New T&S inspired Question

13) To what extent is the garden of eden ideology, sexual difference and performativity packaged up and sold to us through TV shows such as how to look good naked or what not to wear? How do these type of self-image programmes reinforce the masculinity/feminity binary?

In 2004 Trinny and Suzzanah produced an episode of what not to wear which addressed the confused identities of poorly dressed young mums...
The episode contained a narrative of progress whereby any woman, if she tries hard enough, and consumes the right products, can become her ‘true’ self.

Like Gods Laws outlined when Eve and Adam enter into the garden of eden, having an identity acceptable to trinny and suzzanah who claim to represent the general public by being our fashion police they also have a strict set of laws which you have to follow in order to fit in. For instance: The presenters examine their wardrobes, often discarding or destroying items, they subject the participant to scrutinise themselves and be scrutinised by being gazed at in a 360 degree panopticon mirror. They are given £2,000 to spend, on the first day they shop on their ‘own’ while being filmed, on the second, Trinny and Susannah evaluate the clothing that has been bought and finally their hair and make-up is styled. The ‘new’ woman is revealed to herself in a mirror, her true identity is released, she is no longer an unfulfilled social outcast.

Like Butlers groundbreaking work of performativity, the show higlights the discourse of the production of the self. This self is by no means finally produced, but requires constant reproduction under an internalized and external gaze.

Trinny comments about one of the participants husbands: “he got back a woman he thought he’d lost, and I think that’s a big thing for a man when a woman has kids, that they sort of – sometimes stop being a wife” (BBC1, 2004).This violently embroils the fabricated gender binary constructed in the show with heterosexuality, the role of the mother, desire and image as identity. Like the Gaze of God in the Garden of Eden, self-image shows expect us to constantly gaze at ourselves and imagine ourselves as entities which need to be represented by a system of signs familiar to mainstream culture, it so happens that this is a masculine gaze and a patriarchal culture, so 'women' are viewing themselves without a great deal of agency from a alienated standpoint.