LEARNING TO BE DIFFERENT: IDENTITY, EMBODIMENT AND …



Learning to be different: identity, embodiment and popular culture

Nod Miller, University of East London, United Kingdom

Paul Armstrong, University of Leeds, United Kingdom

Richard Edwards, University of Stirling, United Kingdom

Paper presented at the 35th Annual SCUTREA Conference July 5-July 7 2005, University of Sussex, England, UK

Frank: (looking at her paper) You’re a ladies’ hairdresser?

Rita: Yeh

Frank: Are you good at it?

Rita: (getting up and wandering around) I am when I wanna be … But they expect too much. They walk in the hairdressers’ an’ an hour later, they wanna walk out a different person. I tell them I’m a hairdresser, not a plastic surgeon. It’s worse when there’s a fad on, y’now like Farrah Fawcett Majors.

Frank: Who?

Rita: Far-rah Fawcett Majors. Y’know, she used to be with Charlie’s Angels.

Frank remains blank.

Rita: It’s a telly programme on ITV.

Frank: Ah.

Rita: ….. But these women, you see, they come to the hairdresser’s cos they wanna be changed. But if you want to change y’have to do it from the inside, don’t y? Know like I’m doin’. Do y’ think I will be able to do it?

Frank: Well, it really depends on you, on how committed you are. Are you sure that you’re absolutely serious about wanting to learn?

Rita: I’m dead serious.

Willy Russell (1991), Educating Rita, Act 1, Scene 1, pp. 10-11

Educating Rita, a stage play and then a successful film about a hairdresser whose life is transformed by her experience as an Open University (OU) student, is perhaps the best known British example of a popular cultural artefact which has an explicit focus on processes and structures of adult learning. The exchange quoted above takes place early in the action, when Rita first encounters her OU tutor, Frank. Although Rita is depicted as a naïve subject at this stage, her idea about changing from the inside is one with which most adult educators would probably sympathise. Whether the adult educator seeks to make a difference through promoting cognitive gain, attitudinal change or enhancement of aesthetic sensibility, the change involved is often conceptualised as taking place inside the learner through what Foucault (1988) referred to as technologies of the self. This idea provides one starting point for an exploration of some other examples of popular cultural items relevant to lifelong learning.

Our focus in this paper is on television programmes that encourage the people who appear in them, and often their viewers, to learn to be different: to be transformed by transforming themselves or their situations. We have observed a significant growth the incidence of such shows in recent times; as we were working on the abstract for this paper (January 2005), Channel 4’s mid-evening schedules on Wednesdays were dominated by new series of You Are What You Eat and 10 Years Younger. These represent a relatively new genre of makeover programmes which offer guidance on how people can change their appearance (5 Steps to a New You; What Not to Wear), their relationships (Wife Swap; Euro Family Xchange), their lifestyles (Living the Dream; Escape to the Country; Queer Eye for the Straight Guy), or their environments (Changing Rooms; 60-Minute Makeover; Renovate my Lifestyle). The transformation enables those involved to mark their difference from others. The programmes form a sizeable strand of terrestrial channels’ output, and reach further audiences as they are recycled on digital channels entirely devoted to ‘lifestyle’ programming, such as Living TV, UKTV Style and UKTV Bright Ideas. They represent a different type of programming from more traditional didactic shows, encouraging the viewer to engage with and become immersed in the actual transformation of others rather than be the passive recipients of the home truths of experts.

Three questions come to mind: (a) What is the appeal of such programmes?; (b) Are these purely ‘educational’ programmes or forms of edutainment, and in what ways might they contribute to lifelong learning?; and (c) how far do they support or challenge Rita’s view that ‘you’ve got to change from the inside’? We begin by taking a closer look at some examples of the programmes with which we are concerned, in order to draw out some of the narratives typified in these shows.

Televisual narratives of change

What not to wear (BBC) was one of the first programmes to promote learning to be different, and in some respects it has come to define elements in this particular makeover genre. The show is presented by Susannah Constantine and Trinny Woodall, who progressed from a column dispensing style tips in the Daily Telegraph to numerous series of their BBC show, countless other media appearances and several best-selling books based on the television series. Part of their appeal appears to stem from their forthright (some would say rude) approach to their subjects, tempered somewhat by their humorous and disparaging stance towards their own bodies. The cover of one of their books, Ready2dress (Constantine and Woodall, 2000), carries a photograph of the authors naked from the waist up; (curvy) Susannah holds two melons in front of her breasts and (slim) Trinny displays a pair of fried eggs.

A typical edition of the show homes in on the wardrobe and lifestyle of a chosen individual; usually this is a member of the public nominated for a makeover by friends and family, although sometimes celebrities feature. Trinny and Susannah are shown at the beginning of the programme exclaiming in horror at the sartorial crimes committed by their subject. Participants are required to put themselves and their wardrobe into the hands of the presenters, in return for £2,000 to spend on new clothing.

The subject is required to stand in a mirrored capsule wearing only underwear, in order to see a 360-degree image of their body, and to ‘confess’ their good points and faults and have others pointed out to them. A pedagogy of naming and shaming therefore begins the process of transformation. The presenters sort through the subject’s current stock of clothing and discard most of the items. At this point, the subjects typically display rage or anguish; many of them cry.

The subject is then taken on a shopping trip and encouraged to try on and purchase items that depart from their accustomed style. At the end of the programme the subject is given a new hairstyle (and make-up, where appropriate), and asked to ‘confess’ to the mirror their own evaluation of their transformation. At this point the subjects usually thank the presenters enthusiastically and comment on the enhancement of their confidence and self-esteem, which has resulted from their changed appearance. They are then sent back to family and friends for their approval. They have learnt the error of their ways and can now mark themselves as different in terms of having a certain style. Their transformation from within is promoted through confession about and change of their external appearance. For some educators, this would be considered superficial, but this only serves to point to the emphasis on interiority in pedagogical discourses.

10 years younger (Channel 4) also involves changing the appearance of its subjects, but the means employed are somewhat more radical than those used by Trinny and Susannah. Here the body is not simply re-adorned, but re-sculpted through surgical procedures. At the beginning of the programme, 100 people are asked to estimate the age of that week’s subject, who is then confronted with the news that the average guess is considerably older than their chronological age. Here they are subject to the normalising gaze of ‘ordinary folk’ rather than simple the style experts. A range of body specialists in the form of plastic surgeons, cosmetic dentistry practitioners, hairdressers and beauticians are asked to contribute their critical comments and their prescriptions for change. Much of the show consists of footage of the subjects undergoing gruesome procedures such as facial surgery. At the end of the programme the polling procedure is repeated, the subjects are perceived to look younger, and they express satisfaction with the result. Once again, it is exterior change which promotes interior change and shame is a precursor to a more positive self-appreciation.

As its title suggests, You are what you eat (Channel 4) promotes change from the inside, although perhaps not in the sense that Rita meant it. The subject (usually overweight and unfit) is asked to keep a diary of what they eat in a week. The presenter, a nutritionist, confronts the subject with the evidence of their unhealthy lifestyle by showing them a table loaded with a week’s food, including chips, cake and fried breakfasts. What is coyly referred to as their ‘poo’ is also analysed to give further data on their inner ill-health. A change of diet to consist largely of green vegetable and pulses is prescribed; new exercise regimes are recommended, and some subjects are also shown undergoing a course of colonic irrigation. Eight weeks later, the subjects are revisited, and congratulated on their weight loss and raised energy levels.

A final example focuses on a rather different type of change. Speed up, slow down (BBC2) involves time management consultants intervening in their subjects’ lives to help them to make more efficient use of their time. The consultants (two men in suits who look rather like Gilbert and George) watch videos of their subjects’ daily routines, noting patterns such as constant unpunctuality and lack of sleep. They arrange appointments with their subjects, keeping them waiting to teach a lesson about the impact of lateness on others, and demonstrate through their time and motion studies ways in which timetables may be rebalanced through shifting established habits. This is a pedagogy of behaviour modification. By the end of the programme, subjects have solved some problems in the way that they manage aspects of their lives, and they declare themselves consequently happier.

We now return to the questions about makeover programmes, which we posed at the outset, and address them in relation to the case studies we have described.

Assessing the appeal of the programmes

The only audience research we have been able to find on the programmes with which we are concerned here is confined to gross numbers of viewers. For example, in the week ending 13 February 2005, the audience for Ten years younger totalled 3.42 million viewers, while You are what you eat revisited attracted 3.06 million (source: Broadcast, 4 March 2005). However, quantitative data offers little which might contribute to understanding their appeal. Our analysis has to be based on our readings of the texts of the programmes and speculation about the pleasures they offer to audiences.

We suggest that one aspect of their attraction lies in the fact that they offer familiar, predictable and succinct narratives of transformation, usually telescoped into half an hour of viewing time. The stories represented contain a number of aspects of the classic narrative of the Hero’s (or Heroine’s) Journey, described by theorists such as Propp (1968) and Campbell (1973). This begins with the subject being diverted from everyday life by a call to adventure. S/he embarks on a quest that involves obstacles and trials and encounters with mentors, allies and enemies before the triumphant return to the ordinary world with a prize. Lifestyle programmes provide the added impetus of the 15 minutes of fame provided by the televisual medium.

The call to adventure comes when the presenter of the show in question invites the subject to set off on a journey towards a changed identity. The trials along the way include battles with the self, as the subject is tempted to backslide into old modes of behaviour, as well as ritual humiliation, as the presenters point out deficiencies and shortcomings in appearance and health. The narratives usually conclude with more or less happy endings, as the subjects achieve their goals of changed bodily forms, lifestyles, wardrobes or habits. The story may not be a Lord of the Rings, but there is equivalence in the narrative structure.

Lifelong learning in lifestyle programmes

We suggest that it is helpful to locate this genre of television programming within lifelong learning and to draw on sociological ideas that help us to understand the relationship between learning and identity. Identity is understood as a social and cultural construction that can be conceptualised in terms of the notion of ‘difference’: ‘identities are forged through the marking of difference’ (Woodward, 1997, p. 29). Difference is often celebrated as the basis of diversity and seen as an enriching experience, particularly if we can deviate from the norm and stand out. Of course, this is potentially contradictory, as difference also marks similarity. Through television programmes that promote changing lifestyles, becoming different is represented as a common experience. This is the paradox of style and fashion: seeking to be different through consumption means buying into a (sub)cultural identity shared with others

One of the questions we posed earlier related to the ‘educational’ nature of lifestyle programmes and the lifestyle practices they seem to promote, even if through differing pedagogies. We are interested in the extent to which presenters or producers of these programmes may be viewed as educators promoting forms of lifelong learning. Green, drawing on the work of phenomenologists, defines teaching as being oriented to ‘empowering persons to become different’, to think critically and creatively, and to ‘pursue meanings’, to ‘make sense of their actually lived world’ (1986, pp.497-8). This definition would certainly seem to fit with Trinny and Susannah’s assessment of their role in relation to the subjects of their makeovers in What not to wear; they assert that their interventions empower those they encounter, declaring that: ‘We have witnessed time and again on our television programmes and in our clothing workshops how looking good can change a woman’s life … Looking good, and feeling that you are looking good, has an important psychological role to play in moving through the five life-changing stages of a woman’s life.’ (Woodall and Constantine, 2004, p. 6).

The presenters of the shows with which we are concerned offer themselves as mentors, in attempting to guide their subjects towards change. Sometimes a presenter may appear in the guise of a shapeshifter, moving between a nurturing and encouraging stance and a stern, critical and even cruel one. Given their tendencies to teach their subjects lessons through humiliation, the interpretations they offer of a ‘teacherly’ role are not ones that many adult educators – not even Frank in Educating Rita - would be likely to emulate, although we might ask why this is the case, given the apparent effectiveness of these interpretations.

Internal and external changes

In relation to Rita’s assertion about the need for change from within, we recognise that the relationship with difference is typically characterised by binary oppositions and could be understood as a negative in the sense of locating difference in terms of the ‘other’. One such binary opposition is the distinction between body (exterior) and mind (interior). Whilst not necessarily accepting dualistic connotations of this binary opposition, we can use the notion of embodiment to suggest that the appearance of the body has become integral to identity, challenging the biological basis of body in favour of social and cultural construction of difference. At a fundamental level, it is well-known that the genetic difference between races and genders is very small, yet they are the basis of the construction of huge social and cultural differences. The body immediately represents the basis of the biological difference between races and genders. Yet notions of sameness and difference are based on socially constructed representations through the body and appearance.

The majority of subjects who appear in shows concerned with changing bodily appearance are women, although men quite often feature in programmes where the emphasis is on enhancing physical or mental health. Benson (1997) takes the arguments about embodiment further by examining the ways in which women and men – both similarly and at the same time differently – engage in ‘body projects’ through which they learn about their bodies and the construction of images and representations of themselves through which identify may be not only enacted and negotiated, but also subverted. This confirms that human beings are embodied subjects through which difference is manifest.

From a cultural perspective this can be understood in variety of ways. For example, we can talk about the body as a cultural text, through which cultural values and practices are expressed. The body is seen as a ‘natural symbol’, but the ways in which the body is represented and its meanings are interpreted through cultural processes. Like other symbolic representations, the body is a site for a social order’s signifying practices, which can be ‘read’ as any text.

This suggests agency, the active engagement of embodiment both by the person and in broader social and cultural processes, including the media, for whom the choice of body appearance is essential for representing a particular set of cultural images. There are some dubious assumptions on the part of programme makers about women’s worth being judged in terms of their appearance. Even more disturbing, in our opinion, is the implicit view conveyed in 10 years younger that facelifts and other forms of cosmetic surgery are perfectly normal, representing legitimate steps to take along the path towards looking younger. The problems is, of course, that appearances can be deceptive and the tampering with the body alone is not sufficient; the construction of images needs to be convincing if those who change their body can pass themselves off successfully as having changed identities. Part of this is cognitive – we have to not only look different, we have to think differently, we have to adopt a new way of knowing appropriate to this new identity. However, in case this is misread as the reiteration of the dualism of the binary opposition of body-mind, we must also learn to feel differently and, putting appearance, cognitive style and affective domain together, we must act differently. This enactment was crucial to the ideas of both Goffman (1959) and Butler (1990) on the construction of identity through performance and masquerade. It is also suggested by the use of the gaze and confession as mediating practices of interiority/exteriority.

What did Susan and Frank learn?

The notions of performance and masquerade suggests a number of issues but for the purposes of concluding this paper, we will focus on learning to be deceived. In the opening extract to this paper, Rita points to the potential self-deception of her clients. But she is operating within a simple dualism that needs to be challenged. Identity is a complex construction that involves both body appearance and ways of thinking, as well as other significations. It is revealed at the beginning of the play that Rita’s ‘real’ name is Susan. Towards the end of the play, she has reverted to using her ‘real’ name, whilst Frank – jokingly - says he is changing his to Mary, after Mary Shelley. Susan’s route to change is intellectual: I think, therefore I will become. However, this is not critical thinking. By the end of the play, Susan misreads Frank’s disillusionment with her because she can now think for herself. She sees herself as independent and no longer a hairdresser. She has left her family and is now leaving Frank behind. His point is that she thinks she has found a ‘better song to sing’, but it is different, but not better. But what Susan has learned is that she has choice, including how to dress. It is with some irony the play ends by Frank giving Susan a dress he bought for her. In return, Susan takes up scissors intending to cut Frank’s hair and closes the play with the words: ‘I’m gonna take ten years off you …’

An alternative ending might be: Rita gets to the third level courses offered by the Open University, where she has the opportunity to study D318 Culture, Media and Identities and is able to reflect on herself as a hairdresser, an Open University student, and a media representation of a lifelong learner. She then recognises the cultural significance of the body and comes to understand the equivalence of her role with respect to her clients to that of Frank’s with his students. Both are engaged in a transformational process, but both are limited by the degree of agency in their performance. Frank has an inclination to throw students through his office window and confesses he doesn’t want to teach Open University students, whilst Rita admits her clients ‘get on me nerves’. Frank, however, is not looking to change, even though he is aware of his disaffection, as well as the intrusion of the personal into his professional performance. Rita shows a higher degree of awareness of her own agency than Frank, who allows things to happen to him. She is also aware of the difference learning can make:

Rita: See if I’d started taking school seriously I would have had

to become different from me mates, an’ that’s not allowed.

Frank: By whom?

Rita: By your mates, by your family, by everyone.

(Russell, 1991, Act 1, Scene 1, p.17)

But more importantly had she studied D318, she would have also refused to wear a dress bought by Frank, recognising the significance of agency and not permitting herself to be dressed by a man. Nor would she have offered to cut his hair, for there is more to making someone ‘ten years younger’ than cutting hair.

References

Benson S (1997) ’The body, health and eating disorders’ in K Woodward, K (ed) Identity and difference, London, Sage/Open University

Campbell. J. (1973) The hero with a thousand faces, Princeton: Princeton University Press

Constantine, S. and Woodall, T (2000) Ready2dress: how to have style without following fashion, London, Cassell & Co.

Foucault, M (1988) ‘Technologies of the self’ in L. Martin, H. Gutman and P. Hutton (eds) Technologies of the self: a seminar with Michel Foucault, Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press

Greene, M (1986). ‘Philosophy and teaching’ in M. Wittrock (ed), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed), New York, Macmillan.

Propp, V. (1968) Morphology of the folktale (2nd ed), Austin, University of Texas Press (first published 1928).

Russell, W (1991) Educating Rita, Harlow, Longman

Woodall, T and Constantine, S (2004) What you wear can change your life, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Woodward, K (ed) (1997) Identity and difference, London, Sage/Open University

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