Makeover shows need a reality check
I guess you could say I have a love/hate relationship with makeover shows.
Or perhaps it would be better described as a curiosity/gag reflex relationship. The shows usually involve some middle-aged housewife who either looks like she could grace the cover of “Thrift Store Rejects” magazine or has hung on to her high school wardrobe but not her high school figure.
I want to see if they can turn her into a movie star and if so, how they will go about it. And many times, even I, little miss “I don’t care about fashion,” have to admit she looks a lot better.
However, most of the time, the rest of the show induces the car accident effect in me: I want to see what happens, but everything I see makes me wish I had a bottle of Tums nearby.
“You’re wearing that?” the show host asks incredulously, as if the guest were wearing a tutu over a space suit. “What were you thinking?”
It’s rather demeaning, really. Yes, some of the clothes are slightly outdated, but in the grand scheme of things, what’s wrong with that? At least they’re wearing something.
And what’s with this notion that if someone has curly hair it should be straightened? I have yet to see someone leave a show with curls intact.
As the proud owner of a full head of naturally curly hair, I object. I would much rather take a few minutes to put in a bit of hair cream and enjoy what nature gave me than take a few hours attempting to figure out how to use a straightening iron without setting off my smoke detector.
Nowadays, we like to make fun of fashions of the past, whether it’s the corsets 19th century women wore or the pouffy bangs of the 1980s (Please, God, don’t let those make a comeback in my lifetime!).
However, we fail to realize that we, in 2007, look just as ridiculous. Men wear ties to work. Why would an otherwise intelligent person begin the day by practically strangling himself?
Women wear high heels, risking twisted ankles and sore legs just to look a few inches taller. And I can’t forget to mention, there will probably be some show in 2027 where a guest wears clothes from our time and the host exclaims incredulously, “You’re wearing that?” (But I’d like to hope that those shows are out by then)
Oscar Wilde once said, “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable we have to alter if every six months.”
Mr. Wilde could not have been more right.
Some person somewhere decides that this year, we’re all supposed to wear bright orange T-shirts, so people everywhere go out and spend their hard earned cash on a closet full of orange t-shirts. A few months later, no one with any sense would be caught dead in an orange T-shirt. It’s ridiculous. I wonder where this person gets all that power over so many people. I’d like to know his secret.
I think we as a society put far too much emphasis on a person’s appearance. Yes, you should try to look your best, but I don’t understand why society needs so many little rules about how to go about doing that.
I think as long as a person bathes regularly and wears clothes that fit properly, the rest shouldn’t matter. Wear what you like, wear it with confidence, and it really doesn’t matter what anyone else has to say about it.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum