Monday, August 4, 2008

Fashion Forward Feminism? *Chuckles Heartily*


“Does she even know she’s a girl?” Stacy on WNTW

So my bucketloads of free time have yielded yet another interesting hobby; watching fashion shows on TLC. Am I proud of this fact? No. Do they come on enough that it fills up all of the free spots in my day that aren’t eaten by food or blogs or my bosses elliptical machine? Why yes, yes they do. The most odious of these shows in my mind, more disgusting than even 10 years younger, a show that puts women in a glass box and allows onlookers to express exactly what aspects of the patriarchal beauty imperative they can adhere to if they want their faces, breasts and… wait, women don’t have any other parts anyway, right? Yes, the only show that I find more insidious than that is a program that is dubiously called self help, What Not To Wear.

Sure, the show is about as addictive as crystal meth, and the prospect of getting 5000 dollars to shop in New York sounds like an orgasm waiting to unleash itself upon me but the INSANE amounts of gender bias, heterosexism, and racism always shines through just enough to make my fingers curl into a Spritzhead beating fist. For those who are not familiar with the show, it involves a team of pornifing fashion consultants, hairdressers and makeup artist who take an “unattractive” ugly duckling who doesn’t even have the sense to make sure that all of their clothes are picked out by a jury of their peers into a “beautiful” and thoroughly pornified sex object.

As if strict adherence to the secretive rules of the beauty imperative were not enough to damn the show in my bitter, bitter, hateful little eyes, Stacy and Clinton (the shows hosts) consistently tell women who may very well not own a mini pencil skirt, backbreakingly high heels, or some other sort of “girl” coded clothing that they must not know that they are indeed “girls”. That’s right, the idea that women can age out of the beauty imperative is no longer valid, so look out dyke auntie the botox brigade is comin’ for that ass! Most notably for me was the episode (to my knowledge there is only one) where they have an out lesbian on the show. They proceed to tell her how to get an hourglass figure which of course she wants to know because she’s a “girl”. Exactly when do “girls” become women, might I ask? A better question seems to have been asked by the professor “what if we didn’t expect women to look like girls and girls to look like women?”

Now, yes, I am indeed a big black dyke, but am I anti-fashion? Ok, yes, who am I kidding, I do hate fashion as a woman killing merchant of death industry that promotes eating disorders and broken ankles by using waif thin women on stilts (stilts which I now own, the patriarchy affects us all) while telling them to look 7 and a half by hook or by crook. I suppose shows like this worry me because expanding the beauty imperative to all women eliminates the little pockets of safety from the beauty brigade that existed (i.e. age, lesbianism, membership of the academe, radical feminism) and the new virus says that this is no longer the case.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

i love that show.

i think you know that.

i still agree with a lot of what you said, but i disagree abt making women "pornified" objects. in fact, i think that they do the total opposite.

a lot of women leave the show saying that they feel "sexy" but i don't think they make them look like porn stars in the least.

i think it is a very classist show, and things that are tight, and skanky are just as unclassy and unbecoming as things that are baggy and loose.. like what michael kors said.

Anonymous said...

you have a witty way with words

and a keen fashion sense !

fashion on tv...is dAnger zone... like you said... its like crystal meth...bad news bears

television is too scary. yer brave for not letting it get you in the mindless way tv secretly [or not so secretly] can do.

shows of that nature make me want to break tvs...which is probZ why i don't watch anything that isn't degrassi, selective cartoons, or selective educational programming. like the other day...there was this show on the history channel about batmans gadgets...AND OMG. jurrasic fight club.

too much. too much.


good wordZ

Anonymous said...

Great post and thanks for linking!

"the prospect of getting 5000 dollars to shop in New York sounds like an orgasm waiting to unleash itself upon me" --- ha, ha, ha! I totally agree!

If only instead of "what not to wear" we had shows like "what sexist objectifying bullshit not to listen to"

Anonymous said...

damn cyree...i love the way you write.

i havent really taken a chance on
fashion shows yet though. the idea of having people select clothes for the "ugly duckiling" doesnt sound the least bit entertaining. i suppose, i should give it a try though. i need to find another addiction...besides reading blogs and obsessing over punctuation marks in my writing.

another great post.

Helyx Horwitz said...

"Do they come on enough that it fills up all of the free spots in my day that aren’t eaten by food or blogs or my bosses elliptical machine?"

i feel like that is completely the way of TLC well placed timing of poor television.
i used to watch What Not to Wear and dream of the day they would come knocking at my door with a $5000 shopping spree, and then i realizex i never wanted to dress like them.. and i stopped subscibing to the over sexed male image of beauty years ago and i dont wanna go back


and i want to throw things at my tv whenever they say... "well you are a girl", or "you need to look like a girl"...

what the fuck does that mean and who the fuck gave them the right to decide that someone else does not look enough like a girl...

Anonymous said...

LOL First time on your blog and I LOVED the post. I've never seen the show; however, I'm going to tune in just to pontificate upon everything you've written.

It kind of reminds me of the Jenny Jones show, back in the 90's...All of the girls who were ugly ducklings would comeback looking like street walkers on 54th and Crenshaw.