Taking a Dim View - Part II

In Part I of this series, I mentioned how I make a point of watching The View as often as possible. The women are well-informed about many facets of the political/social scene that I don’t follow on my own. However, the women consistently demonstrate blind spots in their discussions. In the previous essay, I focused on how many lapses occurred in the panel members’ thinking around the issue of abortion. Here I discuss how panel members fail to see the inconsistencies in their attitude toward celebrating different gender, ethnic, and social identities.

The women of The View are especially eager to demonstrate how they are in full support of the “coming out” of all those with non-conforming sexual orientations. But their philosophy of acceptance is expansive. They also assert their belief that we should all be able to demonstrate and celebrate our true selves (assuming our true selves don’t involve doing harm to others). The days of having to dissemble are over, no matter what our problems or propensities.

The View panel members give a warm welcome to individuals such as RuPaul, the flamboyant gender non-specific celebrity. They laughingly suggest that Chance the Rapper run for President, so cogent did they find his narrative songs about life in “the hood.” They have praised authors and celebrities for making public the details of their struggles with conditions such as alcoholism, addiction, cancer, HIV, and mental illness. Discussion of all these problems used to be taboo. People coping with them had to scuttle veiled through the twilight. They had to live as pariahs. But now they can come forward into the full light of day and talk openly about these aspects of their lives. They are freed to congratulate themselves on letting it all hang out without any need to gloss over any of the gritty reality of their lives. Acceptance and, above all, self-acceptance, is the order of the day.

People who have the kind of difference that might have evoked schoolyard bullying or that might once have gotten them hidden away in attics - can now come forth and parade in all their glory. This is a good thing - although I sometimes wish that people who never got addicted in the first place might be applauded as heartily as those who beat their addictions. Still, I’m glad to join in, to get in the spirit of appreciating the world in all its diversity. We should all be unabashed, able to celebrate the way we’ve come, the different paths we’ve taken in life (again assuming we’re not committed to trampling over others in the process). The women of The View are right to be waving from the floats of these new festivals of self-regard.

Except, except - a glaring hypocrisy rears its head at the end of many of their shows. At least once a week, The View concludes with a “View Your Deal” segment featuring sales on all sorts of accessories such as cosmetics. As the designated panel member enthuses over the lipstick, the mascara, and the wrinkle-erase products in the latter category, it seems to me she betrays all the principles she might have been espousing just moments before. “Oh, that’s what I need!” she’ll purr over some touch-up product that claims to hide your gray hairs, or temporarily suppress those bags under your eyes, or add the kind of glow to your cheeks that your body no longer naturally produces.

Other shows are also notable for contradicting in the second half of their programs all the reassurances they had issued in the first half. Dr. Phil might finish counseling a woman who had feelings of worthlessness instilled in her by constantly belittling parents. Dr. Phil will again stump for the philosophy that we should all reach a point where we let the negative opinions of others roll off our backs. We should instead recognize what makes us of unique value in the world and we should make our lives about contributing those unique gifts. We shouldn’t waste time remaking ourselves in attempts to satisfy other people’s half-baked judgments.

After this ringing encouragement to be true to ourselves - segue to Robin McGraw and a tray full of her new line of Revelation cosmetics wheeled onstage. Dr. Phil’s wife comes out aggressively promoting these products, perhaps even using the woman from the first part of the show to illustrate the transformations that the Revelation skin care brand can create. Robin will daub foundation, skin toner, and a variety of other camouflaging substances on the woman’s face, telling her how much younger and more refreshed she’ll look with the use of these products. “And we all feel so much more confident when we are looking our best,” Robin will soft pedal her hard sell. (By “best,” Robin of course means “different.”)

Sometimes the contradiction gets even more startling. I’m struck by the many about-faces that have occurred on Oprah’s shows. Oprah might spend the first part of a program talking with an anorexic girl and a counselor. They will agree that part of the cause of this kind of body dysmorphic disorder is often that the sufferer has been raised with an emphasis on perfection. The girl learns to push herself to achieve at levels that can’t be sustained. When she fails, she compensates by losing weight, something that she can continue to control. While one can’t always come in first at a track meet, one can always lose another half-pound by starving oneself or by throwing up.

Then Oprah will also cite how out society’s obsession with being slim contributes to the anorexia epidemic. Women especially have a lot of pressure put on them to have the bodies of slim, athletic teenagers throughout their lives. Fat girls are “dogs” who don’t get dates. Fat women are overlooked altogether. Thinness is sexually fetishized in this society. Oprah always chimes in her disapproval of this attitude. She leads audiences to believe that she might champion a fight against this kind of attitude that puts such emphasis on being girlishly skinny.

Yet throughout her career, Oprah has been preoccupied with dieting! She has come out with diet foods, diet regimens – diet, diet, diet. Then when diets don’t work, Oprah goes to extreme lengths to make herself look artificially thinner. The pictures of her that appear on the cover of each month of her O Magazine are usually heavily photoshopped or airbrushed. In addition, Oprah is girdled to the hilt, giving evidence of routinely going through an even more painful process than Scarlett O’Hara did as her maid cinched her corset in an attempt to achieve the 18-inch waist she had before giving birth. Where not even airbrushing or girdling can do the trick, headline blurbs are judiciously placed to hide any remaining bulges on Oprah’s picture. Every cover of O Magazine, every one of Oprah’s important public appearances, is a masterpiece of topiary art with Oprah being pruned, staked, and contorted into an artificial shape.

But her shows often have contained a further betrayal of her philosophy of “Eat, Pray, Love” – of “Celebrate the Real You.” After the segment on anorexia is wrapped up, Oprah sometimes will parade the results of the makeovers to which she treated some members of her audience. Formerly distinctive-looking, workaday women (usually women) will be brought out, now all dolled up into fashion uniformity, now sometimes teetering a bit in high heels.

Incidentally, Oprah herself once inadvertently acknowledged how anti-feminist and handicapping such heels can be. When one of her celebrity guests admitted that she couldn’t walk from the wings to the stage in such heels and only put them on once she was seated on stage and the camera was ready to roll - Oprah exulted that she could do better. With jolly triumph, Oprah said, “I can walk on stage. I wasn’t always sure I could do it, but I make it!” It’s hard to see how women are being liberated when they regard it as a supreme achievement to be able to walk a few yards in the requisite stiletto heels. Meanwhile, we wonder at and deplore how the Chinese upper class used to bind women’s feet in order to keep them to sexually appealing baby-steps.

At any rate, Oprah’s made-over audience members now stand on stage posing in their new get-ups. The audience members gasp in approval. Everyone applauds. The women no longer look their age, their weight, or their experience. All those distinguishing features have been concealed. The women have been cinched, pinched, and painted. They’ve been re-branded, re-fashioned into new identities.

So, what are we to conclude from all this? We conclude that it’s good to celebrate yourself if you’re gay, ghetto, struggling with mental illness, addiction, or myriads of other problems. In all such cases, you are invited to come out and shout.

BUT – if you are not what’s considered attractive (especially if you’re a woman), or if you are over 30 (especially if you’re a woman) – then it’s not okay to celebrate yourself as you are. Rather, in those cases, its incumbent upon you to spend your days glossing it over, hiding it, disguising it, lying about it, denying it. You must make yourself up and make yourself over. And if you don’t - you should be ashamed of yourself!