Lifestyling women: emergent femininities on Singapore and Taiwan television

The recent rise of lifestyle TV in Anglophone markets reflects the increasing dominance of an individualistic, consumer-driven approach to lifestyle issues in which late modern selfhood is seen as endlessly malleable, a project to be worked on and invested in (Wood and Skeggs, 2004). Popular-factual programmes offering advice on life skills for surviving and thriving in late modern capitalist culture are also in evidence across Asia. As this chapter will demonstrate, some of these are similar to their Anglo-American counterparts, while others present life advice in ways clearly shaped by distinct local and regional televisual and cultural codes and conventions. We propose, as others have argued in relation to this genre in Western markets (Palmer, 2004; Redden, 2007; Lewis, 2008), that lifestyle-themed shows in Asia may be playing a significant role in modelling particular lifestyle behaviours and, concomitantly, social identities, offering not just consumer advice but life guidance in a period of rapid cultural and social change. This chapter analyses selected examples of life-advice TV in Taiwan and Singapore, looking in particular at the highly feminized subgenre of 'fashion and beauty advice' TV. With a focus on the question of gendered individualization, our analysis examines the contradictions between the ideals of reflexive, choice-based selfhood that are promoted by such programmes, and the structural constraints on this emergent feminine subject in the context of ongoing gendered social and economic inequities.