Disclaimer: If you’ve never seen America’s Next Top Model, and haven’t been watching this year yet, this will be even worse than it already is.
I’ve been watching consistently since cycle four (Naima won that cycle), and this season has not led me to alter my belief that things have been going down since then, especially since cycle seven (in which CariDee won). The contestants are all brainless, talentless twigs, and there's no real passion or skill like there used to be.
They used to have women who were photographers, who had passion about the industry, who knew a thing or two about designers, or photographers, or even models, and this year it's just a bunch of whiney girls (plus a trans-gendered girl, who's not going to win but they'll keep around for the drama of it – I mean I don’t have anything against Isis being on the show but Tyra’s attempts at creating fodder for her talk show are getting more and more transparent*) who can't name a single photographer when asked, and only care about basking in the celebrity of Tyra and getting free "model essentials" (which they wouldn't need to give out if the girls knew the first thing about anything, or if they'd even watched the show before).
Needless to say I won't be watching this year.
*Maybe it started with cycle three’s Amanda, who was blind, or cycle five’s Kim, who was gay, but really I think it started when in cycle six, Tyra sent Dani(elle) – the eventual winner, mind – to the dentist to get her ridiculously crooked teeth fixed. Favouritism much? And then she threw in plus-sized models Whitney and Diana in cycle eight, neither of whom stood a chance. Don’t get me wrong, I admire what Tyra’s trying to do to broaden the spectrum of the industry’s too-rigid stance on who can be a model, but it always feels like a ham-handed attempt at publicity instead of truly trying to break the mould. If she were actually breaking any moulds, by now half the contestants would be plus-sized (or, to use Top Model lingo, real-sized), half would be blind, half gay, and half trans-gendered. Clearly Tyra only wants to pretend to break one mould per cycle.
DFTBA
I’ve been watching consistently since cycle four (Naima won that cycle), and this season has not led me to alter my belief that things have been going down since then, especially since cycle seven (in which CariDee won). The contestants are all brainless, talentless twigs, and there's no real passion or skill like there used to be.
They used to have women who were photographers, who had passion about the industry, who knew a thing or two about designers, or photographers, or even models, and this year it's just a bunch of whiney girls (plus a trans-gendered girl, who's not going to win but they'll keep around for the drama of it – I mean I don’t have anything against Isis being on the show but Tyra’s attempts at creating fodder for her talk show are getting more and more transparent*) who can't name a single photographer when asked, and only care about basking in the celebrity of Tyra and getting free "model essentials" (which they wouldn't need to give out if the girls knew the first thing about anything, or if they'd even watched the show before).
Needless to say I won't be watching this year.
*Maybe it started with cycle three’s Amanda, who was blind, or cycle five’s Kim, who was gay, but really I think it started when in cycle six, Tyra sent Dani(elle) – the eventual winner, mind – to the dentist to get her ridiculously crooked teeth fixed. Favouritism much? And then she threw in plus-sized models Whitney and Diana in cycle eight, neither of whom stood a chance. Don’t get me wrong, I admire what Tyra’s trying to do to broaden the spectrum of the industry’s too-rigid stance on who can be a model, but it always feels like a ham-handed attempt at publicity instead of truly trying to break the mould. If she were actually breaking any moulds, by now half the contestants would be plus-sized (or, to use Top Model lingo, real-sized), half would be blind, half gay, and half trans-gendered. Clearly Tyra only wants to pretend to break one mould per cycle.
DFTBA
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