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Archive through May 04, 2004

The TVClubHouse: Other Reality Shows: Archives for 2004-1: The Swan: ARCHIVES: Archive through May 04, 2004 users admin

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Luvmykitties
Member

01-02-2004

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 4:26 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I'm sorry. I probably didn't word it correctly.

What I meant is:
Lasik will not have any affect on needing reading glasses - whether you need them now; or will need them in the future - you will still need them after Lasik.



Sunshyne4u
Member

06-17-2003

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 4:50 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thx for the info Beachcomber! Sounds like your friend really benefited from her decision!

The plastic surgeon showed me a few pics of people in different stages of healing. It all depends on an individual's skin type. Mine is really prone to scarring. I have clearly visible scars from childhood even. Others scars fade with time, mine dont. I have a scar on the palm of my hand from when I was two yrs old. I am now over 40. If I have surgery on my chest I will look like Frankenstein even after it heals.
***
A few more years, progress in techniques and who knows, it might not be as bad.
************
I never thought about it til Monkeyboy said it. Some of these women end up looking like some trans-sexuals because of all the facial implants and injections. WOW, that is going to cause them trouble in the real world. I have seen a few men in the process of their surgical change to women and their faces do end up looking really stiff. Often pretty, but stiff and doll-like, in my opinion. (BUT you can still tell they were men by their wrists)




Yankee_in_ca
Member

08-01-2000

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 6:14 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
You know what bothers me the MOST about this show versus other makeover shows like it?

It's not the plastic surgery itself. It's the way the doctors and surgeons talk so negatively about the person and their (pre-surgery) body and features. (All paraphrasing) "We're going to need to do some serious work to fix that witch nose." And "She's going to need major work done to combat her fat legs" and stuff like that.

They discuss the person in such a way that, to me, doesn't say "I'm helping someone raise their level of self-esteem." Their comments, I find, veer more to the side of "This person is seriously BROKEN and UGLY, and we have to fix them." That bothers me. That's what I find most offensive when I've watched any of it.

Ladydewtel
Member

07-18-2002

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 6:39 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
to the person who asked how many applied? I read somewhere that 200,000 applied to be on the show.

Costacat
Member

07-15-2000

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 6:44 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Some random thoughts...

I'm thinking that they did a lot of these concurrently, rather than a couple a week as they are showing us. The reason? The woman last night who did not get selected to move on to the pageant said something about "all 16 of these women are great women." So that means they've all met. And Amanda (the host) wearing the same outfit twice in a row.

I heard yesterday that some of the surgeries have totalled upwards of $250K. I'm sure she was still healing, but the winner of last night's show looked like her face was made of plastic.

And for those of you in the "vertically challenged" category... not ALL of us are that way! I'm 5'10"!!!! Oh, and a 34B. (So there! Pfft! <grin>)

I agree... I think these women should spend 3 months working on their insides, along with learning how to eat properly, exercise, apply makeup, style hair, dress... Although I love how the one made herself into a rocker chick last night (good for her to forgo the everpresent black evening gown).

I strongly suspect that the "team" is in it for not purely altruistic reasons. They are getting a lot of free publicity here, and making it all too much of a game (a competition between the plastic surgeons? puhleeze!).

I've been watching this show with morbid fascination, but last night's show kinda turned my stomach. Neither woman, made up, would've been an "ugly duckling."

Seamonkey
Member

09-07-2000

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 8:44 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Yankee, yes that is one problem I have.. the way they talk about the women.. like the "Cankles".. I mean so the woman had somewhat undefined calves.. but it wasn't tragic or anything ..

Yesterday I saw part of Oprah and I think she was following up on stuff or .. well not really sure, but she did talk about how important it was that ONE woman, a senator's wife, I think, told her as a child that she was "pretty as a speckled pup" and Oprah had no idea what a speckled pup was but it was the only time anyone ever said she was pretty and she never forgot it.. when she went to Africa at Christmas and she and her posse were bringing gifts to hundreds of children. Oprah told all of them that with each child, they must look into their eyes, really see that child and say something directly to each child.. ok this is getting to be long.. but many people responded to the Christmas show in Africa, various donations and such.. one woman, probably in her sixties.. sent in a letter and a check for some exact figure like $3,967.65.. and said that after seeing those children, she was sending in her "cosmetic surgery account" that she had been saving for a facelift..

Oprah looked at the woman and said "you look mighty good to me"..

And then The Swan was on later..

Costa, hell yeah.. tons of publicity from these shows.. publicity for plastic surgery (and unfortunately for quack presenting themselves as such) and for lasik and for porcelain veneers and tooth whitening and on and on and on..

And I agree, last night's women were not that flawed.. ok I can see the one woman having a nose job, but that's about it..

Fabnsab
Member

08-07-2000

Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - 1:18 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I agree with all of the above. Most of these women need to dump their men and have makeovers- new hair, makeup, clothes- nothing extreme.

I mean, come on! How many times can we hear about marital problems? This show is setting us back 30 years by saying that all our marital woes are caused by being ugly women!

Sunshyne4u
Member

06-17-2003

Thursday, April 29, 2004 - 12:43 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
ROTFL- You guys have just given me a GREAT IDEA for a new show...and it is just as classy as the SWAN!!
**
It will be called "A NEW YOU". Depressed women from crummy marriages with low selfesteem and poor self image(such as these women from the SWAN) are sent to a SPA....instead of SURGERY....there will be lots of counselling and LOTS OF antidepressant PHARMACEUTICALS. Often with medication patients are like 'new people'.

At the SPA they will also learn to take care of themselves physically (exercise, new hair/ makeup)
**********
Considering the power and $$$ of the pharmaceutical companies I am surprised that a show like this isnt in the works. If surgery can cure so many of life's ill surely a PILL could help too??

(To be taken tongue in cheek!!)
C

Whoami
Member

08-03-2001

Thursday, April 29, 2004 - 2:47 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Aren't pills a little hard to take tongue in cheek?

Ryn
Moderator

08-11-2000

Friday, April 30, 2004 - 3:02 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Casting for Season 2 has begun... http://www.swancasting.com/



Blacksheep
Member

10-18-2003

Friday, April 30, 2004 - 3:11 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Sunshyne4U - sounds like a subtle similarity to the idea behind the Stepford Wives minus invasion of the body snatchers/robot replacement.
Yes, you too can become the ideal woman, better, happier and you're man will love you more than before. [/sarcasm]

Whoami
Member

08-03-2001

Friday, April 30, 2004 - 3:28 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    

quote:

If you're between the ages of 21 – 45 and interested in seeing if you could become The Swan, follow the instructions.




Aw crap, I just missed the cutoff age!

Seamonkey
Member

09-07-2000

Friday, April 30, 2004 - 7:49 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I knew you were young, Who, but didn't realize you were only 20..

LOL

I miss it by a WHOLE LOT..

Oh there was a little mention of this show in my paper today.. brb

On the Opinion Page, yet.. www.ocregister.com, but written by Debra Saunders, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist.

Shortcuts to beauty through surgery

At the end of Monday night's episode of the makeover show "The Swan," it was too clear which multiple-cosmetic-surgery survivor would win the dubious honor of competing in the series' "pageant."

Beth, age 25, looked as if she had walked out of an episode of the old 1980s television series "Dynasty" - willowy, with long blond hair, big new breasts peeking out of a low-cut gown and her face unnaturally taut. Kathy, 27, was shorter, her hair darker. Her outfit was modern and black, with no cleavage popping out. She was attractive, but she did not look like a Barbie doll. Beth, no shock, emerged as the winner.

I was watching because I'd just received a call from Kathy Bruin, a San Francisco woman who in 1995 started the group About-Face to protest unhealthy body images promoted by advertisers and other media.

Bruin was appalled at the multiple - and painful - surgeries "The Swan" contestants must undergo. Beth's head endured a brow lift, nose job, lip enhancement, chin liposuction and Lasik surgery, as well as a series of dental procedures. Beth's body was treated to a breast augmentation, tummy tuck and lipo on her calves and ankles.

Beth and Kathy, both fairly attractive before the procedures, could have turned into "swans" without surgery.

They'd look smashing after sticking to the show's regimen of dieting, personal training, skin care and a consult with a make-up artist and clothing stylist.

Much of the surgery, Bruin believs, is to produce a man's-eye "cookie-cutter version of femininity." "There's no variety," Bruin noted. "They all have the same nose." A show doctor told contestant Kathey that her nose was "not feminine," while the lipo for Beth's ankles was "feminizing."

Bruin resents the message that women should look perfect and that with surgery their lives will be better. The message: The key to inner harmony is in outer packaging.

"When you think of 100 years ago," Bruin noted, "the way women bettered themselves, was to learn piano, learn to sketch, " maybe cross-stitch. Women bettered themselves, that is, by improving their minds. But in today's skin-deep, no-wait world, self-improvement means seeing a plastic surgeon.

The storybook swan is meant to assure awkward children that a beautiful being dwells inside them and that they will grow into that person. TV's "The Swan" is the shortcut, and it only applies to people with a ticket to a plastic surgeon. Girls don't grow into beautiful women; doctors make them beautiful.

Whoami
Member

08-03-2001

Friday, April 30, 2004 - 9:26 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
LOL Sea!

Neko
Member

08-03-2001

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 12:53 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I dislike this show and all it stands for....
Yet I can't stop watching..

I agree completely with Yankee's assessment of the show...

What I think, is most of these women shouldn't be allowed to get plastic surgery and everything done.
They have low self esteem and are having maritial problems, and they think becoming "pretty" is the only way to fix everything.
It won't. Or at least, it shouldn't for the maritial problems.
If a man is that shallow as to "love" his wife again because she has "become beautiful" then he needs to be kicked to the curb.

People should have to work of their self esteem before the ever get close to going under the knife.

*Gets off her soapbox and wanders off*

Seamonkey
Member

09-07-2000

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 2:25 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Well said, Neko! you are well-grounded and I wish some of these women had half the sense you do..

Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 2:27 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Yep, you're right Neko.

I don't watch it (I think I keep forgetting! lol) but I do watch Extreme Makeovers.

Well, the best thing these women could do is tell those (men who act like) warts...ahem...husbands that they are now 'too' good for them and the women go find someone else.

If all that pain and suffering in the name of 'beauty' hasn't given them the confidence to do it, then nothing will.



Seamonkey
Member

09-07-2000

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 4:12 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
RB if you happen to catch The Swan, you'll see a marked difference between that and Extreme Makeover..

Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 4:19 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thursday nights at 9 EST on ABC?

Sunshyne4u
Member

06-17-2003

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 5:06 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
SIGH.......well, another strange thought has popped into my head. Not only is beauty appreciated in Society, it is a reason that some men marry their wives.
**
"If a man is that shallow as to "love" his wife again because she has "become beautiful" then he needs to be kicked to the curb."

I hate to say it.......but many men are visual. They meet, fall in love and marry a woman lovely in their eyes. Then later, after a couple of kids, the woman is exhausted with bags under her eyes from hardwork and lack of sleep. The romance is gone as there is no time, she is working so hard. Having children has changed their wives bodies to a point where either the man is not interested in her anymore (not turned on).......OR the woman is so upset at the changes that she is too inhibited to have intimacy.

In my example above, the woman has self esteem problems and they will not be cured by psychoanalysis as her Husband is central to her distress. BUT.......and here is the clincher....do a tummy tuck and get implants....WOO HOO, most guys would be very happy to get back what was LOST after she had children. That in itself could perk up a stalling marriage. SAD but true in our selfish society.

(now if only the husband's could get rid of the lovehandles LOL)


Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 6:59 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Yeah, I think what you're saying has merit, Sunshine.

Men have fallen on the double-edged sword themselves now, though.

Many women are expecting men to measure up physically, so now there are even cosmetics for men...lol.

Men's personal purchases in the grooming/attire industry has begun to steadily grow as they realize they can't expect women to do all the self 'maintenance', without them making an effort also.

Ketchuplover
Member

08-30-2000

Monday, May 03, 2004 - 6:50 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
anybody watching tonight? Am I shallow for watching this?

Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Monday, May 03, 2004 - 7:09 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Lol, no...not shallow...just curious, same as every one else ;)

Um...btw, was that a tongue in cheek question, Ketch?

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Monday, May 03, 2004 - 10:13 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
No, you are not shallow for watching it, KL. I would say the term is morbidly curious. I watched it too, LOL.

Sunshyne4u
Member

06-17-2003

Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 1:38 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Hmmmmmmm I watched tonight < >. The woman with the anger control problem presented as very angry in her preshow/presurgery tape. WHY was she chosen? < > It was obvious that her boyfriend loved her implants and new body. He barely looked at her face, mesmerized by her chest. There is no doubt in my mind that she will get even MORE anger when she is hounded by men due to her extra large barbie-boobs.
**
I am large chested and get REALLY TIRED of men staring at my chest. These women MIGHT like the attention at first, but it WILL wear thin pretty quick....as well as the jealousy factor involved.

I wonder how many husbands and boyfriends are not going to want to take out their "gorgeous" new women due to unwanted male attention.

I felt really sorry for the heavy girl who had a bust REDUCTION in this episode. < >
**
I have NO INTEREST in this silly pagent. I dont care who is going to WIN the crown. What does it mean? $$$$ and prizes. So what. (yeah, I am feeling grumpy!)


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