POD off!
I love Snog Marry Avoid almost as much as I hate it. It’s a show which takes tangerine-toned trollops and, after breaking their esteem with the titular public analysis, before removing their ‘fakery’ to reveal how wholesome and take-home-to-your-mothery they can really be.
It’s awful. Unashamedly awful, and absolutely beyond defence. Hosted by Jenny Frost, an apparent first disciple of the natural beauty religion, though often in dire need of a hairbrush, and featuring a cheaply animated ‘Personal Overhaul Device’ or POD (a name no doubt conjured for the opportunities to make puns such as the aforementioned, ‘pod off’ and ‘podding brilliant’), Snog Marry Avoid manages to be so immensely offensive that it deserves an award.
Though I suspect I’m not the only one who has had the misfortune to wander down West Street on a weekend and wanted to run for cover from a veritable swarm of hen-partying tartlets, shouldn’t they be able to dress how they please? The fact that at least half the people it subjects to a make-under return to their former apparel within ten minutes of the camera leaving is testament to what many people would hate to admit: though some of them simply need to be shown the way, others genuinely like their look. There’s nothing wrong with that!
And, really, what can an ex-member of Atomic Kitten say about natural beauty?
However, even its vitriolic displays of sexism can’t dissuade me from embracing Snog Marry Avoid with open arms, and persuading my friends to do the same. The contagion is spreading, and I don’t have the heart to stop it. I’ve even infected my distinctly high-brow housemate, who believes that programmes have no point if they’re not The Wire, with my enthusiasm.
I love Pod’s insulting comments, The Frost’s vapid nodding, and the disbelieving responses to a particularly spiteful public analysis. Most of all, I love the idea of the viewership getting a warm glow of snobbery from laughing at these poor victims of bad taste. Please. If you’re watching BBC3, you ain’t all that, and I say this as a connoisseur of such televised trash.
Oh Snog Marry Avoid, I wish I knew how to quit you. I really do.
Lisa Harrison
