Sandie_Zitkus
In Rememberance
I am assuming most of you know the show on TLC "What Not To Wear" - where 2 fashion *experts* help people nominated by their families or friends to dress and look better. I love this show. And I hate this show. I am compelled to watch it every week and I am ambivalent after every single show.
Two things bother me about it.
Who gives a damn what other people wear?
Is this show not promoting the idea that what you look like is the most important thing about you - not who you are or what you have accomplished?
What do I love about this show?
How the women feel so good about themselves after being made over.
Watching the women blossom as they learn how to look better.
However - it seems to me this show in some very underhanded and quiet ways reinforces the insecurities that women have about their bodies being more important than what they know or who they are.
The women (most highly educated and accomplished) come into the show - shy, embarrassed about how they look, hating their bodies, hating themselves - and leave the show confident and brimming with self-esteem over how they look. And yes - that is wonderful - but as a woman I get so angry seeing a beautiful young woman ashamed of her body because she's not "thin enough". It enrages me. What they hell are we doing to our young women??
When you have women selling diets on TV who want to go from a size 8 to a size 2 - something is wrong with our society and I think (in my own convoluted way) that this TV show is once again playing into this. Why are 99% of the people on this show WOMEN??? Is the subtext of this show that women have to look their best at all times and men can look like slobs??? That's how it seems to me.
This is such a hot button issue for me - what society does to women and how we are constantly bombarded with images of *perfection* and how the number one issue we are all supposed to focus on is looking good. I'll say it again - when a woman can think of nothing but how fat her thighs are or how much weight she has to lose to be acceptable - she can never accomplish the things in life that she might if she could not think about such things and concentrate on education or career 100% like men do.
OK so if this makes any sense at all - please comment. Maybe I'm just ranting. And of course I will be watching this show again tonight like I always do. Maybe I just need to not watch it. LOL
Two things bother me about it.
Who gives a damn what other people wear?
Is this show not promoting the idea that what you look like is the most important thing about you - not who you are or what you have accomplished?
What do I love about this show?
How the women feel so good about themselves after being made over.
Watching the women blossom as they learn how to look better.
However - it seems to me this show in some very underhanded and quiet ways reinforces the insecurities that women have about their bodies being more important than what they know or who they are.
The women (most highly educated and accomplished) come into the show - shy, embarrassed about how they look, hating their bodies, hating themselves - and leave the show confident and brimming with self-esteem over how they look. And yes - that is wonderful - but as a woman I get so angry seeing a beautiful young woman ashamed of her body because she's not "thin enough". It enrages me. What they hell are we doing to our young women??
When you have women selling diets on TV who want to go from a size 8 to a size 2 - something is wrong with our society and I think (in my own convoluted way) that this TV show is once again playing into this. Why are 99% of the people on this show WOMEN??? Is the subtext of this show that women have to look their best at all times and men can look like slobs??? That's how it seems to me.
This is such a hot button issue for me - what society does to women and how we are constantly bombarded with images of *perfection* and how the number one issue we are all supposed to focus on is looking good. I'll say it again - when a woman can think of nothing but how fat her thighs are or how much weight she has to lose to be acceptable - she can never accomplish the things in life that she might if she could not think about such things and concentrate on education or career 100% like men do.
OK so if this makes any sense at all - please comment. Maybe I'm just ranting. And of course I will be watching this show again tonight like I always do. Maybe I just need to not watch it. LOL
