Amazon.com: Makeover Television: Realities Remodelled (Reading Contemporary Television): Dana Heller: Books

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"This is an interesting collection providing thought-provoking insights into what is actually being made over by the television makeover…a worthy and worthwhile collection." - Elaine Beale, Feminist Review

Product Description

With the explosion of reality television onto screens and schedules worldwide, this timely and original book explores makeover tv, the ubiquitous reality format that has received little critical attention to date. Top writers and scholars take discussion of reality tv to the next level with lively examination of a wide range of contemporary makeover shows, such as Extreme Makeover, The Swan, Faking It, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and The Apprentice, that ultimately speak to television's own enduring ability to reinvent itself. The book is organized around the overarching argument that contemporary makeover programming provides the paradigmatic example of reality television’s far-reaching prominence and mass appeal, an appeal that lies in "powers of transformation" or televisual performance that tries not only to capture reality but to intervene in it, with the ultimate aim of remodelling reality. They examine how makeover programming annexes the private space of the home, transforms the body through surgery and rigorous discipline, recreates aspects of social identity and consumer lifestyle, and changes ordinary persons into celebrities and celebrities into ordinary persons.

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Product Details

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: I. B. Tauris (June 26, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1845113306
ISBN-13: 978-1845113308
Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #932,868 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
celebrity exercise videos, cosmetic surgery shows, makeover format, material morph, lifestyle programmes, makeover television, makeover programmes, makeover series, factual entertainment, normalizing gaze, lifestyle television, makeover shows, lifestyle programming, factual genres, factual television, celebrity expert, factual programmes, reality programme, extreme makeover, fashion photography, therapeutic ethos, straight guy, hybrid formats, reality programming, reality television

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Queer Eye, Big Brother, Changing Rooms, The Swan, Home Edition, Wife Swap, Producer Notes, Steven Meisel, Fear Factor, Jamie Oliver, Linda Barker, Boiling Points, Ground Force, Italian Vogue, Linda Evangelista, The Apprentice, The Oshournes, What's My Line, Animal Hospital, Barbara Phillips, Britney Spears, New Attitude, Road Rules Challenge, The Bill, The Learning Channel

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Citations (learn more)

1 book cites this book:

Reading 'Desperate Housewives': Beyond the White Picket Fence (Reading Contemporary Television) by Janet McCabe in Front Matter

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	85% buy the item featured on this page: Makeover Television: Realities Remodelled (Reading Contemporary Television) 4.0 out of 5 stars (1) $24.95
	15% buy Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture 5.0 out of 5 stars (1) $19.80

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4.0 out of 5 stars television makeover is contemporary America's fairytale, September 11, 2007

By	Feminist Review blog "various writers" (worldwide) - See all my reviews

The television makeover is contemporary America's fairytale, a feel-good story that ends with the resolution of the protagonist's problems and the inevitable "happily ever after." Or that's how the television mythmakers would like us to see it - the unappealing house transformed into the American dream home in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the boorish male remade into sophisticated metrosexual in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy , the ugly duckling transformed into The Swan - as stories of unhappy people changed for the better by the intervention of television networks, designers, cosmetic surgeons, exercise gurus and image consultants. Except, like fairytales, makeover television contains not-so-subtle subtexts; it is not only the lives and thoughts of the people on the shows that are reshaped, but also those of the viewers.

The women's makeover shows (The Swan, Extreme Makeover, Dr. 90210, etc.) are obvious examples. As Elizabeth Atwood Gailey points out in her essay in this collection, these shows promote an alarming female body ideal (tiny waist, large breasts, flat stomach, baby-like facial features), pathologize the normal changes in a woman's body post-childbirth so that women in their 30s and 40s are told they are supposed to recreate the body of a 20 year old, and encourage women to relate to themselves and their bodies as commodities. In another essay, Kathryn Fraser discusses how the women's makeover genre requires that "self-love... can only be achieved at the expense of self-loathing" and "the feminine self is always deficient and in need of intervention." Another essay discusses discuss how Extreme Makeover: Home Edition reinforces conservative views of the family, promotes consumerism and takes for granted that the social safety net has been removed.

Several other essays argue that makeover television reinforces the view that it is the elites of our society who are the arbiters of taste and their intervention that is needed by the working class if their lives are to be improved. This is an interesting collection providing thought-provoking insights into what is actually being made over by the television makeover. Written by academics for a largely academic audience, however, it is not an easy read, with the dense language, unfortunately, making it far less accessible than the television shows it critiques. But for those comfortable with this kind of text, it's a worthy and worthwhile collection.

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