Women Over 40 Rock!

All aboard the self-esteem express! Carson Kressley is at it again.

Back for a second season of Lifetime Television’s How to Look Good Naked, Mr. Kressley works overtime trying to convince us that “how you carry yourself means more than having a perfect body.”

This is no ordinary makeover show. Here we are more concerned with fixing our perspective than fixing our bodies. It is about bridging the gap between what we think we see when we look in the mirror, and the reality before us.

The young women profiled are particularly susceptible to the images of primped and airbrushed supermodels, and live with oddly distorted feelings about their own bodies.

One episode features Grae, a successful and attractive young woman. Faced with a full-length mirror, and overwhelmed with humiliation, she tears up as she speaks of being nothing but an observer in her own life, unable to fully participate. All this over body image? As observers, we are perplexed by her words, as she despairs over her shape and searches for a mold to fit into. “I don’t even know what I am. I’m not a pear. I’m not an hourglass…” What we see is at odds with her confusion. We are hooked. We want to understand.

Confronted with three cardboard cutouts of women in their underwear, she is asked to comment on what she sees. She compliments the three bodies, finding them all attractive. She particularly likes the third one, finding beauty in the long legs and nice shape she so desires for herself.

Carson takes special delight in peeling the top layer from the cutout, revealing that this body is, in fact, her very own! It is a stunning moment of awakening for Grae, as she takes that first step to understanding how skewed her perspective has been. Now she MUST acknowledge her own beauty.

The series provides quick tips on makeup, hairstyle, and how to dress without spending a lot of money. There are no admonitions about diet and exercise, no mention of cosmetic surgery or treatments, no quick fixes. Carson gives the ladies credit for knowing these things already. He understands that the problem lies in the heart and mind, and once you “start seeing the possibilities,” the rest will follow.

The climax of each episode is the “naked” photo shoot, when a professional photographer gives the participants the full movie star treatment. The spectacular results speak for themselves. The average American woman, as glamorous as any magazine cover girl!

After her shoot, Grae was asked, “Do you look good naked?” She triumphantly replied, “Holy, Moses! Yes!” From self-loathing to self-loving in five days… yet nothing about her changed, at least not physically. Mr. Kressley gently persuades the women to see themselves as they really are, using a large dose of common sense, a flair for the dramatic, and offbeat sense of humor.

Season two of How to Look Good Naked, with its new hour-long format, is a breath of fresh air on the television landscape. It’s time to shatter those ingrained images of acceptable beauty and bring on the new. Carson Kressley, in his casual style, verbalizes what we all should instinctively know, but don’t. Beauty begins in the mind.

How to Look Good Naked has hit the magic formula.

Posted by Mandy Crest, Blogger for Women Over 40 Rock! and In The Trenches Productions