Wendy van Dijk must say goodbye to her blonde haircut if she wants to continue on television, says media critic Victor Vlam. “Make it dark. It really has to be something completely different.”
Mari van de Ven is shocked when he wakes up from his beauty sleep today: media critic Victor Vlam walks like an elephant through the Nigtevecht porcelain cupboard and orders Mari’s muse Wendy van Dijk to dye her hair dark. Only as a brunette can the presenter save her television career, he thinks.
Flop after flop
Wendy’s TV job is not going well and now that her husband Erland Galjaard has quit as her boss, there is no one left to protect her. “Her contract with Talpa expires next year. In the summer to be precise. And I think it will be really difficult for her to get a new contract,” says media critic Victor Vlam.
Why? He continues in the podcast The Communicados: “Just like with Gordon, she has failed a lot. But really a lot. It all turned out quite disastrous in the five years that she worked at Talpa. You could say that the only success is Who of the Three. That is a great success, but yes, her role is not really crucial.”
Radically different
The initially successful Wie Het Laatst Lacht was not much anymore after two seasons, according to Victor. “There have been a lot of flops. We Want More, The Dance Marathon, Who Knows the Netherlands, Ministars, Superkids, you name it. That is why my advice to Wendy is: continuing in this way will not make any difference.”
And now? “I think she has to take a radically different approach to everything. My advice would be: make sure you completely reinvent yourself. You have to completely renew yourself. For example, I would say: don’t do big studio shows anymore. Leave that behind you. She has done so many of those programs.”
Thirteen in a dozen
Wendy’s studio shows are really boring, Victor thinks. “She is the face of those dime-a-dozen studio shows. When you see Wendy in the promos, you think to yourself: this is going to be another one of those programs that I have been disappointed with a number of times, I’ll just leave it alone. That is not good.”
So things must be rigorously different, according to the media expert. “It’s all the same trick that she’s constantly replicating. I don’t know what she should do, but she should do it completely differently. Maybe also a different look, because she has actually had the same look for, yes, thirty years.”
Brunette Wendy
Victor states that her look could also use a new boost. The critic advises Wendy to continue as a brunette. Does the route to renewed TV relevance first pass through Mari? Yes, he thinks. “Maybe you should get rid of that blonde hair. Make it a bit darker. Just something completely different.”
A lick of paint for Wendy’s career? Brunette today, job retention tomorrow? It seems far-fetched, although it would not be the first time that a celebrity has listened to Victor’s styling advice. Sam Hagens also previously changed his hairstyle on the advice of the media critic…