Ann Althouse critiques an episode of “What Not to Wear,” and suggests an alternative starring philosophers:
The show ends with everyone celebrating the amazing changes in the woman’s appearance. You have scenes where everyone claps and cheers and the makeover target twirls around in her new clothes — which look ugly to me — and professes to be transformed. We’re assured — typical woman’s TV pap — that the young woman was always a wonderful person and now her exterior matches her wonderful interior. Blah! I’d rather see a show where philosophers descend on a woman with a perfect exterior and rip into her for her intellectual and spiritual failings, put her on some kind of internally transformative regime, and turn her into a human being of substance. Can we get that?
Oh yes! That would indeed be wonderful and so needed. What would be the dream team of intellectuals for this task? I think Jacques Barzun. Camille Paglia. Hans Urs von Balthasar (is he still alive?). Oh, Florence King would be indispensable!