I don’t love everything about my appearance. And I doubt
that most women do. But when Fox launched the new reality surgical
makeover show “The Swan” in April and recently
announced the show’s pageant winner, I felt particularly
disappointed.
Basically, the show revolves around 16 “ugly
ducklings” who suffer from enormous amounts of insecurity.
So, a team of specialists assigned to each woman physically
transforms the contestants into complete “swans.”
Shows like “The Swan” don’t help women.
Instead, they tell them they’re inadequate as they are and
should instead fit into a specific, often unattainable mold. There
is no way the show can empower or inspire women by offering 16
contestants a chance at plastic surgery and “life
coaching.” While I don’t think “The Swan”
should be taken off the air, I believe young women today
desperately need to hear a different kind of message: Nobody should
buy into the lies of “The Swan” and similar shows.
Despite what the show purports, in reality, self-confidence is
what’s beautiful and successful.
But the show has been a major hit. First airing on April 9, it
quickly drew an average of 9.2 million viewers and grew to become
the biggest success for a Fox reality series to date.
On May 24, the winner was officially announced: Rachel Love
Fraser, a 27-year-old construction company clerk from Sammamish,
Wash. But the road to success wasn’t an easy one. According
to the New York Post, Fraser underwent seven
different varieties of cosmetic surgery ““ including a
nose job, brow lift, chin implant, lip enhancement, breast lift,
liposuction and dental reconstruction ““ before becoming the
“Ultimate Swan.”
So, what’s the big deal? “The Swan” is a
commercial hit that sends a superficial message: These women
aren’t good as they are. They need to change.
I’m not generally against cosmetic surgery, but I’m
opposed to offering surgery as the quick, ultimate solution to
greater happiness and self-acceptance. And the show does just that
““ it uses surgery as an ego Band-Aid.
According to “The Swan,” these 16 “ugly”
women must endure prolonged, painful, sometimes life-threatening
surgeries to repair their tragic physical flaws. Rather than
encourage healthy diets, reasonable fitness goals and success
strategies, the show goes way over the edge. It tells viewers that
an ideal solution to unhappiness is to alter themselves completely
to find acceptance and love. Only when they go under the knife are
they a “swan.”
The show isn’t only sending a bad message ““
it’s promoting a deceptive product. There’s no
diversity of looks or identities. Instead the show presents an
extremely narrow idea of female aesthetics that fails to
embrace the true breadth of beauty and womanhood. Come the end of
the show, virtually every contestant looks like every other
contestant. It’s a sad and amazingly uncreative picture to
see the row of “swans” featured in People magazine
after their nose jobs, tummy tucks and liposuction. It’s like
looking at Barbie’s family reunion (in an empty TV
studio).
The contestants’ individualities disappear, being replaced
with similar physical attributes courtesy of the miracles of
science and the fantasies from Mattel Inc.
A second season of “The Swan” is already scheduled
for November, but do women really need another dose of this show?
Probably not. In fact, American women today suffer so acutely from
having horrible body images that the problem has reached epidemic
proportions. Five to 10 percent of female college students live
with eating disorders. Meanwhile, more people die from anorexia
than from any other psychological disorder.
If “The Swan” proves so demeaning a show, why do
women even choose to participate in its antics? The answer is more
apparent than one may assume. A woman’s social worth is often
determined by her looks. It would be naive to brand the
“swans” as moronic and irresponsible females. They are,
in many ways, ambitious and typical American women.
Maybe that’s why so few people speak out. American women
are confronted with horrible and high expectations regarding their
appearance ““ but they also are willing collaborators. It is
the women’s magazines, after all, that proudly display the
unrealistically air-brushed, emaciated supermodels. And it’s
women who most rabidly watch programs like “The Swan.”
Feminine self-hatred is deeply embedded in our culture today.
Very simply, the show further strengthens the damaging messages
our culture sends about women.
The solution, unfortunately, is not so slick or beguiling. There
is no swift or easy way to change these notions so firmly planted
in our society. Surely there are ways to outshine “The
Swan” and feature more positive female role models on popular
TV shows. But until viewers choose to tune into finer and more
helpful brands of programming, we’ll continued to be cursed
by dumbed-down programs like “The Swan.”
Fried is a first-year history student. E-mail her at
ifried@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.