The Worst Thing I Have Ever Seen on TV

I watched every episode of the first season of Joe Millionaire. As an amateur cultural critic, I felt compelled to document the show's popular misogyny. I also enjoyed the show: it was grotesque, sure, but entertainingly so.

When I first started seeing ads for The Swan, I thought that perhaps Fox had finally gone too far—too far for me, anyway, which is saying a lot. But the commercials kept on coming, and I found that my reaction was evolving from superficial disgust to serious, heart-sick dismay. Silently not watching wasn't enough. I felt compelled to bear witness.

The goal of the show is to turn an "ugly duckling" into a radically improved version of herself through dieting, therapy, hundreds of hours in the gym, and cosmetic surgery. I think I'm supposed to feel pleased when the contestants look at themselves in the mirror and don't recognize what they see. I think I'm supposed to melt into tears of astonishment and joy, just like they do. But I don't. When Rachel first gazed upon her improved reflection and said, "I don't look anything like that girl," I didn't feel excited and glad. I wondered, who was "that girl"? Was she the new self that Rachel couldn't recognize as her own, or was she the old self that Rachel hated so much that she had disassociated from her? As Nathalie Chica suggested in her own evisceration of the show, either answer is horrifying.

Having spent some time on the message boards at The Swan's official website, I know that there are women who would argue that I am being perversely political, that it's arrogant of me to judge the joy of the contestants. Honestly, I'm glad that these women are happy. I'm glad that they like themselves for what may be the first time ever in their lives. But their happiness just makes me more sad. I'm sad because they hate themselves so much. I'm sad that they had to undergo surgery and submit to someone else's vision of what they should be in order to feel this happy. I'm also sad because they don't look like people anymore. They look like porn stars. They're all arched eyebrows, pert noses, pillowy lips, and comic-book breasts: anything distinctive has been cut away or lifted or pumped full of collagen. I'm also sad because I wonder how long this happiness will last.

The Swan makes a profoundly half-assed attempt to be about something more than physical beauty. In addition to enduring the ministrations of a personal trainer and various surgeons, the contestants also get counseling. This aspect of the show, however, is to me the most unconscionable. I find the televised liposuction substantially less objectionable than the televised therapy sessions. I wish the show wouldn't even bother. Its conception of emotional wellness is, at best, dubious. In an interview, one of the show's producers, and its "life coach", said, "I wanted to show women that anyone can be beautiful with the right amount of money and (internal) work. Stop thinking that somebody out there is more special than you genetically. They're not." Why am I not relieved to learn this?

All of the contestants on the show so far have had, in addition to obvious issues with self-loathing, serious relationship problems. Listening in to Rachel as she tried to talk to her husband was harrowing. I can't think of a time when I was more uncomfortable watching something on TV. On last night's episode, Kristy said, "When I come home, looking like a real woman, my husband's going to regret not treating me better." This prompted the following from the show's host: "She still has 20 pounds to lose. Will revenge be enough to motivate her?" I'm finding it difficult to decide which part of that is most fucked up.

The "experts" on the show use the word "feminize" a lot. Is it worth explicating the ways in which this show defines femininity, or is it too self-evident to bother with? I will point out, just before the new Kristy was revealed, the hostess described her as "the self-proclaimed 'funny girl' desperate to become a woman". I wonder if future episodes will feature a "self-proclaimed 'smart girl'". (One thread on the official message board notes that there will be no "self-proclaimed 'black girl", not this season at least.)

I've taught several classes in which I've had to explain to my students that, until quite recently, women were regarded as not quite human. Once upon a time, women were malleable, ill-defined, unformed, imperfect. The students are always shocked by this revelation. They laugh: it's too ridiculous to take seriously, it's too far removed from their own understanding of what it means to be human—male or female.

Watching The Swan, watching as doctors treat women as raw material, as rude matter to be sculpted and cut and refined, I marvel that my students are surprised by, say, ancient Greek or medieval European conceptions of womanhood. I'm amazed and thankful that they value themselves, or their sisters and their girlfriends, as more than flesh—flesh that only has value so long as it can be shaped to fit rigid cultural ideals.

Heather Havrilesky, TV critic for Salon, expressed my own sentiments when she wrote, "I watch trashy TV every single day, but this show is making me queasy." Watching Joe Millionaire was horrifying, but it was also fun. There's nothing fun about watching The Swan. It's like watching an execution on TV. It's like watching someone die.

Sometimes transformation can be like death, and sometimes death can be transformative. Sometimes destruction has meaning. But the self-sacrifice these women are undergoing is senseless. It's wasteful and disheartening. Martyrdom requires a certain level of consciousness, a triumphant awareness of one's own power and agency. From the stands, it might have looked like the Christians who allowed themselves to be eaten by lions were participating in their own ignominy and annihilation. But the narrative they were living was different from the narrative the Romans wrote for them. These Christians didn't succumb to suffering: they turned suffering into liberation.

I wish I could say that the contestants on The Swan were performing a similar alchemy. I wish that they were turning the paradigm that created this show—that created their desire to be on this show—inside out. I wish I could say that they were entering this beauty contest only to transform what it means to be beautiful. I wish I could say that, but I can't. These women are entering this beauty contest to transform what it means to be themselves, and they're letting the Fox network and a team of plastic surgeons define that transformation.

[BOSTON GLOBE ARTICLE VIA CHICA.]