Bugged: The Learning Channel

Poverty! Hunger! War! Uneven skin tones! Wait...

TLC, or the "Learning" Channel, is doing its part to save the world from itself; particularly, after discovering a toxic virus known as Selfus Esteemum, producers have given American viewers the gift of vanity via two touching programs, What Not to Wear & Ten Years Younger.

Wear is hosted by two computer-generated robots, Stacy London and Clinton Kelly. The show finds a person whose friends and family dislike the way they dress . There is a private flogging, where London and Kelly are allowed a chance to make snappy zingers at the fashionably challenged victims. After a thorough ass-chewin', the victims are allowed to make up their shame by purchasing clothing that London and Kelly deem appropriate (for further research on London/Kelly fashion, see LL Bean and Sears.) London is "famous" for uttering her provocative catchphrase, "Shut up!" whenever the victims are revealed wearing their new looks, although I hear Kelly is working on a catchphrase of his own, "Jesus J. Crew!" London's phrase garnered her a television show. No word on whether Kelly's new phrase nabbed him sweaters to wear during snowball fights with WASPy friends.

Another show which promises to take the phrase "grow old gracefully" out to the pasture and beat it with a Manolo is Ten Years Younger. Ten finds victims willing to come onto a show without makeup, hair product, or clean sweatpants (stains only highlight the need for a makeover.) Put in a soundproof booth, they are vilified by the attractive , sweatpants-free public. They are then brought into the studio where a gay stereotype talks to them over soap opera music:

Stereotype: You have a problem.
Victim: I do.
Stereotype: Why do you think everyone thinks you are ugly?
Victim: Because your producers wouldn't let me put on makeup.
Stereotype: Really? I think people would find you just as hideous with makeup on. Oh, and you look really old. In fact, we polled 100 people and your average age was 235.

Victim begins sobbing. Stereotype nods head, knowingly.

Oh, and they show the victim clips of what the public said! What's the point of the soundproof booth again? Fortunately, the show's "glam squad," composed of a bitchy pixie with bad pink hair, a Diana-Ross-lookin-mother-or-something makeup man, and a forgettable lady who hands the victim dresses to try, all work together to transform the hideous freak into something that can be enjoyed by everyone from the girls of Kappa Kappa Gamma to the the silver foxes at the local country club.

I've only seen either show a couple times. I actually stopped watching Wear after I saw a girl, giving a "video diary" confession, cry and admit that she didn't realize there was anything wrong with the way she dressed until the show told her so. I guess, though, we are all too consumed with stopping war and fighting hunger to consider those who have to look at unattractive people every day. We should step into their shoes for a moment (after we take off our own tattered, ugly shoes, of course.)