13 May The ‘TOWIE’ Effect: fillers, surgery and fake tan
Is the Only Way is Essex to blame for Essex’s bad reputation?
Some might say that Essex is the most notorious county in the UK – even if it is for all the wrong reasons.
For those who live in Essex, we know it’s a pleasant place to live with easy access to the capital. However, for outsiders, it’s a dumb and fickle place homing those who talk with a ‘funny’ accent. Thank you TOWIE.
Back in 2010, a new reality show come onto our screens introducing the nation to people who live in Essex. Created by Ruth Wrigley and Tony Wood, it followed the lives of young adults who didn’t follow a script but was produced in a structured way.
Unfortunately, what some people fail to realise is that these people were carefully chosen with an intent to entertain the public.
Some of the boys shown are serial cheaters with little to no respect for women whilst some of the girls seem egotistical and self-obsessed. Altogether, they were deemed completely idiotic and heightened the Essex stereotype.
Maria Smith is one of those who has been victim to the Essex stereotype many of times. Claiming it first happened when she moved away for university, she told me: “when I first told my new flat mates where I was from they started to laugh and asked me to say ‘oh shutup! I’m so reem!’ And I literally had no idea what they were talking about”.
‘Reem’ is yet another phrase made by Joey Essex (yes, his real name) on TOWIE, to describe someone or something as attractive. ‘Oh shut up’ is another phrase used by most of the cast members on the show and probably the most notable gimmick.
She continued to tell me: “I didn’t know people thought that of us and I didn’t even realise we had an accent at all!”.
Things got worse for Maria when she had finished university and started applying for jobs. She told me: “because of my degree it was quite difficult to get people to believe I had got a 1st… I will always remember one interview I had in London I had genuinely got asked ‘what is an Essex girl doing in an industry like this?’ I was in complete shock”.
Within the acting industry Essex has produced some of the most respected actors and actresses in the country, yet most people probably don’t even know it.
Dame Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery and Rupert Grint were all born and bred in Essex. Despite this, when people think of Essex they envisage Amy Childs, Gemma Collins and Joey Essex. All adding fuel to the Essex stereotype.
It has gone as far as the stereotype of an Essex girl being in the Oxford English Dictionary. They write: “a contemptuous term applied (usually jocularly) to a type of young woman, supposedly to be found in and around Essex, and variously characterized as unintelligent, promiscuous, and materialistic”.
Two Essex women were particularly offended by this and launched a petition to get the term removed from the dictionary.
Juliet Thomas and Natasha Sawkins began to encourage woman to show there success through the hashtag #IAmAnEssexGirl.
But, a spokeswoman for the dictionary said, “nothing is ever taken out of the OED”.
Collins Dictionary added a further definition: “a characterization of a young woman from the Essex area, supposed as being materialistic and lacking in taste”.
Nancy Daniels, one of the women that joined in on the campaign, told me: “I have a degree, a law career and I’m a charity worker. Does that make me unintelligent and materialistic?”
When asked why she thinks Essex girls can be stereotyped, she replied: “to be honest I think the phrase came around in the 1990s, but The Only Way is Essex has definitely added fuel to the fire and painted us to be someone we’re not”.
Daniels continued to tell me her own definition on Essex girls: “we are strong women who fight the stereotypes and fight for a career we want. So what if people take interest in their appearance? What I think people don’t understand is you can have a career whilst also caring about your appearance. We are individuals, and we are definitely not fickle”.
During the beginning series, TOWIE definitely proved the characters to care a lot about their appearance and predominately their (fake) tan. As the series has gone on, it has introduced us to lip fillers, fake eyelashes and surgery.
In salons around the county, you can even go in and ask for ‘the Essex look’. But, if one good thing that has come out of TOWIE, is that it shows the women cast members to be business-minded and career driven with their own salons.
Lucia Leone, a beauty therapist and trainee nurse, told me why she got into the industry: “I do think it’s a great industry to be in. I could have gone down any route that I wanted as I gained a really good education, but I choose to make people feel better about themselves as a career”.
I then asked Lucia whether she would of gone down the same route if she lived in a different county, she replied: “absolutely. It’s the job I love, not the demand of it. Even saying that, Essex isn’t the only place with salons. Everywhere in the UK has a demand for beauty, TOWIE is just the only programme that shows it”.
Lucia has been working as a beauty therapist for five years, and has now decided to train to be a nurse so she can qualify in performing fillers.
Lip fillers has become extremely popular over the recent years, with a lot of Instagram influencers joining in on the trend.
Kylie Jenner was one of the first to gain lip fillers popularity when she admitted to getting it done in 2015. Within the next year, the “lip job” was the most popular non-surgical cosmetic treatment, according to whatclinic.com.
Many of the cast members of TOWIE have admitted to getting fillers, with it proving to be popular in the county too.
Leone tells me why she doesn’t understand the negativity towards lip fillers: “it’s just another procedure to let people feel better about themselves and I don’t get why people can be so against that. Of course things can go wrong but that’s only if you don’t do your research and you go to a dodgy and unqualified person”.
She continues to tell me “every single one of my clients is absolutely beautiful to me, but if they themselves are insecure about something why shouldn’t they be allowed to change that? Why shouldn’t I be allowed to change it for them?”.
Instagram is said to be a massive factor in girls insecurities. It has such a negative effect on young girls and their self-esteem the Royal Society for Public Health found that Instagram is the most detrimental social networking app for young people’s mental health.
Members of TOWIE have now become “Instagram Influencers” and show their followers edited images of themselves and promote cosmetic companies on their page. Whilst some of their followers can be as young as 10, it causes a lot of backlash with worrying parents.
Matt Keracher, author of the same resport, said that Instagram draws young women to “compare themselves against unrealistic, largely curated, filtered and Photoshopped versions of reality”.
However, Zoe Rudgley, who has had her lips filled twice within the last year thinks Instagram and TOWIE have no influence in people getting surgery: “I don’t see anyone on TV or Instagram and want the same look, I do it because of me and how I want to feel”.
Rudgley before and after lip fillers
She continues to tell me her opinion on young people viewing the TOWIE’s cast Instagram’s: “there is a reason there is a age restriction and laws with getting these things done, so people are at a legal age to make up their own mind with their own body”.
Being from Essex herself, Rudgley expresses her love for the county: “Essex is a beautiful place with beautiful people. We might be painted out to be thick or whatever, but if the viewers don’t realise it’s literally just a show then maybe there as thick as we are actually made out to be”.
With TOWIE’s last series averaging around 1,112,000 viewers each week, it’s to no surprise why a lot of people gain an Essex Stereotype. Whilst the show isn’t completely to blame, it certainly does not help at all.
Essex has friendly faces, stunning country sides and gorgeous beaches. It’s not all about being ‘reem’, telling people to shut up and being stupid.
If you want to see the truth and visit Essex yourself, use this handy guide.
This is the news feature I created for the SPA awards. This award is for longer, magazine style pieces, about a specific area or focus. The guidelines was to simply produce one news feature length story, which I have. It is of around 1500 words meeting both the entry requirements and LJ’s requirements, with some interactive images, social media and video.
I chose to do my news feature about something very close to home (literally). I have been stereotyped along with other people I know so I wanted to produce a news feature on how TOWIE (The Only Way is Essex) has added fuel to the stereotypes. I created different angles including the #IAmAnEssexGirl campaign, lip fillers and Instagram influence. This story has never been published before so I thought it is very unique and consequently helped motivate me.
