Letter to Gok Wan

This isn't by any means a feminist and the media blog (though that would be an interesting idea...). However, sometimes Gok drives me to it.

I must begin by saying: I love 'How to Look Good Naked' I think that show began at a time when makeover programmes were taking up too much screen time and rather than being a harmless bit of chat show fun (the makeover episodes of old chat shows were always my favourite; either that or ones involving lie detector tests - obviously), they often if not always involve some level of surgery.

Plastic surgery should never be encouraged in this way, it should also never ever be advertised. I think the Harley Medical Group are seriously breaching advertising standards by doing so. Those 'before and after' style ads on the tube displaying an unhappy woman with small breasts and a happier version with bigger ones, are an absolute outrage and surely a violation. I hope that I haven't seen them in a while because people complained and not because they succeeded.

Anyway, I digress, this isn't a complaint about ads for plastic surgery here, this is about Gok's very noble mission of making women feel much much better about themselves without '10 years younger' or the 'help' of that god awful blonde woman whose mission in life is surely the absolute opposite.

The first series really said something and it continues to do so in challenging ways. Yet, he does still very much look towards and adhere to the conventions of fashion and beauty. For example, if a white woman is looking a little pasty he has to slap on the fake tan before she bares all. Though there is often an element of natural beauty in their make up, I think quite often he makes them feel a million dollars at a price. It's the hair, the make up, the fake tan and the waxing. It's not true beauty, it's not a simple procedure. These women feel incredible because they've been pampered and though that's not entirely a bad thing, it removes the show from what ought to be its essence.

'How to Look Good Naked' should, I think, translate as 'How to Feel Good in Your Own Skin', you might look at yourself, look at the photo and see not your everyday self, but a special moment where you were made to feel particularly beautiful. You might not fully come beyond that, you might not have that spring in your step for long. After being given one or two outfits and a session with celebrity stylists and beauty experts, everyday you just isn't going to compare.

What really would be revolutionary is a 'How to Look Good Naked - Naturally' but is that possible? Will people look good naked naturally? Their skin won't have had the exfoliating treatment, the unwanted hair will go unremoved. The whole thing makes me wonder and consider that it probably is a short term feeling. I want to be told that everyone looks good without surgery and without all that other stuff. I want to be told that whatever your skin colour - it is beautiful, however you make yourself look everyday - that is beautiful. Perhaps with some small adjustments and enhancements but simple ones, the sorts of things you can and would do everyday, rather than getting the beauty brigade out.

I think the consumer tests are great, the women parading around in their underwear a la the 'Dove' adverts but the crux of it is, the show doesn't go far enough away from convention and it doesn't tell everyone they are beautiful nearly as well as it should do. Ultimately, I don't see prime time television going far enough, presenting people as they ought to be presented and celebrating it, truly giving them their worth.