The Swan

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?

I have to agree with what the other person who commented. This is just disgusting. It's clear to anyone who watches these women for five minutes that they all are dealing with some serious underlying mental issues that no surgery will fix. These problems cannot be fixed with a new nose or a chin implant.

Self esteem cannot be attained in this manner either. True self esteem rises above all of this meaningless nonsense. A new nose will not truly make you confident...that comes from an attitude that has nothing to do with how you look on the outside. If it did, all beautiful people would be confident- but, they're not. Everyone with a big nose and bags under their eyes would have no confidence, but that's not the case either.

This is just the lowest of what TV has to offer, and it's no shock that it's being brought to us by Fox, who keeps going lower and lower, scraping the bottom of the garbage can for ideas for ridiculous, shameless programs like this.

Not only do the women competing in this show need mental help...but, the creators and execs at fox need it just as bad.

I won't say the typical things about this show such as "it's revolting!" and "how horrible" and "society is awful" and all those things that everyone wants to say because everybody's already said those things. This show is awful on several levels and I don't say that with my nose turned up in the air saying how wonderful I am b/c I'm against plastic surgery. Some people will truly never change unless something physical is changed and only then will they allow themselves to be happy. Maybe that's because of society but it doesn't change the fact that sometimes plastic surgery is a good thing for some people. This show pulls those type of people on and makes them feel better (a change that will probably stay). But the way it is presented and what the moronic doctors say makes it awful and a total mind f***. You are nothing unless you inject your a** into your lips! They don't just adjust and lift to bring out the beauty of the girl, they reconstruct some of these girls and make them look like cats (best example is the girl who won the first season - looks nothing like herself and looks like a plastic mold). No one in their right mind would have anything against making a persons teeth white and straight so I don't know why they would have a problem making the bridge of a nose a little skinnier, but my god! They actually make the effort to make every girl look the same! It's hilarious.

Case in point: the story of a woman who decided to get skinny, she did and was left with HUGE over flow of skin that looked pretty awful really (and I think taking away skin like that is a healthy sugery - giving you rewards for getting healthy) but just as she lost all the weight, she tragically lost her husband. The theripist (OF ALL PEOPLE!!!) says "how ironic that she is left with all that skin." (!!!!!!!!!!WHAT!!!!!!!!) The woman lost her husband after she lost weight for him - that's irony. Later in the show, one doctor tells her to her face how difficult the surgery will be for him, and that he's never had to do so much work. Not only a personal display of great tact but way to send a message to anyone that thought the lady looked pretty (such as I did, she really did) about how awful they must look. I just hope little teenage girls are more intelligent than we all give them credit for when we are getting mad at this show. It could all also fit into an easy 30 minute show but they have the contestants say things about what is wrong with them and they replay it after every commercial. You see everything but the reveal just at least twice. It's a piece of crap show.

I am not a reality TV person. Mostly can't stand any of them, except for American Choppers, but then I love seeing metal being bent. So it came as a surprise to me that having heard all negative about this I got sucked into an episode. There is one thing that is not emphasized on the show, but apparently these women get pretty extensive counseling along with all the other physical transformations. These women all have emotional scars that would probably never be addressed out in the real world, but here they are getting many hours of free counseling every week. I find nothing wrong with that and I only wish the producers would spend more time portraying what results they get from this time spent with psychological staff. Plastic surgery is very, very common and its portrayal on TV should come as no shock to anyone.

As for being the "bottom of the barrel" I'm thinking folk are barking up the wrong tree. Seems to me there was a show called 'Temptation Island'. Never saw it but understand the object was to steal partners or some such. Seems to me much worse than women with problems, who want to change themselves, finding free help.