The Swan

I watched the first episode of this show to see if it made me feel as dirty as the commercials did and now I need a holy water cleansing.

Unlike "extreme makeover" which changes people physically in positive ways (teeth correction, sun damage), this show preys on the truly weak individual who's self-esteem is so low that they need counseling more than a new nose. Then, to exploit them even further, the plastic surgeons treat them like conquests, and even degrade them for not meeting expectations. If they are still not pretty enough they get to go home with their painfully obvious plastic surgery. The blonde named Kelly looked so weird that I felt bad for her. Overall, I think this show is one of the most negative damn things I have ever seen and encourage viewers to watch UPN re-runs rather than this pathetic attempt at 'good' reality television.

this is a sad commentary on tv audiences in the us. I have read that the program's ratings are through the roof! This is a tacky show with no soul. I am afraid for the effect that this program will have on its contestants (and audience) in the future.

IS the FCC monitoring the program? Although I do not believe in censorship, I do believe in maintaining a certain standard in what is transmitted through our air-waves. Especially if children and young girls are watching.

Do people realize what these contestants look like without make-up and lights, and what happens to them when they return to their "reality?

There is nothing wrong with fantasy and realism, but this show is just blatant irresponsible bad taste!

I may as well add my two cents into this discussion of the Swan and laugh if you want cause I don't see nothing wrong with this show. These women are just like everyone else who have gone through major tramas in their lives and for so long been trying to find the right people to help them. This show perhaps is the cure of it all and it certainly made a big difference on some of them. I watched the Swan the firt time last week and immediately fell in love with the show. These women have a lot of courage to go on national television and tell their stories which may be moving for some people that have been through simularities themselves but never had the right people to direct them. This show as fore mentioned can make a difference and each and every week these ladies go through the training & plastic surgery just to look good. The work may be tough but like troopers they really pull through to make it. Can't wait to see the Swan Pageant.

Has Fox morphed into the Reality Channel?

It would seem that way. Every season Fox looks for ways to get more and more extreme with their primetime reality shows, not to mention more and more low-class. 'The Swan', Fox's newest reality endeavor, takes a group of women with no self-esteem and promises to make them beautiful. The ladies, who are in obvious need of more help than just physically, believe that their new beauty will fix their present lives and help them forget a lousy past. The idea is to select only a few of the most beautiful ladies from the group for a big beauty pageant at the end, to see who the ultimate Swan is.

In a society where self-respect is nearly extinct, shows like this only make the situation worse. The problem is seriously underestimated. I watched the first episode of The Swan the other night, and I was actually disgusted by the plastic surgery results. Ladies that look normal, healthy, and beautiful just the way they are, are being turned into plastic dolls with street-walker makeup. Many of the women on the show are wives and mothers, and I shudder to think what sort of example they are setting for their families and children. True beauty comes from the inside. Face lifts won't fix inner problems with self-esteem. These superficial women obviously have no clue.

I really don't know who is worse: the people who want to participate in this show, or the people who intend to keep watching it. I am sorry I wasted my time to view it, much less write a review on it. I keep hoping the human race will wake up and smell the coffee, but I guess it won't be happening anytime soon; at least not before the human race is given a face lift, a tummy tuck, and hair extensions.

If reality television wasn't sign enough that pop culture and culture within itself was dying out "The Swan" is further verification of that worry.

FOX decreases its credibility further by reaching new lows in a show that feeds off of women's insecurities for the sake of entertainment. Truly, a low point in all of television history.

Take a bunch of self-conscious women, give them loads of surgery and pit them together in a beauty contest. Low? Well, they'd have to reach up to touch the bottom.

Reality TV exposes the worst that humanity has to offer and "The Swan" is proof of such. FOX feeds off of women's self consciousness and insecurities like vultures and exploits them for entertainmnet.

The trailers alone will make you feel dirty and soulless but watch the show and you'll feel worse. Rather than providing counseling, therapy, inserting positive views to these women and getting them to appreciate their own image, they feed off of them and further lower their standards.

The premise for this show is gruesome and morbid, and the women's reactions to their makeovers are also chilling, and you wonder, how will they feel four months from now when the lights are off them?