Plastic Surgery on Air III - ” The Swan”
The Swan
In direct competition to “Extreme Makeover,” Fox has produced ” The Swan” - a highly successful reality show that reaches 15 million viewers per screening in US alone. 17 female and male candidates, mostly plain looking, shy people who can’t afford cosmetic surgery, have so far received an all-round surgical renewal with countless different treatments- for free. Usually, the operations would cost up to US $250 000. A professional team consisting of a personal coach, a therapist, a fitness trainer,a dentist and several cosmetic surgeons is assigned to each selected participant. Over a period of 3 months, they work on physical, mental, emotional transformation of their “ugly duckling.” The participants do not have access to mirrors in this time, and contact to their families is restricted to 3 phone calls of no more than ten min per week. The highlight of the show is the beauty pageant held at the end of the series- one of the formerly ugly ducking is crowned the most beautiful swan. In each episode, a finalist for the pageant is selected: 2 participants are presented to the audience with detailed flashbacks to their 3 month beautification regime, and the viewers vote on the best results.
The show is drawing about 10.5 million viewers a week thus far. (Since moving to its regular Monday home, though, it has averaged about a half-million fewer viewers than ABC’s “Extreme Makeover.”)
My thoughts: To me, it sounded like a play of the fairy tale ” The Ugly Duckling”. Is it because of all these fairy tales that we read that brought hope to us that we can all be beautiful one day? No matter how ugly u look now, aesthetic surgery seems to be the natural solution out. To some, it can really be a confident booster and helps change their life. Well, as long as it makes people happy and more contented with life, I am personally fine with it =) though the issue of over emphasizing on physical beauty and neglecting the importance of inner beauty may linger quite abit. Well, who don’t wish to be the perfect one who is beautiful both inner and outer, and not everyone is born that lucky to be able to possess this perfection naturally.
