(Re)thinking Reality TV: Background/Overview of Things To Come...

Intervention:

From our experiences watching “Intervention,” a very clear format of the show has been depicted in which an addicted subject self-identifies, background information of their lifestyle is provided, personal narratives and accounts from friends and family members are given, and statistics are given which situate them within a specific grouping. After this information is provided within the first half of the episode, a pre-intervention and ultimately intervention occurs in which the addicted subject is confronted by friends or family members with the ways in which the addiction is not only disabling their life, but also effecting the lives of others that care for them. An interventionist facilitates the intervention gathering, encouraging friends, family members, and other significant people in the subject’s life to provide some sort of expression, either verbally or in the written form of a letter, to expose the ways in which the subject’s addiction effects their own lives and their ability to sustain a healthy relationship. The addicted subject is then faced with the choice to either accept rehabilitative treatment or to face what is understood to be “inevitable death.” The rehabilitation is purported to restore the subject to the “right” form of livelihood. The ability of these subjects to be rehabilitated into productive citizens that are able to not only support themselves, but to also sustain their relationships with others, is a hope that the viewer is left to wish for the addicted subject to achieve through rehabilitation.

Promotional Video For Intervention:

TRANSform Me:

TRANSform Me is presented as a typical makeover show in which a subject with bad style, hair, makeup, or general frumpiness is made over to appear cosmetically more attractive. TRANSform Me continues along with this same makeover-oriented type of reality television, but the people conducting the makeover, in this case, are three transgender women that appear as the ideal of feminine beauty. These three women arrive, unannounced, at the home of a woman that is supposedly going through a “crisis” in terms of appearance, in an ambulance named the “glambulance” as it introduces glamour into purported “emergency” situations of style. Laverne, Jaime, and Nina than embark on a mission in which they introduce themselves to the makeover subject, all female-bodied heterosexual individuals, as transgender women. Since they were able to TRANSform their gender to appear as beautiful and ideal as they are currently presented, then the makeover subject can easily transform their own personal style, fashion, and cosmetic appearance. Through initially equating the gender transformation of a transgender individual to a cosmetic transformation, the viewer is made to understand the transgender women’s ability to makeover the femininity of the makeover subject.