Can we all agree movie makeover scenes are problematic?
They’re an iconic feature in our favourite films, but what have they taught us?
‘Did we internalise the message that society’s beauty standards are linked to happiness?’
We learned a lot from the high-school films and classic romcoms of the 90s and 00s: dresses worn over jeans didn’t age as well as we’d hoped; dance-offs are always as cool as you think; and if you’re not sure what you’re doing with your life, then you’re probably on the verge of international pop stardom. But, if there’s one thing that throws up all kinds of issues, it’s the makeover narrative. You know the one: young girl gets her hair straightened, her braces removed, her glasses binned and voila – suddenly she’s prom queen/successful/ gets the guy (and yes, it’s always a guy, but that’s a problem for another day).
Take The Princess Diaries, Miss Congeniality, She’s All That, The Devil Wears Prada, etc – the leading lady always gets a makeover that leads to popularity (and therefore, acceptance and success). Growing up, I devoured these films every weekend, and now I want to know: did we internalise the message that society’s beauty standards are intrinsically linked to happiness?
The idea that it’s impossible to be happy unless the world deems you attractive is something most women would admit to having carried into adulthood, and this narrative supports that rhetoric. ‘There are clear formulas here that […] as a part of visual culture, play a powerful role in the production and distribution of cultural norms,’ says Sarita Malik, professor of media and culture at London’s Brunel University.
Plus, it’s no coincidence that these happiness-inducing makeovers fall within the white male gaze. ‘These scenes depend on women transforming into a Eurocentric convention of [beauty]. The transformation is captured in the look, and that look is based on western beauty aesthetics in terms of hair, dress and bodies. It’s a form of aestheticisation that depends on a narrow idea of what is visually pleasing,’ Professor Malik adds.
The majority of these revamps are also carried out by men within the story itself. Of course, the fact that this factory line of patriarchally manifested beauty has been Trojan-horsed into films for young girls doesn’t bear thinking about. But is there a middle ground? Yes, these scenes are problematic, but I’m not too thrilled about never watching these nostalgic classics again (let’s be honest, Mandy Moore’s
Stupid Cupid performance in
The Princess Diaries needs to be seen at least twice a year).
Maybe half the battle is encouraging our brains to see them as much as fiction as we do Lizzie McGuire becoming a megastar on a school trip to Rome. It doesn’t mean, however, that we need to bring these makeovers back. Rebel Wilson’s recent Netflix film, Senior Year, is a perfect example of a noughties-esque film without a problematic moment (if you don’t count someone sabotaging her cheerleading pyramid). Let’s recognise that all these heroines were attractive in the first place – and, more importantly, that we’re so much more than how we look.