Possibly the Most Monstrous Reality Show Ever Made

“Are you sick of depending on your inner beauty?” a brunette newscaster asks, as the camera zooms in on a frizzly, pimply woman wearing glasses, looking so dejected she may as well be posing for a mug shot.

“The Fox series The Swan is looking for new contestants.” The footage, included in the new Hulu documentary The Swan: Behind the Mirror , dates from sometime around the early 2000s, post-9/11 and pre-Instagram, when reality television was in its human-experiment era and body positivity was barely a twinkle in a Unilever advertising executive’s eye.

In that particular media moment, gossip magazines routinely sneered at celebrities for having visible breakouts or the shadow of a thigh dimple, and beauty was widely understood to be synonymous with happiness, virtue, and wealth.

“This show, if anything—don’t shoot me!—it was empowering,” the cosmetic surgeon Randal Haworth, who operated on contestants on both seasons of The Swan , explains in Behind the Mirror .

“Because it shows you that beauty is power.” With respect to Haworth, which I don’t think he deserves, only power is power.

The best that beauty can offer is attention, which is why our current social-media ecosystem is so fixated on it, offering up “Get ready with me” reels and product reviews and close reads of celebrity faces with joyless frenzy.

More quaint is that, when The Swan debuted in 2004, many contestants had heard about the show via a radio ad.

“Have you ever looked in the mirror and wondered how it would feel to finally become the person you’ve always imagined?” a gentle voice inquired.

“Have you dreamed of plastic surgery but never thought you could afford it?” Listening in their cars, women all over America pondered the question, and 16 were eventually selected each season to appear on a series now understood to be one of the most monstrous ever made. [ Read: The cruel social experiment of reality TV ] The Swan wasn’t the first show to subject individuals with self-esteem issues to total physical overhaul while the cameras rolled—that was ABC’s Extreme Makeover , which debuted as a one-off special in late 2002 to more than 13 million viewers, prompting executives to book a full season.

Critics were horrified—“American television bosses desperate for ratings are being accused of turning mutilation into entertainment,” The Guardian reported —but the show’s success spawned a wave of copycats.

On MTV’s I Want a Famous Face (2004), young people obsessed with celebrities underwent multiple surgical procedures to look more like aughts icons.