I AM POD, THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE

Being, I guess, somewhat dumb, I'm a big watcher of BBC3, though not if there's anything on BBC4.  So it was that, around 2 AM, I would come across Snog Marry Avoid, a makeover show whose title is loosely based on the playground/road trip exercise Fuck Marry Kill.  The premise of the show, as introduced by former Atomic Kitten and increasingly tan person Jenny Frost, is that British women are over-fond of makeup and under-fond of clothing, and with the help of a sassy computer -- bear with me here -- she will reintroduce them to their "natural beauty."  The phrase "natural beauty" is constantly repeated on the show, but poorly defined.  Removing a quarter-inch thick layer of tarry foundation is arguably moving towards natural, but putting a thinner layer on afterward is contradictory; "natural" seems to be synonymous with "brunette" regardless of the color of hair growing from someone's head; and many of these (mostly very young) women come to the show already in a state of unusual naturalness with regards to dress. 

The course of each makeover runs just so: A test subject / victim / contestant / FUTURE TV STAR is introduced with a 360° turn-around of her body in the clothes and makeup she selected to go on the show, angled from about knee-high.  I don't think I've seen a subject not wearing nosebleed-inducing platform stilettos.  There follows a montage showing her ludicrous fashion sense, intercut with shots of her drinking and dancing at clubs and the hours-long process of applying fake tan, false eyelashes, and hair extensions.  Hours-long processes not stressed as contemptible include hair removal, skincare, salon visits, and plastic surgery--at least half of the subjects have breast implants.  I would applaud the show for its lack of commitment to "natural beauty" when that would mean re-cutting up young women to prise out their silicone, if shows like The Swan and Extreme Makeover hadn't made the decision about whether to slice up women seem more like a matter of production costs than morality. 

After the introduction, the subject meets Jenny Frost, who displays her blinding teeth in an attempt to appear friendly.  Frost makes some neutral-to-positive comments about the subject's appearance, before asking if she is "ready to meet POD."  The subject assents, and the scene cuts to her walking into a darkened room.  With a click, a brilliant light floods the stage, lighting the entire background Frost-tooth white.  The subject looks disoriented as her pupils contract, and a sarcastically posh female voice addresses her.  "I AM POD.  WHO ARE YOU?"  The only reason to watch the show is the conceit that this voice comes from a 70s-sized sentient supercomputer whose primary directive is the promotion of "natural beauty" and whose secondary purpose is to self-righteously slag off these subjects without the distraction of possessing her / its own critiqueable body or style.  Gok Wan, take note!  Deny your humanity and embrace metal gender! 

There's two real flavors of subject on the show: women who have bought into every media-disseminated notion of what makes a woman sexually attractive to men to an outlandish degree (my temptation is to, for the sake of brevity, refer to members of this category as "whores", but this seems like a poor idea for several reasons, the most pertinent being that it strikes me as dismissive of the stylistic choices of actual sex workers); and people who I don't think will be particularly offended if I call them freaks.  Both styles of subject play their role on the show like an audition tape, either flirting and pouting at the computer or acting contemptuously too-cool for its machinations to work on them (respectively, obv.). 

POD is openly hostile and confrontational to subjects about their style of dress and makeup, using an incredulous, personally-affronted tone to berate them about their "fakery".  The show gets away with a great deal here due to its non-human host, including directly asking women if their breasts are "real" (a digression here about this question and its expected response probably deserves to be expanded into its own entry), calling them dirty, stupid, and low-class, and generally treating as stomach-churning the idea that they are making an overt public display of their sexual availability.  And that's before the hard-sell tactics start. 

Everyone is put on the back foot when a computer starts yelling at them, but the freaks tend to be slightly better versed in defending their stylistic choices than the cartoon sexpots.  I always watch in the hope that someone will offer a critique of the idea of "natural beauty", and some do, but I find them all to be pretty inarticulate about it, and to deliver their responses with the arrogance of a snotty teenager who believes she is the first one to have figured out that it's all phony, maaan.  Mostly it comes off as dull people who don't have writers spluttering vainly to come up with a way to own an opponent who has no momma.  Nonetheless, most are deeply protective of their styles. 

The theme of adding a garnish of scientific gravitas to the proceedings continues here with a survey of an undisclosed number of "members of the public"-- a public which appears to consist entirely of moderately attractive men ages 20-35, often the same six or seven men whom I expect are interns on the show -- about whether, seeing a picture of "this girl", they would choose to Snog, Marry, or Avoid her.  Typically there is also a secondary survey asking whether they think she looks like a) a sophisticated lady b) a punny joke answer or c) a filthy whore.  The subject is asked to pick what she thinks the men selected in each case, by pressing a touchscreen button which is also the inside of your television screen.  She views a selection of these men opining about her looks to a camera; they refer to her in the third person and are apparently not privy to her responses.  We the viewer, however, are privy to every emotion that flickers across her face during this time, as the show does not cut away but instead displays the men speaking in a picture-in-picture box. 

The percentages of "avoid" and "filthy whore" responses are obviously higher than the subject would like (that is the premise of the show), and it is at this low point in her estimation of herself that POD asks if she is ready to experience a jocularly and typically also insultingly named "make-under" (e.g. "spunky junkie to middle-class lass").  The subject assents and with a small fanfare is instantly transformed by means of a photocopier-style horizontal bar scanning down her body, replacing the old clothes, hair, and makeup with the new.  I don't have much to say about the content of the makeovers except that they tend to feature minidresses worn with black tights, and that all of the subjects are still wearing stripper platforms with stiletto heels, though occasionally not the ones they hobbled in on.  Another 360° turn-around, and then POD asks the subject if she is pleased.  Subjects express surprise and admiration in a manner that, if I were POD, I would instantly dismiss as utter fakery.  The eponymous survey is re-administered, men say they like the looks of this one, and "avoid" responses decrease to zero.

All the subjects possess a familiar air of arrogant desperation: the attitude of those whose foremost ambition is to be on television, and who to that end have worked and strained and struggled every day of their lives to cultivate a talent for applying to be on reality television shows.  In a highly valid survey I conducted with actual members of the public, 100% of them find viewing youths who cop this attitude to bias them towards thinking that these obvious fame-hounds deserve every bit of the humiliation they volunteer for, as well as making me, I mean them, more likely to cut the show slack for treating its contestants with cruelty.  In the interest of creating sympathy for other human beings even when they are televised, I suggest the overzealous medicalization of an ambition for fame, and the treatment of this dubious pathology with the oversubscribed addiction model. 

The subject bids POD goodbye and turns off the light before walking out and reappearing on the street, where they are met by friends, a partner, or their mother, who usually express a more sincere degree of shock and delight at the new look.  Partners, for probably obvious reasons, tend to be the least expressive of any pleasure they may experience, noting that the subject "looks good whatever you wear", but also averring that they hope she will now spend less time on her makeup.  Often a follow-up interview is conduced by Jenny Frost one month later, where she comes upon the subject during the day in a coffee shop and draws conclusions about whether the televised makeover has made a long-term difference to her clubwear.  There is a high relapse rate, probably because unlike some makeover shows, this one does not take the step of destroying the remainder of the subject's wardrobe. 

The show can knock out three of these sequences in 30 minutes, usually pairing two sexpots with one freak.  It's also puffed up with some interstitial segments in which Jenny Frost tests out DIY beauty aids.  In one frankly gobsmacking scene, Frost uses some old pressed-powder bronzer and lotion to concoct a fake tan solution, then puts her finger to her lips and says "Shh!  Don't tell POD!"  I suppose the show's overall message is something along the lines of "don't overdo it, just be genuine", but that is hard to take from a programme with a magic computer for a host. 

Snog Marry Avoid is one of that new breed of cultural products that are crafted to work on numerous levels: as serious advice for women whose beautification routines have become overwhelming; as a freakshow; as a cynical and frankly sinister co-opting of feminist messages to love the body you have; as dystopic post-industrial sci-fi; and as a parade of slim, barely dressed young women in high heels who get justly punished before they are rewarded for wanting to be good girls.  It's sickly fascinating to me for all these reasons, but after watching a dozen or so youngsters be highly defensive of their off-the-rack streetwalker costumes, I think there's an appeal of this fashion that the steamroller approach to making them "natural beauties" ignores entirely. 

There's a lot of reasons for a young person to feel frightened, anxious, and conflicted about their sexuality today, and slipping into a pre-made persona with preset responses from the alternate sex can provide some feelings of security, of being protected by your mask.  More than that, though, if you make yourself into a panto character, and someone slags you off, it becomes easier to dissociate your private, personal self from their put-downs.  It's not you they're insulting; they don't even know you.  Honestly, how could they?