>I agree, the obsession with making things over on TV IS an interesting one.
>I've watched more of the ones on the BBC channel, and interestingly, the
>British What Not to Wear (and the home decorating show too) lack this
>redemption component, or at least its not as pronounced. The women whose
>wardrobes are so critiqued are often (not always) defiant, resist the hosts
>suggestions at every turn, and return to their slutty/tacky/frumpy ways
>after the show. They say the new fashionable/tasteful/age-appropriate look
>was OK, but it's just not for them. Often, the joke is on the style police,
>because while they consider the woman to be a style disaster, she's
>perfectly content with her look. the message often is, fashion just doesn't
>matter that much to most people. sometimes the implication is, the fashion
>ladies are elitist/conformist and the folks rejecting their suggestions are
>working-class individualists. similarly on the home decorating show, the
>subjects very often hate the changes, even if they are more "tasteful" by
>bourgeois standards. It is an interesting cultural difference: the British
>show has a bit more subtle class warfare and resistance to expertise, more
>questioning of why/whether things or people need to be made over.
>
There's also the simple fact of comfort. When I watch those makeover
shows, usually the ones about home design, I start to wonder, "Well,
this is nice, but if my house looked like that, where the fuck would I
keep my _books_? I've got thousands piled all over the place. These
people don't seem to have anything with more tree-pulp heft than an
issue of _Marie Claire_." That's when I realize that my tastes'd be more
like those ads in _Architectural Digest_, with the groaning walnut
bookshelves right out of a Merchant-Ivory production, mainly because of
their _utility_.
Look at this stuff as a kind of continuum of pornography. At the high, refined end, we have fashion magazines, with immaculately-sculptured models displaying themselves adonerned with expensive jewels and delicate clothes. That's where the makeover shows described above fit in-- it appeals to people who want a hands-off, eyes-only, aesthetic experience. At the low end, there's the porn for people who'd rather get their hands dirty-- analogized to shows like _The New Yankee Workshop_ and _This Old House_, which make me want to rush out to thge Home Depot and get the Dewalt sliding compound miter saw I've been listing after for years. Now _THAT is House Porn.