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Are Makeovers Too Extreme?

© Anne Paxton

I recently saw the US Weekly magazine with "The 20 Best Makeovers!" on the cover. It is all about how stars went from being rather average looking to the glamour queens they are today. As I looked at the pictures only a few of them looked like they were stuck in an 80's time warp. Most of the other women in the "Then" pictures looked well dressed and clean. Of course the "Now" pictures had them dressed to the nines and looking like they had been born goddesses. The article was all about how great and fascinating these women were now that they were beautiful. No one in the article questioned for a second what these women looked like off camera. What does Jennier Aniston looks like just going to get the paper? With a hairstylist and a personal trainer I'm sure she looked better than most even in casual attire, but I doubt she looked like the glamour queen that graced the cover of US Weekly. All that seemed important was that she was now beautiful and therefore worthy of attention. America seems to be suffering from something. Maybe suffering is the wrong word to use, but there seems to be a purging of some kind. The hottest shows on TV are all about getting rid of old rooms, old decorations, old homes, and now we've moved onto ourselves to remove old flaws and old faces. The market to make money is certainly in the "self-improvement" field. There seems to be a lot of "self-improvement" shows that mainly deal with the idea of physical appearance. The idea is the same on all of these shows, "Change the way you look and become a different person."

I actually like a lot of the shows I see on TV like "Trading Spaces" or "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." Most of us could really use a hand in changing the look of our homes, and heaven knows every man could use advice on how to dress and entertain. And to a degree I like "Extreme Makeover" simply because many of these people have severe problems with their teeth or looks and it would have cost them thousands to change the look themselves. My concern lays more in shows like "The Swan" where "ugly ducklings" undergo radical change to compete in a beauty contest. Essentially, average-looking women (by society's standards) can only become accepted once they undergo physical-altering surgery.