Guest Post: Come On Out!
TLC’s ‘What Not to Wear’ - a queer nightmare
Hey, Yearners! Today’s newsletter is guest-written by friend of The Yearning, KC Neary! KC’s singular style and sharp perspective never ceases to take our collective breath away. If you’d like to read more from KC check out her Substack, Roastbeef bubblegum.
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Written by KC Neary
A woman rounds a corner. A congratulatory uproar fills a sparsely decorated room, purple curtains hang to cover what must be the supporting concrete pillars of this corporate event space. So why is this woman, dressed as if ready to follow the journey through a weekday's intestinal tract, from the esophagus of a secretarial desk to the colon of cocktails with an old friend, garnering such applause? Well, because she has surrendered her freedom of self expression to status quo reinforcers and is no longer an embarrassment to the group.
This transmogrification was not her idea. Rather, it was the brainchild of those celebrating. They nominated her for a makeover, a cultural staple of the first decade of this century, with the good intentions behind all style “enhancement” suggestions— that they wished to reveal the true beauty lying underneath the ill-fitted slacks and chunky turtlenecks. And so, as good friends must, they solicited professional help for the downright ugly.
This is the young queer’s nightmare, or at least mine. Those closest to you see something despicable in you—a blight. It’s an affliction you might not even see yourself, or worse, one that you are trying tirelessly to hide. An all-too-common image-focused insecurity blossoms from the persevering mindset that you too can be hot if you simply stick to the proper shapes and colors that serve to enhance your feminine, delicate, beautiful features.
What Not to Wear graced the TLC lineup from 2003 to 2013, a period in which the channel saw its swiftest devolution from any sort of “learning” to the banal exploitation machine we know it as today2. Stacy London and Clinton Kelly took the reins as hosts, shepherding women away from their fashion foibles, into a modest cardigan, and onto the rest of their lives.
Come, let saviors Stacy and Clinton wash your feet. Rest, child, for you are in good hands. Look unto them, they will guide you to salvation, where echoes of “chinos” and “peplum” offer serenity from the misalignment of self image and its execution. Exalted are those that deny the impulse for tiresome self expression. Is that stigmata? No, just smudges from the unfamiliar gloss that’s been shellacked onto thin upper lips. Nonetheless, a canonization is in order, as your holy ascension into the realm of "well dressed" has begun.
Personal style is a lot like language—it liberates as much as it restricts. Whether you’re a chef, a student, or a light sleeper, labeling yourself is a step towards being understood. So is donning a trenchcoat, a tux, or a trilby hat. As soon as that word is uttered or that brim is tipped, the connotations around it sets an implied limit, or at least gives potential cause for interrogation as “different”. So it makes sense that many keep both their self descriptors and outfits vague and bland, allowing others just enough palatable surface level knowledge to see what they want and agree that all here is “normal”. And what’s wrong with fitting in? A group’s approval is spring air to budding confidence. The trouble comes when we allow pretense to fill in the gaps instead of risking being known.
This pure production was built for marathons, bookending shock value and emotional peaks to carry a stunned viewer from one episode to the next. It is almost as heartbreaking to see how many grandmothers cry over their newly feminized granddaughters just before the credits roll as it is to see the participants publicly humiliated when initially surprised by the hosts. No wonder these women, who often admit to low self esteem, readily accept any suggestions from Stacy and Clinton. They have just been told in front of a group of people and cameras that they look so bad so often they have earned a $5,000 makeover. And to what must be their suppressed horror, their nearest and dearest clap and whoop in support of their caricature of “female”. Smiles are plastered, and the heft of a thousand statement necklaces has nothing on the weight of carrying on this facade—for everyone else's sake.
This pursuit of perfection played over and over on TV during this time period, both in the tried and true scripted format and in reality shows, which allowed for a refreshed spin on the same demoralizing message. It seeped into our psyches, and as an adolescent, WNTW was just one loud show telling me what behavior was acceptable, that anything else is not just wrong but wicked, and that I would be duly punished by my peer group for any deviation. Pop culture is so sticky, toffee in society’s teeth. Sometimes delicious, yes, but it forcibly lingers, until its long stay in our hot mouths finally rots cavities into the nerve and bone, when all it was meant to be was a quick, sweet bite.
It is right and just to recognize the ways that WNTW collapsed young queers’ beliefs that they could one day live an authentic and acceptable existence. However, the show was capable of some redemption. The difference, of course, is agency.
A later episode features a trans woman seeking style advice from the infamous duo. To fit the set narrative of the show, friends “nominate” her for a makeover, but it is clear that she heartily seeks a helping hand towards the elusive feeling of gender euphoria. She eagerly accepts advice from the gurus, and to Stacy & Clinton’s credit, they wholeheartedly enter the arrangement, excitedly aiding their newest client in the naissance of her womanhood. This instance ekes out an, albeit toned down, celebration of identity, but this modest praise cannot be shared with most episodes.
The thread that connects this episode to the rest is its sheer lack of individuality. Over and over again, we see the hosts squash any impetus towards costume, towards the unique, towards bold choice. Mommies know best and your prefrontal cortex must not have fully developed if you want to wear fairy wings or toe socks or (god forbid) camo. Their defense of the harsh erasure of what are some fun, singular personal styles, you ask? That people must dress a certain way to be taken seriously, especially in the workforce. When you consider WNTW in the landscape of its time, this priority cannot be fully discounted. Was the early aughts’ commandment of a dignified tailored pant the green sky to the 2007 housing crash? Ok, that may be an overstatement. But when I watch Stacy shriek in delight over a woman in Mary Janes and bright tweed blazer, I see a familiar crushing push towards a mostly unachievable but expected practice of conformity built on excess, avarice, and treating possessions as success benchmarks.
Another complicating factor: both hosts are queer. How can we reconcile an anything-goes attitude, a pillar of a queer mindset, with folks whose chief aim is conformity? Where is the joy of queer style: virtually unlimited reference points, gender bending, and the embracing of trends that gorgeously reinvent what has been cast aside (mullets, blankets made into coats, single dangling earrings, etc.)? The joke remains true—a group of queer friends will never look like they are going to the same event. So why do we see these queer stylists telling others, mostly straight women, how to look “best”? Is it because they’ve spent so much time examining what about themselves is not acceptable by mainstream culture that they can pinpoint even a hemline that reads as off? Let’s be generous and say that this attention to detail comes not from a place of adolescent self hatred, but instead an interest in aesthetics. The argument remains - is their advice an assault on self expression, or is it a helping hand towards the semblance of confidence? When it comes to WNTW and the conservative new millennia world it inhabited, I don’t think we can separate the two.
I wore bright orange boys’ swim trunks with a matching bikini top to my sixth grade soccer team pool party. At the time, it felt like nothing—an unremarkable outfit choice. That is until I found photos of the event a couple of years later. I stared at the glossy 4x6s, suddenly horrified that someone else might see this evidence, and moreso, embarrassed beyond what I thought possible that people had seen me. In an effort to destroy any hint of my burgeoning queerness, I scrubbed my wardrobe of everything that felt like “me”. Skorts had their moment, before a uniform of jeans and a t-shirt allowed me the invisibility I so desperately sought. What I was had disappeared, the sign of a successful makeover. How can we untangle all that gets caught in years of believing that “unrecognizable” is the greatest compliment you could receive?
I didn’t start dressing in a way that felt purposeful until my mid-twenties. I don’t like to consider what was lost to this decade of performing for an imagined audience of fellow TLC viewers, but I recognize the comfort hiding allowed me. Looking at the swim trunk photos now, I’m desperate to reclaim that dumb fearlessness. Seeing her standing in a circle of her friends, laughing wildly, it's obvious that whatever inkling of confidence conformity breeds, it has nothing on the joy of authenticity.
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You’re a winner, baby! Next week on The Yearning, Ali will be recapping the Season 15 finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Who will take the illustrious crown and scepter?
For the absolute stellar performance of “fine” by every woman appearing on the show.
A current look at their schedule includes: Hoarding: Buried Alive, 1000-lb Sisters, Sister Wives, 90 Day Fiance, Dr. Pimple Popper, and My Teen is Pregnant and So Am I.
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I want a whole series on this omg