Top Model Fallacy: How Tyra Made Bank
It’s a known fact that modeling themed competition shows have really changed the reality TV landscape. Citing America’s Next Top Model alone unleashes an entire cultural conversation (just think of the body of work contributed to the memesphere alone). The show’s success, surpassed by even it’s creators’ expectations, generated 24 seasons and spin-off’s airing in 150 countries worldwide. With these global accolades, one can position themselves to believe that this tv-series reflected the reality of the modeling industry. Unfortunately, this show’s production was harsher than needed and operated under many false pretenses. Before you are a top model, you have to be a bottom bitch.
Over the past couple of days, it has gotten increasingly difficult to ignore the heat that keeps on reappearing under Tyra Banks’ ass. Like clockwork, something controversial from her media takeover of the early 2000’s get’s excavated and we all think “How did she get away with that?” “Why are we realizing this now?” and the questions never get answered. Absurd clips from America’s Next Top Model are still in circulation and are constantly being re-reviewed under the aptly-so socially conscious eye of our present time. With a legacy of the modeling themed reality TV show under her belt, why does it seem that more harm was left behind than good?
Compared to the expected theatrics of regular TV, ANTM devised the perfect tool for successful prime-time entertainment: a formula for drama. On one side of the equation, we have what the competitors endured: shared living spaces with strangers for months, challenges, and recorded “confessional space” to self-therapy. On the other, we have a lucrative publicity network with celebrity guest judges and designer/industry professional cameos. Woefully, this equation could not have operated without the poor handlings of the shows many controversial moments.
The list goes as follows:
taking photoshoots in graves immediately after the passing of their loved ones
making up contestants to switch ethnicities and portray literal blackface on live-television
walking on runways despite being legally blind
catching hypothermia on set of a shoot
Did anyone question if this was an ego-stroke for Tyra Banks? Was she just playing bully?
In an interview by Buzzfeed, cycle 4 contestant, Tiffany Richardson, the girl known infamously for “pushing Tyra over the edge” shared her side of the story. She details her treatment pre and post-production, such as how judges and producers took the results of her psych-evaluation and anger management to milk a story of change and overcoming obstacles that the audience would enjoy. She also reveals several comments that were edited out of the infamous tirade. Richardson states that Banks yelled at her “You can go back to your house and sleep on your mattress on the floor with your baby!” a comment that she states she still carries in the back of her mind.
One of the most harmful things this program has ever done was to scare contestants out of the industry they were genuinely hopeful to enter. Although the show has definitely generated some talent, if we’re talking retention, many ANTM winners are no longer pursuing modeling or have that as their main career, providing more evidence to the theory that they were ill-prepared for the reality post-Tyra. If we take a look at popular winners such as Eva Marcille, and Adrianne Curry, their career trajectories have furthered in the direction of primetime entertainment. Competitors who were eliminated, Winnie Harlow and Leila Goldkuhl for example, are now industry essentials, proving that the show only functioned as further exposure for them. When we look at these reverse effects for “winners” and “losers,” Banks’ boot camp series did very little to develop actual modeling professionals and worked to crush those dreams of many young hopeful girls looking to make it big. Instead, ANTM was a factory in disguise intent on building reality TV stars.
Think of how prevalent this program has become in the American zeitgeist. Just starring in this show granted you a powerful 15 minutes of fame and the chance to become a temporary household name. If the delirium of the show’s ridiculous challenges and harsh deconstructive criticism from judges pushed you over the edge, you had to know that cameras would be following your downward spiral. Eventually, your poorest moments would be reduced to a viral clip or GIF and America was glad at the opportunity to laugh at you.
When examining possibly the most controversial aspect of the series, the makeovers, it is important to reorient yourself in the position of the contestants to understand just how sinister this element was. Successful models are always chameleons — able to morph into the look necessary for any brand’s campaign or creative direction. Forcing these young women to dramatically alter their looks to fit some conjured idea of what the modeling industry “wants” was an effective act of gaslighting. Not only did ANTM producers create and record the entire identity crises of women who sometimes lost all of their hair and underwent cosmetic procedures, but they also turned those crises into content that we negatively engaged with. Eventually, the audience wanted to see the dramatic buzzcuts and the dental surgeries and they carried on as a staple throughout the duration of the series— a very strange type of blood lust. The audience craved to see the contestants suffer such mental turmoil, and so did they.
While ANTM grew its audience to a global scale, the controversy became synonymous with those four letters. Fortunately, other modeling competition shows existed under its shadow, notably The Face, which starred Banks’ “conspired” rival, the inimitable Naomi Campbell.
The Face had a very interesting show structure. Campbell, along with two other renowned supermodels, would serve as mentors to the group of contestants. Each mentor would also have their own team of models that would compete against the other two teams. A contestant from a losing team would be eliminated after each challenge and teams were narrowed down to a top-four where contestants could finally compete against each other.
The immediate difference between these two shows was the credibility that followed the latter one. The Face challenged its contestants with real campaigns in fashion magazines. Winners were decided by editors and creative professionals of those brands without any prior knowledge of the contestants or their teams. This reflected the actual professional relationships that develop as models today.
The biggest difference lies behind the popularity one show faced in comparison to the other. The Face did not reach ANTM’s level of notoriety because the drama was simply not part of their equation. Genuine support and critique were always and only given by the supermodel coaches, and there was always room for interpretation. Campbell’s razor-sharp honesty was never a tool in a contestant’s mental demise. More important than ever, contestants’ looks were not changed and personalities were not managed: positive aspects of a modeling TV show that a general audience is actually not used to.
Inadvertently, we as an audience do decide what does and does not make “good TV.” Shows such as ANTM have seen their formula repeated many times over in different programs to elicit the same results. We as viewers crave drama to binge-watch from the safety of our homes, but the production of these shows may have done more harm than good at this point. In retrospect, Banks has dubbed herself a businesswoman above all nowadays. She even retired her modeling career between cycles of her own series. And like a proper business-person, they make the choices best fit for the results they want to see in their industry. For Banks, this industry was entertainment, and definitely not modeling.