gender-bending: reality TV & docu-tainment
Reality TV & docu-tainment
These reality TV & docu-tainment TV shows have taken female participants and transformed them – with greater or lesser success – into men. Of course, this is only one of the many options for transformation. So we’ve had white women going black, black women going white, thin women becoming temporarily fat, women looking older etc; these makeups are in the docu-tainment and reality TV section.
Docu-tainment emerged from the never-neverland that exists somewhere between the totally entertainment-orientation of ‘reality’ TV and the informative intent of the dramatised documentary. It often claims to inform and entertain by putting a member of the public (or sometimes a celebrity) in someone else’s shoes by changing their appearance for a day (or even living the role for a month); other times, as with Xtreme Fakeovers, it’s played for laughs as friends or family are punked.
Regardless of the ethics, educational or entertainment value of these shows they arguably pose a unique challenge to makeup artists to produce a transformation capable of working in ‘real-life’ situations.