In 2004, roughly 25 makeover-themed reality shows aired on U.S. television. By 2009, there were more than 250, from What Not to Wear and The Biggest Loser to Dog Whisperer and Pimp My Ride. In Makeover TV, Brenda R. Weber argues that whether depicting transformations of bodies, trucks, finances, relationships, kids, or homes, makeover shows posit a self achievable only in the transition from the “Before-body”—the overweight figure, the decrepit jalopy, the cluttered home—to the “After-body,” one filled with confidence, coded with celebrity, and imbued with a renewed faith in the powers of meritocracy. The rationales and tactics invoked to achieve the After-body vary widely, from the patriotic to the market-based, and from talk therapy to feminist empowerment. The genre is unified by its contradictions: to uncover your “true self,” you must be reinvented; to be empowered, you must surrender to experts; to be special, you must look and act like everyone else.

Based on her analysis of more than 2,500 hours of makeover TV, Weber argues that the much-desired After-body speaks to and makes legible broader cultural narratives about selfhood, citizenship, celebrity, and Americanness. Although makeovers are directed at both male and female viewers, their gendered logic requires that feminized subjects submit to the controlling expertise wielded by authorities. The genre does not tolerate ambiguity. Conventional (middle-class, white, ethnically anonymous, heterosexual) femininity is the goal of makeovers for women. When subjects are male, makeovers often compensate for perceived challenges to masculine independence by offering men narrative options for resistance or control. Foregoing a binary model of power and subjugation, Weber provides an account of makeover television that is as appreciative as it is critical. She reveals the makeover show as a rich and complicated text that expresses cultural desires and fears through narratives of selfhood.

This special issue examines reality television, analyzing how it produces certain ways of seeing, knowing, feeling, and being for viewers and society. The essays explore common reality television themes—health, housewives, “hot bodies,” and “hoochie mamas”—and programs including Jersey Shore, the Real Housewives, and Intervention in relation to gender, sexuality, race, and class. The contributors consider reality television’s industrial and affective economies, its constructions of celebrity and sociality, its ethics and epistemologies, and its implications for viewers and our culture. Unpacking a significant media phenomenon of the era, this issue allows readers to better understand and productively engage with today’s mediatized culture.

Lynne Joyrich is Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She is the author of Re-viewing Reception: Television, Gender, and Postmodern Culture. She has been a member of the Camera Obscura editorial collective since 1996. Misha Kavka is Associate Professor of Media, Film, and Television at the University of Auckland. She is the author of Reality TV and Reality Television, Affect and Intimacy: Reality Matters and is the coeditor of Feminist Consequences: Theory for the New Century. Brenda R. Weber is Associate Professor of Gender Studies at Indiana University. Her books include Makeover TV: Selfhood, Citizenship, and Celebrity and Reality Gendervision: Sexuality and Gender on Transatlantic Reality TV, both also published by Duke University Press, and Women and Literary Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century: The Transatlantic Production of Fame and Gender.

Contributors: Pier Dominguez, Jane Feuer, Hunter Hargraves, Jennifer Jones, Lynne Joyrich, Misha Kavka, Michael Litwack, Kristen J. Warner, Brenda R. Weber

This essay collection focuses on the gendered dimensions of reality television in both the United States and Great Britain. Through close readings of a wide range of reality programming, from Finding Sarah and Sister Wives to Ghost Adventures and Deadliest Warrior, the contributors think through questions of femininity and masculinity, as they relate to the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality. They connect the genre's combination of real people and surreal experiences, of authenticity and artifice, to the production of identity and norms of citizenship, the commodification of selfhood, and the naturalization of regimes of power. Whether assessing the Kardashian family brand, portrayals of hoarders, or big-family programs such as 19 Kids and Counting, the contributors analyze reality television as a relevant site for the production and performance of gender. In the process, they illuminate the larger neoliberal and postfeminist contexts in which reality TV is produced, promoted, watched, and experienced.

Contributors. David Greven, Dana Heller, Su Holmes, Deborah Jermyn, Misha Kavka, Amanda Ann Klein, Susan Lepselter, Diane Negra, Laurie Ouellette, Gareth Palmer, Kirsten Pike, Maria Pramaggiore, Kimberly Springer, Rebecca Stephens, Lindsay Steenberg, Brenda R. Weber