Snog, marry or avoid

Thought I'd take the time to share my views on a bit of pop-culture in between posts :)

 On one of my days off, I was left alone in the house with day time television. Once I sat through the news of the day, there was a programme on called ‘Snog marry or avoid.’ If you’re unfamiliar, the title doesn’t exactly leave any room for ambiguity. The host along with POD -  goes round scouring the streets of Liverpool or wherever, for quintessential beauty victims to ‘transform’ into what they consider to be natural beauties. Before they proceed with the 'makeunder' however, members of the public are asked whether or not they would snog, marry or avoid them based solely on their appearances. Yes I know we’ve highlighted a key flaw in their logic, but all in good time.

A few things that jumped out at me, interrupting my brief sojourn in the halls of cheap sensationalism.

For starters, the amount of people out there walking around with five layers of slap and fake tan. That’s one grim statistic I can tell you.  The fact that there exists a uniform mentality whereby making yourself brown will automatically make you beautiful totally perplexes me. A nice natural tan or a healthy glow can look very becoming on most people, and this can be achieved naturally or artificially using tinted moisturisers and bronzers. But layering on copious amounts of this orange stuff  just ends up looking frightening and incredibly unnatural. 

Secondly, I find this programme to be ever so slightly classist if you ask me. All these women have one thing in common other than the fact that they all seem to love their false lashes and fake tan - they are all either unemployed, or in low paying jobs. As part of the meet and greet they often show you what sort of products they use, and  a few have even said that they buy all their makeup from markets since it's cheaper than going to a pharmacy or other cosmetic retail outlets. With makeup/skincare in most cases, the price does determine the quality of the product. Take fake tan for example; the cheaper ones tend to be the ones that are prone to streaking and give quite an obvious orange finish.  Are these women choosing to look overly made up, or is it simply a case of not being able to afford to look their best?

  

 Thirdly, I can’t help thinking how bleak and vanilla the subject looks after their transformation! An improvement? Arguably.  I can’t for the life of me explain the logic behind ‘natural beauty’ equating to - looking as average as possible.
Invariably the subject returns to her previous extravagant appearance due to the makunder resulting in a look that is far too insipid and uninspired. 

 Finally, when it comes to interviewing members of the public, they are not given the more conventional attractive/unattractive options, oh no. It’s snog, marry or avoid.  You’re supposed to decide whether or not you’d marry them based on their appearance? Are they taking superficiality to a whole new level? I think so.

Verdict – I know many people enjoy watching this programme, but I'm not really taken in by it myself. If it were re-structured to be a little bit less jejune, and perhaps a bit more ten years younger, I may consider watching.

=Leo=