Trigger warning: I’ll be discussing female plastic surgery, POC, and sexism even though I am white, cis gendered and my pronouns are him/his. In this post I am exploring the ways that reality TV manipulates our consciousness…the vehicle is an article that focuses on plastic surgery and female body image.
With social media we are our own reality TV show. We can produce whatever show we want and build whatever persona we wish to build for that show. Originality it turns out, is still difficult to find though, as anyone who has used the internet can tell you. There is nothing secret about following the herd. Trend is set by trendsetters, followers follow. But, what happens when the trends we think we are setting are being set by someone else? Someone like a producer on a reality TV show…someone like Mark Burnett for example. Lets pretend he takes a laughable socialite with a rickety financial track record and a shady real estate portfolio and convinces him that he is the worlds most successful businessman. Impossible you say? We all know it isn’t, but what I want to talk about is the power reality TV has to make a subject believe what they see on the screen. It is my conviction for example, that Donald Trump really does think he is the person Mark Burnett made him through his portrayal of him on TV.
I have first hand experience in this. In one show I was editing it was an understood joke between us editors (some shows work in teams of up to 15 editors or more) that whenever we cut away to a certain female cast member during a dialogue scene we would show a single of her stuffing something in her mouth. It wasn’t part of the story and she was not fat or skinny and food or body image was not part of her story for her more than anyone else – it was just a fun inside joke we editors had to rib the subject. This particular character had become difficult to production and so we stuck it to her in ways we could by poking at her vanity. We were so relentless that we eventually got word from the network execs to stop cutting away to (X) while she was eating. The following season I was following mics and just listening for snippets of dialogue that I could use for a particular edit problem I was trying to solve (the subjects are wired for sound during shooting and often you can hear their conversations even when the camera is not on them). Some remember this fact, some do not, some don’t care. Subject (X) was talking to subject (Y) while they ate lunch on set. Subject (Y) commented on the lunch and subject (X) mentioned that she dare not eat it because of her body shape. Subject (Y) reacted with surprise and said “What? But girl you look amazing!”. Subject (X) replied “Are you kidding me babe? Did you see me last season?! Every time the camera was on me I was stuffing my face!”. This is the internalization of behaviors arranged out of context and mirrored back to a reality cast member. She has a scale, her own memory, her friends and a mirror yet the world we have constructed has her in its grips. Seeing is believing, and it is very seductive. I would posit it cannot be resisted.
So what has this got to do with a photo of a trendsetter like L’il Kim and an article about plastic surgery Instagrams? L’il Kim is for sure her own show. But who is steering the body modification ship? Is it Kim? What is Kim seeing bounced back to her that she has taken and run with? What does she see that tells her ass should look bigger, her tits rounder, her cheekbones higher? Yes, there is the sexism that ensures the chances of a woman reaching CEO, President, or Lead Architect is next to nothing and creates a ready-made black market for a woman’s god given ASSets. In Kim’s case it is a bit more complex because as a POC she could be excused for using whatever tools she has on hand for her survival. The first pick of the tools of success are usually given to men and most of those have been white here in America. She uses her own body, and she uses the eyes of the world – two things she has access to. Yet, L’il Kim’s real talent is not her body and plastic surgery but her gifts as a musician and performer. So why? Yes there is age forcing her to run scared from the inevitable loss of youth. Yes there is the need to be extra within the world of fashion and celebrity. What would she tell her therapist? What would they say back to her? What about the other Instagram dolls? What are they following? Who is their producer? Is it them? Does Donald Trump think that he is his own producer? When he saw himself portrayed as the worlds most successful businessman did he believe he was?
We have always been our own reality TV show. We just haven’t been able to get the eyes of the world on ourselves. When we look in the mirror and see a shape we don’t like, but our partner loves, there is a tension. Their compliment is offensive in the face of our disapproval of our reflection. “Mirror mirror on the wall…” is a powerful point of mythic inspiration – if the reflection does not bend to our will we feel rage, so much so that we’d be willing to cut our bodies open and add or subtract flesh. What are the reasons we present ourselves the way we do? How conscious are the beliefs about ourselves and what needs to be changed and what should stay the same? The mic is on and we are telling ourselves we eat too much because we saw it on TV. Maybe seeing is believing you are what you see on TV.