It's remarkable how many television programmes you can watch on cable based on the notion of the 'makeover'. I can't remember when I first heard the word used in this sense but I don't think it was all that long ago. Yet now the concept is ubiquitous.
Folks in dire financial difficulties have their budgets made over; slovenly dwellings that probably constitute health hazards are made over; bodies that have piled on many too many pounds/kilograms make themselves over; people with absolutely zero sense of what to wear and how to present themselves (a bit like myself really) are stylishly made over The list isn't endless - it just feels that way.
The essential plot of the drama - for that's what it is - remains consistent: a team of 'lifestyle experts' of one sort or another are assembled to intervene. The victim is shown to be past all redemption, a dire warning to us all. No matter, against the odds our experts persevere and at some point in the mind of the victim-now-turned-beneficiary the light dawns. Salvation arrives in the 'reveal'. Saved from themselves our new man/woman celebrates a new life, or sometimes an old one which has been 'given back' to them. And all ends happily ever after - except for a sneaking suspicion that perhaps it doesn't.
Curiously this does make good television of a sort. It's difficult not to enjoy feeling superior to folks who've screwed up big-time, and then that's off-set by a warm sense of one's charity in feeling good that they've finally managed to do something about the mess they created.
Just a suggestion though. Yes, it's possible to change the direction of a life. A new, better self can be found. But not neatly edited in less than an hour.
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