Show destroys wardrobe, self-esteem

But there's one show that makes me question my love of all things "real"—TLC's What Not to Wear. Spewing forth hackneyed and contrived jokes and insults, this show's two fashionable hosts, Stacy London and Clinton Kelly, tear apart their victim's wardrobe. Not only does the show provide no entertainment value, but its message is all wrong, especially for teenagers struggling to develop their own senses of self.

Of course, I could just turn a blind eye and instead watch an episode of Newlyweds that promises to be sublimely ditzy. But What Not to Wear hit too close to home this past year when the hosts "went back to school"—and to one high school in particular: good old Montgomery Blair. Three lucky Blazers from the class of 2005 were selected to have their senses of style dumped into a trash can, figuratively and literally.
What Not to Wear is based on the false assumption that wearing the hottest fashions will improve your life. "The point of the show is to tell people what not to wear and make them look better," says senior Susan Blythe-Goodman, one of the Blazers chosen for a style makeover. "But that's a stupid point, because everyone has a different idea about what looks good, so why should the entire world change for [London and Kelly]?"

In reality, London and Kelly are just the messengers, so I guess we shouldn't necessarily kill them. Rather, we had better aim our darts at the show's producers and big money backers, who shamelessly perpetuate a disturbing and damaging trend in popular culture.

The way you dress is an extension of who you are, your individual likes and dislikes. But What Not to Wear focuses instead on a standard of beauty that its producers try to impose on everyone. If Principal Phillip Gainous came on InfoFlow tomorrow announcing a newly-mandated school uniform policy, we would go crazy, legitimately protesting that a form of self-expression had been taken away. In effect, by dictating what clothes people should wear—albeit not drab uniforms—What Not to Wear does the exact same thing: It offers us a prepackaged, one-size-fits-all notion of hipness.
When you walk down Blair Boulevard, you see a salad bowl of styles, all feeding into the eclectic mix that makes Blair diverse. But what if every Blazer took London and Kelly's wisdom to heart? What if, in some nightmarish alternate universe, every Blazer "built a wardrobe with classic pieces, like a jacket" and "learned how to layer for different looks"? After all, as London says so eloquently, "we know that all teens want to fit in."

Watching the show, I was sickened to see London and Kelly trounce on any unique form of self-expression. They criticize the mismatched socks of senior Erinn Johnson-Long, another Blazer selected for the show. But Johnson-Long always wears mismatched socks—it's her "thing," a minuscule act of rebellion that makes her a little different from the masses. (Don't worry; even after her fashion makeover experience, Johnson-Long still mismatches her socks.)

Like Johnson-Long, the rest of Blair isn't exactly on the fast-track to conformity either. What Not to Wear may claim to have the best fashion sense around, but Blythe-Goodman admits that she rarely wears the clothes she bought on the show. "Wearing their clothes tells people what, I was on the show? But the clothes they picked out don't look like me," she says.

From the brutal and inconsiderate way the hosts attack their victims, I don't understand why anyone would want to be on the show in the first place. London called Blythe-Goodman a peace-loving, tree-hugging vegetarian (Blythe-Goodman took it as a compliment). Kelly questioned Johnson-Long's overalls, saying, "Do you plan to study agriculture? Because that's great for a field trip through a cow patty."

When Kelly voices his concerns about one of Johnson-Long's outfits, London quips that if Johnson-Long wore those clothes to school, she would get stuffed in a locker. London and Kelly can't get it through their thick, gel-stiffened heads that you don't have to look in vogue to feel good. They assume everyone needs all-the-rage clothing to be socially accepted.

Sure, everyone likes to dress up sometimes, but other times, you just want to roll out of bed, throw on the old grandma sweater you found at your favorite thrift store and mosey on over to school. And, contrary to London and Kelly's mantra, that's completely acceptable.