Reality Matters_ 19 Writers Come Clean About the Shows We Can't Stop Watching - Anna David [48]
I want Stacy to come into my house and take on my wardrobe, with my too-long beautiful orange wrap dress that I haven’t had hemmed in the two years I’ve owned it and my ripped black skirt—the one that was baggy in the best of circumstances, whose condition I justify by claiming “I can wear it with leggings underneath and, anyway, it’s comfortable.” I want her to spy on me while I try on impossibly unsuitable clothes in East Village boutiques, clothes designed for the hip boho chick I always wanted to be and never was.
I then want to be whisked off to Nick Arrojo’s studio and have my hair professionally tended to while someone whispers in my ear that my face would look, well, so much more elegant with just a few light layers around the face. I want Carmindy to pluck my always-scraggly eyebrows into a perfect arch. I want Clinton—my new gay best friend—to approve of it all, and then I want to have a great party to celebrate it before I go off into my perfect new life, the one in which I always remember to dress in clothes that actually fit, my perfect skirts graze my legs at the perfect angle just above the knees, I don’t have to fear my children will use a new white turtleneck as a napkin, and I get my gray covered on a perfect five-week schedule and always remember to put on my new makeup products so that I look perfectly polished and fresh before I leave the house.
My downward slide into makeover madness actually began in the fall of 2002 with A Makeover Story. One morning, pregnant with my second child, nauseous and dizzy, beached on the couch like a flannel-covered whale, I heard something like this: “And after the break, the two lifelong friends will be ready to debut their new looks at a party their pals have arranged especially for them.” Mildly curious, I decided to stick around. As the two rather ordinary-looking women—with perfect hair, perfect makeup, and dressy clothes—walked into the celebration, I heard one of the friends say, “She’s never looked this good in her life.”
Lying on my couch in a battered nightgown, I wanted to look better than I ever had in my life.
Until that moment, the entire reality show industrial complex had almost completely passed me by. Survivor bored me; I found the Machiavellian machinations of the contestants as exciting and thrilling as being stuck in an elevator with a group of cutthroat and not-so-smart ninth grade girls. My idea of good reality show television was 24/7 coverage of the death of Princess Diana, or whatever John Edwards was up to with Rielle Hunter and her infant at the Beverly Hills Hotel at three a.m. In other words, I like crap TV as much as the next person, but I was loath to cop to it—unless it was gussied-up up with a CNN or MSNBC logo. That’s how A Makeover Story wiggled past my intellectual and feminist pretenses. It’s told in the style of a faux documentary—just the sort of thing that would appeal to someone like me. There is voice-over narrator who follows two self-selected friends as they receive a joint makeover, often to commemorate a special occasion like graduating from college. The language is gentle and helpful: “Sutton’s shoulders are narrow and she needs some help selecting the right jacket to show off her looks,” a stylist might opine. Even the friends they interview about the subjects are primarily supportive. Most say something like, “It would be nice to see Mary wear clothes as beautiful as she really is.”
There are people who sail glamorously through pregnancy, skin glowing, not suffering for even a moment from exhaustion, nausea, heartburn, back pain, and swelling. I am not one of them. Within a week of missing my period, I was horrifyingly, stupefyingly ill. My pregnancy routine: Wake up, feel nauseated, nibble the crackers I’ve left on the side of the bed the night before on a Fiestaware salad plate, which will give me just enough energy to get out of bed and over to a toilet, where I will