ABC's 'Extreme Makeover' mirrors American fixation

LOS ANGELES -- When Cinderella decided to move out of the 'hood, her fairy godmother obliged with a carriage, ballgown and glass slippers.

Cindy's benefactor seems like a real piker now. A trio of lucky souls who won the chance to improve their looks and life on the ABC special "Extreme Makeover" got a heck of a lot more than new threads and a cool ride.

How much more? Stacey, 31, a medical worker, received brow and eyelid plastic surgery, liposuction and a chin implant. Stephanie, 24, an insurance representative, was given liposuction, breast implants and vision-correction surgery. Personal trainer Luke, 29, had a tummy tuck.

All got nose jobs, dental work, new hairstyles and wardrobe. The process -- along with the supposedly happy ending, which was edited out of a preview tape -- is detailed on the show airing at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

"Who among us hasn't wanted to change something about ourselves?" asks Howard Schultz, the executive producer of "Extreme Makeover."

'No stopping me now'

"This is definitely my chance and I'm going for it. There's no stopping me now," Stephanie (no last names were provided) says as she prepares for her transformation.

The three aren't perfect, but neither are they unattractive. Clearly, the bar for beauty is set high in this hyped, celebrity-driven age, driving many to distraction if not surgery.

Such obsessions reflect a larger issue: Does self-examination inevitably run amok when life is comfortable?

"The Sopranos" held a mirror up to that particular angle of the national profile recently. Neurotic mobster Tony expressed his admiration for the boundless determination of Svetlana, a one-legged Russian immigrant, and got only disdain in return.

"That's the trouble with you Americans -- you expect nothing bad ever to happen, when the rest of the world expects only bad to happen, and they are not disappointed," she said.

"You have everything, and still you complain. ... You got too much time to think about yourself."

Personal makeover

Americans aren't alone in their self-absorption, of course. But consider a British series with a different approach to the personal makeover.

"What Not to Wear," which begins airing this week at 9 p.m. tonight on BBC America, offers participants advice from fashion experts, about $3,000 for a new wardrobe, and a bit of hair and makeup counsel.

That's it. No wholesale rearranging or addition of body parts here, and yet the women involved seem just as jazzed as the reconstituted Americans.

"I was trying to hide myself under those clothes," says one cute but frumpy young woman, Sam, who emerges as a butterfly in her sleek new wardrobe.

That's fine for the understated British. But at least a fair number of Americans apparently believe that if a little self-improvement is good, a whole lot is even better. ABC characterized the number of people who applied for an "Extreme Makeover" as "in the thousands."

What the three winners -- not losers anymore! -- gained were the attentions of wizards in their fields, including hairstylist-to-the-stars Jose Eber and respected eye surgeon Dr. Robert Maloney.

ABC declined to divulge how much it all cost but we're guessing it would be enough to cover, say, a first-rate college education or a series of excellent vacations.

The "Extreme Makeover" participants are after a different kind of trip. "This is the last night I'm going to look like me," one comments before surgery. "I'm so looking forward to the new life that I'm going to experience."

The show prods a "Twilight Zone" flashback, to an episode about a young woman who resists a futuristic society's rite of passage requiring her to be turned into a cookie-cutter beauty. She finally succumbs and is entranced with her homogenized good looks.

"What Not to Wear," with energetic hosts Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, ends up as a cheerful romp that is content to skim the surface.

The ABC show, from Lighthearted Entertainment, is anything but, asking participants to put their deepest self-doubts on display for a chance at instant happiness. It reeks of exploitation and the false scent of concern and intimacy so common to reality TV.

That's not entertaining. And if it's reality, we'll stick with Cinderella.