The Great American Makeover »

Dana Heller is Professor of English and Director of the Humanities Institute at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She is the author of The Femininization of Quest Romance: Radical Departures, Family Plots: The De-Oedipalization of Popular Culure, and the editor of Cross Purpose: Lesbians, Feminists, and the Limits of Alliance, The Selling of 9/11: How a National Tragedy Became a Commodity (Palgrave Macmillan), and Makeover Television: Realities Remodeled.

The Great American Makeover explores two basic questions: How do myths of self-reinvention shape America s past, and how do contemporary television makeover programs continue and question this long-standing tendency to celebrate the fundamental powers of American transformation? This collection demonstrates that the makeover mythos is a crucial link between earlier and emergent forms and processes of engagement with the national imaginary. It demonstrates the tenacity of the American fantasy of recreation and its enduring ability to speak to our shifting national desires and anxieties. At the same time, the volume speaks to American popular television s own enduring ability to reinvent itself.

List of Figures     vii
Acknowledgments     ix
Before: "Things Just Keep Getting Better..."   Dana Heller     1
The Makeover Mythos, Past to Present
A Theatrical Manager: John Brown and the Radical Politics of the American Makeover Mythos   Zoe Trodd     11
Plantation Makeover: Joel Chandler Harris's Myths and Violations   Claire Pamplin     33
Making Over the New Adam   Melissa Crawley     51
What Paris Reveals: The Sartorial and Sensual Transformation of American Girls   Alisia G. Chase     65
Making Over Body and Soul: In His Steps and the Roots of Evangelical Popular Culture   Clay Motley     85
Metrosexuality: See the Bright Light of Commodification Shine! Watch Yanqui Masculinity Made over!   Toby Miller     105
Makeover Television Formats, 1950-Today
The Cinderella Makeover: Glamour Girl, Television Misery Shows, and 1950s Femininity   Marsha F. Cassidy     125
Queen for a Day: Remaking Consumer Culture, One Woman at a Time   Amber Watts     141
Interior Design: Commodifying Self and Place in Extreme Makeover, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and The Swan   June Deery     159
"Help Is On the Way!": Supernanny, Nanny 911, and the Neoliberal Politics of the Family   Ron Becker     175
Extreme Makeover Homeland Security Edition   Jennifer Gillan     193
Changing Properties: The Makeover Show Crosses the Atlantic   Misha Kavka     211
After: Warhol's "Reveal"   Lynn Spigel     231
About the Contributors     239
Index     242