We’re all familiar with the traditional, geek/tough-girl/under-privileged/unpopular/homely secretly gorgeous ugly duckling who slaps on some makeup and gets to swim as a swan. It’s often the only tolerable part of a really bad movie. We feel an undeniable vicarious frisson as glasses are removed, hair is set, eyeliner gets applied and eyebrows are tweezed. Voila! The bookworm is a prom goddess, the scullery maid a princess, the tomboy a beauty queen, the Cockney flower girl a “lady”, the actual prostitute also a “lady”. The striking beauty is revealed to the gaping onlookers as she strides down the stairs, walks into a classroom, floats into a ballroom, struts down the street or into a carnival or out on the dance floor. At this point, we breathe a sigh of relief and smile in satisfaction. All is right with the world.
American loves all things self-improvement-related, because we love seeing things so obviously lesser changed for the better. Now, does a new bob or a pair of contact lenses change your life in the “real word”? You bet your loofahed, liposuctioned ass it does. But what about the makeovers gone bad?
In “The Breakfast Club”, Claire transforms Allison from compelling oddball to her own girlish clone. Claire’s weapons of war are a froofy headband that smooths Allison’s tussled bedroom hair, and peach powder and lipgloss to replace the “black shit” under her eyes. Allison is stripped of her black clothes and put into a pale pink, frilly camisole. In minutes she becomes totally ordinary, attractive to her peers and to the dream jock.
In “Grease”, Frenchy takes up arms against Sandy’s cream-puff skin and delicate features with garish girl-gang makeup and takes hot rollers to her silky blonde bob. Sandy’s Grace Kellyesque salmon shirtwaist dress is discarded in favor of skin-tight pants, prostitute heels and black leather. In mere minutes, the beauteous sweetheart is transformed into a gum cracking, husky voiced whore, a big-boobed, stretch satin-clad badass with huge frizzed hair and giant hoop earrings. The transformation complete, the virgin is a slut (conversely, in “Pretty Woman”, the slut becomes a “lady”, thanks to Amex and Rodeo Drive).
Such is the case with this, criminal, upside-down 1980’s movie makeover. Since she’s been sitting in a jail cel for five years, it’s no surprise that Jodi Arias looks different from the golden-skinned, bleached goddess with cascading hair beaming out from her many MySpace photos. But for The Swan’s sake, this courtroom redo is the real crime! It’s a terrible movie makeover in reverse!
Before: A bleached blonde bombshell with tinted contacts, full, tawny lips and yards of blond hair. Her body-hugging outfits are stretched over a curvaceous (big jugs) frame. She has all the hallmarks of a confident siren, oozing sexual confidence.
After: A pimply, slump-shouldered, meek-as-a-mouse nerdball in a rumpled, shapeless shirt. She looks as if she can barely make eye contact from behind humongous schoolmarm glasses and sad set of bangs – as if she could barely muster up the inner strength to“shuuush” noisy library patrons – let alone stab a guy 27 times.
Whereas attractive people are often perceived as having positive personality features and attributes in consonance with the implicit theory that ‘beauty is goodness”, scientific studies prove that – specifically – women on trial for murder who claim self defense are more often perceived as guilty if they’re very attractive – “attractive” being “thick lips; smooth, harmonious facial features; straight blonde hair; and a slender and elegant appearance.“
Maybe in the pre-digital age, one could get away with this, but Jodi is an “amateur photographer” with social media. There are digital databases of her; smiling sweetly from under a ski-bunny parka on the slopes; posing by a redwood on a nature hike; flipping her bleached blonde hair as she poses in a cornfield; basking in a waterfall with her hands firmly clasped around her future victim’s neck.
The dishonesty of the makeover is laughable.
The defense makeover department really screwed the pooch on this one. Her hair is now almost black and it has been cut in the creepy, wispy bangs of the deranged. Her eyebrows, now dark, accentuate a sinister arch.
In an effort to make Jodi Arias more sympathetic, they only succeeded in making her pathetic – which is not the same thing. Desperate and manipulative do not inspire sympathy. The hair color is too dark, too sinister, hanging Morticia-like from her sallow face. The haircut cut is pure Christian Cult – are Christian Cult wives sympathetic? No, they’re not. The glasses look like freaking movie props. The clothes are weird as to be perplexing. Now, Jodi Arias – judging from her own photos – has never been very fashion forward, favoring cheap, loud florals dresses that are neither classy or flattering. But, her courtroom style is beyond. One day it’s layering gone wild with a puke-green button down under a brown sweater under a rumpled gray jacket, the next it’s a black (don’t put a murderess in BLACK) shirt that looks like it has never seen an iron. Where does someone even buy clothes like this?
In their attempt to desexify Jodi Arias, they’ve deprived her of her humanity – the delicate features and virginal coloring that would have given her at least a a fragility. Every ounce of powdery, dainty vulnerability, a weak and fleecy facade, has been splashed in black hair dye. Whatever may have seemed pliable and submissive in her now seems coarse and brutal. The severe, grim makeover was an attempt to make her seem austere, even ascetically so, which is so antithetical to all the other photographic evidence and all the sex tapes and even to her most valuable asset on the stand – her pleasant, self-possessed speaking voice.
The person on the left may or may not look like one who could have slaughtered her boyfriend in a premeditated and horrific manner. The woman on the right absolutely does.
In between Sexy Cheerleader Jodi and Librarian Jodi, there was Girl-Next-Door Jodi, with shiny auburn hair and tawny makeup. This is the look she was sporting for her various, ill-advised, jailhouse interviews. THIS is the look the defense ought to have gone with rather than the parodic, scary school marm look. It is a shocking misstep for the defense! It’s a good thing the defense didn’t hire me to do this girl’s makeover, or this psychopath might have gotten away with murder!
Let’s face it. there’s nothing creepier than a mousey-looking murderer.