I have lived in Los Angeles for well over 12 years now and I really thought I had seen it all when it came to entertainment value.

I was wrong, so very wrong. Tonight I watched a preview for a new show coming to FOX TV this season, entitled “The Swan.” A more correct title for this show would have been “Everything that is wrong in society today,” or perhaps even “The missing piece of the puzzle.”

For those of you who haven’t yet had the misfortune to hear about this new level in entertainment, let me inform you of the premise. 20 candidates, all female, have been selected through their own video submissions to appear on national television. These 20, what the show tragically calls, “ugly ducklings” will have plastic surgery performed on camera. They will then recover for a period of 3 months, all the time not having access to any mirrors, before revealing the results of their surgery on national television where all 20 will take place in a beauty pageant. A pageant from which one of those fortunate 20 will be crowned “the Swan.”

At first, I just starred at the screen with my mouth open. Did I really hear the premise of this show correctly? I did, I saw the same preview 3 additional more times tonight.

In a world where women everywhere are rising up against the stereotypical image placed upon them by society, by fashion magazines, by culture and by entertainment outlets such as movies and television; in a world where millions of people are suffering from anorexia and bulimia because they suffer from such low self esteem because of this stereotypical image; in a world where teenage suicide is up and peer pressure to “fit in” has become a lethal stress factor in teenagers lives; in this world today, we create “The Swan.”

A show that ONCE AGAIN re-enforces the statement that unless you conform to society’s rules of what beauty is, your chances for living a rich, full, rewarding life are slim to nil. Henceforth, you are considered “ugly” and have no other option for succeeding in life other than to have surgery performed on your body, after which you will be once again JUDGED by upstanding members of the beauty society to make sure that your plastic surgeon and dentist did such adequate work that you may now consider yourself “a Swan.”

The truly sad part is that this show was created by a woman; I don’t know if she considers herself to be an ugly duckling or a swan. What I do know is this: part of her thinking has been influenced by the heroine chic of fashion magazines, the mandates from Elle, Vogue, Vanity Fair and more that unless your breasts are a perfect size whatever, your nose is a certain length and your teeth are platinum white your chances for survival are slim.

And I wonder what message we are telling our youth by allowing this show on television. Are we still saying “don’t worry about good grades, high academics, values, manners and principles? The only worry you should have is that you look just like we all want to look. And if you don’t look like that, there is hope. You can go on national television and degrade yourself and re-affirm the concept that looks are indeed EVERYTHING and alter your appearance so that you are more likely to fit into a society that STILL judges you on outward appearances rather than what is on the inside.”

I remember the story about the swan that my mother told me, a story that was a tale of how true beauty takes time to shine and comes from within. Beauty that comes from being strong and having faith in yourself, not from an outside surgeon with a scalpel and knife.

My name is Sven

A swan.