The Swan

[Jim of Seattle]

Talk about a guilty pleasure. I never watch TV, and certainly never Reality TV. I saw the first episode of this show last week in a hotel room and found it fascinating. They take these extremely unattractive women, lock them in some sort of spa/prison for 3 months, do a ton of plastic surgery on them, get them to lose a bunch of weight, eat right, they get a load of therapy, and emerge this ravishing beauty. The gimmick is that all mirrors and reflective surfaces of any kind have been removed from their spa/prison, so for the entire 3 months they can't see themsleves. The "reveal" is at the end of the 3 months, where they are all dolled up and gorgeous and get to see themselves for the first time. I rolled my eyes constantly throughout the show, but in the end I was touched by the honestly stunned and grateful reactions of these former uglies-turned-beauties.

Cheesy as hell, and about a thousand things that are "bad" about it, but man, it makes for some damn good television right there.

[jb]

"beauties"

yeah, i don't care for that show. it creeps me out. everything that they consider to be "beautiful" seems to be me to be a charicature of beauty. kind of grotesque.

granted they do look better than they did, but that show exaggerates the change. and i'm not sure half the stuff they do is really necessary to make those women look good. all the chin implants look pretty hideous. and they do the final reveal before the girls have really gotten used to their new teeth, so they have a sort of lisp and they look kind of bizarre and unnatural.

[Jim of Seattle]

Oh, I agree with everything you said. None of them looks entirely natural. But it's still fascinating, and good or bad, those women are pleased with the results, and that's the point, I think.

[erik]

Like all reality shows, the first season rules, and the second season they feel the need to up the ante. The first season of the Swan was such interesting TV because the overarching premise (that women were competing to be on a madeup beauty pageant based on how good plastic surgeons were able to make them look) was so twisted and not grounded in reality. And the whole tone of the show is like straight out of an Orwellian TV Guide: "Hey, lets take these women who have low self esteem and body issues and show them how beautiful they REALLY are by altering their bodies!" I mean, I'm not saying that plastic surgery is all out evil, but to hear them talk through the show, they downplay the fact that tens of thousands of dollars is what is making them look different, and up-play how hard they work in the gym and how well they do in therapy.

They did a reeeeaaally good job on the first season of finding women who really had no idea how attractive they would be if they only put in a minimal amount of effort. Like, I swear from season 1, more than 1/2 of the contestants would have looked almost as good as their altered selves if they had only invested in a Wonderbra, a $300 haircut and dyejob, a personal trainer and a trip to Banana Republic. Of course, all that won't give you a big old rack and a flatflat stomach in like 3 months, so that doesn't make for "good TV".

And then they made some bizarre choices for these women. Like, that Asian woman, they made her teeth waaaaaaaaaaay too white. They looked fake (because they were) but, I mean, it did not look good with her skin tones.

Yeah, but the second season, they picked some people who it seems would really benefit from plastic surgery in more than just a cosmetic way, like Melty Stomach lady, and Childhood Burn lady. I guess to stave off any potential backlash against continuing to propogate an unattainable standard of beauty for American women (unattainable unless you get to be on The Swan or have lots of expendable income.)

[Lunkhead]

I had never heard about the show till I saw a newspaper article about the "winner" of the first season. She looked freaky to me, personally, after the surgery. Of course, it may just be that I knew she had had plastic surgery influencing my impression of her "after" appearance. A female producer of the show was quoted as saying something like, "The only people who were upset were a bunch of old male television reviewers," which I just could not believe, unless there are male contestants as well. I've never seen it, so I'm curious, are there male candidates too? Or is it only women? If it's only women, is there an all male version planned that anyone has heard of?

[erik]

As it is now, the Swan is ladies only. I can't imagine a male version being as mesmerizing as the female version.