On Reality TV: "The Swan"

I was quite impressed with the group presentations. They each did an excellent job with presenting their material, and the topics were organized in such a way that was both interesting and insightful.

Both groups focused on entirely different aspects of the media. One leaned towards news media and the other towards “entertainment” (if you want to call it that). I found the presentation on Reality TV particularly interesting. The background information on the show “The Swan” was almost heart-wrenching. The group focused on articles that exploited America’s drive towards a sense of “perfection”. They made a good point: Average looking people (with no real deformities) enter the show, have a number of surgeries done to completely alter their appearance for a pageant they will still have to compete in to determine who among them is “truly” beautiful. I guess in some twisted way it’s nice for these people to gain a confidence in themselves that maybe they never before possessed. But the show, from the information that was given, seems to say “If you’re ugly and unhappy we can change your life with a few ‘minor’ surgeries.”

The sad thing is, the crave for “perfection” doesn’t simply end at the season’s close. The statistics they gave about the rise of plastic surgery in America were not surprising. It’s sad that America has come to a point where any dissatisfaction with physical appearance can be “commonly” cut away with a knife. (Dissatisfactions, I might add, that are primarily there because of the media’s exploitation and America’s embracing of a particular “look.”) I saw a recent interview with a 29-year-old woman who had already undergone 26 plastic surgeries. She sat and confessed that, if she could, she would willingly go under the knife every day—that she still had a list of surgeries she wanted to have done so that she could achieve this sense of “perfection” and satisfaction with herself. A perfection that is, apparently, a never ending process of simply removing, changing, or adding more skin. I’m not trying say that everyone who has had plastic surgery is this extreme, obsessive, or discontented. CA gave an example in class of a woman who had entered the pageant specifically so she could regain her hearing. There are people who have been completely disfigured because of fires, car accidents, and other traumatic events that have undergone plastic surgery to restore their physical features. However, when America encourages individuals to choose plastic surgery as a means of self-help and as a self-esteem booster (as this particular TV series shows) there is a deep problem and a deep need for something more than plastic surgery.