“Swan” tests the waters of Mar-a-Lago’s face

Like several other TV critics, I had the pleasure of attending the last party hosted by the late Hollywood producer Robert Evans at his Woodland estate before his famous pool house burned down in 2003. There I interacted with famous comedians and many minor stars from UPN and WB. But the guests I remember most clearly were a woman in her 40s, and her daughter, who was probably in her 20s. They stand out because they have been surgically altered to look like twins. I mean, both women have similar evidence of procedural enhancement, most notably lips as plump as party balloons and sharp cheekbones.

Plastic surgery is common in Hollywood, but this is something new. The mother-daughter duo did not attend the show. They were there because they were part of Evans’ wealthy, powerful social circle. They are not about maintaining an existing aesthetic, but about standing out with the best versions of artifacts money can buy.

This memory remained hidden in the darkest well of my soul until I watched Erin Lee Carr’s “The Swan: Behind the Mirror.” In fact, I had blocked out most memories of the 2004 Fox reality train wreck until Carl’s documentary entered the cobwebbed attic of my mind and retrieved the cabinet of horrors within.

For those who know nothing about it or are too young to clearly remember the details, “The Swan” recruited a group of normal-looking women who were convinced by magazine ads, the tabloid industry, and other media that they were actually ugly ducklings. “I wanted some big jugs,” one of Carr’s subjects said, explaining that it was the era of Pamela Anderson and Maxim cover girls, the woman she wanted to be.

Yes, this ghastly TV egg can only hatch in a place like Hollywood, where a mother-daughter spa day might also mean undergoing surgery.

When I say The Swan is one of the dirtiest TV shows ever made, I’m speaking from someone who has watched a quarter of a century of bad television. Lest you think my opinion is an outlier, here’s what my predecessor, Heather Havrilesky, had to say about the show when it first aired:

The funny thing is, it doesn’t just make you depressed about plastic surgery, sad women, and sleazy TV executives. It will also leave you feeling dismayed by the war in Iraq, the fragility of the human ego, the undeniable soul-sucking limpness of our culture, and the impossibility of true beauty when such confused animals roam the earth.

Somehow, despite each episode’s intrusive gaze on the gruesome surgeries of everyone involved, the lasting legacy of “The Swan” and other shows – which does not exist in a vacuum – was not just about normalizing plastic surgery, but establishing it as part of society’s semiotic system.

At the lowest level of consumer-friendly, there are also affordable fillers and Botox injections. On the top floor, in the realm of millionaires and billionaires, you’ll find the face of Mar-a-Lago. A library of radically altered faces, sliced ​​and sculpted to conform to the funhouse mirror beauty standards set by a handful of influential men.

Dr. Randal Haworth was one of the expert creators recruited by Nely Galán in 2003. Garland was outright criticized for refusing to be interviewed for Carr’s documentary because of the public’s visceral distaste for “The Swan,” which was canceled after its second season.

But Haworth made a point he may now regret. At first he thought plastic surgery was psychiatry, then likened himself to an interior designer, before explaining his role in the series by saying, “My goal is, as a plumber, can I perform early aesthetic allergy surgery on these people?”

Off-screen, Carr pointed out the oddity of the plastic surgeon describing himself this way. “You’re actually talking about the toilet,” she said. “And women.”

“That was unintentional,” he replied, thinking more deeply when he explained that, like a plumber or an electrician, he was there to do a job.

so. The women in “The Swan” aren’t exactly toilets, but the men who come into close contact with their flesh and blood don’t treat them as human beings either.

With The Swan: Behind the Mirror, Carr has done a service to the ratings-hungry participants and modern television audiences of this production, not only reminding us how exploitative it is, but establishing it as a benchmark in the beauty industry.

Of course, if the shocked reaction to Netflix’s “Reality Check: America’s Next Top Model” is an indicator, the first idea may be more popular than the second. After all, “ANTM” and “Swan” are contemporaries. Before “Swan” aired, ABC aired “Are You Sexy? The Search for America’s Sexiest People,” which was made memorable by one of the judges, 1980s star Lorenzo Lamas, who used a laser pointer to point out contestants’ flab and cellulite to viewers at home.

“Extreme Makeover” has also been airing since 2002, showing the stories of ordinary men and women undergoing plastic surgery, undergoing styling transformations and adopting fitness habits. The “Swan”, then, was not a separate event but part of an era that promoted cosmetic improvement (whether surgical or non-invasive) as the key to success in life.

The difference between the two shows is like the gulf between everyday vanity and the minimalist aesthetic unity of Mar-a-Lago. “Extreme Makeover” takes each contestant’s journey as personal, culminating in them revealing their “new and improved” selves to friends and family.

The producers of “Swan” not only forced participants to undergo a series of grueling surgeries and painful recoveries (which Carr’s documentary reveals were inadequately managed), but also pitted them against each other in beauty pageants. In other words, it’s a lot like an election, only one filled with women who have been scalpel-sculpted, lifted, tanned and concealed to surgical specifications.

Or, in Haworth’s words, maybe just a surgeon.

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To be clear, this difference does not make extreme makeover any less morally reprehensible. The fact that it preceded The Swan by a few years only enhanced its role in the mainstream of elective plastic surgery. More than two decades after these shows aired, we’ve made the transition between an era of unattainable thinness promoted as a cultural ideal and an era of body-positivity regarding health at any size, and we’re slowly moving backwards. The premiere of these shows may have missed Gen Z. Sadly, not Millennials. However, Sephora and other cosmetics retailers like their anti-aging obsession to begin in the teens and twenties. These products are marketed to them as “skin-friendly” rather than anti-wrinkle creams.

Recently, as the depressing discussion of the disparity between Jasmine Gay’s appearance when she starred in Elseworlds four decades ago and her appearance in the reboot has been heating up, we’re reminded that Americans still have deeply ageist notions about daring to age gracefully.

For the record, Gay is a healthy woman in her 60s who has not had plastic surgery, which many women would kill to look like. If she got what we expect from a TV star, we’d criticize her for it, too.

But her appearance is her choice and serves no one but herself, which is refreshing in a day when grotesque facial plastic surgery is associated with the dehumanizing pressures of conservative politics.

Carr’s documentary ends by showing the sisterhood shared by the surviving women of “Swan” – women who were seduced by a sales pitch based on the assumption that plastic surgery would change their lives. Most of them found that this was not the case.

But at least one participant in “The Swan” still believes in its promise. “It’s empowering,” Haworth insists in “Behind the Mirror,” because it shows you that beauty is power. Reflected power, of course. But whose?

“Swan: Behind the Mirror” is now streaming on Hulu.

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