Fashion Police

Fashion Police is a bundle of contradictions—it is both celebratory and critical, sophisticated and vulgar, insightful and adolescent.  The panel of regulars, Giuliana Rancic (an E! News host) , Kelley Osborne (of The Osbournes reality show fame), and George Kotsiopoulos (a celebrity stylist),  serve as straight men for Rivers,  laughing guiltily behind their hands at her off-color jokes.  Rivers’s fame and her risqué observations are no doubt the primary draw for the audience; she offers well-prepared schtick and does not pretend much fashion knowledge. Commenting on Jennifer Lopez’s sequined mini at this year’s Grammy Awards, a dress that received high praise from all, Rivers said: “”she also looks like a disco ball with t–ts”. Critiquing Nicole Kidman at the 2011 Oscars, she said “What the hell is she wearing? This is proof that Keith Urban is not gay because no gay man would let their wife leave the house looking like this.”  Only Rivers, a generous supporter of gay causes, could get away with this.

For me, the commentary from the other three is ultimately what makes Fashion Police worth watching.   Rancic, Osborne, and Kotsiopoulos offer useful comments about bad fit, shoes that don’t complement a dress, and who looks good in what colors. They can be extraordinarily complimentary when a formerly fashion-challenged celebrity shows up in a flattering outfit (e.g., Mila Kunis in lavender at the 2011 Oscars, although Rivers, in one of her best lines this year, said it was so sheer that you could almost see Mila’s “kunis”); similarly, they are truly disappointed when an icon, like Nicole Kidman at this year’s CMT Awards, goes terribly wrong.

Kelley Osborne, who has famously struggled with her weight and body image, is especially soft-hearted, displaying real empathy for women who make bad choices and championing  those who take risks, even when other judges excoriate them. Rancic is tougher but not cruel, especially for someone who spends a lot of time on red carpets herself and has the body for it. Katsiopoulos works against the stereotype of the bitchy gay fashion maven (a role that Rivers tends to play). As a stylist, he is the most informed about fashion generally and he makes trenchant comments about what needed to be altered before it was worn, what’s on trend and what’s not, and what kinds of clothes are flattering on what kinds of bodies. His style is geared more toward explaining what would improve the look than simply noting what’s wrong. This man knows clothes and loves to see them worn well.

Moreover, they are fashion police but not body police. They celebrate larger women, such as Amber Riley of Glee fame, who was chosen as “Best Look of the Week” for her extravagantly ruffled black dress at the 2011 SAG Awards.  They are also not age-ist.  For example, Jane Fonda, age 73, was chosen as the “Best Look of the Week” on a recent episode for her slinky white gown worn at Cannes.  Even more noteworthy is the fact that Ciara, a singer one-third Fonda’s age, wore the same dress at a recent event and the judges dubbed her less hot than Fonda in it.

The show proceeds along a predictable arc beginning with an array of best and worst looks of the week and culminating with a winner in each category (always ultimately adjudicated by Rivers). It also includes recurring features such as “Bitch Stole My Look,” comparing the success of different celebrities in the same outfit, or “Starlet or Streetwalker,” in which the identity of the subject is disguised as the judges vote on whether a woman in a particularly unfortunate getup is, in fact, one or the other.

My personal favorite is a recent innovation in which Rivers challenges each judge to defend his/her pick for “Worst Look of the Week” with ten seconds of reasoning and then chooses the winner.  Indeed, the reasoning is the unexpected delight of the show. Fashion Police navigates a line between the fawning of celebrity interviewers on the red carpet and the meanness of some fashion blogs.  More common on Fashion Police is something along the lines of “I’d like it better without the belt, because it destroys the line of the dress” or “The dress is great, the necklace is too much.” Moreover, the frequency of “the emperor has no clothes” moments on the show is refreshing. When a celebrity wears something by a renowned designer that makes her look extra-terrestrial (Cate Blanchett in Givenchy at the Oscars), at least one of the judges will say that. When another celebrity disrespects an event by showing up frumpy and underdressed—as Frances McDormand did at this year’s Tony Awards where she wore a Levi’s denim jacket—they are properly outraged.  Celebrity fashion culture may be a site of ridiculous excess and shallow values in these economic times, but its popularity is attested to by the coverage it receives.  At least the panel on Fashion Police exercises some real judgment and does it with some actual reasoning. Or that’s what I tell myself each time I turn it on.

Those were good days, but I’m afraid they’re gone.  Long gone.  Even my grandmother now knows  that reality starlets often do retakes in order for the “real” action to be suitable for cameras to capture it, cameramen get scrubbed out of the “film”, and something like New York Reality TV School exists to teach reality wannabes how to earn their 15 minutes of “fame”.  Indeed, it’s impossible to write a paragraph about reality TV anymore without putting something in scare quotes–that’s how inauthentic the format has become.

And so it was with both skepticism and delight that I tuned in to WE’s newest series, Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? The premise of the show is simple: Joan Rivers moves across the country to be closer to daughter Melissa and grandson Cooper.  Of course, bossy Joan can’t keep her mouth shut, and so family drama (and big jewelry and hilarity…it is Joan Rivers, after all) ensues.  Without a home of her own, Joan has to stay in Melissa’s house (overly full with wacky friends, of course), and the two bicker as Joan goes to a plastic surgeon, the family eats take-out every night, and mother & daughter plot new ways to develop the Rivers family brand.

When I pitched this post a few weeks ago, I envisioned a snark-filled analysis of the bizarre experience of watching a show that purports to represent “reality” that is produced by and stars two immensely successful media producers–and believe me when I say: it is a bizarre experience.  It’s absolutely impossible to take any aspect of the show seriously, for the most part.  The two women sit in their (joint) confessional and calmly explain to the cameras how important it is to stay in the public eye, to keep the brand growing and fresh…and then kooky Joan just happens to end up as a contestant on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? or spreading a deceased friend’s ashes around Beverly Hills.  This is the precise opposite of “reality,” and its over-the-top, in-your-face artifice makes any suspension of disbelief impossible.  The show itself draws attention to its function as a publicity tool, and each segment seems more contrived than the last–not least because the stars are constantly reminding you of their function as producers.

But just when I was at the height of eye-rolling smugness, something strange caused me to rethink my stance.  The fourth episode of the series, “Family Feud”, moves along its manufactured path as Melissa’s boyfriend Jason suggests that perhaps the family should go through some team-building exercises to help them cope with the stresses of living together.  The plot, obviously another cleverly contrived scheme suitable for functioning as the narrative thread of an episode, carries along as one might expect.  Melissa & Jason interview a string of goofy life coaches, psychiatrists and team-builders, and settle on a New Agey woman whose motto is “Funky to Fabulous.”  They set up Joan, who (purportedly) doesn’t know what’s about to happen, and the life coach makes them don silly hats to “represent their roles in the house” and leads them through some inane exercises.  And, believe it or not, that’s when things get weird, as Melissa, and then Joan, really begin to open up about what’s bugging them, and the whole mess gets very personal, ugly and uncomfortable, as you can see in the clip below.

What’s noteworthy about this episode is its apparent break with the overly manufactured nature of the series.  Viewers get the sense that something went slightly awry, here, and we’re no longer watching a cutesy segment intended to follow the episode’s theme–we’re seeing something “real.”  Despite Joan & Melissa’s position as producers and media moguls, their tears and anguish seem real, and the pain is palpable.  This seems like the kind of arguments we’ve all had–or considered having–with our own mothers or daughters.  In the following episode, “Can We Not Talk?”, the two aren’t speaking when Joan leaves LA for New York in order to put some space between them.  Unlike the episodes that came before, these are awkward, uncomfortable, and filled with tears and tension until the two finally speak at the end of “Can We Not Talk?”, apologizing and promising a reunion in LA.

It’s instances like this one on Joan & Melissa that keep me watching reality TV, that remind me of the Real World promise that reality TV allows us to “See what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.”  In this case, of course, it’s that the producers forgot, in the heat of the moment, that they were producing–and they got real, to some degree.  After the initial crisis has blown over, I’ve no doubt the series will attempt to structure itself around recouping some useful themes and jokes out of it, but there were certainly moments of “reality” in there, despite any production intended to smooth it over.  “Reality TV” is a bizarre concept, and Joan & Melissa provides a bizarre incarnation of the format, given the stars’ own institutional histories.  But despite the fact that we’ll never be able to fully believe in the “truth” of reality TV, every once in awhile there’s still something “real” that’s worth watching , if you’re willing to put up with the production that surrounds it.