Post by Inside Australian Idol on Nov 22, 2003 1:18:32 GMT 10
Reality check
November 22, 2003
Queer Eye, The Block and Australian Idol
By offering the opportunity to make things better, reality TV exploits the human desire for self improvement, writes Belinda Smaill.
The nation was shocked, so we are told, when Cosima de Vito revealed that she had to pull out of the Australian Idol competition due to throat problems, somewhat letting the air out of this week's final showdown. Viewers were stunned and disappointed. Contestants, judges and the studio audience alike were in tears. She had been the one contestant of the series that had thrilled audiences with her miraculous transformation.
Throughout the competition we were shown flashbacks to her first audition. This emphasised the journey she had made, from awkward and unpolished, to glimmering and chic. She grew from meek singer to hyper-confident performer. How many times did we hear the judges who comment on the weekly performance say something along the lines of "Cosima, you've come so far. You're just getting better and better. It's a joy to watch"?
This is the lure of reality television. Australian Idol is but one of a string of programs in the recent craze that taps into our preoccupation with transformation and the betterment of the self. We tune in each week to shows such as The Block, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Big Brother to not only peek inside the real lives of the participants, but also to see these lives change in front of our eyes. It's satisfying and gratifying. And it makes for a great narrative structure.
It's about piecing together the flotsam and jetsam of people's existence, albeit in often highly manufactured circumstances, in such a way as to make it compelling viewing.
In this respect, the new television trend draws much from the beauty magazine's favourite, the makeover. Once you've witnessed the "before" version, there is an almost uncontainable compulsion to see the next part of the story, the "after" picture.
The philosophy of self-improvement is no less than the consummate ideal of consumer culture. In her bestselling book, No Logo , Naomi Klein has told us how selling products is no longer about the commodity, or the product itself. What it is about is selling a brand, a message, an idea. So Nike's aim is not to sell shoes but to "enhance people's lives through sports and fitness". It's no accident that these ideas are almost always about the individual striving for something to make life somehow better.
If corporations could have their way, we would surely be instilled with the constant preoccupation of becoming rather than being, of feeling incomplete rather than fulfilled. Yet, make no mistake; this advancement is not for groups or communities. It is supremely individualist.
Have these consumer messages already become the defining feature of our time? Noted sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, for one, believes they have. In his book, Liquid Modernity , he writes that we now approach every aspect of life through the choices we make, as if life were one great shopping mall. Moreover we do this as individuals. "Everything, so to speak, is now down to the individual. It is up to the individual to find out what she or he is capable of doing, to stretch that capacity to the utmost."
Sometimes it seems that the Holy Trinity of the modern era is consumption, individualism and aspiration. And, strikingly, much reality TV manages to pull all three together in one tidy package. The success of the formula lies in the way that it can tap into the sensibility of our time.
More than this, while we watch our Australian idols and dream of fame and stardom or take pleasure in the ultimate lifestyle makeover, are we also witnessing the triumph of the personal over the social?
While we saw a number of the contestants in Australian Idol "just getting better and better", Cosima's makeover was unprecedented.
Unsurprisingly, as a female contestant, her looks and sex appeal were the central focus. In one of her first performances, Ian "Dicko" Dickson (who played the part of the ruthlessly honest judge to a tee) told her that she had "to do something about those eyebrows". It was a moment for women everywhere with unruly brows to cringe. But, sure enough, the next episode saw her thick dark eyebrows wondrously shaped and styled. Fabulous haircuts, shorter and shorter skirts and a more confidently seductive stage performance gradually completed the makeover.
The male contestants had it a little easier. No removal of body hair was required. Instead, they were urged by judges, Marcia Hines in particular, to make the most of their appeal to the opposite sex and to "dress for the ladies". In other words, as far as I can tell, she was telling them to boost the "suave" factor and dress it up a bit.
Although viewers were fascinated by Cosima's successful reinvention, they were less appreciative of remarks made to Fijian born contestant, Paulini Curuenavuli. When Dicko recommended that she "shed a few pounds" he crossed the line. The weekly public telephone vote that determines who will go through to the next round of the competition secured her position for another week, apparently demonstrating audience support for her voluptuous looks. It also represented a growing resistance to the imperative for some forms of self-modification in the name of a body ideal.
Another notion of improvement comes with the home renovation show. Emerging out of generalist lifestyle shows such as Burke's Backyard and Better Homes and Gardens, programs such as Ground Force added real people and real homes into the mix.
Then the recent and staggeringly popular example of The Block called into being the improvement/competition hybrid version of reality television. One way of understanding self-improvement and transformation in these examples is through the way that the home and garden comes to represent us as individuals. Thus, maximising the interior design, for instance, means maximising the self.
This becomes strikingly clear in the newest series to hit our screens, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy . This show, with its unrivalled ability to engender love or loathing, goes for the whole shebang: looks, lifestyle, interior design and even food.
Every week we are uplifted by the sight of five gay men (fashion and food experts, each with their own specialty) rescuing a straight man from the style wasteland in which he dwells.
One of the "Fab Five" defined their mission in the first show when he told an unkempt heterosexual specimen "we're not going to change you, we're going to make you better". The transformations they achieve are truly mesmerising. But change them, they do. For how long this reinvention sticks once the cameras have left is, however, another question. But no matter, because it is great television.
The premise of the show revolves around stereotyping both gay and straight culture. Yet it is straight culture and the ideal of the heterosexual couple, that sets the agenda. The men they makeover are already in a transitional moment, with a particular event coming up that requires a good impression be made. They are either looking to re-ignite their marriage, impress a potential fiancee, or embark on the singles scene. Of course, we identify with self-improvement, especially when it's so visible. Being the best that one can be is something we all aspire to.
But in the case of reality television, this aspiration is central to the appeal of the genre. It may be to get the girl (also the goal, incidentally, in The Bachelorette), win the recording contract (Australian Idol), be the last house-mate standing (Big Brother ) or to achieve the perfect house and, thereby, the perfect life (just about everything else).
Although Big Brother doesn't fit into the makeover category, contestants still profess a deeper kind of motivation for self-betterment. The show is a way for them to improve or enrich their lives somehow. Exactly how is not always clear.
There is a precedent for this in television. The talk show format has been an inspiration for reality television. This genre also gains it momentum from uncovering the stories of real or so called "ordinary people". And, more importantly, its guests are also often seeking personal growth through public exposure. How often have you watched Jerry Springer, Oprah or Ricki Lake and wondered how these people could reveal the details of their blemished lives to national, or rather global, television? Yet it is the exposure, the laying bare, that is key.
While we may look down on the goals of talk-show participants as utterly misdirected, daytime television is often the only avenue they can access to assert their perspective or sort through the detritus of their lives. Some of us have shrinks, some of us have Dr Phil. And of course, let's not forget, the makeover is also a staple of chat shows like Oprah. Unfortunately, there is something about these shows that have made them unappealing to Australian networks to produce. Luckily, this is not the case with Australian Idol . Here we can witness our own home-grown narratives of struggle and growth, success and frustration.
November 22, 2003
Queer Eye, The Block and Australian Idol
By offering the opportunity to make things better, reality TV exploits the human desire for self improvement, writes Belinda Smaill.
The nation was shocked, so we are told, when Cosima de Vito revealed that she had to pull out of the Australian Idol competition due to throat problems, somewhat letting the air out of this week's final showdown. Viewers were stunned and disappointed. Contestants, judges and the studio audience alike were in tears. She had been the one contestant of the series that had thrilled audiences with her miraculous transformation.
Throughout the competition we were shown flashbacks to her first audition. This emphasised the journey she had made, from awkward and unpolished, to glimmering and chic. She grew from meek singer to hyper-confident performer. How many times did we hear the judges who comment on the weekly performance say something along the lines of "Cosima, you've come so far. You're just getting better and better. It's a joy to watch"?
This is the lure of reality television. Australian Idol is but one of a string of programs in the recent craze that taps into our preoccupation with transformation and the betterment of the self. We tune in each week to shows such as The Block, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Big Brother to not only peek inside the real lives of the participants, but also to see these lives change in front of our eyes. It's satisfying and gratifying. And it makes for a great narrative structure.
It's about piecing together the flotsam and jetsam of people's existence, albeit in often highly manufactured circumstances, in such a way as to make it compelling viewing.
In this respect, the new television trend draws much from the beauty magazine's favourite, the makeover. Once you've witnessed the "before" version, there is an almost uncontainable compulsion to see the next part of the story, the "after" picture.
The philosophy of self-improvement is no less than the consummate ideal of consumer culture. In her bestselling book, No Logo , Naomi Klein has told us how selling products is no longer about the commodity, or the product itself. What it is about is selling a brand, a message, an idea. So Nike's aim is not to sell shoes but to "enhance people's lives through sports and fitness". It's no accident that these ideas are almost always about the individual striving for something to make life somehow better.
If corporations could have their way, we would surely be instilled with the constant preoccupation of becoming rather than being, of feeling incomplete rather than fulfilled. Yet, make no mistake; this advancement is not for groups or communities. It is supremely individualist.
Have these consumer messages already become the defining feature of our time? Noted sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, for one, believes they have. In his book, Liquid Modernity , he writes that we now approach every aspect of life through the choices we make, as if life were one great shopping mall. Moreover we do this as individuals. "Everything, so to speak, is now down to the individual. It is up to the individual to find out what she or he is capable of doing, to stretch that capacity to the utmost."
Sometimes it seems that the Holy Trinity of the modern era is consumption, individualism and aspiration. And, strikingly, much reality TV manages to pull all three together in one tidy package. The success of the formula lies in the way that it can tap into the sensibility of our time.
More than this, while we watch our Australian idols and dream of fame and stardom or take pleasure in the ultimate lifestyle makeover, are we also witnessing the triumph of the personal over the social?
While we saw a number of the contestants in Australian Idol "just getting better and better", Cosima's makeover was unprecedented.
Unsurprisingly, as a female contestant, her looks and sex appeal were the central focus. In one of her first performances, Ian "Dicko" Dickson (who played the part of the ruthlessly honest judge to a tee) told her that she had "to do something about those eyebrows". It was a moment for women everywhere with unruly brows to cringe. But, sure enough, the next episode saw her thick dark eyebrows wondrously shaped and styled. Fabulous haircuts, shorter and shorter skirts and a more confidently seductive stage performance gradually completed the makeover.
The male contestants had it a little easier. No removal of body hair was required. Instead, they were urged by judges, Marcia Hines in particular, to make the most of their appeal to the opposite sex and to "dress for the ladies". In other words, as far as I can tell, she was telling them to boost the "suave" factor and dress it up a bit.
Although viewers were fascinated by Cosima's successful reinvention, they were less appreciative of remarks made to Fijian born contestant, Paulini Curuenavuli. When Dicko recommended that she "shed a few pounds" he crossed the line. The weekly public telephone vote that determines who will go through to the next round of the competition secured her position for another week, apparently demonstrating audience support for her voluptuous looks. It also represented a growing resistance to the imperative for some forms of self-modification in the name of a body ideal.
Another notion of improvement comes with the home renovation show. Emerging out of generalist lifestyle shows such as Burke's Backyard and Better Homes and Gardens, programs such as Ground Force added real people and real homes into the mix.
Then the recent and staggeringly popular example of The Block called into being the improvement/competition hybrid version of reality television. One way of understanding self-improvement and transformation in these examples is through the way that the home and garden comes to represent us as individuals. Thus, maximising the interior design, for instance, means maximising the self.
This becomes strikingly clear in the newest series to hit our screens, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy . This show, with its unrivalled ability to engender love or loathing, goes for the whole shebang: looks, lifestyle, interior design and even food.
Every week we are uplifted by the sight of five gay men (fashion and food experts, each with their own specialty) rescuing a straight man from the style wasteland in which he dwells.
One of the "Fab Five" defined their mission in the first show when he told an unkempt heterosexual specimen "we're not going to change you, we're going to make you better". The transformations they achieve are truly mesmerising. But change them, they do. For how long this reinvention sticks once the cameras have left is, however, another question. But no matter, because it is great television.
The premise of the show revolves around stereotyping both gay and straight culture. Yet it is straight culture and the ideal of the heterosexual couple, that sets the agenda. The men they makeover are already in a transitional moment, with a particular event coming up that requires a good impression be made. They are either looking to re-ignite their marriage, impress a potential fiancee, or embark on the singles scene. Of course, we identify with self-improvement, especially when it's so visible. Being the best that one can be is something we all aspire to.
But in the case of reality television, this aspiration is central to the appeal of the genre. It may be to get the girl (also the goal, incidentally, in The Bachelorette), win the recording contract (Australian Idol), be the last house-mate standing (Big Brother ) or to achieve the perfect house and, thereby, the perfect life (just about everything else).
Although Big Brother doesn't fit into the makeover category, contestants still profess a deeper kind of motivation for self-betterment. The show is a way for them to improve or enrich their lives somehow. Exactly how is not always clear.
There is a precedent for this in television. The talk show format has been an inspiration for reality television. This genre also gains it momentum from uncovering the stories of real or so called "ordinary people". And, more importantly, its guests are also often seeking personal growth through public exposure. How often have you watched Jerry Springer, Oprah or Ricki Lake and wondered how these people could reveal the details of their blemished lives to national, or rather global, television? Yet it is the exposure, the laying bare, that is key.
While we may look down on the goals of talk-show participants as utterly misdirected, daytime television is often the only avenue they can access to assert their perspective or sort through the detritus of their lives. Some of us have shrinks, some of us have Dr Phil. And of course, let's not forget, the makeover is also a staple of chat shows like Oprah. Unfortunately, there is something about these shows that have made them unappealing to Australian networks to produce. Luckily, this is not the case with Australian Idol . Here we can witness our own home-grown narratives of struggle and growth, success and frustration.