Why I Love Hooker Make Over

 

 

The world of women thumbing through fashion magazines and loitering around make up counters for hundred dollar foundation and blush kits is a world that’s always been about the unattainable fantasy. In the world of reality TV and talk shows, the make-over is a staple of this make-believe.  We seek to make fat women skinnier, older women younger, plain women more provocative.

What’s always stated is all this do-over is good for the women—all this do-over means we will be our better selves, our hotter, sexier go-getter selves.  It’s always couched in how better we will look with our hair more coiffed and our cheekbones more defined, but by and large what all this really means is if we follow the prescription given us to the letter, a man will want us.

And that’s what makeovers are about. Getting straight men to want us.

That’s why World of Wonders’ Hooker MakeOvers is so fucking genius. It unabashedly acknowledges and insists on what we pretend isn’t the point.

In Hooker MakeOver Michelle Visage of RuPaul Drag Race fame and Morgan McMichaels get unsuspecting working class women walking down the Hollywood Boulevard to come into the Bizzy B lingerie shop for a make over.  Michelle stands out there in her animal prints and Morgan in her various outrageous drag and they become the best friends forever for a few moments of women everywhere.

The women are all plain but attractive in their own way. No one is rail thin. They ask them what body part makes them the most shy or embarrassed. What is it they feel like they need to hide? And then that’s the very thing that gets highlighted. Because the whole point is to put it all out there, to flaunt, if you will, what the goddess gave you. Kudos to Michelle and Morgan for picking chubby girls and thin girls, and treating them all with equal dignity and fun.

The makeovers are about five -six minutes long on film and consist almost entirely of: finding the right slutty outfit and heels, finding the right shade of cheap lipstick, and finding the right outrageous wig. The end. In these simple steps , Hooker MakeOver has exposed the whole makeover industry for the crassness it really is.

And it’s easy to keep up, as Morgan and Michelle say. Who can’t afford five minutes of cheap wig and lipstick and lingerie? Lather. Rinse. Repeat. It’s a look anyone can achieve. More importantly, it demonstrates that those who seek to segregate women into good girls and bad girls, into pretty and plain, have fallen for an illusion that doesn’t exist. Anyone can be a hooker. Anyone can be a plain Jane walking down the street.

But the best part is the end. They send the newly made hookers onto Hollywood Boulevard and give them ten bucks for every car that honks for them, thereby reiterating that we all have something we’re selling. They throw hooker trivia questions at them and give them ten bucks for anything that resembles a right answer. Lo and behold, every woman knows something about the pantheon of hooker myth and lore. Might as well get paid to share your body and your knowledge.

And no one is pretending the make over isn’t about selling yourself.

Hands down, the BEST makeover show.

Ever. Hooray for honesty.

And yes.

I’m totally up for a hooker make over myself.

Margaret Elysia Garcia writes essays, fiction, memoir, and poetry. Her recent work can be seen in Brain, Child magazine, The People’s Apocalypse Anthology, Huizache Journal, Catamaran Review, and other literary places. She lives in the remote northeastern corner of the Sierra Nevadas, where she teaches unsuspecting college students and hosts an alternative women’s radio show and a book club show on Plumas Community Radio at www.kqny919.org. She made her directorial debut for Listen to Your Mother in May. You can follow her adventures and links to publications on her blog, Tales of a Sierra Madre.