Thanks for the positive thoughts
Jess. They're much appreciated.
OK, here's my bitch of the day. It's more like "Bitch Lite".
The only 'reality' show I like to watch is "What Not to Wear". Makeovers are always fun to watch.
But even I have stopped watching this show after a while because I started noticing trends that I don't particularly like and/or can't bear to watch.
I noticed that they tend to go with a body type that they
can make over.
The body types they pick are the type that are not the usual in this country:
heavy but long-legged waistless
tall, slenderish shapeless
very small slenderish shapeless
or hourglass figured
For these types it doesn't matter if this body type is overweight much or not, because they can use the person's new clothes type to
give them a shape, a waist and play up their long nice (slim) legs.
I noticed they do not choose guests who have the body shape that the majority of women in this country have -
5'5' women overweight with round tummies, wide hips and meaty thighs
And why? Because no amount of nice clothes and tailoring is going to make these women's bodies look good. Tailored jackets will not close over ballooning stomachs, no pants wide enough to clear protruding stomachs and wide hips will look flattering on shortish thick-thighed legs. Skirts will not help either since they would have to be at least down to the knees to avoid the fleshy parts above the knees.
So the show simply ignores women who have this body type. The subtle message is,
there is nothing these fashion experts can do that will help.
Secondly, and this ties into this type of women they choose for their shows, they pick either outlandishly extroverted women or these sad, pathetic women whose body posture and overwrought body images just scream lack of self-esteem and "leave me alone, I want to be a wall flower!".
It makes me sad that these women - some of whom look and should stride the world as glamazons if they would just take care of themselves better - have been so beaten down by their upbringing or family or faith that they cannot bear to hold up their heads and live their lives as if they mattered. They slouch, they stubbornly refuse to show an inch of skin or improve their styles and take this strange kind of pride in clinging to their old ways. I guess this is some sort of security blanket for them. One woman makes fun of her own very lovely ethnic curly kinky hair - holding it up like horns - oh, I look like an antelope. But when offered a chance to shape and restyle and change the look of her hair to something different and possibly more manageable and admirable, she refuses.
This is me!, she proudly exclaims. Betcha though she went right back to poking fun of herself and her hair.
WTF?
Another woman wouldn't show any skin below her collarbone due to 'modesty'. I wondered what fundamentalist compound she was raised in and if she'd feel more comfortable in a bourkha. What does this woman wear to the beach? What in the world made this woman so ashamed of showing her own body?
Yet another woman refused to cut her long fabulous hair. The fact that it dragged down her look, was not shaped nor cared for very well and she invariably just tied it into a bun when she went to work - i.e. she couldn't
do anything with her fabulously long hair but wear it up or down and so just wore it up all the time to keep it out of her way - didn't matter. She was going to 'stand up for herself' and she felt proud about this. The fact that she will not keep her hair in any better condition nor change her style that she's worn her whole life is actually pathetic. She's a young lovely woman, in the prime of her life and to be so unwilling to experiment with new things in life especially for something that
will grow back like hair is strangely sad.
What made these women accept roles on a makeover show if they weren't going to allow themselves to be made over?