Search for the Next Doll Episode 2: Confidence
Posted by Richie on April 20, 2007
One of the many discoveries of Channel 10′s Sunday night programming is that Channel 10 is awful. There’s also a show about the Pussycat Dolls.
The theme of episode two – I’m not going to bother with episode one, since it was just a “getting to know you” episode, plus most of them spent it vomiting anyway – is confidence. We also learn that the Pussycat Dolls can only be so sexy before things start to get undignified and they lose sight of their universal message of female empowerment. More on that later.
Confidence is important to the Pussycat Dolls. Executive producer McG, also responsible for the groundbreaking feminist statement that was Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, explains:
It’s just like saying, ‘Don’t you wish your girlfriend could be free and comfortable in her own skin and do her own thing, like me?’
Melody, one of the half-dozen-dolls-who-aren’t-Kimberly, explains the secret to her success:
The most important trait to being a success at anything is confidence.
Group founder Robin Antin, described without a hint of self-awareness as a “visionary”, hammers the point home:
Today is all about confidence.
Being confident about who you are, and comfortable in your own skin. Got that? Right, let’s keep that in mind as we listen to Pussycadet Chelsea’s tale of childhood trauma:
I used to be extremely overweight, like up to 190 pounds. I went from no friends, not being very attractive at all, to having a chance to be in one of the sexiest girl groups.
In case you missed the subtle message: Overweight people are ugly and have no friends. Disaster! But now that Chelsea looks like a Pussycat Doll, she’s got some weapons-grade confidence, and is ready to take on the world, provided she stays 20 and never puts on any weight again. God, overweight girls watching this show must feel so fucking empowered right now. Hint: Self-hating insecurity and body image crises don’t develop independently.
Today is all about confidence.
God, there’s no point in even trying to be sarcastic about this, is there? This is not a woman who’s comfortable in her own skin. She’s not even wearing her own skin to start with, for fuck’s sake. Her own skin didn’t fit a rigidly-defined idea of attractiveness, so she tore it up and stitched the remnants into a patchwork of fake tan and pre-distressed fishnets.
The next stage to building confidence is to put on lingerie and gyrate in a glass cage while a crowd of strangers stare at you.
Girls, listen up. We’ve been talking about confidence, right? One of the ways to understand what confidence is all about is doing something like that. You’re going to go up in groups of three, and show off your confidence in front of this crowd.
Many of the girls are reluctant to participate, because they’re here to be Pussycat Dolls, not to dance around in their underwear. Some of them get worried that their asses are too fat, and that they haven’t shaved their legs recently, which may make their bodies unfit to present to the public.
Today is all about confidence.
Under no circumstances is this in the service of men.
I’m hoping the DVD release has a big REPELS ALL KNOWN EMANCIPATION sticker on it.
But there is a dark side to confidence! Thar’s trouble at t’Pussycat Manor, ‘appen, because Brittany has just too much confidence, and…
Her confidence makes her dance like a striperella!
Pussycat Dolls are sexy but classy.
Wait, what?
Pussycat Dolls are sexy but classy.
One more time, just to make sure.
Pussycat Dolls are sexy but classy.
Oh yes, he did. He really said that.
Oh no! Brittany’s gone and broken the Empower-O-Meter with her overabundance of confidence, which is making her dance too much like a stripper, and this is not compatible with the Pussycat Dolls’ mission to empower women everywhere, provided they’re thin, D-cups, and between 18 and 25. Compare this picture with the one before last – which was Pussycat approved – and see what strikes you.
No, that’s not entirely accurate, actually. Brittany’s dancing itself, which is hard to capture in still images, was more sexual than the other girls. They couldn’t get away with saying it on this show, and if they could they still wouldn’t, but if you replace the cutesy-poo euphemisms like “Striperella” with “Slut”, you should begin to get a picture of what’s actually being said here. Pussycat Dolls. It’s obvious, but it bears repeating: The Pussycat Dolls are there to be looked at. They’re allowed to be sexy, because sexiness – Pussycat sexiness, anyway, not the good kind – is a passive thing that onlookers can get off on without engaging the Dolls themselves, but Brittany’s fucked it up by being sexual, if only just. The Dolls might have visible ass cheeks, fishnets, stilettos and bare midriffs, but are for all intents and purposes chaste, which is what they really mean by “Classy”. They danced in glass cases, for fuck’s sake; doesn’t that say it all?
Brittany, though, went slightly too far, and wasn’t passive enough to work as a piece of T&A window-dressing. What follows is, essentially, slut-blaming, explicitly attributed to the things she was rewarded for doing earlier. Now she’s all bad and icky and lacking in self-control, because she didn’t know when to stop. HEY, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A LOT OF OTHER SITUATIONS I COULD MENTION! See if you can spot them.
Britney, the Pussycat Dolls are all about talent and presence. And yes, they’re sexy. But Brittany, I’m looking for a much more sophisticated version of sexy.
It would be a cheap shot to point out that the guest judge is Lil’ Kim.
The guest judge is Lil’ Kim.
Also, it’s kind of hard to look sophisticated if wardrobe have dressed you in short-shorts with “DOLL” written across the ass. I’m just saying, is all.
Today is all about confidence.
stormy said
comfortable in her own skin
I see that this has now become completely bastardised. Comfortable in one’s own skin means, no make-up, no fake-tan, not shaving, and possibly not even brushing one’s hair.
It most certainly is NOT wearing short-shorts, slathered in fake goop, girating for teh boyz.
Richie, are you sure that’s not a *puke-o-meter* rather than an *empower-o-meter*?
cellycel said
I couldn’t bring myself to watch it, I just made sick faces whenever the advertisements came on…
Camryn said
“Oh no! Brittany’s gone and broken the Empower-O-Meter with her overabundance of confidence, which is making her dance too much like a stripper”
Richie, you made me laugh. It’s terrible, terrible, terrible but the aims of the show/people behind the band are so transparent. They should be showing this program in womens studies and sociology courses to demonstrate the patriarchal double bind.
I haven’t seen the show and don’t intend to watch it (think it might be bad for my mental health) but from what you’ve said I feel really bad for Brittany. It seems she just doesn’t know that this is not a game designed for any woman to truly win.
Disempowerment messages behind The Pussycat Dolls said
[...] Crimitism killed me again today with a laugh riot post that made some very strong points about how the Pussycat Dolls’ message of empowerment isn’t all it sounds like on the surface. [...]
nightgigjo said
The child Chelsea had a real smile; the Doll Chelsea’s smile looks someone stuck a set of false teeth in her mouth and she’s trying not to spit them out. Ladies! This is what Empowerfulness can do for you!
Brittany wasn’t classy enough to wear garters. She was dressed in actual clothes, instead of lingerie, so it was “stripperella” of her. I get it. [/sarcasm]
Good post, Richie, as always. I’m just sorry you have such great fodder.
Richie said
And episode four is on tonight!
Richie said
I’m watching it right now.
Ahhh.
nightgigjo said
Ostensibly under layers of fat and unattractive clothing.
Conversely: Under every Pussycat Doll is a woman. Under the layers of makeup, fake tan, hair dye and (a little) ‘sexy’ clothing is a real human being who is convinced (or is still trying to convince herself) that being like someone else’s idea of woman is means they’re truly being themselves.
Chelsea’s smile looked fake to me in that still above because pain and fear was drowning it out. It was working hard to remain a smile, from my perspective.
Inspector Columbo said
Feminists these days might feel they are in with half a chance of winning if it wasn’t for other women spouting off all this bullshit and perpetuation male-defined rigid structures for them to adhere to in order to have all this “confidence”.
Confidence? Take all your makeup off (as mentioned by Stormy above, EAT FOOD, stick a finger up to the breast implant brigade, wear comfortable clothes and underwear that doesn’t cause thrush – DARE to do that – that’s confidence! Confidence is not bowing to the patriarchal definitions of “femininity” as preached by other women who profit from it also, and the money is not even the sole motivation – the adulation and pats on the head by the “daddies” matter just as much – and yeah, how is the validation and worth going to be measured in 20 years? Oh, I forgot, the surgeons are riding a good profit on the back of how all this “empowerment” is defined.
Anon said
Inside every pussycrap droll is a bratz doll – or is it the other way around? So hard to keep track these days.
Richie said
You just inspired me to make a Bratz Babushka Doll in the near future.
Regina Phalangee said
How bout a Baratzbie?
Professor Fifi Trixibell said
Uummm – is the plastic doll meant to be molded and shaped using the real bodies as inspiration, or are the real bodies meant to be cut open, starved, exercised and molded inspired by the plastic dolls? Hmmmmm….yes, agreed – very confusing – chicken or egg? But either way, so empowering empowering empowering- confidence, confidence confidence (repeating my pusscrap droll mantra – or is the barbie one? the bratz???- help I really am confused – my inner goddess needs to know who she is! – ah fuck, forgot, it’s all a generic kind of goddess).
Torri said
I referenced this article in a recent post about SYTYCD http://community.feministing.com/2009/03/so-you-think-you-can-dance-go.html
Richie said
Thanks! I’d totally forgotten I’d written this until just then; have I been going that long?