Reality Matters_ 19 Writers Come Clean About the Shows We Can't Stop Watching - Anna David [31]
“I just don’t want you to look back and regret not doing it,” my mom said, her voice heavy with disappointment, when I told her that despite all the manners lessons and private schooling up until my arts school defection, I wasn’t going to ever own long, white, kid leather gloves. “Don’t worry,” I laughed. “I won’t.”
By the end of a daylong Ladette to Lady marathon on the Sundance Channel a few months ago, however, I realized I had spoken too soon. As I watched the three remaining ladettes—that’s British for both “tomboys” and/or “boozy tarts”—dramatically descend a winding staircase, dressed in impressive ball gowns that they had made themselves in dressmaking class, hair perfectly coiffed, backs perfectly straight, and attempt to pass themselves off as actual debutantes to a coterie of scathingly judgmental lords and ladies, I felt the slightest twinge of envy, if not regret. When Clara, an awkward, shy tomboy, and the girl I related to the most (we’re both tall) glided down the staircase, stunning in her pink gown and improbable, gravity-defying chignon, I found myself thinking something that in all my years of watching reality television I have never thought. I could win this show. More specifically, I could wipe the floor with Clara. They want debutante? I’ll show them debutante.
There are probably chefs who watch Top Chef and think, “I could make a much better appetizer with Quaker Oats and seafood.” And fashion designers who watch Project Runway and think, “They want innovation? I’ll show them innovation. Hand me that aluminum foil.” And hairstylists who watch Shear Genius and think, “This is my profession? Jesus. What am I doing with my life?”
Ladette to Lady, however, is in a different reality competition category. Like VH1’s From G’s to Gents or Charm School or (everyone’s favorite) Tool Academy, it’s a reeducation reality competition. The show takes ten crude, pint-gulping “hard-core ladettes” and ships them off to Eggleston Hall, an austere, fancy-pants finishing school where the curriculum (cookery, flower arranging, dressmaking, deportment, elocution) hasn’t changed since about 1950. All the while, their actions are coolly commented upon by an unseen narrator, who can sometimes fool you into believing you’re watching a nature documentary rather than a reality show. When Louise, a very pretty contestant from season two is shown downing glass after glass of wine following a dinner party, the narrator intones, “Some girls rose to the occasion—while others let themselves down.”
The stated goal of Ladette to Lady is to transform the girls into “ladies,” but what that translates to is “self-confident, slightly more polite, definitely less drunk young women.” In the first season, the girls who hadn’t been “asked to leave” (that’s British for “eliminated”) got to show off what they’d learned in a sort of public final exam: it was part fashion show, part speech, part floral arranging and cooking demonstration. But the second season’s finale was far more interesting, at least to me. In addition to each giving a speech about their experience and final exams in floristry and cooking, the final three girls had to pass themselves off as debutantes at a ball, My Fair Lady–style. All the girls succeeded in looking the part, but sounding like true British debs was another thing altogether. Each of them was given away by her accent. Where is Henry Higgins when you need him?
My accent was the handicap in my fantasy Ladette to Lady ball. After a few weeks of cooking classes, I could definitely whip up something edible. I’m sure if I paid attention to Jill Harbord, the stern floristry teacher at Eggleston Hall, I could sufficiently pretend that flower arranging is an actual skill—as opposed to, you know, putting flowers together in a way that doesn’t evoke sweet-smelling chaos. There’s no question that I could carry myself like a debutante—after all, I was literally born to do it. But my American accent would undoubtedly be a huge obstacle in passing myself off at a ball as a British