The Makeover Show: Post-Feminism, Surveillance and Constant Discipline

After today’s presentations, specifically the makeover reality presentation, I really started to think about the makeover paradigm is so engrained in today’s society. “Women’s relationships with their bodies have always been problematic because of the idealized body types represented in the media…A woman’s body does not exist independently of hegemonic discourses related to beauty; It is instead a site on which such discourses are played out in such venues as a reality makeover television program” cites Gallager and Pecot-Hebert in their article “You Need a Makeover!: The Social Construction of Female Body Image in ‘A Makeover Story’, What Not to Wear and Extreme Makeover.” (77). Reading this article and listening to the group presentation only made it clear to me how post-feminist these types of shows and the makeover issue is.

Post-feminism often focuses on empowerment, an empowerment that focuses on this idea that in a post-feminist environment, it’s okay to be a working woman who also enjoys wearing certain clothes or looking a certain way. It is a kind of citizenship that both challenges traditional feminine stereotypes and celebrates consumption habits that often celebrates those very same stereotypes. For example, take a look at a Beyoncé video that has an empowering theme to it. It challenges these stereotypes of being looked at but at the same time she dresses and expresses herself as a sexual object. This particular topic reminded me of the Rosalind Gil article that we read earlier in the semester in which she talked about femininity as a bodily property. In this post-feminist landscape there is this obsessive preoccupation with the body in which the body is regarded as a property. Important to post-feminism and the makeover show is this idea of self-surveillance and discipline.

Critical to this era of feminism that paved the way for these makeover shows is this emphasis on monitoring and surveying the self. Our culture is always looking for ways to transform oneself, which is essentially the premise of these makeover shows. I think what these shows create is the question of “why aren’t you taking care of yourself? You should be doing better and living up to society’s version of beauty. Since you aren’t though, we can take care of it for you and build you a new face!” What shocks me the most isn’t the plastic surgery as seen on The Swan but how scrutinized women are in today’s society, something not really seen with men in our society. My question ultimately lies in the repercussions of this surveillance to young women. Will this lead to years of dieting, plastic surgery and constant monitoring?