Chapter 1: What iconic movie makeover scenes are highlighted in this episode?
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From Mamma Mia, welcome to The Spill, your daily pop culture fix. I'm Laura Brodnick. And I'm Tina Purvis. And we have a very special episode for you today, one that I have been dying to do for so long because it's a special interest area of mine. So I'm so glad you're here for my moment that I'm going to share with you.
We are doing the best movie makeover scenes that, yes, might be seen as problematic, but we desperately love them. I love them. Why do you think they're problematic? Well, I think, well, I'm just going to take my feminist hat off and put it in the corner. I'm going to actually put it outside the studio and pick it up later on the way out.
Because I guess these movie makeover montages that have become such a big part of, in particular, romantic comedies. One is obviously we're both going to share our favorite ones. We don't know what the other person's going to say. But I'm assuming you don't have any men on your list because I don't have any men on my list.
I do.
You do have a male makeover scene. Okay, but how rare is that?
It's rare and that's why I've put it on there.
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Chapter 2: Why do we find problematic makeover scenes so captivating?
So off the back of The Devil Wears Prada 2, cinemas, April 30, we're going to be sharing with each other our favorite movie makeover moments. Do you want to kick us off?
So we haven't shared yet. I don't know what you're going to say. It's going to be a surprise.
Interesting how a man weaseled his way in there. So like a man, it's like we have one thing and it's been overly sexualized and made over in movies and then men want to take it away from us.
So I'm staying on the Anne Hathaway train. Oh, okay. Yep, and I'm going with Princess Diaries.
Oh, yes.
It wouldn't be complete the makeover podcast ep if we didn't have this one in there. I feel like it is so iconic. Unless you're living under a rock, everybody has seen Princess Diaries. It was one of my favourite movies growing up. We follow Mia Thermopolis, played by Anne Hathaway, and she finds out that she's actually a princess, which is what I thought was going to happen to me.
I'm still waiting for a letter from my- It could still happen to you. estranged relative in a foreign country no one's ever heard of and she pretty much undergoes this whole transformation on her path to becoming a princess and they enlist a stylist she pretty much just takes her glasses off straightens her hair and like has her nails done like there's really not much more to it
Oh, see, I actually think out of all the movie makeovers, this one, they actually go through quite a drastic. She's the etiquette. Yeah, she has the etiquette training and that whole thing. But also I think they actually do quite change. Like she looks drastically different. Some makeover scenes, like you just took off her glasses and put a lipstick on.
Whereas this one, it's like completely like her hair, because I think she's got like a crazy wig on when she's playing Mia in the early movies. The glasses always change things, but the makeup is so intense. The skin and all that sort of stuff, how she starts dressing.
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Chapter 3: How does 'The Devil Wears Prada' influence our perception of makeovers?
Oh no, I haven't seen it.
Oh no, what are you kidding?
Oh, my God. I probably have. What? But, like, I would have been really, really young. Okay, you need to watch.
This is just one of those movies I just assumed everyone has seen. I didn't see it. I was, like, in, not probably, no, I was probably in high school. I don't even know. Anyway, I didn't see the movies, but I just remember what, it's one of those ones where I just remember, like.
I know of it. I'm aware of it.
We probably had it on a VHS and I've just watched it over and over and over again. Oh, my God. It holds up so well. I mean, no, it's problematic as hell, but that's fine. Yeah.
That's fine. But our feminist hat is outside. Actually, yeah, 100%.
It's outside. It's actually out the window. I throw it in. No, no, no. It's not problematic in like there's actually nothing super bad in it. They'll just be little things. But anyway, as a movie, 10 out of 10 holds up so well. You need to watch it. You'll love it. Don't watch the sequel. Okay. The sequel's rotten.
Sandra Bullock went through, who is the lead of this movie, Sandra Bullock went through a time where she made two really regrettable sequels. Speed 2. Don't watch that. I've never watched. I've loved Speed. Speed, yeah. The second one, she's on a boat. Even she was like, that was a mistake. Because the boat, they're like, the boat's going so fast. The boat can go anywhere.
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Chapter 4: What are the feminist implications of makeover scenes in movies?
She's disgusting. And Sandra Bullock is so good. Like her physical comedy. Like the first scene is they're meeting together, having lunch in a restaurant. And he is just looking at her with this intense disgust on his face in a way that only Michael Caine can. Yeah. And she's ripping into this food and it's all slopping down her face with her frizzy hair, the ultimate crime.
And Sandra Bullock said that she really leant into really wanting to make Gracie as unattractive as she could so that the makeover scene paid off. So she was really behind the scenes pushing like, no, let's have food in her teeth. When we first meet her, let's have her clothes be kind of really disheveled. She walks around really hunched over. Yeah.
And Sandra Bullock also said that it was so funny because it only took like less than an hour in the makeup chair to make her look like Gracie pre-makeover. But then she had to spend like three or four hours in the makeup chair for Gracie afterwards, just to even in the scenes where she's just walking around just to look like a normal woman. And I was like, I love it.
Even Sandra Bullock is like, it takes four hours to make me look like a natural Sandra Bullock. So the stakes of this maker is so high because the FBI is involved. They're like, how do we make this ugly woman beautiful? So they get this like literal warehouse, like a huge warehouse. And it's full of like the tanners, the waxes, the beauty makeup, everything.
Where is this place? I know. I want to go.
Well, this is like, it's so funny because it's like, this is what it takes to make a woman look beautiful. It's like we have the whole FBI. Takes an army. Making, literally taking over what looks like an army base. That's so fair. Like this huge bunker and they go in there and they have to like wax her and tan her and all this stuff. And she's hating and you never see it.
and then you see benjamin bratt and his like crew on the outside with the plane like waiting to fly her to the pageant to like get her in like where is she where is she and all of a sudden the big bunker door like slides open and mustang sally starts playing iconic and it's just the best it's one of the best movie music moments in history and it's a cover of mustang sally so they did a cover of it and sandra bullock played the tambourine i think it was on it because she's
just want to be involved. Yeah. Just wants to be part of it. So, and there's a slow motion shot and then Sandra Bullock as Gracie Hart walks out. You have to, I mean, don't watch this until you watch the movie because it'll have a bigger moment. Again, it's so sexist, but so good. I love it so much. And the camera pans up super slowly over her body and she, all of a sudden she's tan. She's shiny.
She's wearing a purple mini dress. Her hair, of course, straight It's straight. Straight. It's straight. Straight as an ironing board. Like literally not a hair out of place and her hair's all glowy. And Benjamin Bratt, like his character, I'm just using his name because that's who people are. He just rips his sunglasses off and his jaw drops open and everyone around him is like, oh my God.
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Chapter 5: How does 'Clueless' redefine the makeover trope?
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All right, next on my list, another movie that I rinsed to death. I used to sit in front of my TV with the lyrics book because it is, spoiler, a musical. Oh, okay. It's Grace.
Oh, okay.
Yes. I love Grace.
Oh, my God. Watching this as a kid, all I wanted to do was be a sexy Sandy. And I'm so far from all of that. But all I wanted to do was wear leather pants and strut around.
Yeah, yeah.
Which would never work for me. Carnival. Yeah.
They're all, like, 30 years old as well. Yeah, exactly.
So many things. Like, I don't know about you, but I, again, watched that movie as a kid over and over again. Loved it. All of the references, straight out of my head. Didn't realize what a hickey from Kinnicky was. No. Didn't realize about the whole, like, having sex in the back of the cars. Didn't realize that a pregnancy scare was what she was worried about. Literally no idea.
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Chapter 6: What makes the makeover in 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' unique?
like do her eyebrows and she puts like just a little bit of lipstick on and like she's like, and again, the frizzy hair is the whole thing. The frizzy hair is the whole thing. But she does straighten it, but it's not pin straight. She just kind of smooths it and styles it. She put rollers in it. And it's just this beautiful, quiet little makeover that she just does to herself mostly.
And I think that's what makes it great, that it's something that she found in herself and like exploring your own identity and like finding who you are versus like ā having the FBI come in and do it.
Yeah, exactly. When you put the two makeover scenes together that I brought up, it's like one is like, yeah, 50 people in like a government funded bunker trying to make Sandra Bullock look like a woman. And then the other one is just a woman at home in her childhood bedroom, just putting on a little bit of lipstick, like Tula, just like, you know, and she puts on a cardigan.
And the thing is, it just changed. All of a sudden she just feels like herself. And I think this is why it's one of my favorite movie makeovers is that She hasn't done this to like, she hasn't met Ian Miller yet. So she hasn't done this for a man. She hasn't even done it with the idea that she could possibly meet a man because she's still working in like a family business.
It's more so that as she kind of got a little bit of education, stepped outside of like the tightness of her family, left her bedroom and just kind of felt like she's spending so much time there. And now she's out and about in the world. And all of a sudden she just becomes the person that she wants to be. I love it.
It's actually the only movie makeover I can think of where it feels like it's just for the character. And it's happened before they've met the guy. And it's not serving the plot. No one's saying you have to have a makeover so you can be the princess of a foreign country.
You can be the princess.
You can be the prom queen. You can get the guy. Exactly. This is just for her. And it's so beautiful and so small and quiet. And she doesn't look, she looks different at the end of the movie than she does at the start, but not drastically, drastically different. She does take her glasses off and wear contacts. There's that scene of her trying to put the contacts in.
I had to put that in there. Exactly. Had to get it in there at one point.
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Chapter 7: How does 'Crazy, Stupid, Love' present a male makeover?
Actually, I wonder if you've seen this. I mean, I hope you've seen this. Otherwise, I'm going to be super disappointed. It's the 1999 teen classic, She's All That.
up okay i know it should be this surprise every time but like this is a classic movie i thought you're gonna say clueless then oh i had clues on my list but we have talked about clueless so many times yeah yeah we have a whole brutally honest review on it so that's got an important makeover scene in it too you've never seen she's all that do you know i know of it okay um and like see that's that's the weird thing to me can i say you know of it but you've never watched it i
think a lot of it's like what my parents like fed me at that time so if they didn't you're an adult woman now who lives alone with your own tv you can make your own choices i'm just saying so many times at home i'm like oh i wish i had a new great movie to watch but the hard thing about me and my job is i've seen every movie exactly i literally have seen every movie my god it's so hard for me to sit down and find a movie that i haven't seen that i also this is not fair
that I really want to watch. And then you're spoilt for choice. You could sit down on a Friday night and there's so many movies.
I've got hours and hours of viewing. Oh, man, I've got wrecks here. In my adult life, too. It's more valuable. Like, I have things to look forward to.
Exactly. You would love this. Again, this, out of all the movies on my list, this is probably kind of the most problematic because it's also, like...
using a woman for like a nefarious reason overly like sexualizing her and there's a slight sprinkling of sexual assault at the end but it's a classic so she's all that it came out in 1999 and it stars rachel lee cook do you know that name no blasphemy Rachel Leigh Cook was, in the late 90s and early 2000s, an iconic It girl. She starred in so many big movies.
Also, Josie and the Pussycats was a movie that was torn apart and I think did wreck her career. But now we look back on it and see it for the masterpiece that it is. So she plays Lainey Boggs.
What a name.
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Chapter 8: What themes emerge from the discussion of 'She's All That'?
Like, I can't. That song's too powerful. It just makes you, right? Yes. Because it's a soundtrack to all the big romantic moments in our lives that we watched on screen and not participate. Yeah, I was about to say, I don't have that many romantics. No, no, no. I've never had a romantic moment to that song, but it makes me think of a time where, like, it signaled this, like, I'm a teenie.
Like a cue, a social cue. Yeah, it's like this subconscious, like, dog whistle of, like, I'm about to fall in love for the first time. And as a woman in her late 30s, I still feel that. And so the camera pans up, Kiss Me starts to play, and then you see Lainey for the first time post-makeover, and she is an absolute bombshell.
She's wearing a tiny red mini dress, one of the most iconic dresses in film, I would say. She's got this beautiful, not over-the-top makeup, like not a red lip or anything, just like beautiful smouldering bronzy makeup, a beautiful chic bob, and Zach like loses his mind. He can't. Cannot believe it. And Freddie Prinze Jr., give that man an Academy Award.
He's like, oh, my God, this is the most stunning woman I've ever seen. This just shows how simple men are, though. Exactly. You put on a little red. In my early 20s, I had so many little red party dresses because all I wanted to do was dress like Lainey Boggs. You were just waiting for a staircase. I was waiting for a staircase, and I've never lived in a house with a staircase.
How will I make my entrance? So she's walking down the stairs. The song's playing. It's so beautiful. And then she falls face first down the stairs. Well, she grabs the... Because she hasn't walked in heels before. Yeah, true. It's actually like a quite a... It's quite dangerous. Yeah. She's trying to do a slow walk down the stairs in heels the first time she's ever worn heels.
So it's actually quite... That's a choice. The moment... So the spell is like broken because she has to grab the railing and he has to help her and everyone's like, ooh. And he's like, ew. Yeah, and he's like, oh, I remember how she was ugly before. Ew, you fell? Yeah. No, no, but falling when you're hot and falling when you're ugly are two different things.
When she fell when she was ugly, disgusting. Disgusting. When she falls and she's hot, he's like, let me help you. Yeah, exactly. Pretty privilege. It's so funny. And before she comes down the staircase, Anna Patlin's character, Mac, does a little introduction.
She's like, and they try to, I think they're aware then that like giving this teenage girl a bombshell makeover might send the wrong message. They try to dilute it, but it doesn't work.
That's what I was thinking.
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