by Desiree Branaman

Created on: July 25, 2008   Last Updated: December 02, 2009

Narcissism is a Girl's Best Friend

As a contestant on Americas Next Top Model, scrutinizes her new, slightly boyish reflection in the mirror, tears begin to well up in her eyes as she reaches for her newly sheered hair. The experts on ANTM , which include Tyra Banks, use these girls to create fierce and empowered women who, with a boyish haircut, are meant to veer away from traditional standards of long hair for women, even if unknowingly. Makeover TV shows such as What Not to Wear, Miss America Reality Check and America's Next Top Model(ANTM) have exploded into living rooms across the country as the how-to guides to "femininity." These shows encourage female narcissism by stating that femininity is ultimately achieved by altering a woman's look with the help of materialistic desires. Although makeover shows are meant to "better" female contestants by redefining their femininity with the use of mirrors and materialistic desires, they also continue to recreate girls within a socially accepted feminine mold of beauty. This accepted mold of beauty is a female stereotype that all women desire to be beautiful, and do so by being narcissistic with their reflection. Makeover shows attempt to give women a sense of empowerment by encouraging their materialistic desires and in doing so dilute their empowerment by continually encouraging the stereotypical narcissistic behavior and creating the obsessive woman.

Many makeover shows use mirrors to imply that the average woman is obsessively self observing and one that does not meet these characteristics is remade in order to achieve a gender appropriate appearance. A 360 degree mirror is used in What Not to Wear as a method to show female contestants their unconformity to the image of a narcissistic girl. Author Catherine Driscoll states in her essay "In Visible Bodies" that stereotypically girls are "obsessively self observing(and) particularly devolved onto her body image." Stacy London and Clinton Kelly, the experts on the show, use the 360 degree mirror with unfashionable contestants in order to demonstrate their unfemininity by comparing her to what Driscoll calls the "narcissistic girl" (240). This forces them to see themselves in this same approach to beauty by revealing every flaw top to bottom and front to back. The fact that these contestants are made to feel unfeminine within the confines of the 360 degree mirror reinforces an egotistical approach to women's beauty that encourages the stereotype in which women desire

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