There's a Beautiful Girl Under All of This: Performing Hegemonic Femininity in Reality Television

Abstract

The reality makeover show “The Swan” draws from cultural discourses of plastic surgery and self-improvement culture to frame cosmetic surgery as a morally appropriate means to achieving an authentic self. Employing the conventions of reality television and appropriating iconography from female-oriented pop culture such as beauty pageants and makeovers, “The Swan” demonstrates the limits of “empowerment,” encouraging evaluation by a medical-psychiatric institutional gaze that measures natural female bodies against a hyper-stylized version of femininity. While the sharp rise in cosmetic surgery in the U.S. over the last decade and the continued popularity of body culture media require an analysis of the program's rhetorical claims, “The Swan” furthers a shift in understanding plastic surgery from an aesthetic procedure to a moral self-regulating procedure. We show how the presentation of contestants' narratives, as well as the reframing of these narratives by experts to determine appropriate surgical work, create moral justifications for plastic surgery.