How Do You Walk Away From The Best Job On TV?!

As I mentioned in my post on Casting By, most of my reveries about jobs I might be doing if I wasn't doing this are still informed and influenced by TV. Casting (and re-casting) shows often runs through my mind when I watch scripted shows. I didn't know City Code Enforcer even was a job until God gave me Hoarders. And every time I watch What Not To Wear, I'm jealous of everyone on it -- obviously, of the people who get to spend $5000 worth of free money on an entirely new wardrobe, but also of Stacy London and Clinton Kelly, the people who get to dictate how that money gets spent.

What Not To Wear, which is based on an also excellent British format, is exactly what its title promises: if you dress like shit, your loved ones can nominate you to go on WNTW and get a total makeover -- not just your wardrobe, but your hair and makeup as well. Over the course of your time with the show (a week, supposedly), host/stylists Stacy and Clinton show you secret footage the show has taken of you looking crappy around your town, make you model your favourite outfits in front of a 360-degree mirror so that they can explain the specifics of what's bad about them, show you examples of what you should be wearing and why, and finally throw your current wardrobe in the garbage.

...Okay, I realize that this description makes the experience seem like kind of a rough go for  contributors (the show's term for makeover-ees), and honestly, the first part of it is. Contributors sometimes cry at the realization that their closest friends and family members -- including spouses, often -- have been conferring behind their backs about how crappy their clothes are; usually those are the ones I call Sad Sacks -- the moms or caregivers or time-crunched postdocs who had to cut something out of their schedules in order to function, and decided that looking nice would be it. The other category of WNTW contributors is the Sadly Deluded -- the women who dress way too sexy or weird and think they look amazing; generally, their reaction is anger at the idea that anyone knows better than they what they should look like.

If all you knew about the show was what happens during the initial ambush segment, you would be justified in thinking that it's mean for mean's sake to people who would, if they could, do better on their own. But -- and here's where I get back to Clinton and Stacy -- the idea that underpins every episode is that everyone has the potential to look good in their clothes, and most of what the hosts do, particularly since Sad Sacks make up most of their onscreen clientele, is put contributors through self-esteem boot camp.

Lots of contributors tell similar stories of what got them to this point: they used to take pride in their dress, but then a life-changing event occurred -- childbirth, a debilitating accident, general aging -- that changed their bodies so much, and so traumatically, that they just gave up. Women whose figures set them outside the standard 0-14 range talk about the shame they feel trying to shop at non-specialty stores, knowing that they won't find their size. This is some real shit that lots of women go through, but that doesn't get discussed on TV much, except maybe once a season on Project Runway when the designers have to dress real women and whoever gets the heaviest one is, inevitably, shitty about it. (Sidebar: hats off to Tim Gunn for drawing attention, last week, to the challenge plus-size women face when it comes to dressing stylishly.) But Kelly and Clinton preach the gospel of looking good in the body you have now, not waiting until some future time when maybe you will have lost weight and think you deserve it. And because they've spent so much time talking about the clothes that aren't doing their makeover subjects any favours, London and Kelly haven't, in my opinion, gotten the credit they deserve for really being on the front lines of body acceptance. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.

I have to think that Kelly and London have enjoyed the superficial aspects of the show: putting together looks that demonstrate the specific rules each contributor is supposed to follow for her body type; saying catty things about the awful pieces in the contributor's current wardrobe; running herd over her on Day 2 of her shopping odyssey and helping her spend all that money. (Those job tasks would also...be very enjoyable to this commentator. I have been known to weigh in with dressing-room advice to strangers, so I guess you could say that, in a way, I am already doing this job for free.) But given that watching contributors see themselves made over can be legitimately moving for the viewer at home (shut up, it can!), then being there in person to midwife the transformation must be incredibly satisfying. After the show airs its last episode on October 18, London will probably write more books and Kelly will probably anchor more seasons of The Chew, but I bet they'll really miss the good work they did in the 360.