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Resumo

Makeover television shows are notorious for presenting oppressive and unrealistic images of women, but a sizable portion of makeover contestants are men. What does this mean for the impact of such shows on gender culture? Using data collected from transcripts of five different programs, we find that gender, power, and heterosexuality intertwine within makeover plots in three ways. First, makeover shows link the promise of personal transformation to uncovering an accentuated femininity or masculinity lurking beneath surface-level shortcomings. Second, shows featuring male contestants make status and wealth central to their transformations. While female contestants focus on their bodies, men are offered opportunities and encouragement to engage in 'manhood acts' (Schrock and Schwalbe, 2009): deliberate efforts to claim membership in the privileged gender group. Third, makeovers rely upon heteronormative understandings of masculinity and femininity as opposites that attract. For men in particular, heterosexual relationships (whether real or imagined) provide the evidence within each episode that their makeovers have successfully rehabilitated their masculinity and their gender privilege. Thus the presence of men in the makeover genre reifies existing ideologies of gender inequality in which social status is a requisite component of masculinity, deference to men is a requisite component of femininity, and a male-dominated heterosexuality is a requisite component of both.

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