Cutting up women for fun and profit

[davidn]

While Whitney's been away I've been watching loads of British television, and one of the things I'm catching up on is a TV discussion programme called You Have Been Watching - it's a panel quiz in name only, being the most free-form excuse for an actual quiz I've yet seen in the genre, and is really a vehicle for grumpy old Charlie Brooker and his chums to mock the world's ready supply of particularly awful television. And it's very funny, but there was one section that I felt horribly uncomfortable watching even within the additional frame of satire. I think you'll probably know by now that it takes a lot to prompt me to react like... oh, I don't know - this, for example:

Jesus Christ, this is absolutely fucking hideous

Having been beaten into being a cynical misery-guts from late school age, I've always had great discontent with the idea of purely cosmetic surgery, but my dislike of it started well before I could fully realize how hateful it was - it's used as a gateway to further objectify women, a process to turn people into what they think the world wants them to look like, simply to cut them apart and put them back together in a way that instantly cures them of the ugliness that they perceive themselves to have thanks to the pressure that we put on to them. As said later on in the video, what this televisual atrocity is doing is saying that they're absolutely right - that they shouldn't have any self-esteem for who they are, but that we can save them by drawing up a plan to change them, adding to or slicing out the pieces of their faces and their bodies, reassembling them bit by artificial bit to make them look acceptable and replace their old selves with this universal pre-packaged silicone grimacing standard in a primitive form of roboticization.

Normally at this point I would blame America for being the only society remotely capable of giving this to the world, but this is really on a whole new level - I can't unload the blame on to one country this time, I'm just ashamed that it existed. Besides, the television that is vomited on to me daily here is so appalling that this programme unfortunately didn't come as any great surprise. Listen to the comments from the three panellists as the nightmarish vision goes on, and especially the little interjection at 6:55 - Frankie Boyle is disgusted with it. That's how wrong this is. If that doesn't tell you about the sheer scale of the problem, then nothing will (apart from the blunter conclusion at 8:35).

Actually I've decided it's America's fault after all. Thanks a lot. (It's worth mentioning that even their press was revolted by it - they've got to have some standards.)

Comments

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

All the women who see their new selves cover their face.

Then they look at themselves in awe. And, on the alternative show covering the first show, people laugh at them. Which is really the most disgusting thing, to me. I understand they're making fun of the concept of the show, and how society views beauty, but those are real people that they're making fun of.

Obviously The Swan is horrible, as it modifies these women, and then pits them against one another in competition for an artificial prize, when the prize should be that each woman is happy with their lives. But the woman "who hasn't had a date in ten years" I expect can certainly get a date now. I think it's difficult to argue their lives have not been improved.

As a further comment, I'll say that anyone who gets on TV has to look above average. And that I'm sure everyone on Have You Been Watching had make-up applied, and was given attention by stylists before the show. They are all part of the system of artificial beauty which they are insulting on the show.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

As someone who was actually there at the time, I can assure you that the audience of YHBW wasn't particularly laughing at The Swan. You've got to remember that you're watching a very edited version of events. YHBW is a ahow that really wants at least twice the runtime, and is trying to be three different shows at once, and failing

In fact, during the hour or so of reshoots, there was a particularly chilling bit where Brooker was told, and sounded very surprised to hear "OK, I've been told I've got to insult some of the contestants for legal reasons, apparently."

Draw your own conclusions, but I'd like to assure you that the overall reaction of people in YHBW was shock and disgust, not laughter. And there was a fair amount of discussion of why the show was bad, conceptually, although I'm not sure how much made the edit.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

I can understand that the audience was not rolling around in laughter at viewing The Swan, and that only tricks of editing could make it appear that way. But that is what people see, even if it's not what actually happened.

I think it's important to note that, regardless of how people actually behave, media tends to make people appear to behave in certain ways. Just as it can encourages certain standards of beauty. It makes speaking out against any facet of society rather difficult.

[davidn]

On the contrary, Whitney said to me recently that the thing about British television was that you didn't have to look attractive to be on it (in the context of watching Ian Hislop and talking about his incredible resemblance to Porky Pig). And there's a world of difference between stylistic make-up and actually seriously having a panel of white coats discussing how best to artificially plasticify someone...

Maybe they think that their lives have improved... but in doing this they become part of the very ugly idea that this is all we value.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

Not to mention Charlie Brooker, who manages to have something approaching multiple franchises, because he's good, despite being rather ugly. Or, for that matter, Armando Ianucci, Frankie Boyle. And this week's Have I Got News For You was hosted by legendary ladies man and bulimic, John Prescott.

[davidn]

John Prescott! My computer's out of action and I'm having to use up precious space on my work laptop if I want to watch anything, but I've got to see that - particularly as he's so much on the receiving end of the programme normally...