The idea of a make-under (from what I've gathered from the internet) is to take a person who looks unconventional and change their hair, makeup, clothing, etc. To make them look conventional. Rachael Ray did this to the women of Jersey Shore. Now, I'm no fan of MTV (with the exception of Daria) or Jersey Shore, but I have to say...what Rachael Ray and the show's "style expert" Gretta Monahan did was absolutely ridiculous. In make-undering (is that a word?) Snooki, Sammi Sweetheart, and J-Woww, Monahan either ended up picking clothes or hairstyles that the women of Jersey Shore were not happy with wearing. Snooki and Sammi seemed to hate wearing their conventional outfits, and J-Woww detested her hair.
I also found this online game for girls called "Punk Makeunder", which is probably the worst online dress-up game in existence. In it, you take a totally punk-rock girl and you change her so that she looks more conventional. More trendy. You essentially take away everything original about this poor fictional girl's appearance and make her into something she's not.
Doesn't anyone realize what kind of message this is sending to young girls that play this game? I played it myself (despite probably being way older than the target age group for the game...) and tried to make the girl look as punk as she possibly could after the make-under. It didn't work, though, and the most punk I could make this girl made her into a bit of a Lana Del Rey doppelganger, which isn't exactly what I was going for.
The idea of make-unders in regard to the Rachael Ray incident and the Punk Makeunder Game is that it sends the message that women should only dress a certain way. That dressing like Snooki or the punk girl in the game is wrong and that women and girls should dress how other people want them to dress. When Snooki and Sammi protested their outfits, Rachael and Gretta responded (I'm paraphrasing here), "but we like your outfit!" As if what matters when women get dressed is what other people will think, rather than how the women themselves want to dress.
Rather, why not just leave women to dress how they please? Let women and girls embrace their individuality and express that through the way they dress. I wouldn't dress the way Snooki or J-Woww dress, nor would I go total punk like the girl in the game, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with dressing like that, and it's not my business (nor is it anyone else's) to make Snooki "put some clothes on" or to make a punk girl look trendy.
~Abbey xoxo