conclusion, I want to turn to two shows that premiered as I was completing this book, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style and How to Look Good Naked. Both programs illustrate the multifaceted justifications for selfhood that permeate makeover programming. Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style instructs fashion-frustrated and esteem-blocked women in how to locate and celebrate their unique selves through a style makeover that promises greater personal and professional success. We are told, for instance, that subject Rebecca’s self-esteem issues, like many other subjects in the makeover maze, stem from her “chameleon” wardrobe that is too broad, masculine, and unflattering to offer a suitable platform for selfhood. Other subjects on this show experience similar issues: Nicole is a frumpy mom; JeAnne doesn’t know how to dress her newly slim body; Stephanie is a doctor who looks like a teenager. All say that being looked at brings uncomfortable self-consciousness. Confesses Rebecca, “I would feel better just almost being a wall flower sometimes.” After the initial search and seizure of the subject’s wardrobe where stylists enact the tough love of affective domination by calling clothes

“hideous,” “egregious,” or “a whole lot of nasty,” they ask their subject to agree to an emotionally draining contract that will “turn her world upside down.” Through shopping therapy, lifestyle coaching, and new underwear, the stylists systematically examine, critique, and renovate in order to create a more vibrant and confident self. Tim Gunn tells subjects they need a fashion inspiration, a celebrity “to inspire you, not someone to emulate.” Since looking good is a matter of seeing oneself accurately, subjects learn to use a computer program that allows them to perceive their bodies as others do. A lifestyle coach makes Rebecca repeat a mantra: “I cannot control how I am perceived, I can only control how I am presented,” though clearly, the point with this makeover, as with the entire genre, is to anticipate a field of reception to such a degree that one can modify the semiotic markers of the self to better cohere with gendered, raced, and classed expectations that operate tacitly in the normative construction of selfhood. How to Look Good Naked, hosted by Queer Eye’s Carson Kressley, presents itself as the anti-makeover show since its goal is not to change the body but to readjust a woman’s perception of how she looks. Essentially, if you think you look good naked, you will. In most ways, however, Naked operates precisely according to the models I’ve laid out in this book, since it participates in and reinforces the makeover mandate that image overrides ontology. If a woman can move from not just accepting or even liking her body, but to “flaunt[ing] it, naked!” she can join a “perception revolution” that will enable her to turn “body loathing into body loving.” Re-training self-perception requires putting subjects through various exercises, includ­ ing “objective” critique from strangers. Subjects must strip to their underwear in a hall of mirrors, while Carson guides their eye in how to see. All of the subjects weep in front of the mirror, and, much like Saira on What Not to Wear who I discussed in chapter 1, when Natasha, an African American, covers her torso in shame, the camera offers a close-up of her in tears, Carson’s fully-clad white male body standing behind, and in many ways superior to, her black female body-in-crisis. As I discuss in chapter 2, the exercise in re-seeing ends up reinforcing a value system based on size, since subjects are encouraged to believe they are “not so bad” by contrasting themselves with women whose “body problems” are worse. “I’m shocked,” says Natasha after realizing she doesn’t have the biggest hips in the building. “I’m obviously wrong in my perception.” How to Look Good Naked might be able to re-tool their selected subjects’ perceptions, but it can only do so by reinforcing a geometry of value that retains the notion of big as bad. 254  ·  Conclusion

Brought to Tears. How to Look Good Naked. “Natasha and Juanita,” January 19, 2008.

Both Carson Kressley and Tim Gunn’s makeover contracts require tough love, talk-therapy, “enervating and exhausting” shopping, as well as starlike pampering from hair and make-up people who tell postmakeover subjects, “You look like a movie star. You look gorgeous!” Tim and Carson are equally effusive about After-bodies, their tough love now turned to pride and affection. “Look at you,” says Tim, “you look so glamorous.” Echoing other makeover programs that argue a woman’s power comes through her visibility, Tim tells the viewer about Rebecca (now called New-becca), “She owned not only her look, she owned the room.” Everyone is teary; Tim becomes so verklempt he cannot talk, people hug and hold on to one another in disbelief. Equally, Carson convinces each of his subjects to pose nude at the end of the show. Though they initially resist, each ultimately agrees. And when, as in Covershot, their photos are splashed on the side of a building, the women revel in their spectacular empowerment, the proof of their After-bodies evident through their cover model images. As we see demonstrated in these shows, part of the underlying rationale embedded in the television makeover is that it positions spectacular to-be-looked-at-ness as normal. Thus, the mediation offered through the makeover enables people to be “like everyone else,” and in so doing makes them more confident and powerful since they are now “finally comfortable in their own skin.” It is part of the (ill)logics of the makeover that one can only be normal if s/he is also extraordinary, if the self ’s primary expression makes itself visible through a celebrated selfhood inspired by entertainment celebrity. Throughout this book, I have argued that the makeover’s goal seems less about being normal than being normative, residing not in an actual body but in an imagined body. Makeovers justify Can This Makeover Be Saved?  ·  255

their activities by claiming transformation enhances self-esteem, which, in turn, allows for a form of personal empowerment but also for citizenship status. By rectifying the distance between social ideals and lived experience, makeovers propose to make lives happier and participants more powerful, and thus more freely able to compete in a global marketplace. It’s an end that seems completely valid, even revolutionary in some respects. Who doesn’t deserve to be happier? Why should biology determine destiny? Why shouldn’t the painful vestiges of class and circumstance that write themselves on the body be not only overwritten but erased altogether? Why should the powerless always remain without power? If we are willing to grant a fat/ugly oppression, doesn’t it make sense to imagine a thin/beauty empowerment? Unfortunately, this sort of binaried pairing—fat, ugly, and resistant on the one side and thin, beautiful, and obedient on the other—necessarily organizes our thoughts in terms of conceptual opposites. If we move away from one position on the binary (the ostracized outsider who feels victimized by social censure) the only position allowed for is the perceived opposite (the beautiful insider who feels empowered by social approval). Both of these binaried positions are pre-established by a patriarchal logic. That is, both positions underscore sameness, neither possessing defining power. The privilege conferred by aligning oneself with hegemonic values is contingent on and subordinate to the power-granting authority that regulates these values. So Amy and Rebecca and Scott and Paula may gain more agency and confidence, but not enough to remove themselves from the social network entirely. It’s doubtful a makeover subject would exempt herself from the social system even if she could, since her new-found currency intimately links to the overarching values of that system. One begins to see that the empowerment one might achieve through a makeover is complicated and problematic. Though Sander Gilman argues, “the belief we can change our appearance is liberating,” I’m more inclined to think that changing our appearance makes us believe we’ve been liberated (3). I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is a matter of false consciousness, however. There is certainly more cultural currency in being perceived as beautiful, and more privilege in upholding hegemony than in resisting it. The participants on these shows seem sincerely joyful, precisely because changing the body can alleviate psychic anxieties. Further, if my viewing practices are in any way indicative of the larger cultural audience, there is something deeply recognizable about the pain and relief each participant expresses, for I am touched each week by the 256  ·  Conclusion

profoundly different sense of body and self brought about through the makeover. I believe the problem rests in thinking in conventional power terms that read along a sliding scale of domination and oppression. Interrogating identity in such a way continually underscores hegemonic values since the analysis necessarily ratifies the language of those values. It therefore strikes me as less important to chart what the After-body authorizes (more plastic surgery, an increased reliance on experts, more objectification of women) than to examine the competing and contradictory logics at play in bringing this body into being. My argument suggests more broadly that modalities of power differentials function as conceptual red herrings that distract us from examining the ways in which embodiment offers critical information about the particularities of how we collectively understand and enact selfhood. Micki McGee has argued that self-improvement literatures do not announce a “crisis of the subject” but work to sustain a vision of selfdetermination and self-mastery that may, in turn, revitalize “tired models of the self ” (177, 176). In an adjacent register, television makeovers speak to a belief in and a desire for a coherent, well-regulated, and stable self. As I have suggested through this book, the makeover’s articulation of such a desired subject-location makes visible the degree of anxiety that attaches to a gendered identity, which, as indicated by all semiotic clues, has grown dangerously fluid. Through the television makeover we see evidence of a culture that is anxious about concepts of worth and notions of empowerment, even while being fascinated by change and the possibility of mobility and improvement. The makeover’s ideologies evince a deep cultural desire for a coherent celebrated self, here described as empowered and confident, where selfhood will find loving consummation in romantic and social acceptance. The makeover thus indicates that achieving such love and empowerment requires writing normative gender, race, and class congruence on the body in ways that can be visually policed and affirmed by a collective body of like-minded citizens. And it actively seeks a form of affirmation and cultural value that codes through the visuality and “inherent” worth possessed by celebrity. We know by the proliferation and diversification of these stories about transformation that the narratives themselves are deeply pleasurable to the viewing audience, perhaps more so than the actuality of living such changes in the real world. It may entirely be due to the fact that the outcomes depicted in the makeover do not extend tidily into real life that the stories themselves hold such appeal. Can This Makeover Be Saved?  ·  257

Admittedly, the reduced production cost of reality tv has increased the num­ber of reality-based programs on the air, but the makeover’s presence and appeal is equally reliant upon its message of redemption and transformation, including its capacity to marshal captivating narratives of shame and salvation.

Stumbling toward Ecstasy Since I began working on the television makeover as a topic of scholarly interest, I have been honored with invitations to give presentations on the material, both in the United States and abroad. No matter where these discussions have taken place, responses have been quite passionate. Most people are shocked by the ideological mandates of the makeover, particularly as they concern normative categories of gender, sexuality, race, and class. Many of the people who have attended my public presentations were initially intrigued because they watched makeover programming. They often leave with a new-found knowledge of the troubling messages about gender normativity that makeovers express. I actually had a student approach me after one guest lecture, pledging he would never again watch the “trash” that is on makeover tv. These sorts of outcomes, it seems to me, are not quite my desired aim. Though I am glad for a broadened capacity to discern messages in and think critically about popular culture texts, I never quite feel that I have done due justice to what drew those viewers to the makeover narratives in the first place. For indeed, though this book-length exploration of the makeover has sought to reveal many trends that could be considered alarming, my goal in thinking critically about makeovers has not been to condemn the genre but to recognize it as a set of rich texts that offer quite specific information about what we desire and what we fear, as clustered around a pervasive cultural concern about what defines the self. These polyvalent television narratives work across multiple networks and modalities (bodies, style, cars, restaurants, etc.) and collectively offer a crucial media site that makes visible the ongoing negotiations about power, gender, and self that signify our present historical moment. An overview, then, of the positive elements of makeovers is due. Though there is a flattening of difference across the television makeover canon and, thus, an underscoring of normative identity roles as white, American, heterosexual, and middle-class, a majority of the programming gives expertise to subordinated subjects, particularly women and gay men (though not gay 258  ·  Conclusion

women). Where else but in the makeover narrative of 10 Years Younger can a “glam squad,” comprised of two flamboyantly gay men, one Hispanic and one black, and one counter-culture woman with candy-apple-red (sometimes purple, sometimes pink) hair, “save” a white heterosexual man who cries because he is an exhausted single dad and people think he looks ten years older than his actual age? If part of the consequence of makeover logic reifies a monologic status quo order, it also, and quite subversively, invests authoritative agency in often subordinated subjects, in this case stylists, make up artists, and hairdressers who represent non-hegemonic locations. This is particularly true when the makeover programs percolate into expanded cable. By and large, on network shows such as Extreme Makeover and The Swan, all of the surgeons and most of the supporting doctors (dermatologists, opthamologists) are men, excepting therapists; on expanded cable, by contrast, a show such as 10 Years Younger more frequently takes makeover participants to female dermatologists and dentists. Cable shows also democratize through price tags, since stylists often shop with makeover subjects at such affordable retail sites as TJ Maxx, Target, Sears, or Mervyn’s. As such, the makeover is often less about elitism and more about care and self-reflexivity, and though these are still values very much inflected through class ethics and mandatory consumerism, they allow for expression outside of typical normative bourgeois subject positions. Adding to the way that the makeover fosters if not diversity then inclusivity, is the fact that we cannot dismiss what Deborah Sullivan calls the “beauty bonus.” Social sanction can be both highly erosive and surprisingly effective, and to fail to acknowledge the appeal and the precise sorts of power that these transformations afford is to miss an important aspect of the way beauty works as a powerful form of social currency. It is easy to critique the subjugation involved in the power dynamics of the makeover, yet the elation of postmakeover participants—even if carefully crafted and edited for the cameras—must be factored into the overall dynamic of what constitutes the makeover. Along with such beauty as an end in itself is what beauty as currency can potentially purchase for makeover subjects: acceptance, positive self-esteem, love, and celebrated selfhood. Far from being dupes or victims, these subjects express feelings of exultation and pride at their hard-fought battles to claim agency in their own lives. They are depicted as role models not only to themselves but to the people watching, and part of the visuality expressed by the After-body celebrates the subject who stands victorious and worthy in the public eye. What still Can This Makeover Be Saved?  ·  259

concerns me about this idea of newly claimed visual selfhood, however, is the way in which the makeover presumes the Before-body forever lacks confidence and physical appeal, and, as a consequence, cannot claim the status of a self. Participant desires must also be considered. Each of these shows has more requests for makeover subjects than it can possibly accommodate. The Swan, alone, fielded 500,000 applicants for forty positions, and it only aired for nine months. In the past two years during travels through England, France, Canada, and Australia, as well as in the United States, I have switched on the television only to find The Swan’s creator, Nely Galán, smiling back as she tough-loves her ugly ducklings into beauty queens or pitches her next makeover project, thenewyoutv.com. I mentioned in the introduction to this book that depending on how you define the makeover, there are more than two hundred different makeover programs airing on expanded U.S. cable—and we are talking about every conceivable media outlet from major networks like abc and fox to large cable stations like mtv, bravo, and tlc, to smaller stations such as wht, vh1, and fine. Such saturation indicates a critical mass of interest that is both about the specifics of what the makeover has to teach and also the ideological and gendered messages communicated through the makeover’s tutorials on taste. Importantly, through its endless seriality and its emphasis on interiorities, television itself privileges the sorts of “feminized discourses” playing out in makeover logics, even as shows institute a masculinized technology of change. This, to my mind, muddies the gender essentialism that makeovers espouse, leading to a mediascape that is necessarily more complex in its gender signification than individual shows may themselves indicate. The makeover also functions as a mediated zone for depicting the expanses of the imagination at play. “If you can dream it, you can buy it,” says one subject on Celebrity Plastic Surgery about the countless array of cosmetic procedures now available. It is not just products, however, that makeovers sell; it is vision. Many shows work on an ordering logic of restraint and appropriateness, but many more feature what I think of as celebratory excess, functioning as veritable showcases of ingenuity, fantasy, and whimsy. Whether such excess comes from the “extreme” surgeries offered on The Swan and Extreme Makeover, the cappuccino machines, disco balls, and clothes dryers built into formerly sad vehicles on Pimp My Ride, Trick It Out, and Trick My Truck, or the imagination stations and paparazzi plazas designed into renovated homes on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, these shows often blow open categories of the staid. In so doing, they offer 260  ·  Conclusion

a site of spectacle that celebrates radical problem solving. We might take issue with how that thinking writes itself onto women’s bodies, but we must concede that programs repeatedly ask their style gurus, life coaches, fitness experts, and designers to imagine creative solutions to paralyzing problems. In turn, this creates a specular economy where Before-bodies are critical to the makeover mandate, functioning, as Rosemarie GarlandThomson theorizes about freaks, as figures of “unusual embodiment” that compel our “wonder and curiosity.” And finally, I’ve argued here that makeovers stand as the gateway to full citizenship rights and that entrance into such citizenry often requires foregoing self-determination, privacy, and self-governance. Given this, we might conclude, as critiques of neoliberalism and postfeminism lead us to believe, that citizenship in this regard is not participatory but passive, particularly since subjects on many shows are often silent at the end of their makeovers, basking in their new command of the gaze.1 In this regard, makeover subjects are not made to engage in public sphere discourses but to circulate as public sphere spectacles. For audiences (and the participants who are no longer on camera), however, makeover culture can serve as the impetus for engaged critical consciousness, as evidenced by my students’ passionate debates when I teach these shows, by the flurry of blogging and fan-generated communication that discuss the outrageousness of makeovers, or by our own conversations as critical thinkers, as, I hope, fostered by this book.

Confessions and Conclusions After a presentation on men in the makeover to a group of students at Indiana University, one student asked if she might pose a personal question to me. “Now that you’ve watched so many hours of makeover television,” she wondered, “has it influenced the way you dress or how you think about your own body and style?” The truth is for some years it has been completely impossible for me to separate my own sense of appearance and style from the narratives of transformation I study with such rigor. Though I feel somewhat abashed to offer such a confession, I will admit that I have sat at traffic lights or in busy airports, performing my own ambush makeover on unsuspecting targets who were simply rushing off to classes or soon-departing planes, so much the worse for them that on that frenetic day they had worn high-water pants or neglected to smooth their frizzy hair. I have not yet participated in imaginary makeovers of my students, Can This Makeover Be Saved?  ·  261

though I expect they may have done so of me. A professor is a sitting duck for such things, as the number of ambushed and style-challenged teachers who appear on makeover shows attest. Although I’ve never been sparing in my life-long level of self-consciousness, studying makeovers has made me both cockier and more insecure about my appearance. When I’ve got the After-body appearance in full groove, I can feel the benevolent smiles of Clinton and Stacy showering on me. But I also feel their (or Trinny and Susannah’s, or the Fab 5’s or Mark Montano’s) disappointment when I schlep to the market in over-sized clothes, my hair in a ponytail, my brain more fully concerned with bigger things like what’s for dinner. Unlike the subjects we see on makeover shows, I cycle back and forth between Before- and After-states, somehow comforted that neither position is fully totalizing or time-bound. I will also admit that makeovers have offered me a new imagining of what is possible as it concerns my physical body and a new vocabulary in which to utter such possibilities. I have contemplated microdermabrasion and strategic liposuction (and, though I have not actively pursued such treatments, I have not yet fully dismissed either option). One of my students told me with alarm that she had dreamt I had liposuction, “Dr. Weber,” she gasped, “I knew it was a nightmare because how could a feminist like you do a thing like that!” I couldn’t bear to tell her that I had only that week clipped an article in a magazine about “smart” lipo that was less invasive and had a shorter recovery time. I also didn’t share with her my body-based anxieties about having been jeered at in high school for being an “ankle-less wonder,” a charge that still rankles, even in light of my feminist principles. I did pay for a consultation to find out if my teeth could be straightened with invisible braces, and soon discovered that doing so would require pulling five healthy teeth from my mouth and $5,000 worth of orthodontics. I dismissed that idea, but not until I had determined that the dentist looked like Howdy Doody and needed to have his ears pin backed (the makeover’s discerning critiques, no matter how petty, coming to my aid). This awareness of style as a register of self has been with me for awhile. Soon after finishing my PhD, I worked as an administrator at a large state university where my job responsibilities required that I direct a nationally renowned writers conference. I worked directly with the provost and associate provost of the university, and it immediately became clear that the uniform of the administrator largely approximated that of the politician: nothing too fancy, nothing too noticeable, nothing too objectionable. 262  ·  Conclusion

When I’d look around at staff meetings, I’d see an amazing conformity—the high-level men in khaki pants, navy blue blazers, white dress shirts and nondescript ties, the high-level women (and there were fewer of these) wearing red or navy jackets, knee-length skirts, one-inch pumps, small gold earrings. I began to feel a sort of style claustrophobia, which only became worse when I had the opportunity to interview a prestigious feminist scholar, whose work is quoted at some length in this book. During our meeting, she looked me up and down and commented, “You look like an administrator.” My heart sank. Was I flailing in the quick sands of conformity? I tried to resist the semiotic markers of the administrator by wearing long dangly earrings, vintage coats, and platform shoes. Such style choices didn’t help me move up in the administrative hierarchy, but they did mark me as a style-conscious artsy professor-type. Ever the English major, I had concerns about becoming a walking billboard for Henry David Thoreau’s claim that the “mass of [wo]men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Fighting the good fight (or living deliberately) for me meant actively resisting the pressure to write on my body a version of style that felt contradictory to the self I wanted to signify. This is perhaps why some six years later I have been able to not only endure watching more than 2,500 hours of makeover programming, but I turn to makeovers each day with interest and pleasure. The makeover actively works to resist resignation, to claim happiness, to achieve “improved” appearance. Call me a sucker. But I like the quirky joy that’s represented in such hopeful statements of transformation. Of course, we must be mindful of whose vision is being fulfilled and the terms under which the transformation contracts are written, but we should never discount the captivating power of stories that end in exultation. I believe it is joy that accounts for the makeover’s widespread proliferation and popularity. In a mediascape filled with desolation, desperation, and depression, with death, murder, moral chicanery, fiscal emergency, and war, the makeover offers a site of hope made manifest through classic fairy tale tropes of fulfilled desire. Even as I have analyzed, deconstructed, and interrogated the consumerist, heteronormative, and whitening processes that are endemic to the makeover’s self-making, I, as a viewer, am still captivated by the stories of transformation I watch. This is not entirely due to Schadenfreude, or to some sort of secret pleasure in seeing others suffer, but because the makeover offers a redemptive and optimistic promise of lives changed for the better. I don’t know if the promises the makeover offers can possibly come true, but it does lift the heart a bit to know that there is a cultural Can This Makeover Be Saved?  ·  263

site that reaffirms the importance of my dreams and offers help in achieving the vision for my “best life.” And that help is a critical element of the makeover’s appeal. During a substantial portion of the time that it took to write this book, I also worked to revise and publish another book, an adaptation of my doctoral dissertation that was based on nineteenth-century literature. To say that the publishing market is hostile to historical literary analyses is an understatement, and I had more than one rejection (eight to be exact) before a press finally expressed an interest in the book. In due course, I updated and revised it, wrapping my textual baby up with hopes and kisses, and sent it on its way to England where it was to be examined. Three months later, I received the harshest evaluation that has ever come my way, and with it my hopes for publishing with that press were dashed. Though everyone who gets into the professional writing racket knows that rejection goes with the territory, the categorical dismissiveness of the review quite literally knocked the air out of me. For awhile I was numb, and when feeling came back, I couldn’t stop crying—first hot, salty, silent tears and then sharp, jagged sobs, wrenching my body in two as I lay curled in a fetal position, my sympathetic chocolate lab licking my face. In that time of shock and pain, I wished for nothing so much as a group of benevolent and knowing experts who would sweep in and show me exactly what I had to do to make my manuscript acceptable, call them Queer (Theory) Eye for the Academic “I.” It didn’t matter what they would require—pull apart every sentence, spend hours in the library reading, revise the entire way I imagined the project—if they assured me it would work, and if they showed me how to do it, I would eagerly put myself in their hands. The rejection did not put my sense of gender at risk, as social rejection does many unhappy makeover subjects who seek the curative powers of doctors and style gurus. My sense of self, however, was very much wounded by that reviewer’s comments. I desperately wanted a whole, confident, and competent me. Whether such a stable self could actually exist was no match for my desires to achieve it. I would have gladly endured a sacrifice of my civil right to privacy to get my book published. After all, I reckoned in my saddened state, how could that payment be worse than what I had endured? When I came back to the makeover book, I found myself jealous of the makeover subjects depicted on television who had such a broad array of experts, poised and ready to help ease the suffering. I learned, of course, that my book’s rejection was not a death but a do-over, and, moreover, that I was the only one who could effect my own 264  ·  Conclusion

makeover. But I can still taste the desire for help that huddled with me during many long weeks of sleepless nights as I mulled over the reviewer’s comments in my mind. That textual Before-body, now fully revised and made over, has found a new publishing home and a new hope for life as an After-body. And now that I’ve arrived at the After-stage of this book on makeovers, I find myself hoping that I have sufficiently communicated my gut-level recognition of how much relief the makeover promises. Critical analyses often leave little meat on the bone, and though I am troubled by the ways that most makeovers push reductive versions of gender and appearance while encouraging ever-increasing consumerism, I understand first-hand how appealing the makeover’s promises can be. Indeed, in the very same span of time that I have lived with, and through, both of these books, I have put myself on more than one rejuvenating course of change, be it losing weight, reducing debt, minimizing clutter, or increasing my style quotient. I have nothing but empathy for the people who desire or engage in makeovers. The sort of self-reflexivity that stands behind a desire to change seems to me grounded in a courage that all of us could do more to develop, even if such reflexive regard for the self is a class-based narrative of which we must be cautious. So, I do not see the many women and men whose names I have uttered in the course of this book as narcissists or dupes. Although I don’t believe their very careful considerations for engaging in makeovers are typically given full airings on reality tv, I do tend to believe their jubilation at the reveal of their After-bodies is authentic. I know and they know that not all changes are long-lasting, but still, it’s a great affirmation while it lasts. And I understand fully that though I may be done writing a book about makeovers, the makeover will never be done with me.

Can This Makeover Be Saved?  ·  265

notes

Introduction: Into the Makeover Maze 1  By most accounts, makeover programming as we now experience it began in the United States with the home renovation show Trading Spaces in 2000, a variation on the British Changing Rooms (1996–2004), though other shows, such as This Old House (1979–present), had been creating miracle transformations for more than a decade. For an extensive list of shows, see the videography that appears at the end of this book. 2  For more on tv and identity, see Gay Hawkins “The Ethics of Television”; Annette Hill, Reality tv; Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity; and Frances Bonner, Ordinary Television. 3  Ladies Home Journal, January 2007. 4  Feminist debates about the meanings and implications of plastic surgery are rich and varied. For helpful surveys, as well as provocations to existing scholarship, see Victoria Pitts-Taylor, Surgery Junkies: Cressida Heyes, SelfTransformations: Meredith Jones, Skintight: and Suzanne Fraser, Cosmetic Surgery, Gender and Culture. 5  For more on critical whiteness studies, see David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness; Alexander Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic; Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark; Diane Negra, ed., The Irish in Us; Eric L. Goldstein, The Price of Whiteness; Matthew Frye Jacobson, Roots Too; Jason Sokol, There Goes My Everything; and Winifred Breines, The Trouble between Us. 6  More broadly, might we ask if the “unintelligible subjects” leading “unliveable lives” that Butler addresses have already worked to create a critical distance from norms that makeover subjects seem eager to approximate? Can we thus conclude that desires for recognition between “queer subjects” and makeover participants are incommensurate? I don’t think so. The makeover’s stark representation indicates that absent the codes

of normativity it writes on physical and social bodies, Before can never be recognizable as a worthy self. 7  The makeover’s reliance on multiple validating systems is not without precedent. Consumer capitalism, as just one example, thrives on a similar capacity to be validated across the ideological spectrum. 8  Jennifer Fremlin offers a provocative reading of weight loss shows, such as The Biggest Loser and Celebrity Fit Club, as working through a pornographic gaze where public weigh-ins serve a comparable function as porn’s money shot. 9  Media and cultural studies scholars who write about the makeover differ on this matter of the self. For instance, Tara McPherson believes that the makeover highlights “the malleability of the self” (“Techno-Soap” 184). I argue, by contrast, that makeovers emphasize the plasticity of a body that can and must be changed in service of a selfhood imagined as constant. For more on issues of selfhood and the makeover, see Cressida Heyes, “Cosmetic Surgery and the Televisual Makeover,” and Mark Poster, “Swan’s Way: Care of Self in the Hyperreal.” 10  In this clear progress and endpoint, I see television makeovers as departing from a model of makeover culture outlined by Meredith Jones, where subjects are engaged in continual and endless alterations of the body. 11  For a reception study indicating viewer reactions to makeovers, see Caroline Dover and Annette Hill, “Mapping Genres.” 12  Many feminist academics, such as Naomi Wolf, Wendy Chapkis, and Liz Frost, decry beauty ideals (and plastic surgery that can forcibly alter the body to achieve these ideals) as a form of self-harm inflicted on female bodies by a patriarchal hegemony bent on objectifying women. Other scholars, such as Susan Bordo and Kathryn Pauly Morgan, offer the possibility that beauty practices function, as disciplinary mechanisms, inculcating subjects with norms of self and body. Other scholars yet, such as Kathy Davis, Anne Balsamo, and Debra Gimlin, have argued that though the ideologies behind body alteration may be troubling to their own feminist principles, those people making deliberate choices for elective aesthetic procedures often do so as a form of self-care and self-expression. Balsamo writes, “Whether as a form of oppression or a resource of empowerment, it is clear to me that cosmetic surgery is a practice whereby women consciously act to make their bodies mean something to themselves and to others” (226). Davis further contends that cosmetic surgery allows a woman “to renegotiate her relationship to her body and sense of self” thus providing “the impetus for individual women to move from a passive acceptance of herself as nothing but a body to the position of a subject who acts upon the world in and through her body” (Reshaping 133–34). 13  Redneck Dreams makes fun of the connection between makeover texts by describing itself as “Extreme Home Makeover meets Queen for a Day.”

268  ·  Notes

14  For more on the interplay between reality and real, see Mary Beth Haralovich and Michael W. Trosset, “Expect the Unexpected,” and Annette Hill, Reality

tv. 15  For a lucid overview of what constitutes postfeminism and a discussion on its many cultural expressions, see Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra’s “Introduction” to Interrogating Postfeminism. 16  Peter Jarey reports in his article “Crucial to the Close-Up” a new wave of “teledermatology” suited for high-resolution digital clarity. In 2006, hdtv saturated six percent of the market. hdtv’s presence is projected to climb to seventy percent by 2010. 17  Trainers for the American series, Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels, are the fitness coaches for the Australian The Biggest Loser, further emphasizing the franchise relationship between the two programs. 18 Attention as currency is reflected in a think-piece about recording devices and the television industry by David Leonhardt wherein he mentions that by digitally recording a show he has been able to avoid commercials for the last three years. This, he contends, is tantamount to freeloading, “We are free riders, enjoying the product without paying the bills” (C, 11). Paying the bills, it seems, would require that he watch commercials—attention to advertisers in exchange for entertainment programming. 19  Even on those rare occasions where makeover subjects are displeased with what they see—in, for instance, a How Do I Look? episode where subject Plum detested her makeover and vowed to give all of her new clothes to Good Will, prompting the host, Finola Hughes, to ask her to leave—the larger mandate of the makeover prevails. In this case therefore, Plum was clearly in the “wrong,” and her behavior was depicted as juvenile, churlish, and   ungrateful.

Chapter One: Makeover Nation 1  In Makeover Nation: The United States of Reinvention, Toby Miller also analyzes a systemic investment in the makeover culture, investigating a number of key sites that include therapy, drug treatments, and male bodies. Miller’s use of “Makeover Nation” is meant as a synonym for an actual United States that buttresses itself against the “risk culture” promulgated by right-wing conservatives through the restorative consumerist fantasy, even magic, promised by the makeover (35). Although my use of the term suggests not a real United States gripped in the need to reinvent itself but a metaphorical, idealized, and mediated nation that promises an imagined citizenship to those who participate on makeover shows, our projects are complimentary in that we identify both the idea and the actuality of the United States as key elements that fuel the makeover machine.

Notes  ·  269

2  See Jeffrey Louis Decker’s Made in America for a trenchant discussion on the interconnection between the ideology of Americanness and self-making. 3  See Richard Bushman, The Refinement of America. 4  Recent theorizing about gender and citizenship has demonstrated that the ideal citizen is often conceived as de facto male, white, and middle to upper class. See Marilyn Friedman’s Women and Citizenship. 5  For salient debates about gender, race, and sexuality in citizenship practices, see Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Mohanty, “Introduction”; Kaplan, Sexual Justice; Ruth Lister, Citizenship; Barbara Cruikshank, The Will to Empower; Amarpal Dhaliwali, “Can the Subaltern Vote?”; Mary Dietz, “Context is All”; and Lauren Berlant and Freeman, “Queer Nationality.” 6  Another trope of Americanness manifests through the fact that American Idol contestants are determined through a popular vote. Much has been made of the fact that more votes were cast for American Idol contestants than for actual American presidential candidates. 7  “Soul singer is new American Idol: The show is a huge ratings hit in   the US,” China Daily, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5014700.stm   (accessed 5/30/06); “Strong ‘American Idol’ finale caps tv season.” Reuters   http://en.epochtimes.com/news/6-5-26/41970.html (updated May 26, 2006; accessed May 30, 2006). 8  Jane Macartney, “Pop idol tv show stifled as Chinese get taste for having   a vote,” The Times of London, April 1, 2006, www.timesonline.co.uk/article/  0,,25689-2113387,00.html (accessed May 29, 2006). 9  On a research trip to Australia in April–May 2007, I counted upwards of forty makeover shows, mostly produced in the United States and United Kingdom, available in a one-week period for Aussie viewers who had expanded cable. Even for those with basic television channels, American makeover programming was immediately intelligible, particularly Extreme Makeover and Queer Eye. Though Australia has a limited television-production industry, it has created its own versions of The Biggest Loser, American Princess, American Idol, and America’s Next Top Model (in the case of the latter two, Australian Idol and Australia’s Next Top Model air in tandem with the U.S. shows). 10  Caroline Dover and Annette Hill offer an important reminder to American audiences that the British Broadcasting Company (bbc) carries a publicservice mandate, meaning that makeovers and other lifestyle programming are often produced as fact-based products, even if more commonly experienced by viewers as entertainment. 11  These shows also air on American Spanish-language networks such as Telemundo and Univision. 12  As a testament to Cesar’s celebrity, in one week I saw a signed and framed photograph of him conspicuously displayed where I board my dog in Indiana; I noticed his book, Cesar’s Way, climbing on the best-seller list; and I watched

270  ·  Notes

an episode of South Park that satirized Cesar’s amazing ability to tame wild beasts. Cesar himself has seemingly undergone his own style makeover, since over the course of the show his teeth have grown noticeably whiter and his hair more stylishly coiffed. An episode of Infanity described Milan as a “media icon,” showing him no fewer than six times smiling on the red carpet with paparazzi bulbs flashing. 13  The Makeover Manor website indicates, “Only a mysterious stretch limo   knows the way to the special gates marked ‘MM’ which open to reveal a world   of beauty and style,” www.tv-one.tv/shows/show.asp?sid=113&id=1121 (accessed May 23, 2006). 14  The small city where I live, Bloomington, Indiana—a college town far off the beaten-track of the Hollywood circuit—offers a demonstration of the correlation between makeover logics, location, and celebrity. As a fundraiser, a local nonprofit organization called My Sister’s Closet, dedicated to providing lower-income women with suitable interview and professional attire, sponsored an event called Glam ‘n’ Gloss that featured a “Hollywood makeup artist” who offered tips and partial makeovers. The local paper noted that the beauty expert had “worked her makeover magic on figure skaters Sasha Cohen, Naomi Nam and Angela Nikodinav,” while her entertainment resume included making up celebrities at the Emmy Awards and for movie premieres such as Freaky Friday (Denny A, 10). 15  See Banet-Weiser and Portwood Stacer, “‘I just want to be me again!’ ”; Ruth Holliday and Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor, “Aesthetic Surgery as False Beauty”; and Sue Tait, “Television and the Domestication of Cosmetic Surgery.” 16  See Anna McCarthy, “The Republic of Tyra.” 17  diy’s Yard Crashers actually pokes fun at such fears when it positions its landscapers host, Ahmed Hassan, at the entrance to various home-supply stores, where he offers to go home with “regular Americans” and help with their lawn projects. Each episode features upwards of five refusals before a dubious, and typically white, homeowner finally agrees to accept assistance from the dark-skinned Hassan. While watching these episodes I had to wonder just how threatening Hassan could be, given he came with a huge camera crew. Clearly, the footage is edited to emphasize a scrutiny that I imagine the allure of television nicely effaces in the real context of host meets world. 18  The psychological connection between a good job and good appearance is not one exclusive to makeover programming. Debra Gimlin’s work on plastic surgery, as one example, nicely demonstrates how face-lifts can be perceived as ensuring work ability (Body Work 89). 19  I’d like to thank my brother, Robert Weber, a corporate human resources administrator, for calling my attention to his profession’s discussion on the correlation between work-place productivity, remuneration, and appearance.

Notes  ·  271

20  My thanks to Karen Throsby for sharing this image with me. 21  For a comparative analysis between the United States and the United Kingdom, see Debra Gimlin, “Accounting for Cosmetic Surgery in the usa and Britain.” 22  Underscoring the tie between social burden and social stigma, a 2007 Lifetime docudrama called To Be Fat Like Me featured an exchange between one girl, posing as obese, and her friend, a “real” fat girl: “You know what they say, that fat . . . people like us cost the system?” The authentically fat girl responds, “Allie, do you really think teenagers moo at us because they are worried about the health care system?” Even given such comments, the movie stops far short of fat-acceptance, a point tellingly underscored through its primary sponsorship by Jenny Craig and the fact that the girl posing in a fat suit’s mother is played by Caroline Rhea, the host of seasons one through three of The Biggest Loser. 23  See Jennifer Gillan, “Extreme Makeover: Homeland Security Edition.” 24  Another important way to “deserve” the makeover is by surviving a lifethreatening disease, typically breast cancer. A small sampling of cancer survivors includes: Ultimate Goals “Enter the Dragon,” December 21, 2004;   Dog Whisperer, September 14, 2004; Head 2 Toe “Mary and Geralyn,” October   9, 2004; 10 Years Younger “The Old Look is in Remission,” May 5, 2005, “Back on Track” January 10, 2005; Starting Over, 2005 (seasons 2 and 3); Dr 90210 “Reconstruction,” March 14, 2005; Covershot “Natalie,” October 20, 2006; How Do I Look? “Sabrina Mansfield,” June 4, 2007. One episode of 10 Years Younger double-downed on the sickness/altruism trope by offering a makeover to a woman who was run down “after helping her ailing grandmother and conquering her own illness” (“Getting Dolled Up” December 16, 2005). 25  The makeover as a reward for service plays across the networks. mtv’s Pimp My Ride, for example, generally offers its car makeovers to young people who have been caring for the elderly or younger siblings. diy’s Help on the Homefront brings home-makeover assistance to those serving in the military. 26  John McMurria has nicely demonstrated how neoliberalism is a corollary component of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which employs a merged politics of corporate and nonprofit business practices called cause-related marketing. This is particularly true in abc/Disney’s long affiliation with Habitat for Humanity and Sears’ philanthropic foundation The Sears American Dream Campaign, a nonprofit group dedicated to “educating low and moderate-income families nationwide about the importance of home maintenance.” www.searsamericandream.com. 27  I feel I should reference again the “miserable failure” of Plum’s makeover on How Do I Look?, an episode that is singular in terms of anticlimaxes and stalled objectives. Plum’s reveal is anything but euphoric, and though the host and experts believe they have improved Plum’s formerly goth, punk,  

272  ·  Notes

and hippy appearance, she strongly disagrees. Plum does not, however, dis­ pute that a makeover is necessary if she desires to “fit in” with a more conven­ tional crowd. Instead, she resists the speed with which it happens during the week it takes to tape the show. So again, we see that Plum’s resis­ tance is predicated on the specificity of details, not on the larger concept of transformation. 28  For a fascinating account of how gastric bypass patients often hide their surgeries for fear that they will be considered cheaters, see Karen Throsby, “Happy Re-Birthday.” 29  There is some deviation from the universal delight of makeovers, particularly in the room improvement show, Trading Spaces, where neighbors swap rooms in each other’s houses and, as led by a design team, outlandishly put that room through a makeover. A dvd collection called Trading Spaces: They Hated It! documents failed transformation. So far, there is no indication of a comparable body/beauty dvd. 30  The optimistic solution-based scenarios of the makeover genre nicely contrast with what Helen Wood and Beverley Skeggs have identified in British Reality tv as “programmes where the potential for redemption is not available.” Rather than offering advice on care of the self and intimate citizenship, these shows broadcast an “ethnographic display of unmediated, unknowing, badchoice culture” that demonstrates “working-class limits to propriety” and self-realization (308). 31  For a counter-reading that perceives makeovers as tying women’s bodies to “traditional and hegemonic discourses of beauty” (58), see Amanda Hall Gallagher and Lisa Pecot-Hebert, “‘You Need a Makeover!’: The Social Con­ struction of Female Body Image in A Makeover Story, What Not to Wear, and Extreme Makeover.” A 2006 special issue of Feminist Theory suggests the conten­ tious domain that beauty represents for feminists, since, as editor Claire Colebrook notes, “though the beauty industry and the image of female beauty have long been criticized for the objectification of women, there has also   been a strong feminist tradition of defending beauty” (131).

Chapter Two: Visible Subjects Unless otherwise indicated, all fan postings come from the discussion bill­ boards on FansofRealitytv.com. 1  Some makeover programs dismiss shaming rituals, including Makeover Manor and most of the celebrity-approximation programs. Visual scrutiny and com­ plete capitulation to stylist demands still prevail on these shows. 2 Scientific Age Progression is also the gimmick used to motivate parents to halt eating and lifestyle choices that make their children fat on Honey, We’re Killing the Kids.

Notes  ·  273

3  For more on Reality tv and surveillance, see Gareth Palmer, “Video Vigilantes and the Work of Shame”; Mark Andrejevic, Reality tv: The Work of Being Watched; Toni Johnson-Woods, Big Bother. 4  For more on television and governmentality, see Laurie Ouellette and James Hay, Better Living Through Reality tv. 5  The use of video surveillance to police a nation has real-world meaning in countries, including the United States and Great Britain, particularly in response to perceived terrorism and crime. It makes sense, given the models offered by actual government, that televised governmentality would employ similar modes of observation and control as a protection against the combined bodily terrorists of aging and fat. 6  See Hille Koskela’s discussion in “‘The Gaze Without Eyes’,” arguing that rather than being protected by state-sponsored crime-watch cameras, women are objectified through a comprehensive video surveillance network that masculinizes public spaces. 7  From www.bbcamerica.com/content/140/about.jsp (accessed March 7, 2007). In October 2006, Trinny and Susannah left the bbc and What Not to Wear for Britain’s itv and a new show, Trinny and Susannah Undress, where exposure of shame continued to factor largely. New wntw presenters, Lisa Butcher and Mica Paris, continued to use shame and affection as critical strategies in teaching subjects what not to wear. 8  If I were to select the meanest style guru, it would be Gillian MacKeith, the “nutritionist from hell” of the bbc’s You Are What You Eat. MacKeith is also the presenter for several British shows, including Three Fat Brides and One Thin Dress (2007), where large women compete to lose weight and win the wedding gown of their dreams (this requires surrendering mandatory urine and stool samples to Gillian). In 2008, we took a page from MacKeith’s book with Bulging Brides. 9  “The Swan Coming to Fox.” Reality tv Rules. www.tvrules.net/modules.php? name=News&file=article&sid=3263 (accessed January 20, 2007). 10 The disorder afflicts between one and three percent of Americans and one percent of Brits, though roughly fifteen percent of cosmetic surgery patients, regardless of national origin. 11  This cautionary tale came with a taste of cultural elitism, since the offending doctor who performed the operation did so in what is perceived by the English mind as the wilds of Scotland. The article also notes what can happen in other seemingly uncivilized places such as the United States, “Last October a suspended American doctor was jailed for 15 years in San Diego for murder. He amputated a 79-year-old man’s healthy leg to satisfy a sexual fetish, but two days later the man died of gangrene” (Heath). 12  One indication of the makeover’s preference for “normative” subjects is the short-lived A Second Look, which made-over homeless people in Los Angeles.

274  ·  Notes

13  There exist ample examples, both contemporary and historical, to support this claim, but one glaring use of the “losing it” approach to discredit female credibility appeared in People’s coverage of Britney Spears and her “string of eye-brow raising events” that marked her as “strange” and “wild,” in the midst of a “breakdown” that was “erratic.” Her behavior had drawn both “a wave of criticism” and worries about her capacities to mother her children without “unnecessary risk” (“Britney Spears” 19). 14  For more on how marriage regulates intimacy in a contemporary and nonWestern context, see Sara L. Friedman, Intimate Politics. 15  These sorts of cavalier moments are fairly common on plastic surgery makeover shows, as, for instance, when surgeon William Aiello on Dr. 90210 notes while performing a breast reduction surgery on Roxanne, “One more inch, and I puncture her lung.” 16  In Women Under the Knife, a social history of women as surgical patients, Ann Dally notes that in the nineteenth century women were more likely than men to be the bodies on which new surgical procedures were tested. She attributes women’s passivity under the surgeon’s blade to a culture that devalued women’s bodies and thereby discredited their pain, coupled with women’s fears of what awaited (disfigurement, death) if they did not submit to surgery. 17  One indication of how status protects doctors became evident when that status slipped. The Smoking Gun reported that The Swan’s PhD therapist, Dr. Lynn Ianni, had a bogus degree since she earned it at California Coast University, an unaccredited diploma mill. The University Continuing Education Association somewhat ironically used Ianni’s case as a cautionary tale for professional accreditation: “You cannot be too careful. This is, after all, your education. And you don’t want to fall into the same trap as ‘Dr.’ Lynn Ianni, from The Swan. There is, sadly, no makeover show for careers ruined by faux-degrees from illegitimate institutions” (“Accreditation”). 18  Make-up stylists quite often use compensatory language when offering their services (if they are allowed to speak at all). For instance, Carmindy, who was berated by fans for harshness, frequently begins her small portion of the show praising the subject’s features. In fact, she uses the word beautiful with Cynthia six times in a thirty-second scene (March 5, 2004). 19  Extreme Makeover: Home Edition plays on these same themes of makeover miracles coming to the truly deserving, a conceit it tweaks through weekly tear-jerker stories about suffering families. One episode in 2006, for instance, featured the Gilliams, a family of six children that had lost a father. As if this weren’t bad enough, the father died because he had been poisoned by toxic mold while doing renovation work on the family’s first home—on Christmas Eve. 20  As, for instance, in a 2003 episode of A Makeover Story when the white male subject, Sid, asks his stylist, “Don’t I get any say in this?” “No,” he’s told.

Notes  ·  275

“You’ll get style when we give you style.” “So, I’m basically just a guinea pig here, is that right?” An exchange like this is funny when it’s clear that Sid could probably have agency if he took it, but most shows disallow this possibility.

Chapter Three: “I’m a Woman Now!” 1  Chris Holmlund suggests at least a three-part division in how postfeminism can be conceptualized. These are: chick postfeminists, who engage in a backlash against political projects that call for equality, arguing that such parity already exists; riot grrrls who both “acknowledge the diversity among women that ‘chick’ postfeminism ignores” and “carry on first- and secondwave feminist struggles”; and academic postfeminists who are “steeped in French, British, and American postmodern, postcolonial, poststructural and queer theories” (116). Amanda Lotz exhorts all academic feminists not to rely too easily on popular descriptions of postfeminism that posit it as depoliticized or exclusively appearance-driven. 2 As one suggestion of the relative insignificance of ethnic specificity, in its lead-in to Sylvia’s upcoming episode on November 29, she is called Sylvia Vasquez. When her episode airs on December 6, she is called Sylvia Cruz. For more on “Latinidad,” or the homogenization of Latin difference, see Frances R. Aparico, “Jennifer as Selena: Rethinking Latinidad in Media and Popular Culture”; Clara E. Rodriguez, ed., Latin Looks; Frances Negron-Muntaner, “Jennifer’s Butt”; and Maria Elena Cepeda, “Shakira as the Idealized, Transnational Citizen.” 3  On Ambush Makeover, when a very Caucasian college student, Ellie, appears for her final reveal in a tight-fitting South Pacific themed wrap-dress, subtitles read, “Complete the Polynesian look with a pair of strappy sandals and a seashell or kukui nut necklace.” Though we presume that this Polynesian look is not meant to deepen Ellie’s represented ethnic signature, it is clear that “the ethnic” functions as another fashion or style accessory that the makeover can either deploy or ignore to make the subject look, as does Ellie, ready to “enter womanhood in style.” 4  From www.lifetimetv.com/shows/clean/ (accessed March 23, 2007). 5  It is perhaps another indication of British vs. American tastes that Trinny and Susannah’s new makeover show, Trinny and Sussanah Undress, which debuted through itv on October 3, 2006, has not as of this writing made it to U.S. audiences, either as exported programming or as modified U.S. product. Undress examines couples who are having troubles in both their marriage   and their style management. Their makeover aims to rekindle both romantic love and appearances. Similarly, Britain’s Channel Five has produced Bride and

276  ·  Notes

Grooming, which puts men and women through extensive plastic surgery in preparation for marriage ceremonies. Though U.S. shows have deployed this trope, there is no show with the plastic-surgery-before-wedding theme as its exclusive angle. 6  Spring 2007 saw the debut of several shows that played with notions of   class, etiquette, and behavior in ways that somewhat modeled Ladette to Lady. Oxygen’s Bad Girls Club is clearly class-based in its representation   and critique of the cigarette-smoking, beer-swilling, sex-seeking bad girls featured on the show. The narrative, however, functions more as a window into their world than one advocating transformation, suggesting that a hypersexualized badness in itself is attention worthy rather than makeover requiring. Mo’Nique’s Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School made a stab at sending rejects from a dating-competition reality show, Flavor of Love, to a faux charm school that required its participants to learn tasks such as how to handle an aggressive tabloid interview or how to hold one’s tongue (and fists) when being called a whore. As with most things Mo’Nique, the charm school was the exception that proved the rule, since challenges were more frequently cartoonish than constructive. Mind Your Manners, an etiquette makeover vehicle for What Not to Wear’s Clinton Kelley, made class instruction so ridiculous that it was much easier to root for the “scary feminist” or truck driver subjects who swore and farted with abandon than it was to endorse the elitist behavior Clinton and his colleagues (including an English etiquette expert) advocated. 7  From www.sonypictures.com/tv/shows/judgehatchett/about/index.php (accessed March 22, 2007). 8  See Suzanna J. Kessler, Lessons from the Intersexed and Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body. 9  From www.mtv.tv/mtv.tv/dynamo/shells/shows.jhtml?article=30096005 (accessed March 23, 2007). 10  The real-world popularity of a series of plastic surgery procedures euphemistically termed a “mom job” suggests that such anxiety about the post-baby body is not limited to makeover tv. 11  From http://abc.go.com/primetime/extrememakeover/bios/tess.html (accessed March 19, 2007). 12  An interesting reversal of this outcome that posits mother and daughter as identical can be seen in child and dog-rearing shows like Shalom in the Home, Supernanny, Honey, We’re Killing the Kids, and The Dog Whisperer, where often the contributing cause to Before miseries is an insufficient separation between adult/human and kid/dog ego states. Often subjects need to learn to establish better boundaries, act more like parents than friends, and be willing to offer discipline before they tender affection.

Notes  ·  277

Chapter Four: What Makes the Man? 1  Television makes these more conventional male transformation narratives available through such football training programs as 2-a-Days and Hard Knocks. 2  See Steve Neale, R.W. Connell, and Ina Rae Hark and Stephen Cohan. Feminist socio-linguistic work is particularly adept at pointing out men’s erasure through the normative. See Deborah Tannen, Gender and Discourse, and Robin Lakoff, Language and Woman’s Place. 3  From www.thumperscorner.com/discus/messages/11222/14648. html?1155355043 (accessed March 7, 2007). 4  For more on race, masculinity, and the concept of cool, see both Susan Fraiman, Cool Men and the Second Sex, and Peter N. Stearns, American Cool. 5  For more on the production of national manhood, see Dana Nelson, National Manhood. 6  See R. W. Connell, Masculinities and The Men and the Boys. 7  In saying this, I am mindful of Mai Ghoussoub and Emma Sinclair-Webb’s admonition that we must problematize the assumption that there “is really something called ‘Western ideology’ that gets imposed on non-Western societies” through gender practices (10). 8  Increases for women during the same span of time were 147 percent for surgical procedures and 724 percent for nonsurgical procedures, www.surgery  .org (accessed March 9, 2007). 9  See also Peter Strelan and Duane Hargreaves, “Reasons for Exercise and Body Esteem.” 10  In this case, Bill was made over in tandem with his sister. The visualcinematic code referenced their opposite sex connection much more insis­ tently than it did Bill’s relationship with his male partner, Blane. If one were   watching without sound, it would appear that brother and sister were roman­ tically linked (complete with tears, hand holding, hugs and kisses) and Bill and Blane were work buddies. 11  Makeovers also have credibility for women subjects due to their masculinist structures. 12  Extreme Makeover website. abc. http://abc.go.com/primetime/ extrememakeover/bios/89924.html (accessed July 22, 2005). 13  See Dennis W. Allen, “Making Over Masculinity,” Dana Heller, “Taking the Nation from ‘Drab to Fab’,” Kooijman, “They’re Here, They’re Queer, and Straight American Loves It,” and Beth Berila and Devika Dibya Choudhuri, “Metrosexuality the Middle Class Way.” 14  For another reading of this phenomenon, see Katherine Sender, “Queens for a Day.”

278  ·  Notes

15  Dog Whisperer’s unending mantra contends that pet owners, whether male or female, must learn to assert masculine authority through the dominant assertive address. 16  Positioning the same-sex male relationship as an open secret happens on other shows as well (though, as I have mentioned, the lesbian couple is anathema to makeover tv). The only moment of rupture I’ve encountered where the host articulates sexual location happened in Moving Up. Host Doug begins with the open secret, calling Dan and Rob a “couple” who have been together for four years. Looking around their country-styled home, Doug tells new (heterosexual) homeowners, “These guys like roosters. There’s cock everywhere.” Later Doug gifts Dan and Rob with an ornate wooden bar for the barn they are converting into a rave club. The bar requires several treatments of linseed oil, meaning that Doug can remind Dan and Rob to “lube up” frequently. Later Doug makes clear Dan and Rob are not metrosexual, “they are homosexual.” 17  From www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/homewrecker/series.jhtml#bio (accessed August 10, 2007).

Chapter Five: Celebrated Selfhood 1  For more on representational characters, see S. Paige Baty, American Monroe. 2  Gareth Palmer describes the D-List as a category, no matter how imprecise, that is fleeting and marks aspirants as “decidedly second or even third-best” and altogether “too keen to reach the spotlight” (“The Undead” 38). 3  For greater discussion of celebrities as subjects on Reality tv, see Su Holmes, “It’s a jungle out there!” and Nick Couldry, “Playing for Celebrity.” 4  For more on celebrity in an historical context, see Braudy, The Frenzy of Renown, Gamson, Claims to Fame, Brock, The Feminization of Fame, and Donoghue, The Fame Machine. For celebrity in a psychological context, see David Giles, Illusions of Immortality, and P. David Marshall, Celebrity and Power. See also Su Holmes’s overview of celebrity studies scholarships in her reconsideration of Dyer’s influence in “Starring . . . Dyer?” 5 For more on the star as object of criticism, see Sofia Johansson, “‘Sometimes you wanna hate celebrities’.” 6  Jackie Stacey’s work on women fans and reception in Star Gazing suggests that female spectators have long been critical indicators, and indeed, producers of celebrity status. 7  In many ways, Boorstin’s argument reiterates the same sorts of dire pro­ nouncements lobbed at the novel—that in its hyperfeminized and provoca­ tive depictions of love, readers would be made effeminate, spoiled for the   realities of life, duped into believing they too could live the life of indulgent

Notes  ·  279

romance depicted in the novel. For more, see Catherine N. Davidson, Revolution and The Word, and Pamela Gilbert, Disease, Desire, and Victorian Fiction. The charge of being deceived by popular culture is also one upheld by   the Frankfurt School, which contended that consumers of mass-produced materials were, in the words of C. Lee Harrington and Denise D. Bielby, “completely pacified and homogenized,” repeatedly “victimized and immo­ bilized” through their consumption of popular texts (8). 8  Virginia Blum would perhaps agree with the notion that narcissism perme­ ates those things connected with celebrity, though her reading contends   that the ordinary person’s comparison with celebrity diminishes a sense of self rather than aggrandizing it. She argues that as “a culture we have found   a way to represent” an “interminable narcissistic encounter” with “ideal images that render our own image insufficient: the movie star” (Flesh Wounds 221). Such moments of identification, she notes, are tinged with both love and  envy and tend to give rise to a complicated mix of adoration and hostility. This double-coded response to celebrity has also been theorized by such schol­ ars as Leo Braudy, Josh Gamson, and Richard Dyer. For more on Lasch and therapy culture, see Frank Furedi, Therapy Culture. 9  Given Boorstin’s suspicions about plasticity, a Plastic Surgery Beverly Hills episode called “Plastic Fantastic” would surely have caused him consternation. 10  See Joli Jensen’s “Fandom as Pathology” for a discussion on the connotation of fans as crazed and hysterical in comparison to the connoisseur as academic and reasoned. 11  Jeffrey Louis Decker argues, for instance, that “image-based self-making” in a time of heightened celebrity, “collapses the distinction between inner self and outer appearance,” making the American self-made individual about “body image and consumer desire” (xxix; orig. emph.). 12  As a lead-up to Stiffed, her elegy to lost American manhood, Susan Faludi published an article in Newsweek in which she argued that a late-twentiethcentury crisis of masculinity was larger due to the rise of celebrity. “Celebrity culture swept away institutions in which men felt some sense of belonging and replaced them with mere visual spectacles of masculinity that they can only watch” (“Betrayal” 53). 13  For more on the makeover’s use of religious frameworks, see Brenda R. Weber and Karen W. Tice, “‘Are You Finally Comfortable in Your Own   Skin?’.” 14 It’s fitting that celebrity would figure largely in this amalgam of religion, myth, and desire. Chris Rojek’s Celebrity and John Frow’s “Is Elvis a God?” suggest that celebrity performs a comparable cultural work to that normally ascribed to religion. 15 For a very fine reading of antm, see Alisia Chase, “What Paris Reveals.”

280  ·  Notes

16  Somewhat ironically, Adrianne’s post-antm career found leverage precisely due to her connection to a man. She met The Brady Bunch’s Christopher Knight on The Surreal Life, went on to star with him in My Fair Brady and My Fair Brady: Maybe Baby. She and Knight also sought on-air marriage counseling with Dr. Phil. 17 The feature film American Dreamz (2006), which parodied reality tv star contests such as American Idol, made this double coding of desire evident. The agent/manager to Mandy Moore’s character, a contestant on a star-search show, tells her, “One thing that’s important, Sally, is that you not appear to want it too much.” Sally responds, “I’m just singing for the love of singing. As long as I get to get on that stage and perform in front of that incredible audience, then I’m happy.” He approves her performance of humility, “Not bad. Now, of course, on the inside, you do need to want it really badly.” Sally assures, “I’d rather jab my eyes out with toothpicks and eat them than lose this thing.” 18  Josh Gamson also demonstrates that in both historical and contemporary contexts, “star quality” was considered real and natural, though narratives about how such intrinsic qualities of the star come into recognition vary between magic (discovery) and meritocracy (hard work). “Their success, in either case,” Gamson writes, “is a merited one: either because their natural charisma is recognized or because they fulfill the American dream, becoming stars through their own blood, sweat, and tears” (44). 19  The mom in question here is Blanche Baker, an actress whose greatest claim to fame thus far has been to play Molly Ringwald’s sister in Sixteen Candles (1984), though she has two more recent appearances in independent films to her credit. Interestingly, the Internet Movie Database, which functions as a virtual who’s who of celebrity performances, lists Blanche’s role in Save My Bath as one of her screen credits. The bathroom, thus far, has received no acknowledgment for its star turn on the show. 20  Such moments of revealing the celebrity’s home are, of course, an important trope that furthers the Hollywood image machine, as evidenced from pictorial spreads on star homes in the 1930s to television series in the 1990s and 2000s such as Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or Cribs. The 1933 film Bombshell staring Jean Harlow even parodies such inside-the-homes-of-thestars promises when it depicts life in a starlette’s mansion as a ramshackle mess of comic alcoholism, unwed motherhood, and adulterous behavior. Even before Hollywood, books such as Little Journeys to the Homes of Famous Women (Elbert Hubbard, 1897) worked to offer fans access to the inner worlds of those deemed famous. 21  Helen Powell and Sylvie Prasad argue it is precisely the makeover guru’s “ordinariness” that has led to cultural status on British lifestyle programming. For more on the discourses of ordinary and extraordinary, see Su Holmes,

Notes  ·  281

“All You Got to Worry About is the Task . . .” and Anita Biressi and Heather Nunn, Reality tv: Realism and Revelation. 22  Mark and Peter are not the only makeover gurus who move across and between makeover programs. Validated by their visuality, they offer a wide degree of interchangeable style advice that can be applied to seemingly any sort of body, be it organic or organza. Other crossover makeover personalities include: Ty Pennington, who started on Trading Spaces and then moved to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition; Damone Roberts, the make-up stylist on 10 Years Younger and occasionally also on New Attitudes; Tanika Ray, the host of   Head 2 Toe and an entertainment reporter on Extra; Thom Felicia, one of the Fab 5 on Queer Eye and the host of Dress My Nest; Ted Allen, Queer Eye’s food expert and judge on Top Chef; Robert Verdi, a stylist on Surprise by Design and Fashion Police; Jay Manuel a make-up artist and stylist on Style Her Famous and America’s Next Top Model. Doctors also move across shows. For instance, dentist Sherri Worth has appeared on How Do I Look?, A New You, and The Swan, ophthalmologist Robert Mahoney fixes peoples’ eyesight on Extreme Makeover and 10 Years Younger, and dentist William Dorfman offers his services on Extreme Makeover and Brand New You, (which contributed to his “tabloid wedding” to another reality celebrity, Jennifer Murphy of The Apprentice). Significantly, these are jumps across not only shows but networks and production companies. More significantly, however, as Gareth Palmer notes, may well be the degree to which designers and gurus have credits as entertainers in other film and television venues (“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” 175). 23  Using photographs as the model for duplicating expensive designer or celebrity looks at more affordable prices is also the theme of such shows as Double Take, Picture This, and The Look for Less. 24  This exchange of a drab everyday room for the approximated stylish digs of the celebrity as denoted through style choices is also the central hallmark of My Celebrity Wedding. 25  Chris Rojek argues that the “abstract desire” represented in the adoring gaze of fan to celebrity is a form of “false intimacy,” even as such cathexis helps make desire more intelligible to a global audience (189). 26  Andie MacDowell’s makeover project was her maid, also named Andie, whose transformation entailed giving her a manicure and facial, taking away her scrunchies, which she used to keep the hair out of her eyes while cleaning MacDowell’s house, and dressing her in a $9,000 coat woven in gold and silver threads. One wonders how the two Andie’s took up their classed positions postmakeover and how the maid Andie ever managed to clean the movie star Andie’s home without damaging her glamorous nail tips and her coat of gold and silver.

282  ·  Notes

27  Caroline Dover and Annette Hill’s reception studies of lifestyle programming in Britain indicate that viewers more often consider makeover shows to be entertainment than informative about “true-to-life content” (24). 28  Though the makeover uses multiple genres, it is particularly fond of the fairy tale. For more on the overlap between the makeover’s transformation narratives and fairy tales, see Jack Z. Bratich, “Programing Reality: Control Societies, New Subjects, and the Powers of Transformation”; Gareth Palmer, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, an American Fairy Tale,” and Cressida Heyes, “Cosmetic Surgery and the Televisual Makeover: A Foucauldian Feminist Reading.”

Conclusion: Can This Makeover Be Saved? 1  See Angela McRobbie’s “Postfeminism and Popular Culture” for a discussion on how the female subject in postfeminism is “called upon to be silent, to withhold critique” often as “a condition of her freedom” (36).

Notes  ·  283

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videography

This videography does not offer an exhaustive account of every reality show engaged with the makeover, but instead accounts for makeover tv’s breadth and diversity as represented on U.S. expanded cable and satellite. International programming is not included here. The following list lays out those programs referenced in this book, including “cautionary tale” documentary-like shows and made-for-tv movies. Other film or television texts discussed in the book are included in the bibliography rather than in this makeover videography. For ease of reference, I do not include in either the videography or bibliography those film or television texts that are mentioned but not discussed. Information is listed in the following order: Name of show; production company(ies) or producer(s) (when available); network(s) aired; year(s) aired on original run; episode quoted with title (if given) and subject name; original air dates in the United States (dates listed in numerical month/ day/year format). When character names are in quotation marks, the show uses their names for its title. When those names are not in quotation marks, the show uses a different title (or none at all), and I’ve inserted subject names to help reference the specific shows under discussion. When no character name is included in the videography, it is because I reference the show or a particular episode, but I don’t discuss the subject. Those shows in production, on hiatus, or still on-air at the time of compilation in late 2008–early 2009 are indicated by the show’s year of start date to “present.” Though not actively producing new programming, many shows have not been officially cancelled; some, like 10 Years Younger and I Want a Famous Face, have also returned after long periods of dormancy. Many more have been cancelled, like Extreme Makeover, but are still in continuous play across several networks.

The information herein is compiled from various sources, including: on-air credits, imdb (Internet Movie Database), Variety, tivo, New York Times, and websources such as tv.com, c21 Media, and natpe (National Association of Television Program Executives). U.S. Network Abbreviation Legend abc

American Broadcasting Company

a&e

Arts and Entertainment

aln

American Life tv Network

ap

Animal Plant

bbca

British Broadcasting Company America

cc

Comedy Central

cmt

Country Music Television

cw

( Joint venture of Warner Brothers and Columbia Broadcasting Service)

dsc

Discovery

dcho

Discovery Home

dckids Discovery Kids dhc

Discovery Health Channel

diy

Do It Yourself

fam

abc Family

fine

Fine Living

Fit tv

Discovery

food

Food Network

hall

Hallmark

hgtv

Home and Garden Television

iLife

Inspirational Life Television

Life

Life Network, Canada

lrw

Lifetime Real Women

oln

Outdoor Life Network, also Outdoor Network

oxgn

Oxygen

pg

Planet Green

nbc

National Broadcasting Company

ngc

National Geographic Channel

sndc

Sundance

sitv

English-Language Network “for Latinos”

tbs

Turner Broadcasting Service

tlc

The Learning Channel

tv Land tv Land tvg

tv Guide

302  ·  Videography

tvs

Television Syndication Company

vh1

Video Hits One

w

Women’s Television Network

we

Women’s Entertainment Television

wht

World Harvest Television

Makeover Videography Addicted to Plastic Surgery. Leibovitz-Hellman Productions. dsc. 2004. Alive and Well. Mark Harris, executive producer. aln. 2004–present. “Green Home Makeover,” 2/3/07. All-Star Kitchen Makeover. rivr Media. food. 2005. Ambush Makeover. Fox. Fox Reality. Style. 2003–2005. Alexis, 3/4/05; Robin, 3/1/05; Roni, n.d. American Chopper. Pilgrim Films and Television. tlc. dsc. 2003–present. American Hot Rod. Craig Piligian and Keith Melton, executive producers. tlc. dsc. 2004–present. American Idol. Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer. Fox. 2002–present. American Princess. nbc and Granada Entertainment. we. 2005–present. “Season Two Premiere,” Yvonka, 8/19/07. America’s Got Talent. FreMantle Media. nbc. 2003–present. America’s Next Top Model. Bankable Productions. up, cw, mtv. 2002–present. America’s Prom Queen. pb&j Television. fam. 2008. Animal Makeover tv. Penguin Productions. rfd. 2007–present. Are You Hot? abc Television. abc. 2003. Arresting Design. Planetworks. w. 2003–2005. Australian Princess. Granada. we. 2007. Barkitecture. Matthew Klarich and Jeff Woods, producers. diy. “Dog Crate,” 11/9/05. Beauty and the Geek. Fox 21, 3-Ball Productions, Katalyst Films. 2005–present. cw. wb. “Beauties Pimp Their Geeks,” 1/3/07. Before and After. hgtv. 2003–2004. “Capital Makeover,” 10/19/03; “Washington Tudor,” 12/19/04. Beyond Plastic Surgery. Meryl Gitter Michon, producer. ngc. 2004. The Biggest Loser. 3 Ball Productions. 25/7 Productions. Reveille LLC. nbc, Style, bravo. 2004–present. Season One 2004: Ryan, Gary, Kelly Min, Lisa, Andrea, Kelly Mac, Dave, Matt, Aaron, Lizbeth, Dana; Season Two 2005: Matt, Seth, Suzy, Andrea, Jeff, Shannon, Mark, Pete, Jen, Suzanne, Ryan, Nick, Kathyrn, Ruben; Season Three 2006: Erik, Kai, Wylie, Heather, Jaron, Adrian, Marty, Bobby, Brian, Pam, Ken, Amy, Melinda, Nelson, Tiffany, Jen; Season Four 2007: Bill, Julie, Hollie, Isabeau, Neil, Nicole, Bryan, Kae, Amy, Ryan, David, Jez, Phil, Jim, Patty, Jerry, Lezlye, Amber; Season Five

Videography  ·  303

“Couples” 2008: Lynn, Jenni, Curtis, Mallory, Neill, Amanda, Bette-Sue, Jenn, Jackie, Trent, Paul, Bernie, Ali, Brittany, Dan, Jay, Kelly, Maggie, Mark, Roger; Season Six “Families” 2008: Renee, Michelle, Phillip, Amy, Tom, L.T., Brady, Vicky, Amy, Shellay, Heba, Ed, Jerry, Coleen, Adam, Stacey; Season Seven “Couples” 2009: Filipe, Sione, Jerry, Estella, Cathy, Kristin, Ron, Mike, Damien, Nicole, Tara, Laura, Helen, Shanon, Carla, Joelle, Daniel, David, Dan, Blaine, Mandi, Aubrey. “Did They Keep the Weight Off ?” 9/4/07. Big Medicine. The Idea Factory. tlc. 2006–present. The Big Reveal. hgtv Productions. hgtv. 2008–present. Brand New You. Channel 4, British Broadcasting Company (bbc). bbca. 2005. “Nic­ola,” 7/24/05; “Wendy,” 7/31/05; “Clare Marie,” 8/28/05; “Penny,” 9/4/05. Bulging Brides. The Eyes. fln. 2008. Carter Can. High Noon Entertainment. hgtv. 2007–present. “Room for the Whole Family,” 10/4/07; “Mom’s Modern Retreat,” 3/13/08. Celebrity Duets. Syco Television. Fox. 2006–present. Celebrity Fit Club. Granada Entertainment. vh1. 2005–present. Celebrity Plastic Surgery: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. e! Entertainment Television. 2007. Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. Drew Pinsky, John Irwin, Howard Lapides, Damian Sullivan, Brad Kuhlman, executive producers. vh1. 2008. Changing Rooms. Linda Clifford, producer. bbca. 1996–2004. The City Gardener. Twofour. hgtv. 2005–2007. “Low-Maintenance CountryCottage Garden,” Emma, 11/12/05. Clean House. Style Network. Style. 2003–present. “The Messiest Home in the Country,” Sue Loria, 7/4/07. Clean House Comes Clean. Style Network. Style. 2007–present. “House-Modesitt/ Mast Families,” 8/29/07. Clean Sweep. Evolution Film and Tape. tlc. 2003–2005. Color Correction. Pie Town Productions. 2007. hgtv. “Modern Kitchen Makeover” Angela, 3/14/08. Color Splash. Edelman Productions. hgtv. 2007–present. Covershot. City Lights Television. tlc. 2006. “Brita D,” 8/25/06; “Dori,” 8/25/06. The Craze. Melissa Rivers, executive producer. Keep Clear. fit tv. 2006. “Battle of the Bulge,” 3/26/06; “Searching for Fame and Fitness,” 3/27/06. Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants. 20th Century Fox Television. cw. 2007–2008. Curb Appeal. Edelman Productions. hgtv. “Marketable Makeover,” 7/28/04; “Entertaining Makeover,” 6/22/05. Dancing With the Stars. bbc Worldwide Americas and bbc Worldwide. abc. 2005–present. Date My House. pb&j Television. tlc. 2008.

304  ·  Videography

Debbie Travis’ Face Lift. Facelift Productions. hgtv. 2003–2005. “Kitchen Makeover,” 10/29/04. Decorating Cents. Edelman Productions. hgtv. 1997–2006. Deserving Design. lmno Productions. hgtv. 2007–present. Design on a Dime. Pie Town Productions. hgtv. 2001–2006. “Moroccan-inspired Living Room,” 3/4/06. Designed to Sell. Pie Town Productions. hgtv. 2004–present. Designing for the Sexes. Pie Town Productions. hgtv. 2008–present. Designer Finals. High Noon Entertainment. hgtv. 2004–2005. Designers’ Challenge. Pie Town Productions. hgtv. 1998–present. Design Rivals. Design Rivals, Inc. and Magee tv Inc. hgtv, dcho, Lifestyle. 2003–present. “In the Pink,” Krista, 1/22/05. Design Star. 495 Productions and hgtv. hgtv. 2006–2007. Desperate Landscapes. Jay tv. diy. 2007–present. “Davenant’s Desperate Landscape,” 8/30/07. Desperate Spaces. Evolution Film and Tape. hgtv. 2008–present. DieTribe. Pie Town Productions. lrw. 2009.

diy to the Rescue. rivr Media. hgtv. diy. 2003–present. “Pimp Your Garage,” 4/28/07. Dog Whisperer. mph Entertainment Productions. ngc. 2004–present. “Dax, Pete, Nixa, Sugar, and Snowflake,” 7/30/06; “Fondue, Chip, Hope and JoyJoy and Elmer,” 1/12/07. Don’t Sweat It. City Lights Television. hgtv. 2006–present. “Dining Room Makeover,” 5/19/07; “Fireplace Facelift,” 12/29/07. Double Take. Edelman Productions. hgtv. 2006–present. “Colorful Dining Room,” 2/24/06. Drastic Plastic Surgery. Bryan Way, producer. oxgn. 2005–2006. Dr. 90210. e! Networks Productions. e! 2004–present. “New Beginnings and New Horizons: Part 3,” 3/6/06; “Labor of Love,” Roxanne, Joe, Heather, 1/9/06; “Sexual Healing,” Soledad, 8/20/07; “Eye on the Prize,” Jai, 10/1/07; “Hollywood Mending,” Jenny, 8/6/07: “The Gilded Age,” Amy, Nicole, Glynda, 10/22/07. Dr. Steve-O. Bunim/Murray Productions. usa. 2007. Dress My Nest. pb&j Television. Style. 2007–present. Dude, Where’s Your Style? Style Network Productions. Style. 2008. The EcoZone Project. EcoMedia. img Media. 2007. nbc. “Environmental Makeover,” 7/27/07. Extreme Celebrity Surgery. we. 2/12/07. Extreme Makeover. Lighthearted Entertainment. abc. e! Style. 2003–2007. Peggy, 4/30/03; Amy, 5/7/03; Samantha, 9/11/03; Dan, 9/18/03; Dana, 10/9/03; Liane, 10/16/03; Paula, 10/16/03; Michele, 10/23/03; Arthur, 1/22/04; “Battle

Videography  ·  305

of the Bulge,” Anthony, 2/19/04 and 3/26/04, LaPaula, 2/19/04 and 3/26/04; Dan, 3/10/04; James, 4/14/04; Kacie, 4/14/04; Nathaniel, 4/14/05; Kristina (Kristy), 4/28/04; Bill and Kim, 12/9/04; Paula update, 1/6/05; Tess, 1/6/05; Tricia, 1/20/05; Three Sisters, 1/20/05; Jennifer, 7/16/07. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Endemol usa. abc. cmt. 2004–present. “Teas Family,” 10/16/05; “Holiday Wishes [Laura Bush],” 12/11/05; “The Gillam Family,” 10/1/06. Extreme Makeover: Wedding Edition. Wedding Edition, Inc. abc. 5/9/05. The Ex-Wives Club. Glassman Media. abc. 2007. Fashion Fanatics. Beyond Productions. tlc. “Shoes and Handbags,” 8/17/07. Fashion Police. New Harbor Entertainment. e! 2004–present. Fat Camp. Gigantic! Productions. mtv. 2006. Fat Free Fiancés. 4th Floor Productions. Style. 2008–Present. Fat March. Ricochet. abc. 2007. “Premiere,” 8/6/07. Find Your Style. Edelman Productions. hgtv. “Ethnic Contemporary,” 8/12/07; “Boring Master Bedroom,” 9/22/07. Fit Family. City Lights Television. dhc. 2005. Flab to Fab. Evolution Film and Tape. vh1. 2004. Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School. 51 Minds Entertainment. vh1. 2007. Flip It Fast. Beyond Productions. hgtv. 2006. Flipping Out. Authentic Entertainment. tlc. 2007. “Top,” 7/31/07. Flip That House. Actual Reality Pictures. tlc. dcho. 2005–present. Flip This House. Departure Films. a&e. 2005–present. FreeStyle. Edelman Productions. hgtv. 2005–present. From G’s to Gents. 51 Minds. Fox King Entertainment. Endermol. mtv. 2008– present. The G Word. Authentic Entertainment. pg. 2008–present. Garden Police. Actuality Productions. dcho. 2005–2007. “Putting Greens Gone Wrong,” 8/4/05; “Hillside Headache,” 8/18/05; “Do it for the Kids,” 9/8/05; “A Tailored Yard,” 6/8/06. Generation Renovation. High Noon Entertainment. hgtv. 2006. “Pennsylvania Gothic; Colorado Tract Home; Wyoming Castle; Backyard Living Space,” 3/12/06. Get It Sold. Edelman Productions. hgtv. 2007–present. “New Baby Means Bigger Place,” 7/1/07. Get It Together. Edelman Productions. hgtv. 2007–present. “Two rooms and two cultures become a unified design,” 6/22/07. Greenovate. Actual Reality Pictures. dcho. 2007–present. Groomed. Chocolate Box Entertainment. fln. 2005–2007. Groomer Has It. 3-Ball Productions. ap. 2008–present. Grounds for Improvement. rivr Media. diy. 2005–present.

306  ·  Videography

Guru2Go. Cinamour Entertainment. fit tv. 2004. Hammer Heads. Pie Town Productions. hgtv. 2007–present. Head 2 Toe. Pie Town Productions. e! 2003–2005. “Stay at home Moms,” 10/24/03; “Joan and Melissa Rivers,” 4/9/04. He’s a Lady. Evolution Film and Tape. tbs. 2004. Help on the Homefront. rivr Media. diy. 2003. Hollywood Makeover Challenge. Four Point Entertainment. dhc. 2005. Hollywood Nipped and Tucked. vh1. 2006. Holmes on Homes. Make it Right Productions. dcho. 2005–present. “A River Ran Through It,” 2/10/05. Home to Go. hgtv. 2006–present. “Bachelor Party Pad,” 2/23/04. Homewrecker. mtv2. Jennifer Heftier and David Osper, executive producers. 2005. “Dive bar; underwear nightmare; ‘The Hoser;’ ‘Jelly John;’ ‘Shorty Pants.’ ” 10/30/05. Honey, We’re Killing the Kids. Jaimie Wilson, production manager. tlc. 2006– present. “Crisis Cholesterol,” 8/8/07. Hope for Your Home. Actual Reality Productions. tlc. 2008. How Clean is Your House? FreMantle Media. lrw. 2003–present. How Do I Look? Style Network. Style. 2004–present. “Irene Vaksberg,” 1/30/06; “Kimberly Simpson,” 8/21/06; “Irene Pan,” 1/1/07; “Nichole ‘Nicki’ Meuse,” 5/14/07; “Kathleen Valencia,” 5/21/07; “Valerie Perkins,” 7/30/07; “New Orleans: Rebuilding With Style,” Kimberly, Barbara, Carla, 9/1/07; “Deplum Your Wardrobe,” 6/19/08. (Colin and Justin’s) How Not to Decorate. Ricochet. bbca. 2004–present in UK; 2008–present in U.S. How to Look Good Naked. rdf usa. Axial Entertainment. A113media Company. Maverick Television. lrw. 2008. “Natasha and Juanita,” 1/19/08; “Deana Spence,” 1/25/08; “Alea Riggins,” 1/18/08; “Sharlene Debolt,” 2/8/08. I Can Make You Thin with Paul McKenna. 3-Ball Productions. tlc. 2008. Instant Beauty Pageant. Earth Angel Productions. Style. 2006–present. “Miami,” 1/28/06; “Houston,” 2/22/06; “Las Vegas,” 5/11/07; “Virginia Beach,” 4/6/07. Intervention. GRB Entertainment. a&e. “Sara Follow-Up Special,” 8/21/05; “Heidi and Michelle,” 12/11/05. I Lost It! dhc. 2003–present. “Denise and Eddie,” 4/17/03; “Joe and Sharon,” 4/27/04. Isaac. Style Network. Style. 2005–2007. It Takes a Thief. Lion Television. dsc. 2005–present. “Ambush Makeover,” 4/2/07; “Peeping John,” 4/11/07. I’ve Got Nothing to Wear. New Harbor Entertainment. tlc. 2007. I Want a Famous Face. Pink Sneakers Productions. mtv. 2004–present. (Britney Spears) Mia, 3/22/04.

Videography  ·  307

I Want to Look Like a High School Cheerleader Again. Triage Entertainment. cmt. 2007. The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency. FreMantle Media. oxgn. 2007–present. “Under the Knife,” 1/22/08. Junk Brothers. Knight Enterprises. hgtv. 2006–2007. Junk’d. Brad Hauter and Bret Skipper, Producers. wht. i-Life. tvs. 2005–2007. Kitchen Accomplished. rivr Media. 2004. food. “Bachelor’s Polenta Party,” Graham, 10/16/04. Kitchen Renovations. Edelman Productions. diy. 2006–present. Ladette to Lady. rdf Television. Sundance. 2005–present. “Coming out at Debutante Ball,” 3/9/07. The Last 10 Pounds Boot Camp. The Eyes. fln. 2007. Life After Extreme Makeover. New Screen Entertainment. abc. 1/7/04. Look-a-Like. tvg. 2006–present. “Jesssica Biel,” 12/20/06; “Johnny Depp,” 12/7/06; “Celine Dion,” 5/29/07; “Tyra Banks,” 8/9/06; “Halle Berry.” The Look for Less. New Harbor Entertainment. Style. 2002–present. “Home Edition,” 9/21/05. The Look for Less: Home Edition. New Harbor Entertainment. Style. 2006–present. Made. One Louder Productions. mtv. 2003–present. “Girly Girl,” Marissa, 5/25/06; “Prom Prince,” Jordan, 7/10/06; “Male Model,” Chris, 10/23/06; “Fashion Designer,” 7/24/07. Mail Order Makeover. rivr Media. fine. 2007–present. “Madden Bedroom,” 6/2/07; “Elliot Sunroom,” 5/5/07; “Toussan/Morton Family Room,” 6/16/07; “Fanning Master Bedroom,” 7/16/07; “Risin Dining Room,” 7/27/07. Make Me a Supermodel. Tiger Aspect Productions. bravo. 2006–present. A Makeover Story. Banyan Productions. tlc. 2000–2004. “Imus in the Morning,” Sid, 11/12/03. Makeover Mamas. Actuality Productions. a&e. 2003–2004. Makeover Manor. Point 7 Entertainment. tv1. “Trell,” 12/1/05; “Alivia,” 4/20/06. Makeover Train. tlc Broadband Series. http://tlc.discovery.com/broadband/ makeover-train/makeover-train.html. Making Over America with Trinny and Susannah. Executive Producer, Dean W. Slotar tlc. 2009. Denise, 1/25/09. Man Caves. Swift River Productions. diy. “Cigar Sanctuary,” 1/16/08; “Cincinnati Circa 1955,” 2/20/08. Material Girls. rivr Media. diy. 2005–present. Maxed Out. rtr Media. Style. 2007–present. “Donna: Catastrophic Shopaholic,” 2/28/06; “Sondra and Ashton,” 4/3/07; “Casie: Good, Bad, and Ugly Debt,” 2/20/07. Merge. Dalakis-McKeown Entertainment. Style. 2003–2005. Miami Slice. September Films. bravo. 2004. Mind Your Manners. City Lights Television. tlc. 2007.

308  ·  Videography

Mission: Organization. Nancy Glass Productions. hgtv. 2002–present. Mix it Up. Candy Corn Entertainment. we. 2003–2004. Mobile Home Disaster. Nu-Opp Productions. cmt. 2005. A Model Life. Rob Mackler, Production Manager. tlc. 2007. A Model Life. 25/7 Productions and Mattola Company. 2007. tlc. “A Model Diet,” 7/20/07. The Modern Girls’ Guide. pb&j Television. Style Network. Style. 2003–present. “Be a Domestic Diva,” 9/2/05; “See Your Sexy Self,” 6/30/06. Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance. Mo’Nique, executive producer. oxgn. 2006–2007. “Pageant,” 7/15/06. Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance Paris. Mo’Nique, executive producer. oxgn. 7/28/07. Mo’Nique: The Road to Paris. Don Weiner Productions. oxgn. 7/21/07. Monster Garage. Original Productions. tlc. 2002–2006. “Peel Trident Micro Car,” 3/14/05; “Full Steam Ahead,” 10/24/05. Moving Up. bbc Production Co. tlc. 2005–present. “Wedding Jitters and Barnyard Critters,” Linsey and Matt, Dan and Rob, Gail and Wilson, 11/19/05; “Shipped Up, Spent Out,” Sharon and Rick, Kevin and Michelle, Mark and Liam, 2/3/07. MSNBC Investigates: Dangerous Beauty. msnbc. 8/24/02. My Bare Lady. Zig Zag Productions. tlc. 2006. My Celebrity Home. New Harbor Entertainment. Style. 2006–present. “Kimora Lee Simmons,” 6/28/06; “Debbie Matenopoulos,” 7/5/06; “Mario Lopez,” “Cameron Matheson,” 5/3/06; “Desperate Housewives,” 5/31/06. My First Place. High Noon Entertainment. hgtv. “Indian Flavored Dining Room,” Amit and Rehana, 3/26/07. Myles of Style. hgtv Productions. hgtv. 2008–present. My Parent’s House. hgtv Productions. hgtv. 2005–present. Muscle Car Makeover. grb Entertainment. cmt. 2005. Nanny 911. Granada Entertainment. Fox. 2004–present. National Body Challenge. lmno Productions. dhc. 2006–2007. “Food Junkies,” 5/29/07. neat. Neat Productions Inc. dcho. 2004–present. “Clutter with Character,” 4/14/06. The Next Big Thing. bbc World. abc. 2007. Next Stop: New You. Autonomy Inc. lrw. 2005. New Attitudes. lmno/Lifetime. lrw. 1999–2005. “Stress relief; police officer makeover; Arriva Center, ira’s,” (Debi), 8/16/03. Newlywed, Nearly Dead. Proper Television. fln. 2007–present. New Morning. Lightworks-kpi. hall. “Expressing Yourself,” 9/20/07. The New You. Galan Productions. nbc. In production. Off-Road Adventures. oln. 2008.

Videography  ·  309

One Week to Save Your Marriage. bbc Productions usa. tlc. 2006–2007. Operation Style. Beantown Productions. lrw. 2000–2001. “Mom Makeover (Fran),” 2/7/01. Overhaulin’. Brentwood Communications International Inc. tlc. 2004–present. “Junk in the Trunk,” 7/25/06. Pageant School: Becoming Miss America. pb&j Television. cmt. 2006. Peter Perfect. 44 Blue Productions. Style. 2000–present. The Pick-Up Artist. 3 Ball Productions. vh1. 2007. “Premiere,” 8/5/07. Picture This. Re:Source Media Inc. dcho. 2004. “Front Yard Facelift and Bedroom Remodel,” 11/3/04. Pimp My Ride. R-Lab. mtv Series Development. mtv. 2004–present. “Land Rover,” Tad, 12/12/06; “1987 Chevy Blazer” Danelle, 11/21/04; “Jeep,” Jason, 7/13/06; “Dodge Caravan,” Tin, 7/17/05; “Where Are They Now?,” 4/5/07; “Jeep Grand Wagoneer,” Will, 6/9/07. Plastic Disasters. hbo Documentary. hbo. 2006. Plastic Makes Perfect. Breakthrough Films. fln. 2007–present. Plastic Surgery: 18 and Under. 3/23/05. Plastic Surgery: Before and After. Original Productions. dhc. 2002–2006. “New Looks, New Lives,” 12/11/05; “Reality Exposed,” Omarosa, 1/14/07; “Double Take,” (celebrity impersonators), 2/25/07. Plastic Surgery Beverly Hills. Julian P. Hobbs, Executive Producer. dhc. 2004–2005. “Plastic Fantastic,” 2/14/05; “Plastic Pecs,” 3/7/05. Plastic Surgery Beyond Nip and Tuck. National Geographic Channel Productions. ngc. 2004. Plastic Surgery: Laid Bare. Southan Morris, executive producer. Scream Films, produce for British Sky Television, 2004. Aired in United States on Fox Reality 3/15/05 (men) and 3/6/05 (women). Plastic Surgeryland L.A. Rachel Samuels, director. 2003. Plastic Surgery: New York Style. dhc. 2003. Property Ladder. tlc. FreMantle Media. tlc. 2001–present (UK); 2004–present (U.S.). Property Virgins. Nextfilm Productions. hgtv. 2007–present. Queer Eye for the Straight Girl. Scout Productions. bravo. 2005. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Bob’s Your Uncle Pictures. bravo Original. Scout Productions. bravo. 2003–2007. “Enroll this Trifecta in Domestic Boot Camp: The Rotondo Family,” 8/8/06; “From Big Boy to Broadway Baby: Eric S.,” 8/29/06; “Getting Kicked Out of the Garden of Eaten: Adam and Steve,” 9/5/06; “Taking the Stuffing out of the Lovebirds: Erik and Khadijah,” 8/22/06; “Turn This Fat Man Into an Iron Man: Todd E.,” 9/12/06; “100th Episode–Straight Man Pageant,” 10/2/07. Ready, Set, Change! tv Guide–Gemstar. tvg. 2005.

310  ·  Videography

Real Simple. Real Life. Brand New Entertainment. tlc. 2008–present. Redneck Dreams. cmt. 2008. Relationship Rehab. Kingfish Productions. Style. 2006. Renovate My Family. Rocket Science Laboratories. Fox, Fox Reality. 2004. “ColeReimer Family,” 9/20/04; “The Blankenship Family,” 10/4/04. Renovation Nation. Mike Mathis Productions. pg. 2008–present. Restaurant Makeover. Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting Inc. food. 2005–present. “High Point Restaurant” Tim, 1/23/06. The Right Fit. fln. “Emily’s Makeover,” 10/5/04; “People’s Lunches Get Looked At,” 3/15/05; “Phil Gets Self-Confidence,” 4/5/05; “Julie’s Rejuvenation,” 7/7/05. Rock of Love: Charm School. 51 Minds Entertainment. vh1. 2008. Rock Solid. nahb Production Group. diy. 2007. “Two Guys,” 1/25/07. Room by Room. Beachwood Studios. hgtv. 1994–present. “An Artful Sunny Experience,” 1/12/02. Room Service. Primevista Television. hgtv. 2005. “Spa Experience,” 5/30/05. Rooms That Rock. Scripps’ Fine Living Network. fln. 2005–2006. “Amazing Maze Bedrooms,” 8/5/06. Ruby. Gay Rosenthal Productions. Style. 2008. Save My Bath. Nancy Glass Productions. hgtv. 2006–present. “Icky Industrial Bath,” 11/7/06. Save Us From Our House. General Purpose Productions. w. 2005. Scott Baio is 45 . . . and Single. vh1. 3 Ball Productions. Bischoff-Hervey Entertainment. “Week Four–blondes,” 7/29/07; “Week Five–daycare,” 8/5/07; “Week Six–intimacy,” 8/12/07; “Week Seven–friends,” 8/19/07; Week Eight–decision time,” 8/26/07. Scott Baio is 46 . . . and Pregnant. 3 Ball Productions. Bischoff-Hervey Entertain­ ment. vh1. 2008. A Second Look. Style Network Productions. Style. 2003. Secret Lives of Women: Plastic Surgery Addicts. Kaos Entertainment. we. Part I, 12/26/05; Part II, 9/12/06. Secrets of Extreme Makeover. New Screen Entertainment. 1/7/05. Shalom in the Home. Diverse usa. tlc. dhc. 2006–2007. “The Romeros,” 4/10/06; “The Lubners,” 4/24/06; “The Maxwells,” 5/8/06; “The Meiskins,” 5/25/07. Shaq’s Big Challenge. rdf Media. abc. 2007. Sheila Bridges: Designer Living. Al Roker Productions. fln. 2002–2005.“The Male Room,” 7/27/03; “Hollywood Makeover,” 12/26/04. She’s Got the Look. Allison Grodner Productions. tvland. 2008. Shut Up! with Stacy London. bbc Production usa. tlc. 2007. Simplify Your Life. Concentric Entertainment. fln. “Husband Greg Makeover; Office Redesign,” 6/6/04.

Videography  ·  311

Skating with Celebrities. A. Smith & Co. Fox. 2006. Speaking of Women’s Health. Jennifer Setzer, Executive Producer. lrw. 2001–2004. “Non-surgical makeovers and adult add,” 8/21/04. Spice Up My Kitchen. Nancy Glass Productions. hgtv. 2007–present. “Decrepit, Dysfunctional Kitchen,” 5/12/07. The Stagers. Paperny Films. hgtv. 2008. Starting Over. Bunim/Murray Productions. nbc. 2003–2006. Straight Plan for the Gay Man. Borderline tv. cc. 2004. Style by Jury. Planetworks, Inc. we. “Sharon,” 3/10/07; “Donna,” 3/24/007. Style Court. Style Network Productions. Style. 2003–present. Style Her Famous. Style Network Productions. Style. 2006–present. “Angelina Jolie,” 9/4/06; “Halle Berry,” Camilla, 9/11/06; “Jessica Simpson,” 9/25/06; “Beyonce,” 3/12/07; “Drew Barrymore,” Clare, 3/19/07; “Tyra Banks,” 4/2/07; “Katie Holmes,” Christina, 5/14/07. Styleyes: Los Angeles. sitv Productions. sitv. 2005. Styleyes: Miami. sitv Productions. sitv. 2007. “Makeover Miami,” 9/6/07. Stylelicious. Screen Door Entertainment. diy. 2006–2007. “Babies deserve style too,” 3/6/07. Supernanny. Ricochet. abc. 2005–present. “Nitti Family,” 2/5/07. Surprise by Design. hom. “Luck’s about to Change,” 11/2/04. The Swan. Galan Productions. Fox. 2004. Rachel and Kelley, 4/7/04; Cristina and Kristy, 4/12/04; Cindy and Tawnya, 4/19/04; Beth and Kathy, 4/26/04; Andrea and Belinda, 5/3/04; Sarina and Kelly B., 5/10/04; Tanya and Merline, 5/10/04; Dawn and Marnie, 5/17/04; Swan Pageant I, 5/24/04; “Where are they now?,” 10/25/04; Kim and Jennifer, 10/25/04; Gina and Lorrie, 11/1/04; Erica and Christina, 11/8/04; Kari and Gina, 11/15/04; Cinnamon and Patti, 11/22/04; DeLisa and Lorraine, 11/20/04; Sylvia and Marsha, 12/6/04; Dore and Amy, 12/13/04; Swan Pageant II, 12/20/04. Tabatha’s Salon Takeover. Reveille Productions. bravo. 2008–present. Takeover my Makeover. Pie Town Productions. hgtv. 2006–present. 10 Years Younger. Evolution Film and Tape. tlc. 2004–present. “Aging 9-1-1,” 12/13/04; “Deconstructing Mike,” 12/13/04; “Breaking New Ground on an Old Look,” Dane, 2/2/05; “Searching for the Fountain of Youth,” Steve, 2/16/05; “A Very Tall Order,” Milene, 9/2/05; “Guilty of Needing a Makeover,” Leta, 9/6/05; “D’Nice,” Dwayne, 9/13/05; “Keep on Truckin’,” Michael, 10/13/05; “Changing for the Better,” Laura, 10/28/05; “Smokin Hot,” 2/19/08; “The Diva is Back and on Track,” 2/20/08; “Hip Hop Momma,” 3/20/08. This Old House. This Old House Productions. pbs. 1979–present.

ths Investigates: Plastic Surgery Nightmares. e! 2005. Time Makeover. Distillery Pictures. fln. 2007–present. “DC and Cathy,” 1/26/08. Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. bravo Productions. bravo. 2007. “Rebecca Pennino,”

312  ·  Videography

9/6/07; “JeAnne,” 9/13/07: “Nicole,” 9/20/07; “Stephanie,” 9/27/07; “Karen Vito,” 12/6/07. To Be Fat Like Me. Director, Douglas Barr. lrw. January 2007. Tool Academy. 495 Productions. vh1. 2009. Top Chef. Magic Elves Productions. food. 2006–present. Toolbelt Diva. Screaming Flea Productions. dcho. 2004–2008. “Groovy Bar Makeover,” 9/3/04. Trading Spaces. Banyan Productions. tlc. dsc. 2000–present. “Matchmaker,” 6/17/06. Trading Spaces: Boys vs. Girls. Banyan Productions. dckids. “Eli vs. Kali,” 7/19/03. Trial by Choir. Tiger Tigress Productions. tlc. 2006. Trick It Out. Sokolobl Entertainment. mtv3s. 2005. Trick My Truck. Varuna Films Inc. cmt. 2006–present. “Peterbilt Wrecker,” 8/3/07; “Vietnam War Memorial Van,” 3/23/07; “Ultimate Ice Cream Truck,” 8/17/07. Trick My Trucker. Varuna Films Inc. cmt. 2007–present. “Trucker from Victorville, Calif.,” 11/20/07. “Man Competes with Trucker” Jeremy, 12/1/07. True Life. Gigantic! Productions. mtv. 1998–present. “I Want a Perfect Body,” I, 8/7/03, II, 7/7/05; “This is Me Now,” 9/29/07.

tv Candy. Melissa Rivers, producer. tvtg. 2005–present. 24 Hour Design. Pie Town Productions. hgtv. 2006–present. Ugliest House on the Block. NorthSouth Productions. we. 2008–present. Ultimate Goals. Organic Entertainment. Fit tv. 2005. “Almost Fame-ous,” Michelle, 1/4/05. Ultimate Plastic Surgery: Before and After. “Let’s Talk Cosmetic Surgery,” Joan Rivers Impersonator, 5/11/05; “Radical Renewal” Lousie, 1/18/06. Ultimate Style. Style. 2007–present. “Hollywood Procedures,” 1/5/08. A Very Cool Christmas. Sam Irvin, director. lrw. 2004.

vh1 New Presents: Plastic Surgery Obsessions. World of Wonder. vh1. 2005. Viva La Bam. Dakota Pictures. mtv. 2003–2005. “The Christmas Episode,” 11/30/03. X-Weighted. Anaid Film Productions, Inc. Life. 2006–present. Weekend Warriors. Pie Town Productions. diy. “2002–2003. Kitchen Makeover,” 10/17/02. Weighing In. Pie Town Productions. food. 2005. What Not to Wear. A British Broadcasting Production for The Learning Channel. tlc. 2003–present. “Dave,” 10/3/03; “Ken,” 1/16/2004; “Cynthia,” 3/5/04; “Terry,” 6/18/04; “Diana,” 7/11/04; “Will,” 10/8/04; “Chris,” 11/19/04; “Charlie,” 1/14/05; “Ed,” 2/25/05; “Jeanine,” 4/15/05; “Christine,” 8/19/05; “Elizabeth,” (Liz), 12/9/05; “Dara,” 2/24/06; “Lynn,” 3/3/06; “Katie,” 6/23/06 ; “Laurie,” 7/7/06; “Christina C.,” 10/20/06; “Cristina H.,” 1/12/07; “Made in Manhattan,” Sherilee, 4/1/07; “Where Are They Now?,” 8/24/07.

Videography  ·  313

What Not to Wear. British Broadcasting Company. bbca. 2001–present. “Kim,” 12/13/01; “Sam,” 1/16/02; “Matthew,” 5/6/03; “Menopause,” 3/29/05; “Mr. Commitment,” 4/12/05; “Two Divorced Women,” 4/13/06; “Midlife Crisis,” 4/19/05; “Stylish Sisters,” Saira, 12/12/06; “Men at Midlife,” Tommy, 5/3/06; “Grandmothers,” 4/26/06; “Twenty-Somethings,” Sarah, 5/7/06; “Women Who Have Had Mastectomies,” 2/11/07; “Women with Younger Men,” 4/4/07; “Women with Teenage Daughters,” 11/5/05. What’s Your Sign Design. True Entertainment. hgtv. 2006–present. While You Were Out. bbc Production usa. tlc. dcho. 2002–present. Wide World of Horses. rfd. “Extreme Mustang Makeover,” 8/27/07. Yard Crashers. Idea Factory. diy. 2008. You Are What You Eat. Celador for Channel 4. bbca. 2007–present. Your Place or Mine? Lion Share Productions. tlc. 2008. Yummy Mummy. Yummy Productions. dhc. 2005–2006. “Men,” 1/18/06.

314  ·  Videography

index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. affective currency, 74, 107, 200–201, 233, 236, 243 affective domination, 30, 40, 82, 94–99, 114, 253 After-body: accentuating degradation of Before-body, 83, 187; advertising

American Hot Rod, 205 American Idol, 29, 270 n. 7; American Dream and, 46–47; Americanness on, 270 n. 6; celebrity on, 217, 237, parodies of, 282 n. 17 Americanness, 81, 270 n. 6; celebrity

the, 103; authentic selfhood and, 166;

and, 218, 232; discourse of democ-

celebratory visibility and, 60, 143,

racy, 270 n. 6; discourse of meritoc-

217, 246, 251; as citizen-subject, 40,

racy as, 157; distinct from the United

79, 178; defined, 5; qualities of, 9, 22,

States, 47, 28, 29, 33, 38; exportable

35, 129, 225; spectacular empower-

ideology, 48, 140; infused with glam-

ment in, 255, 259

our, 48, 49; masculinity and, 174–81;

Allen, Dennis W., 196, 200, 278 n. 13 Ambush Makeover, 33, 42; acceptable affect on 88; as agent of care, 98; celebrity in, 218; class in, 144; regu-

predicated on sameness, 48, 178; whiteness and, 67 American Princess, 127, 140, 143, 155, 215, 270 n. 9

lating race, ethnicity, and gender on,

America’s Got Talent, 237

127–28, 276 n. 3; the reveal, 99; shame

America’s Next Top Model, 12, 28, 200,

on, 97; subjects as felons on, 102

282 n. 22; celebrity on, 217, 237; class

American Chopper, 205

on, 140–41; diversity on, 155; interna-

American Dream, 29, 37; American

tional reach of, 270 n. 9; labor and,

nightmare, 140; celebrity and, 46; as

229–31; shame on, 83

global signifier, 46–48; as individual

Anderson, Benedict, 40

achievement, 189; normative femi-

Andrejevic, Mark, 141–42, 274 n. 3

ninity and, 34; normative masculin-

Are You Hot?, 95

ity and, 34; reconstituted, 39, 47; the

Arresting Design, 91

self-made man, 174–75

Australian Princess, 218

Baker, Roger, 166

Angeles on, 49, 122; reveal, 99;

Balsamo, Anne, 92, 268 n. 12

selfhood and celebrity on, 235; style

Banet-Weiser, Sarah, 165, 271 n. 15

expert on, 282 n. 22

beauty: commodity as, 55; currency as, 168, 259

Bratich, Jack Z., 52–53, 283 n. 28 Braudy, Leo, 215, 232, 279 n. 4, 280 n. 8

Beauty and the Geek, 28

Brock, Claire, 279 n. 4

Before-body: as damsel in distress, 171;

Brodhead, Richard, 96–98

imperiled selfhood, 13, 260, 267–68

Brown, Wendy, 51, 52, 54, 62, 111

n. 6; incapable of self-care, 51, 163;

Brundson, Charlotte, 25–26

made intelligible through suffering,

Bulging Brides, 2, 274 n. 8

14, 76; qualities of, 7, 122; as spec-

Butler, Judith, 13, 38, 267–68 n. 6;

tacle of abnormality, 93

embodiment, 149, 166; performativ-

Benjamin, Walter, 244

ity, 125, 129; theories of interimplica-

Berila, Beth, 33, 197, 278 n. 13

tion, 18

Berlant, Lauren, 48, 270 n. 5 Beyond Plastic Surgery, 181, 182

Carr, C. Lynn, 155

Biggest Loser, The, 1, 2, 9, 12, 14, 15, 20,

Carter Can, 14

27; celebrity on, 218, 250, 272 n. 22;

celebrity culture, 26, 30, 35, 271 n. 14,

gender imperatives on, 10, 11; as

279 n. 4; authenticity and counter-

pornography, 268 n. 8; shame on,

feit, 237–45; celebrated selfhood,

138; subjects as inspirational, 63, 64;

216, 255; celebrity/ordinary apart-

transnational media product as, 29,

heid, 241, 245; commodification

269 n. 17, 270 n. 9; tropes of Ameri-

and, 224–28, 247; as cultural ideals,

canness on, 67–71

257; fairytales and, 249–51; forms of

Black Don’t Crack: The Cosmetic Surgery Debate, 135

labor and, 228–31, 234–44; gender and, 221–22, 231; hierarchies of value

Blinder, Alan S., 41, 60

and, 220; Los Angeles in relation

Blum, Virginia, 17, 119, 165–66, 245, 280

to, 49–51; Makeover Nation and,

n. 8 body dysmorphic disorder, 104, 106–10, 162 Bolotin, Susan, 25

38, 215–17; the makeover’s celebrity typologies, 217–19; reluctant celebrity, 232–35, stars and intimacy, 245–48, 282 n. 25

Bonner, Frances, 267 n. 2

Celebrity Duets, 199, 218

Boorstin, Daniel J., 221–23, 225, 227,

Celebrity Fit Club, 90, 218, 236; diversity

279–80 n. 7, 280 n. 9 Bordo, Susan, 52, 78, 181, 203, 268 n. 12 Bosniak, Linda, 41

on, 155; as pornography, 268 n. 8 Celebrity Plastic Surgery: The Good, the Bags, and the Ugly, 260

Bourdieu, Pierre, 97, 243

Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, 218

Brand New You, 2, 23, 28; body as visu-

Changing Rooms, 267 n. 1

ally shameful, 93, 94, 95; discourses

Chapkis, Wendy, 268 n. 12

of Americanness on, 45, 48; Los

Chase, Alisia G., 280 n. 15

316  ·  Index

Choudhuri, Devika Dibya, 33, 197, 278 n. 13 citizen-subject, 38, 39; cultural ideal,

Deserving Design, 13, 14, 208 Designing for the Sexes, 24 Design on a Dime, 42

257; depicted as felon, 44–45; glamour

Desperate Landscapes, 13

and, 50–51, 256; normative mandates,

Di Matta, Joanna L., 204

41, 52, 70–71; restrictions on, 44–45

disciplinary intimacy, 96–98

City Gardener, The, 12

discursive penetration, 73, 74

class, 42–43, 139–47, 259, 265, 282 n. 26;

discursive transvestitism, 202

indicative of defect, 123, 153; middle-

Ditz, Toby L., 195

class mandates, 42, 128, 142, 228;

docile body, 52, 124, 173

upward mobility, 101; visibility as

Dog Whisperer, 27, 28, 95, 279 n. 15;

class pedagogy, 93, 94 Clean House, 12, 32; celebrity on, 218,

celebrity 218, 270–71 n. 12; deserving the makeover, 272 n. 24, 277 n. 12;

227, 228; Los Angeles on, 49; obses-

diversity on, 67; Los Angeles on, 49,

sive compulsive disorder in, 105–6;

122; self-esteem and, 60, 253

shame on, 87, 98

Donoghue, Frank, 279 n. 4

Cloud, Dana L., 69

Double Take, 282 n. 23

Cohan, Steven, 183, 278 n. 2

Douglas, Mary, 21

Colebrook, Claire, 273 n. 31

Douglas, Susan J., 25

Color Correction, 1

Dover, Caroline, 268 n. 11, 270 n. 10,

Connell, R.W., 180, 181, 183, 184, 278 n. 2, 278 n. 6 Couldry, Nick, 251, 279 n. 3

283 n. 27 Dow, Bonnie J., 206 Dr. 90210, 2, 23, 81, 107, 199, 275 n. 15;

Covershot, 33; After-body on, 255; celeb­

breasts as modified on, 95, 159–60;

rity on, 217, 229; deserving the make­

critique of doctors, 119, 120–21; de-

over, 272 n. 24

serving the makeover, 272 n. 24; Los

Craig, Maxine Leeds, 132 Craze, The, 2, 218

Angeles on, 122; penises as modified on, 182; shame on, 100

Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants, 199

Dr. Steve-O, 210

Curb Appeal, 53

Drastic Plastic Surgery, 23, 182 Dress My Nest, 199, 282 n. 22

Dally, Ann, 275 n. 16

Duggan, Lisa, 41, 180, 189

Dancing with the Stars, 218

Dyer, Richard, 174–5, 215, 221, 279 n. 4,

Date My House, 53

280 n. 8; star as individual, 235; star

Davis, Kathy, 9, 73, 77, 78, 114, 268 n. 12

commodification, 225

Debbie Travis’ Face Lift, 28, 91 Decker, Jeffrey Louis, 172, 178, 270 n. 2, 280 n. 11 Decorating Cents, 31, 141; the reveal on, 99 Deery, June, 59, 226

Egginton, William, 226 emotionalism, 87–88, 104–15 ethnicity, 12, 131–38, 276 n. 2, 276 n. 3; ethnic exoticism, 42, 128, 134–39; re­ presented as defect, 133–34, 153

Index  ·  317

experts (doctors, trainers, style

Extreme Makeover: Wedding Edition, 85, 87

gurus): all-knowing, 17; authority of

Ex-Wives Club, The, 218–20

doctors, 119, 120–21, 185; celebrities,

Faludi, Susan, 180, 212, 280 n. 12

217–18; critiqued, 115–24, 275 n. 17,

Fashion Police, 91, 200, 218, 241, 282

275 n. 18; English authorities, 140;

n. 22

everywhere, 282 n. 22; gay-coded

Fausto-Sterling, Anne, 151, 277 n. 8

stylists, 185, 209; heroes, 171; hyper-

Find Your Style, 137

masculine, 209

Fiske, John, 16

Extreme Makeover, 1, 2–4, 12, 20, 23, 28,

Flab to Fab, 217

259; abdominoplasty 58; acceptable

Flip It Fast, 43

affect on, 98; affirmation through the

Flipping Out, 53, 104–5, 110

gaze and, 89, 126; authentic selfhood,

Flip That House, 53

102, 130, 154; authority of doctors

Flip This House, 53

on, 118, 120; Before- and After-body,

Foucault, Michel, 4–5, 78, 90, 97, 124

3; celebratory excess, 260; celebrity,

Franzoi, Stephen L., 182

218, 246, 250, 282 n. 22; consumer-

Fraser, Suzanne, 267 n. 4

ism on, 59; critique of program, 108;

Freeman, Elizabeth, 48, 270 n. 5

docile bodies on, 124; expense of, 31;

FreeStyle, 59

ethnicity and race on, 134–36; famil-

Fremlin, Jennifer, 268 n. 8

ial support on, 44; heteronomativity

From G’s to Gents, 177–78, 200

on, 155, 164–66, 185; homogenized

Frost, Liz, 268 n. 12

femininity on, 32, 127, 147, 151, 167;

Frowe, John, 280 n. 14

Los Angeles on, 49, 122; men and

Furedi, Frank, 26; 280 n. 8

masculinity on, 173, 184–96, 201; meritocracy in, 72; mothers’ bodies,

Galán, Nely, 42, 111–14, 133, 149, 168, 260

159, 161; neoliberalism and, 54–55, 62;

Gallagher, Amanda Hall, 273 n. 31

normalcy on, 23–24; postfeminism

Gamson, Joshua, 21, 225, 243, 279 n. 4,

on, 153; the reveal, 99; shame on, 87, 97; transnational media product as, 29, 47, 199, 270 n. 9 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, 12, 14, 20; acceptable affect, 88, 98–99, 123; celebrity, 50, 218, 282 n. 22; deserv-

280 n. 8, 281 n. 18 Garden Police, 91; subject as felon, 45, 45–46, 102, 130 Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie, 261 gaze, the: as agent of governmentality, 89, 179; assurance of selfhood

ing the makeover, 160, 275 n. 19;

through, 102, 215, 251; confirmation

enforced removal of subjects, 45;

of value through, 38, 43, 85, 88–89,

excess 260, 275 n. 19; governmental

139; as form of labor, 228–31; norma-

replacement as, 65–66; missing men

tive, 255; pleasure in to-be-looked-

on, 208; neoliberalism and, 66, 272

at-ness, 82, 90, 99, 126, 164, 228–29;

n. 26; selflessness, 63, 64, 160; as

site of pathology as, 108–9, 145,

transnational media product, 29, 48,

253; site of regulation as, 144–45;

270 n. 9

site of resistance as, 115–24; source

318  ·  Index

of empowerment, 52, 90, 192, 259;

Holliday, Ruth, 165, 271 n. 15

supremacy of image, 100–101

Holmes, Su, 21, 221, 235, 279 n. 3, 279

gender regulation, 112, 118, 121, 150, 213,

n. 4, 281–82 n. 21

265; celebrity and, 216, 250; gender

Holmes on Homes, 28, 208

performativity and, 129, 149, 231, 232;

Holmlund, Chris, 276 n. 1

as makeover mandate, 169–70; social

Home to Go, 208

relief, 159

Homewrecker, 210, 211

Ghoussoub, Mai, 278 n. 7 Giddens, Anthony, 26, 267 n. 2

Honey, We’re Killing the Kids, 15, 140, 205, 273 n. 2, 277 n. 12

Gillan, Jennifer, 272 n. 23

Hope for Your Home, 53

Gilman, Sander L., 256

How Clean is Your House?, 30, 32, 95, 140

Gimlin, Debra, 9, 73, 268 n. 12, 271

How Do I Look?, 1, 2, 12, 127; body dys-

n. 18, 272 n. 21

morphic disorder, 108–10; celebrity,

Gray, Herman, 70, 129, 178

116, 218, 294 n. 22; class in, 143;

Greenovate, 27

deserving the makeover, 272 n. 24;

Grewal, Inderpal, 46, 47, 59

familial support on, 44; Hurricane

Groomer Has It, 27, 200

Katrina victims on, 65–66; meta-

Guru2Go, 27

phors of government, 91; normative

G-Word, The, 27, 177

femininity on, 32; regulating race, ethnicity, and gender, 132; resistance

Haiken, Elizabeth, 72, 135, 147

on, 269 n. 19, 272–73 n. 27; shame of

Halberstam, Judith, 147, 151; masculinity,

hiding on, 60; supremacy of image,

race, and class, 175; tomboys, 155–56 Hammer Heads, 208

101; tomboys on, 156 How to Look Good Naked, 29, 61, 199;

Haralovich, Mary Beth, 269 n. 14

economy of looking on, 84–85, 86,

Hark, Ina Rae, 183, 278 n. 2

253–55, 255; therapeutic agent as, 108

Hawkins, Gay, 267 n. 2 Hay, James, 274 n. 4 Head 2 Toe, 2, 33, 43, 169, 200; celebrity on, 218, 282 n. 22; deserving the makeover, 272 n. 24

ideological opportunism, 15, 18, 66, 248–49, 268 n. 7; feminism and, 160–61 (ill)logics (of the makeover narrative), 4, 7, 18, 23, 35, 89, 251; addiction/

Heller, Dana, 38, 278 n. 13

empowerment, 107, 125; isolation/

Help on the Homefront, 272 n. 25

inclusion, 44; ordinary/extraordi-

heteronormativity, 12, 13, 163–68, 270 n. 16 Heyes, Cressida J., 139, 267 n. 4, 268 n. 9, 283 n 28 Hill, Annette, 267 n. 2, 268 n. 11, 269 n. 14, 270 n. 10, 283 n. 27

nary, 50 I Lost It!, 2, 32, 62; heteronomativity on, 155 Instant Beauty Pageant, 166; celebrity on, 217, 223, 238–39, 242; Los Angeles glamour and, 50

hoarding, 105–06

Intervention, 9, 29, 95, 107

Hobson, Janell, 132, 170

Isaac, 42, 218, 241

Index  ·  319

It Takes a Thief, 96 I’ve Got Nothing to Wear, 59 I Want a Famous Face, 1, 23, 165–66; abdominoplasty, 58; celebrity, 217, 237–38; expense of procedures, 31

Made, 76; normative femininity and, 32, 156–58; surveillance on, 91 Mail Order Makeover, 137, 208; Los Angeles on, 50 Make Me a Supermodel, 229 makeover, the: authentic identity and,

Jackson, Cindy, 58

149; class tutorial as, 142; consumer-

Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, 229

ism and, 33, 58–59, 141, 224–28; as

Jensen, Joli, 280 n. 10

cure for postmodernity, 14, 129; as

Johannsson, Sofia, 223

fairytale, 123, 225, 248–51, 283 n. 28;

Johnson-Woods, Toni, 274 n. 3

international production of, 29,

Jones, Meredith, 17, 267 n. 4, 268 n. 10

47–48; narrative of, 17–18, 29–33, 87,

Judge Hatchett, 144–47

113–14, 182; normalcy on, 23–24;

Junk Brothers, 141

par­ticipants (male), 172, 175; as reli-

Junk’d, 211

gious text, 6, 35, 107, 136, 228, 258, 280 n. 13, 280 n. 14; resistance to,

Kessler, Suzanna J., 277 n. 8

72–74, 112, 115–24, 184, 269 n. 19;

Kimmel, Michael, 179, 180

scare tactics on, 21, 53, 69–71, 88, 102;

Kitchen Accomplished, 243

as social practice, 4; thematic para­

Kooijman, Japp, 278 n. 13

doxes of, 4, 7, 18, 23, 35, 89, 251; treat­ ment of race and ethnicity in, 137;

Ladette to Lady, 28, 93, 140, 143, 177, 277 n. 6 Lakoff, Robin, 278 n. 2 Lasch, Christopher, 221–24, 226, 280 n. 8 Li, David Leiwei, 48 Life After Extreme Makeover, 108 Look-a-Like, 1, 33; celebrity on, 217, 229, 240–41 Look for Less, The, 141, 218, 282 n. 23; Los Angeles on, 50 looking, economy of: four-part viewing apparatus 84, perception revolution, 85

tv differences from film, 19; See also class; ethnicity; (ill)logics; male resistance; race Makeover Manor, 1, 33, 49–50, 271 n. 13; celebrity and, 216, 218; masculinity and, 171, 178–79, 189 Makeover Story, A, 1, 141, 218, 275–76 n. 20 makeunder, 143–47 Making Over America with Trinny & Susannah, 37, 94 male resistance (to the makeover), 184–87, 198, 210 Man Caves, 208

Lorber, Judith, 216

Marshall, P. David, 235, 279 n. 4

Los Angeles: ideological center of the

Material Girls, 141

makeover, 49–51

Maxed Out, 28, 227, 228

Lotz, Amanda D., 276 n. 1

McCarthy, Anna, 271 n. 16

Lovell, Alan, 235

McGee, Micki, 14, 58, 187, 257

love-power, 40, 82, 96–99, 114

McMurria, John, 272 n. 26

Luciano, Lynne, 182

McPherson, Tara, 52, 268 n. 9

320  ·  Index

McRobbie, Angela, 97, 165, 283 n. 1

female woman, 154; the lady, 144,

Merge, 24, 218

158; manly women, 147–54, 152;

Miller, Toby, 40, 67, 225, 226, 229, 269

moms, 159–63; no gender ambiguity,

n. 1 Mind Your Manners, 143, 277 n. 6 Mission: Organization, 12, 91, 227, 250

128; tomboys, 154–59; unchanging womanhood, 149 normative masculinity: American-

Mix it Up, 218

ness, 174–81; authenticity and, 193,

Mizejewski, Linda, 52, 67

196, 212; black male body, 176–77;

Model Life, A, 217, 229

everyman as, 178; the penis and,

Modern Girls’ Guide, The, 243

182–83; renegotiating the hegemonic,

Monahan, Torin, 88

183–84; tropes of selfhood, 172, 211;

Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance, 138, 147, 166,

See self-made man

218 Mo’Nique’s Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School, 143, 177, 277 n. 6 Monster Garage, 28, 205

Olivardia, Roberto, 212 One Week to Save Your Marriage, 30, 95, 101, 205

Morgan, Kathryn Pauly, 268 n. 12

Ong, Aihwa, 52

Moving Up, 31, 43, 208, 279 n. 16

Operation Style, 91, 160

Munoz, Jose Esteban, 197

Oprah, 2, 164, 246–47

My Bare Lady, 140

Ouellette, Laurie, 78, 144, 274 n. 4

My Celebrity Home, 12, 31, 200; celebrity

Outrageous Wasters, 27

on, 217, 242–45; masculinity on,

Overhaulin’, 91, 205

208–09 Palmer, Gareth, 125; celebrity, 279 n. 2, Nanny 911, 95, 205

282 n. 22; class and consumerism

National Body Challenge, 110

139, 141; neoliberalism, 51, 64, 227;

Neale, Steve, 278 n. 2

oppressive makeover hosts, 97;

neat, 12, 32

shame, 84, 89–91; surveillance,

Negra, Diane, 67, 159, 267 n. 5, 269 n. 15

274 n. 3 Pecot-Hebert, Lisa, 273 n. 31

neoliberalism, 25, 33, 81, 261, 272 n. 26;

Phillips, Deborah, 136, 139

celebrity and, 54, 215, 227; citizen-

Phillips, Katharine A., 212

ship discourses and, 38, 51–60, 79;

Pick-Up Artist, The, 171, 177, 205

entrepreneurship of the self, 203;

Picture This, 282 n. 23

limited theoretical tool, 51–52;

Pimp My Ride, 12, 28, 29, 163, 215; ac-

masculinity and, 180, 187; race and,

ceptable affect and, 88; authorities,

132, 189

122–24; care of others, 63, 272 n. 25;

New Attitudes, 148, 282 n. 22

celebratory excess on, 260; celebrity

Next Big Thing, The, 237

and, 218; diversity of participants on,

normative femininity, 102, 112, 115;

67; enforced removal of subjects, 45;

always happy, 154; celebrity woman-

expense and, 31; familial support

hood, 234; eternally youthful, 169;

on, 44; Los Angeles on, 49;

Index  ·  321

Pimp My Ride (continued)

race, 12, 42, 131–38, 271 n. 17; the black

masculinity on, 205; meritocracy

male body, 176–77, 189, 192; colonial-

and, 37–38; transnational media

izing logics, 74–77, 254; control in

product as, 47–48

relation to, 75; deracination/reraci-

Pitts-Taylor, Victoria, 7, 106, 267 n. 4

nation, 78, 128, 134–39, 178; form of

Plastic Disasters, 23

defect, 123, 153; racial anonymity, 42,

Plastic Makes Perfect, 74

73; within plastic surgery, 135; white-

Plastic surgery: glorification of doc-

ness, 42, 52, 67, 70; white masculin-

tors, 119; men and, 181–82; race and

ity, 174

ethnicity, 134–5; relation to makeover

Ready, Set, Change!, 217, 241–42

tv, 136; surgery junkies, 106–7;

Reality Made Over, 149

weight-loss surgery, 56, 57

reality tv: cost of production 27; the

Plastic Surgery: Before and After, 2, 23,

nature of reality, 16, 22, 87, 248

28; celebrity on, 239–40; self-esteem

Real Simple. Real Life, 246

and, 60

reception (of makeover shows), 110,

Plastic Surgery: Laid Bare, 55, 58, 107, 161–62

116, 159 Redden, Guy, 225–26

Pope, Harrison G., 212

Redmond, Sean, 242, 245, 251

Portwood-Stacer, Laura, 165, 271 n. 15

Redneck Dreams, 268 n. 13

Poster, Mark, 149, 268 n. 9

Relationship Rehab, 205

postfeminism, 15, 25, 52, 131, 153, 160,

Renovate My Family, 37; celebrity on,

261, 269 n. 15, 276 n. 1; attention as

218; familial support on, 44

empowerment, 104, 161, 165, 283 n. 1;

Restaurant Makeover, 210

the less-examined life, 159; men and,

reveal, the, 2, 14, 15, 30–31, 34; as

206; race and, 67, 129, 132

visible evidence, 99–100

post-Fordism, 52–53

Rich, Adrienne, 129

Powell, Helen, 281 n. 21

Richmond, Marisa, 167

Prasad, Sylvie, 281 n. 21

Right Fit, The, 95

Project Runway, 27, 30, 137–38

Roberts, Martin, 165

Property Ladder, 43, 53

Robinson, Sally, 188 Rockler, Naomi R., 69

Queen for a Day, 19–20

Rock Solid, 81

Queer Eye for the Straight Girl, 155

Roediger, David R., 12, 267 n. 5

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, 1, 5, 15, 27,

Rojek, Chris, 280 n. 14, 289 n. 14

196–204; as agent of care, 98; celeb-

Roof, Judith, 204

rity on, 218, 282 n. 24; consumerism

Room Service, 16

and, 33, 212, 225; as gurus of style, 69,

Rose, Nikolas, 64, 78, 89, 91, 141

85, 254; heteronormativity and, 185;

Ruby, 2

men and masculinity on, 155, 173; the reveal 99; shame on, 83, 97; trans­

Save My Bath, 218, 242, 281 n. 19

national media product as, 270 n. 9

scientistic gestures: iconography, 100;

322  ·  Index

scientific age progression, 84, 273 n. 2; taxonomies of disease, 110, 119, 130 Scott Baio is 45 . . . and Single, 171, 205–7, 209, 212; celebrity on, 218 Scott Baio is 46 . . . and Pregnant, 207

and, 217, 228–29, 233, 241, 246, 248–49, 282 n. 22; Los Angeles on, 49 Styleyes, 199 Sullivan, Deborah, 259 Supernanny, 30, 95, 140, 277 n. 12; masculinity and, 205

Second Look, A, 274 n. 12

Surprise by Design, 250

Secret Lives of Women: Plastic Surgery

Swan, The, 2, 12, 20, 42, 259, 275 n. 17;

Addicts, 23

abdominoplasty, 58; altruism, 64;

self-made man, 172, 174–81

attention as reward, 31, 104, 126;

Sender, Katherine, 204, 278 n. 14

authentic selfhood, 149; beauty

Shalom in the Home, 66, 95, 136–37, 277

queens, 166; Before-body as patholo-

n. 12; masculinity, 205, 207–8; sur-

gized, 100; celebratory excess, 260;

veillance as care, 96

celebrity on, 116, 217, 250, 282 n. 22;

shame, 71, 102; as affective currency,

consumerism, 33; docile bodies on,

86, 98, 107, 235–36; coincident with

124; emotionalism, 88, 110–15; eth­

humiliation, 29, 40, 88, 92; function

nicity and race on, 133–34, 144;

of visibility, 82–88

familial support, 44; fan response

Shaq’s Big Challenge, 2, 15, 91; celebrity

to, 135, 260; Los Angeles on, 49, 122;

on, 218; tropes of Americanness,

normalcy, 23–24; regulating woman-

67–71

hood, 150–51, 152, 161, 191; the reveal,

She’s Got the Look, 229

99; self-care, 62, 63; shame 97, 138;

Shields, Stephanie A., 182

symbolic quarantine, 44; transna-

Simplify Your Life, 15, 24 Sinclair-Webb, Emma, 278 n. 7 Skating with Celebrities, 218

tional media production, 28–29, 47 symbolic violence, 97; celebrity, 116; race and ethnicity, 133–34

Skeggs, Beverley, 142, 273 n. 30 Smart, Carol, 112

Taboo: Body Alterations, 181

Speaking of Women’s Health, 102

Tait, Sue, 134, 165

Spice Up My Kitchen, 110

Tannen, Deborah, 278 n. 2

Stacey, Jackie, 279 n. 6

Tasker, Yvonne, 269 n. 15

Starting Over, 76, 143; deserving the

Taylor, Jacqueline Sanchez, 165, 271 n. 15

makeover, 272 n. 24; Los Angeles on, 49; manipulating the gaze, 90

10 Years Younger, 1, 29, 200; as agent of care, 98; celebrity in, 218, 224, 243,

Strike it Rich, 20

282 n. 22; class in, 43, 188; deserving

Stryker, Susan, 151, 167

the makeover, 272 n. 24; economy

Style by Jury, 28, 91, 146; class and, 129;

of looking on, 84–85, 109, 193; Los

discourses of Americanness, 45;

Angeles in, 49; maximizing invest-

shame, 83

ments, 58; men and masculinity on,

Style Court, 91

173, 184–96, 198, 201, 208; metaphors

Style Her Famous, 1, 143, 200; celebrity

of crisis, 91; normative citizenship,

Index  ·  323

10 Years Younger (continued)

Wegenstein, Bernadette, 168

71; progressive representation, 259;

Weighing In, 2

the reveal, 99; self-care, 62; shame,

What Not to Wear (bbc), 28, 274 n. 7;

72, 83–85, 97

celebrity, 218; as commodity, 199;

This Old House, 140, 267 n. 1

heteronormativity, 164–65; Los

Throsby, Karen, 273 n. 28

Angeles glamour, 50; maximizing in-

ths Investigates: Plastic Surgery Night-

vestments, 58; oppressive hosts, 97;

mares, 23

regulating womanhood, 169; shame,

Tice, Karen W., 280 n. 13

97; subject as felon, 45; supremacy

Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, 218, 253–55

of image, 100–101; surrendering

To Be Fat Like Me, 19, 272 n. 22

for empowerment, 74–77, 132, 254;

Toolbelt Diva, 28, 168–69

symbolic bankruptcy, 58; visual

Trading Spaces, 267 n. 1, 273 n. 29, 282 n. 22

sameness, 115–16 What Not to Wear (tlc), 1, 6, 12, 29, 81,

transgender, 131, 167–68

277 n. 6; affirmation through the

Trial by Choir, 30

gaze, 228; as agent of care, 102; the

Trick It Out, 205, 260

American Dream and, 22; authentic

Trick My Truck, 12, 44, 260; shame

selfhood, 130, 253; class on, 43, 61,

on, 83

101, 141, 143; celebrity, 218, 232–33,

Trick My Trucker, 1, 44

239; as commodity, 199; consumer-

Trosset, Michael W., 269 n. 14

ism and, 227, 228; corporate tie-ins,

Turkle, Sherry, 7

65; deserving the makeover, 62;

Turner, Bryan, 21

empowerment and, 37; as fairytale,

Turner, Graeme, 230

249–51; familial roles, 44; fan reac-

TV Candy, 217, 218

tion to, 117–18, 123; Los Angeles on,

Tyler, Carole-Anne, 166

50; maximizing investments, 58; men and masculinity on, 173, 184–96,

Ugliest House on the Block, 13

198, 201; mothers on, 159, 162; nor-

Ultimate Goals, 272 no. 24

mative femininity in, 61; regulating

Ultimate Plastic Surgery: Before and

race and gender on, 132; self-care,

After, 54 Ultimate Style, 199, 253

62; shame, 83, 97, 123; surveillance, 91–93, 244; symbolic bankruptcy on, 50, 58; visual sameness, 115–16

valid selfhood, 6; personal agency, 52;

While You Were Out, 200, 243

power, 256–57; self as glamorous

Wolf, Naomi, 268 n. 12

product, 49, 55

Wood, Helen, 142, 273 n. 30

Very Cool Christmas, A, 19 Viva La Bam, 210

Yard Crashers, 271 n. 17 You Are What You Eat, 274 n. 8

Warner, Michael, 129

You—Only Better!, 7, 8, 14

Wasted, 27

Your Place or Mine?, 27, 242

Wearing, Sadie, 165

324  ·  Index

Brenda R. Weber is an assistant professor of gender studies and adjunct assistant professor of cultural studies, American studies, and English at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weber, Brenda R., 1964– Makeover TV : selfhood, citizenship, and celebrity / Brenda R. Weber. p. cm. — (Console-ing passions : television and cultural power) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8223-4551-0 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8223-4568-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Makeover television programs—United States.  2. Makeover television programs—Social aspects— United States.  3. Self-realization—Social aspects— United States.  4. Self-perception—Social aspects— United States.  5. Televison—Social aspects—United States.   I. Title.  II. Series: Console-ing passions. pn1992.8.r43w43 2009 791.45'653—dc22 2009012706