Gosh, women, eh? What with their rubbish driving, bitching and other stupid stereotypes.
None of them true, of course, apart from the one about being self-obsessed weirdy Jordan-a-likes. All of them. Wouldn’t it be great to give the especially mad ones a chance to run around on TV for a bit showing off, and then scrub them down to try something different? Yes? Yes, you say? Excellent, what you need is Snog, Marry, Avoid?.
The “?” in the title is purely there to make your sentences looks weird when it sits at the end. Should it be “?.” or just “?” or get rid of it completely?
Based on the kids’ game ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’, with a Radio Times friendly name, SMA is desperate to tell you it’s not a make-over show. No way. It’s a make-under (because they’re reining the girls’ style in), a semi-joke that they’re so pleased with, that they repeat over and over and over, like it a Tourette’s-addled poor joke machine. In other words, me.
The premise is simple: Take an attention whoring idiot, the sort who goes out in their local town wearing a piece of material so skimpy that you can see pubic hair hanging out. Watch as they cover themselves in enough face-paint to re-colour Balamory, and try not to act disgusted as they cover their legs in fake-tan, a sort of weird brown colour that gives them an air of having continence problems. The common theme is a love of attention – whenever they walk into a club, every head turns their way. Well, yes love, but they would if John McCririck or John Merrick walked in too, and there’s no mak-eunder shows to get you to look like the Elephant Man.
Hundreds of different creams, colours and shades are thrown over their faces, like a rainbow bukkake. Who knew you could put so many things on your lips? Lip gloss, lip liner, lip stick, lip balm, lip up fatty… Everything is fake: Fake eyelashes (fake eyelashes, really?!), fake nails, fake hair, fake tan, fake tits. Underneath all this is the hollow shell of a girl, who just wants to be loved.
Here’s where the title comes into play. A bunch of strangers are shown footage of the girl – who generally looks like a bad drag act – and asked whether they’d ‘snog’, ‘marry’ or ‘avoid’ her. Clever, eh? Of course, this being television-land, it’s always ‘avoid’, although some look like they want to add, “and then burn her, just in case I catch something through the screen”.
After being shocked that they appear to resemble a cross between Lily Savage and a low-rent hooker, the girls are asked if they want a make-under. That’s make-UNDER. Because they’re wearing less make-up. But more clothes.
Occasionally, they’ll say no, they like their own style – such as it is – and just go home again, making the whole thing a little bit pointless. Like an episode of Grand Designs where they decide to just live in a flat.
For those that do undergo the make-UNDER, inevitably they end up looking better than before. More strangers are shown the new look, and amazingly the response is overwhelmingly positive. TV, eh, helping self esteem since 1938.
We even get the bonus of a Revisited-style end-bit where presenter and all round lovely Jenny Frost checks out whether they’ve gone back to their bum-out, orange ways, or are sticking with the understated niceness. And usually, they go for it. Which is good, because we’ve all done stupid things with our hair or clothes – awesomely, I had a step haircut with an undercut in the 90s – but luckily most of us only have a couple of photos as a reminder. Not an entire show to point out what twats we were.
Snog, Marry, Avoid? could be written off purely for the rubbish title and because it’s on BBC3, but it’s actually very watchable and the transformations are staggering. Sometimes it’s difficult to believe it’s the same person underneath.
Since it’s on Digital TV, SMA can probably be found every night, in between episodes of Two Pints of Bloody Lager.
This was a guest blog by Nik Johnson out of Shouting At Cows. Hooray, etc
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Stabby McGee says
Oh, god. They’ll sanitise anything these days. Apart from workers’ hands at a pig factory, apparently.
woolsworth says
This show is just awful–and i watch a lot of trashy t.v.