Lookism Role in Reality Shows Prevents Stereotypes

One afternoon I was sitting in front of my TV and flipping the channels. I was shocked when something strange was the common thing between three Channels. There were three different makeovers TV shows across them, they all targeted women only. First of all the term makeover is applied to changing one's appearance, sometimes through cosmetics. Makeovers can range from something as simple as a new haircut, to the use of cosmetic surgery, to the extreme of the implantation of dental veneers. Furthermore, this kind of TV show called “Reality Television” too, which is a genre of television programming.



So I chose to watch one of them, it was called “Ambush Makeover” aired from the US. While I’m watching, I noticed that from the beginning the episode’s title was “From Drab to Fab”. The word choice has a negative impact on me, describing the women as a dull because she has her own style wasn’t a quite decent thing. From this TV show, I’ve realized they try to generalize women in an indirect way. They demanding all women to stop them accidentally and put them in the spot. They force them to makeover them according to their beauty scale, which I noticed it appears in being a blond with straight hair, thin wearing full makeup and showing a lot of skin. By this makeover, the TV show leaves no choice to the contestant to choose her own look. It’s like they aiming to stop the beauty diversity in the US, which is extremely a big issue if you really see every women in the streets look alike. Another clue that supports my argument is that when the hairdresser stated “ Blonder, brighter and more golden”, as if he is defining the hair attractiveness in being a blond!


Another aspect they mentioned is that, a new look equals a new life and a new exciting personality. Well I have to argue this because women will become dull if they were all the same. People shouldn’t suffer from lookism, since America is a more looks-obsessed society than many others, and it is more looks-obsessed today than it was fifty years ago, or even ten; plastic surgery has quadrupled this decade, it started to reach our region and in Qatar specially. For a couple of months I’ve receiving a phone calls from new beauty salons in Qatar to provide me with a new free of charge makeover, which they were depicted from the American makeover shows and they try to apply their approach here in Qatar. However, it won’t work perfectly due to the differences in our body shapes and our darker skin, so they have to refashion their concept of being blonder is prettier. At the end the irony is that a makeunder is based on the opposite principle, removing artificial enhancements to a person's appearance to give a more 'natural' look, which is totally different in this situation. It becomes as a surveillance that monitors the women in our society and a way of preventing stereotypes. On the other hand, Blondes do not seem to have lost any of their popularity since the end of the last ice age. Research suggests that percentage of blondes in each type of magazine exceeds the base rate of blondes in the normal population. This would suggest that the selection pressures that shaped the standards of Western female beauty in the late-Palaeolithic are still the same today.

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Interesting and fun survey!

Big Box Stores or Main Street

In “Big Box stores are bad for main street”, Betsy Taylor highlights the negative social effects of superstores, or what she calls “Big Box stores”, on local communities in the United States. Although Taylor touches on issues such as reliability and customer service, her main focus in this short article is to convince the reader that “big box stores” suck the life out of local communities. Even though, Taylor’s criticism of superstores is creative and amusing, it is built on assumptions and generalizations that Taylor fails to justify. In this paper I will use personal preference and experience to argue against Taylor’s idea that “big box stores are bad for Main Street”.

Taylor’s biggest, and perhaps most faulty assumption, is that shopping should be associated with socializing. In this sense she blames superstores for not giving people the opportunity to socialize as they would if they were to shop at small local providers. This, she says, is bad for the community. I disagree with this point. From personal experience most of what goes on between shop keepers and their customers is business related. The customer is there to buy something, and the shop keeper is there to convince the customer to buy it. Personally, when I shop, I don’t like to be fallowed around by someone who is constantly looking over my shoulder. When shopping, I like to take my time, look around, and feel free to put the item back on the shelf. This makes shopping at superstores ideal for me. If I need help, I like to simply ask for it, and if I want to socialize I simply start a conversation with another customer who is there to buy and not to sell me something.

In addition to her socializing argument, Taylor makes a value assumption about efficiency Vs fun when it comes to shopping. She acknowledges that shopping at “Big box stores” is more efficient than shopping at small stores, and that this efficiency factor is what attracts the American ‘supper-consumer’. However, she ends her article by saying “But let’s face it--- bustling thriving city centers are fun. They breathe life into a community”. Here she assumes that shopping should not be about efficiency as much as it should be about entertainment and fun. This might be true, sometimes. However, it is only sensible to have the option of this efficient method of shopping, especially in a society such as the American society which is highly concerned with efficiency. It is important to point out that no one forces people to shop at superstores, and that they can always decide to bounce back and forth between small shops when they feel like they have some time to kill.

Furthermore, Taylor’s attempts to convince the reader that “Big box stores” are less responsive to their customers’ needs then small businesses are misleading. Taylor backs up this argument by rhetorically asking “ever try to complain about bad service or poor quality products to the president of Home Depot?” As if the president was the only person in charge of insuring customer satisfaction. The truth of the matter is that when it comes to these supper chain stores, each of the branches has its own administration that has its own branch manager. There is no need to take matters up with the president of Home Depot. Each Home Depot branch has a manger that is responsible for keeping his clienteles happy.

To conclude, Taylor’s approach on the negative social effects of “Big box stores” is intriguing. However, it is an approach that requires extensive and careful analysis. Her article is full of generalizations that weaken an, otherwise, thoughtful argument. Just because people have the option to go to Home Depot now does not mean that they will not shop in ‘Main Street’ anymore. It just means that they have a help yourself shopping option that is more practical and efficient then the ‘Main Street’ setting.