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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Makeover Dominatrixes and Self-Discipline

10:54 / 09.07.04

Okay, so we've been touching on this in various other threads, and I think it deserves its own topic. To clarify, I'm talking not only about the current Channel 4 trend for repackaging 'makeover television' types as 1950s dominatrixes (Kirsty from Location, Location, Location, Jo from Supernanny, Kim from How Clean Is Your House?) but the wider phenomenon of being chastised by a finger-wagging stranger in the same of self-improvement.

Also, I suppose I'm including the not-so-'trixy varieties of 'improving' hectorer: jolly-hockeysticks poshsters (What Not To Wear); 'I told you so' nag (Sarah 'Jugs' Beeny in Property Ladder); strict machine (Life Laundry woman); shouty military (Bad Lads Army); American (House Doctor); campster (Queer Eye); American campster (Alvin Hall in that 'sort out your finances, retard' thing) and shouty military American campster (that thing not so long ago where young offenders were exposed to God-scented motivational bellowing from charismatic black American ex-military blokes).

Is it a Good Thing? Saveloy's advanced his friend's notion that it is because these programmes teach you the stuff you don't learn at school. I'm not so sure; I think it can be a Good Thing, if one is careful to avoid individuals who're clearly vulnerable. I've already made the point elsewhere, for example, that some of the How Clean Is Your House? squalor-monkeys appear quite palpably depressed. There's also a slightly infantilising aspect to these programmes, particularly the more dominatrixy ones, which makes me wonder whether they encourage regressive behaviour...

Thoughts?

11:25 / 09.07.04

I agree that these programs can be good for learning things that nobody else will teach you. "What you don't learn in school" is a great way to put it. I worry that there can be too much bleed over into "This is the way the world should be!" metrosexualfascism.

At what point do you draw a line between "You'd look simply GORG in that outfit!" and "This is just my style, leave me be." ?

Is there no room for indiviualism anymore? Must we all wear suits with only the top two buttons done, have product in our hair and clean everything with vinegar lest we face social ostricism?

Or, on the other hand, it's just harmless fun and will have no lasting effect on society. It'll simply be an amusing footnote in next decade's "I Love The Naughties" on Channel 4 when TV celebs and various has-beens go "Gord, remember all those make-over programs? What where they not like?!" VINEGAR! Yeah! Hah!"

11:42 / 09.07.04

Cuttin' & pastin' my Naomi Cleaver convo with Saveloy from the 'Supernanny' thread (do keep up, deary):

I said:

"Ah yes, Nasty Naomi. I tend to think of her as Bitchy Older Prefect Who Laughed At Your Shoes..."

He said:

Heh heh, now that would be Trinny and Suzanna. They don't have Cleaver's drive, her need to correct, to purify. In WWII, T & S would have been Flashman types, ex school bullies now doing the decent thing for King and Country in the cockpit of a Hurricane. Cleaver would have been on the other side, compulsively polishing her jackboots.

She'd certainly be praising the Nazis' "strong design ethic", wouldn't she? The anti-Jewish propaganda might've been less 'vermin' and more 'correcting bad design'...

I seem to remember reading an interview in which she laughed about having reduced a woman to tears over her multi-coloured 'tutti-frutti' mosaic tiling. The hapless victim protested that the tiles were 'fun', and Nasty (Nazi?) Naomi replied, "if you think that's fun, you really need to get out more". Cue tearful running from room.

Actually, in retrospect, it is quite funny...

*compulsively polishes jackboots*

21:14 / 14.07.04

Noticed this evening (Wednesday being Makeover Dominatrix Night) a trend toward appropriate names. 'Jo Frost', for example (the Supernanny), evokes cold-but-empathic teacher-disciplinarian Emma Frost - and 'Naomi Cleaver' perfectly matches the near-surgically steely-edged jackboot-clicker.

What's How Clean? Kim's surname? 'Sarsons'?