There's this unsettling show called The Swan, in which a bunch of homely women get full makeovers (plastic surgery, cosmetic dentistry, liposuction, psychotherapy, and charm school) and then compete at a final pageant. It's really an amazing cultural artifact, though it is really unbearable as entertainment. The saddest part is that all the contestants end up looking kind of the same. So...
What if there was a pageant where sad, lonely or otherwise uninspired people submitted themselves to genetic artists to be metamorphosed into something truly spectacular and unique (e.g. head of pussycat)? Then they face off in a pageant of freaks.
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3 comments:
i LOVE this idea. i was watching dr. phil (not out of habit or anything) a few months ago and they were interviewing some guy who was transforming himself into a tiger. he was completely delusional. anyway, there could also be other purposes for genetically altering yourself, since a pageant is rather short-lived; we could explore career ideas for such creatures, and that could be the source for parallel storylines - what their options are if they don't win (theater, film, circus, promotional, personal assistant?) and how they became involved with the genetic pageant scene, etc. - we could focus on the top rivals, or the hopeless cause, etc... it could be a fun vehicle for exploring people's motivations.
Section One might be a series of episodes which show how various types of people submit themselves to transformations. Looming in the background are the "Puremanists", or whatever, who are like today's anti-GMO food extremists. They always protesting or threatening to gas the freaks.
Anyway, in each of these early episodes we introduce a number of key characters who become main characters later on. Examples of episodes could include:
- Episode 1: The pageant
- Episode 2: Cult of self-perfection. A group like the Extropians who believe in taking back controlling the evolution of the species. Maybe they're going around evangelizing like born again Christians, and they run into some species-supremacist skinhead group that starts a brawl.
- Episode 3: The rebel teenager who grows a trunk and whose traditionalist parents just don't understand. "Everybody's doing it!"
- Episode 4: A mixed species wedding? What will the children look like?
- Episode 5: Local 317. The labor union are getting its members to "specialize" their parts en masse to remain competitive.
- Episode 6: The son of hybrid parents decides he wants to revert to all human. He becomes a guinea pig in a new procedure. Makes tatoo removal look like child's play.
i am laughing out loud - i love it! these are great ideas.
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