I'm watching MADE. Don't tell anyone because I'm pretty sure Dad didn't pay to fix my laptop so I could daydream while my essay sits untouched.
For those of you unaffected by the virus that is MTV, MADE tracks the physical and emotional transformations of American high school students on their quest to fulfill their innermost heartfelt and often surprising, dreams. This week's episode is about a girl who wants to be Made from the school skunk mascot into a stage goddess.
Yeah I'll let the visuals conjured up by that sentence sink in for a minute.
Anyway her Made coach (a beauty pageant-esque life size barbie doll) forces her to engage in all kinds of awkward social experiments - speed dating, eating lunch with the popular kids, wearing heels to school even though she's a 6 foot giant etc - but despite her good intentions, still leaves you questioning exactly what she'd know about being a social misfit.
In the end, old skunky gets her day in the sun with an underwhelming performance as a featured extra in the school play and in what I'm sure is a rigged vote, the ever coveted prom queen crown.
The episode closes with her getting her first kiss and proclaiming that prom was the best night of her life. Darkened school gym, streamers and a sea of pastel taffeta? Not exactly setting the bar very high but okay.
It did get me thinking though - as things often do. I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed in her new image, her new personality, her new life. While it's questionable how long after the show any of these life changes lasted, it did make me wonder about how much of her old self she got to keep. Whether any of those things which made her unique and interesting in the first place would survive the makeover aftermath. It just annoys me a little that they're not MADE until they toe the line of conformity.
I mean I enjoy the cringeworthiness of their fails as much as the next person, I'm just kind of humiliated for them that this is the extent they have to go to be comfortable in their own skin. That feeling like they're enough depends on whether or not other people approve of who they're pretending to be.
In the end, I'm kind of disheartened that the standard by which we judge their success relies on whether or not they fit into our prescribed categories of what's acceptable - normal - cool. In our eyes they don't 'win' unless they get the seal of approval from their generally cruel and unaccepting classmates and I can't help but wonder what kind of irreparable damage we do by condoning and then encouraging these kinds of attitudes.
Not to be overdramatic - some of them do indeed get the crown but it's just that they always seem a little less of themselves in the end. Like some of their fight is gone.
I just wish there was a way for them to be MADE without being broken first.
Lesson Four: Embrace your crazy.
xx
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