Makeover Torment

Poor Louis.

What could be the worst way for a masculine guy to be humiliated? Giving him a feminine makeover of course! Because Most Writers Are Male having a male (typically masculine) character who has the belief that Pink Is for Sissies or Girls Have Cooties forcing them to dress up femininely is the most effective way to torment them. A common scenario of this is, if the guy happens to show up at an all-girls Slumber Party, the girls could capture him and give him one heck of a makeover, with the guy suffering of course (unless of course the guy secretly enjoys it).

This can apply to tomboy girls (like the Unwillingly Girly Tomboy) as well but not as often as guys.

This can sometimes overlap with Dragged into Drag and Gravity Is a Harsh Seamstress (when falling through clotheslines gets you dressed in mismatched/feminine clothes) but not always. Compare to Pet Dress-Up. Contrast with Real Men Wear Pink and In Touch with His Feminine Side.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In an episode of Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, the class are sent on a work exchange at the Pokemon Center. After Ash obliviously puts on the female nurse outfit, the girls add makeup and a wig to the mix.
• Osananajimi wa Onnanoko ni Naare:
  • Sylphie wants to turn Iori into "Shiori", but Shiori can reverse the change by confidently reasserting her masculinity. Thus, Sylphie magically puts Shiori in very girly clothing to undermine that ability—and sometimes just to humiliate her. One of the first outfits she puts Shiori in has a blouse emblazoned with the message "I accept that I am a girl. I live as a female throughout life♥"
  • When Sylphie first starts changing Shiori's clothes, she takes suggestions from Shiori's whole class. Most of the girls pick regular clothes just because they think she looks cute, but Shiori objects in a way that comes off as misogynist. Offended, they decide to spend the next two hours keeping Shiori from changing back while putting her in impractically fancy outfits (with the guys throwing in skimpy or fetishistic ones). After a yukata and gothic lolita dress, the chapter ends with Shiori already tearfully begging forgiveness.
• Ranma ½:
  • In an early chapter of the manga, the three Tendo daughters get tired of Ranma running around topless in girl form whenever his clothes are dirty. They corner Ranma in his girl form, and compel him to wear their hand-me-downs. Nabiki enjoys picking an outfit, and in the anime Kasumi joins in and they discuss coordinating, while Akane gets pissed at Ranma's complaints that Akane's old clothes are too tight in the chest and too loose in the waist.
    The anime adds a later scene where Ranma is chased by Nabiki and Akane on and offscreen, and each time Nabiki has somehow put Ranma into new feminine clothes (first a kimono, then lingerie, then a Vegas showgirl outfit). They pass by Soun and Genma in the foreground, the former mortified that his daughters own such scandalous outfits.
  • When Ranma is stuck in female form because he can't handle the necessary hot water, the anime adds a scene where he tries anyway, passes out, and wakes up still in girl form. He's mortified that Nabiki put him in her nightgown (which is completely see-through except for the lacy panties), which she suggests he keep.
    Ranma: I'm a guy!
    Nabiki: You're a girl now, so don't sweat it. It's so cute!
  • During one of Nodoka's visits late in the manga, Akane takes advantage of her doting on "Ranko" to get back at Ranma for saying her breasts are small. Akane talks Nodoka into taking Ranma shopping for a bra, gets his stained clothes replaced at a women's boutique^*Its sign says "Everything girly" just to emphasize Ranma wasn't going to do better than the lacy sweater, floral miniskirt, and tights he ended up in., and gives them a ticket she won for a day spa. Ranma ends up dodging the last one to avoid exposing his identity to his mother, but not before getting turned male again in the same girl's outfit.

Comic Strips

• In an arc in Zits, Jeremy sneaks into the house where Sara is babysitting, but gets busted by the young girl she is minding. The price for her silence is being allowed to paint Jeremy's finger and toe nails. With glow-in-the-dark nail polish.

Fan Works

• Misery Loves Company: Among the various traps that Hecate laid out for Gaz are ones that forcefully give her a new haircut, outfit and makeup, all of which are far more girly than Gaz would ever normally wear.

Films — Animation

• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has Grumpy being forced into not only washing but also wearing feminine ribbons by the other dwarfs. Though this is a rare example where other guys are doing the torment.
• During the final battle in Beauty and the Beast one guy ends up getting a makeover by a hairbrush and comb (dressed in a skirt, high heels, lipstick, etc.) while fighting the Wardrobe, causing him to scream and retreat.

Films — Live-Action

• Beauty and the Beast: During the final battle, three guys get a makeover by animate beauty accessories while fighting the Wardrobe; two of them run away, while the other actually quite enjoys it.
• Minutemen: A rare example of boys doing this to other boys. On the first day of high school, the football team takes Virgil and Charlie hostage and carries them off the field. They then proceed to dress the two boys in cheerleader uniforms, put makeup and girly accessories on them, and hang them on the mascot statue for the whole school to see.

Live-Action TV

• Even Stevens in the episode "Secret World of Girls". After Beans snitches on Louis and the other guys, they run away, but Louis gets captured by his sister Ren and the other girls and forced into a makeover.
• Game On (2015), a Canadian series on YTV, features an episode where Toby’s younger sister blackmails him into getting a makeover.
• In the Hannah Montana episode "Don't Stop 'Til You Get the Phone", Miley and Lily trick Dwayne Johnson into a girly makeover so they can take his picture and exchange it to a paparazzo for a picture they gave him that would expose Miley's Secret Identity as Hannah Montana. However, Miley has a Heel Realization about it and gives back the picture no harm done.
• The Stinger to the Bad Future episode of Jessie shows the Ross kids giving a future Bertram (who is just a head on a giant computer mainframe) an embarrassing girly makeover.
• The Journey of Allen Strange Robbie and her friends have a sleepover tradition of pranking her little brother Josh, which usually involves covering him in makeup.
• Out of Jimmy's Head in the episode "Sleepover". Jimmy and his friend Craig are spying on a sleepover his sister is having but are found out, Jimmy gets away but Craig is caught and forced to wear makeup and a wedding dress, in which he is photographed, with the girls sending the pictures to the entire school.
• See Dad Run the youngest child Janie gets a princess party and she and her friends surround her brother Joe and put makeup on him, he runs away and falls face first in the birthday cake

Music

• The Who did a song called "I'm a Boy", about an only son born into a family of sisters whose mother really wanted another daughter. The lyrics chart his anguish at being forced to be feminine
  My name is Bill and I'm a head-case;
  They practice making up on my face;
  I feel lucky if I get trousers to wear,
  Spend ages taking daisies out my hair...

Myths & Religion

• Classical Mythology:
  • As penance for an accidental murder, Heracles was made to serve Omphale for a year, doing women's work and even wearing women's clothes. Artwork of the two usually features her wearing the hero's iconic lionskin and club.
    Depending on the version though, this can be played straight or subverted by having Heracles treat it as a fun learning experience. Either way, he comes away from the experienced more empathetic towards women because of walking a mile in another person's shoes. Interestingly, no version of the myth invokes the idea of Heracles failing hilariously at these tasks, even though there's no logical reason he should know how to do any of them. This is part of why Hera reluctantly forgives Zeus for fathering him in the end, according to some myth-writers.
  • The Achilleid: Achilles is so embarrassed about dressing as a woman that Thetis has to put his dress on, do his hair, and pick out the jewelry he'll wear to complete his transformation into a full-blown babe.

Web Animation

• In Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged, this is Cloud's reaction to having to dress up as a girl, and no one ever lets him forget it. In contrast to the original game, where Cloud seemed more or less okay with it as long as he was able to rescue Tifa.

Webcomics

• Erma: Erma has voodoo dolls of her friends including Connor, which her playmates find and play dress-up with. Cut to the poor boy in girly clothes and makeup.

Western Animation

• An early episode of The Simpsons had Lisa and her friends try to do this to Bart as a fun slumber party activity. Bart manages to escape, so they do it to Maggie instead.
• Recess: The episode "My Funny Valentines" almost has TJ suffer a makeover when the girls tried to punish him after receiving Valentines Cards from him (which he only sent as a prank).
• All Dogs Go to Heaven (TV Series): The episode "Miss Guidance" has Charlie forced into a makeover done by Sasha (as a flirtatious female dog) in order to keep a junkyard dog distracted.
• In the Dexter's Laboratory episode "A Tribe Called Girl," Dexter infiltrates Dee Dee's slumber party. He eventually gets caught, and Dee Dee and her friends give him a makeover where he wears makeup and a dress.
• On Hey Arnold!, a feminine makeover is inflicted on Harold at the end of the episode "Helga's Makeover".
• In the Gravity Falls episode "Carpet Diem", Dipper in Mabel's body exploits this by getting Mabel's friends to hold down Mabel in Dipper's body and give her a makeover, so that he can get the key to the house's attic.
• The Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) episode "Electric Nightmare" had a cosmetics robot give Roll a bad facial, enraging her.
• FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman: In the episode "CSI Ruff", Blossom gives Ruff a haircut and blow-dries his fur to get ready the "Fetch! grand Championship" and when he decides to pick up the Grand Prize from his old school, due to Blossoms saying she's busy with "Cat Business". When Blossom was done, Ruff's fur became very poofy and he's wearing a bow on his head, This look greatly embarrasses Ruff to the point where he has the FETCHers go pick up the grand Prize for him instead. Later on, Ruff washed off the makeover.
  Ruff: AUUGH! I can't go looking like this!... I look like.... Like a CAT!...

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