Miss Naked Beauty: Judgement of Gok

Miss Naked Beauty purports to promote the cause of ‘real women’. It’s contestants are supposedly vying for the opportunity of being ambassadors for ‘natural beauty’ and the idea that a woman doesn’t have to be young and thin to be beautiful; in the winner’s immortal words (in fact, I think all the girls said it) everyone is beautiful. We are invited to believe that the winners of this reality TV contest will form the grass roots of a movement in defiance of the odious fashion industry, which incessantly promotes impossible ideals of feminine beauty.

Do the women who flock to view this contest, and the millions more who tune in to it on TV really imagine that the fashion industry is going to start showing their latest Spring collection on the Paris catwalks with models that look like the contestants? Miss Naked Beauty is in actual fact just as exploitative as any other beauty contest. The bikini and nude sections which are presented as a means of forcing the contestants to accept their own unadorned ‘natural beauty’ are just an excuse for an exercise in voyeurism.

After the humiliating process of elimination it’s really quite sad (and really quite pathetic) to see the final two contestants putting their hearts and souls into their final speeches. They truly do seem to believe in the cause that has been so shamelessly sold to them by Channel 4 and the incredibly creepy Gok Wan.

Miss Naked Beauty has put a new spin on the reality TV formula but don't be fooled; the bottom line is not social justice but only this: you don't have to be beautiful to be a sex object.