Perhaps the most controversial scene in "The Swan: Behind the Mirror," documentarian Erin Lee Carr's new 100-minute exposé on the 2004 extreme makeover reality show "The Swan," is the last one. (For those who aren't familiar, the show promised to transform each of its contestants from "ugly ducklings" into "swans" through extensive plastic surgery, dieting and life coaching.) The ex-contestants who participated in the documentary are gathered for an on-camera reunion, full of champagne toasts and mutual affirmations. It culminates with a rousing group singalong to P!nk's "Fuckin' Perfect," which seems to have been nudged forward by production. It reads as a slightly forced attempt to put a neat bow on the women's often painful experiences with the show: They survived, thanks to their sisterhood, and now they know they're "fuckin' perfect."
For some critics, the feel-good ending stuck out like a sore thumb. Was Carr selling her own audience-pleasing redemption narrative, just like the producers of "The Swan" did? Was she subtly promoting the idea of perfection as an ideal still worth striving for? Why a P!nk song that came out six years after the show aired??
It's an uneasy conclusion that reflects the uneasiness of the documentary as a whole, which chooses to center the voices and experiences of the ex-contestants rather than advancing a full-throated feminist critique of the show's reenforcement of the punishing beauty standard and promotion of invasive cosmetic procedures as a form of self-care. Though some contestants (and critic Scaachi Koul, in a couple of talking heads) deplore the show's promotion of an unattainable physical ideal, what becomes clear is that most of the women who went on the show are relatively unbothered by the plastic surgery of it all. That was, of course, the whole reason most of them went on the show to begin with. Instead, they are rankled by the psychological control and manipulation that they were subjected to by production. The contestants from season one are still furious that they were made to compete in a beauty pageant at the end of the show, pitted against their new best friends and told that, even after all those surgeries and hours in the gym, they still weren't hot enough for a tiara.
In this episode, we discuss how the documentary attempts to balance the competing imperatives to critique the sexist beauty culture exemplified by "The Swan" and to share the real perspectives of women who appeared on the show. We discuss the franchise's backstory (and Mike Darnell's sleazy influence), what the documentary reveals about the behind-the-scenes of the show, the plastic surgeon who compares women to toilets, and the dangerous physical extremes to which the contestants were pushed. We also dig into how the show played on expectations of female compliance and submission, the cultural contempt for women who weren't considered hot (especially if they dared to try to become hot), and how the show anticipated not only beauty culture today but the framing of exploitative reality TV shows as self-optimization pursuits. Hope you enjoy! xo
References:
"'The Swan' Gets a Superficial Reckoning," by Naomi Fry, The New Yorker
"America’s Public-Humiliation Addiction," by MJ Corey, The Cut
"The Most Disturbing 2000s Reality Show Doesn’t Seem So Crazy Anymore," by Maya Salam, NYT
"'I Almost Died for Reality Television': Inside ‘The Swan,’ the Most Sadistic Reality Show Ever," by Marlow Stern, Variety
"The Swan contestants on the ‘sadistic’ pageant reality show: ‘Ultimately, we were just a job’," by Adrian Horton, The Guardian
"Television on the Cutting Edge: Cosmetic Surgery Goes Prime-Time," by Leigh Turner, AMA Journal of Ethics
"Plastic surgery, as seen on TV," by Melissa Healy, LA Times
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