This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Don't Believe the Hype

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This show was AMAZING! It took a dozen women who were unhappy in their lives and gave them a FULL BODY transformation FOR FREE! They had on average 100k worth of plastic surgery. These before and afters where INCREDIBLE! And yet the show got taken down because of OVERLY judgmental women who didn't like the concept of the show and probably never even saw a single episode. If you don't like the concept. don't watch the show. It had great ratings so obviously people enjoyed it. I was one of them. When you feel bad on the inside, it reflects on your outward appearance. Nobody forced these women to become part of the show. They entered into it on their own accord and I doubt ANY ONE of them regrets it. Judgy people had this show removed but it was probably the same judgy people that gave those women their complexes in the first place. All this show did was show the world that you don't have to settle with what nature gave you. If there's something you don't like about yourself, we live in a world where we now have the technology to change those things. And THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! Great show, don't care what these haters say. They probably all live alone with their cats anyway.

OK so it is being screened in NZ in 2007 - 3 years later but it is still a superficial programme which focuses on beauty - not the inner person. Just another meaning less waste of time. Why do they bother to screen an American programe which has no relevance here in NZ and would not appeal to most of us. Mind you if you were shallow and focused on looks only it might be of interest. I would rather whoever purchases programes to watch in NZ might choose a programe where the majority of viewers were interested. Another option is that the money spent on this programe might be spent on people who were more deserving and in need of assistance.

One disconcerting thing about this show is that it has the unfortunate effect of nudging you to objectify everyone you encounter after seeing it. Taking the standards of the knife-and drill-happy doctors on this series to the street, nobody is perfect, or as they might put it, everyone's a mess, darling. It's an even money bet that every face you see after watching this show a couple of times will remind you of one of this shows 'before' cases. It's unavoidable. Glance at the lady walking your way. Her jawline needs definition, and, say, wouldn't she look great if the cartilage of the tip of her nose was shaved 20% and she had a nice set of Da Vinci veneers? ARGGHH!!! I DID NOT just think that! I dislike the show for encouraging me (and I cannot be alone) to look at physiognomies in a way that is linked directly to a TV series. No one did that with, say, the Price Is Right. But they do about this show. (Right after a recent broadcast of this show, we cut to a local car dealer's commercial with 2 "common person" testimonials. After having just sat through The Swan, you knew exactly what the shows medical team would have done to these ordinary, moderately attractive --and certainly "normal" looking-- women.)The show is not without dark humor. There was the skinny, shy lady, with the sad ghost's personality, who asked for a double D cup augmentation that did not fit her frame by any stretch of the imagination, let alone her personality. She fought the process much of the way, like Rock Hudson in Seconds, so you may have wondered if this was for her. But you realized definitively, during her "reveal", that she had deliberately set herself up so that those things of which she had been taught to be ashamed, her visage and conversation and personality, were going to be the last things in the world you would notice about her ever again. The poor woman needed a year of therapy to mend her self-image and body-image, not an hour of surgery to give her physical assets to hide behind for the rest of her life. But then, the real solution for her case wouldn't make for the kind of quick-turnaround series and sure-fire TV in which Fox specializes. THAT'S why she got the only treatment this show has to offer (decorative veneer) and not the treatment any medical professional would recommend after observing her for even half an hour.As you see from the above examples, the humor, when it comes, is accompanied by a heavy charge of righteous disgust with the shows producers and medical team. These plastic surgeons (as one assumes MOST plastic surgeons, and we only have cases like Michael Jackson's and this shows contestants' to judge from) exercise very little ethical judgment, probe the internal logic of the situation only scantly, and ask few questions, before chirping "Sure, we can do that!" Ever have a plumber in to unclog a sink in your bathroom, only to have him inform you that, for under two grand, he can put in a new shower, washstand and commode that will increase the value of your home by triple that figure? That's these surgeons. The combination of sizable paycheck, the promise held by the creation of a walking advertisement for their business, a certain giddy hot-dogging mentality all professionals have about their work, and sheer technical curiosity pushes them to give that which is indefensible through logic, aesthetics, sensitivity or ethics the old school try, over and over again. These form the mental condition of their work, and their world view, apparently. This point of view delimits their ability to look objectively at their ability to do genuine harm with the skills their training has given them. --Even if that harm is only to keep people from seeking appropriate help for their real conditions like self-esteem issues and poor body image. These plastic surgeons 'solutions' for a fair number of this shows contestants are the moral equivalent of assisting an anorexic by offering them a stomach staple instead of counseling. Reprehensible.A few years ago, I saw a profile of a plastic surgeon who considered work of the kind done on this show a shallow misappropriation of the science. He only worked on people with profound disfiguring birth defects or on the casualties of war. His situation, contrasted with the forced tearful melodrama and appallingly acceptable butchery going on in this show, asks the question which might be phrased thus: As a scientist and top-paid professional, are your ambitions Nobel or Golden Globe? Are they for the greater good or for greed and show biz? An air of cheesy Zsa Zsa/Beverly Hills self-congratulation hangs over this production, especially during the "reveal" sequence, as we see that the medical team has long since bought its own hype. As a group, they are the polar opposite of this selfless surgeon. It wouldn't hurt them a bit to revisit the profile of this particular loving, caring humanitarian-- who just happens to do what they do-- before being driven back to their quick-trick corner of on-demand elective plastic surgery for the rich and for reality TV series.

I am a new member to this web-site, and I have to make a comment on The Swan. All right, This show reminds me that we are one step closer to the TOTAL destruction of the human race as we know it! Yes, these women all have a low self-esteem problem. So, yeah, why not have a so called expert tell them they need 5,000 things done to them to make them "Patchent Worthy". Who the HELL are they to judge? What ever happened to the saying, "It's what inside that counts!"? Anyone who doesn't find this show repulsive, or even finds it funny, should really re-examine themselves. Maybe the women on the show aren't the ones with the problems!