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If beauty is synonymous with suffering, then “America’s Next Top Model” was an ordeal. The reality show, once a staple of television, is now under scrutiny with Netflix’s latest three-part documentary, “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.” Currently topping the streaming charts, the docuseries delves into the harsh realities behind the glamorous facade of the competition, placing creator and host Tyra Banks in the spotlight.
However, there’s a twist in this tale: Banks is not issuing any apologies. Rather than yielding to the pressures of modern social consciousness, she remains steadfast in her approach, refusing to be swayed by what some deem ‘woke’ culture.
In a climate where public figures often bow to societal pressures, Banks’ stance is a rare proclamation of defiance. Her response—or lack thereof—has sparked widespread discussion, drawing commentary from a diverse range of media outlets. Even publications typically focused on more serious matters, such as NPR, Forbes, and The New York Times, have felt compelled to weigh in on the unfolding narrative.
Hallelujah.
Everyone has something to say about this doc — even ostensibly highbrow outlets such as NPR, Forbes and The New York Times have been forced to cover it in some way.
The UK Telegraph: ‘The shocking story behind what was once the best reality contest on TV.’
HuffPost: ‘Inside America’s Next Top Model Isn’t the Reckoning We’ve Been Waiting For.’
The Cut: ‘Tyra Banks Isn’t Sorry Enough.’
Sorry for what?
If beauty is pain, America’s Next Top Model was torture.
During its 15-year run (the show premiered in May 2003 and became an instant phenomenon), Banks gave girls and young women with no connections, no means and no money the chance to become not just working models but, possibly, supermodels.
But to hear these aggrieved former contestants put it, they were shocked — shocked! — to learn that models were expected to be stick-thin, to possibly undergo cosmetic interventions, and have the way they looked evaluated and critiqued.
To say nothing of their apparent incredulity at how ruthless reality television could get.
‘The biggest disaster ever is always the best thing,’ says ANTM exec producer Ken Mok. ‘People have [a] 104-degree temperature. They’re throwing up. They need IVs. That’s the best news I could ever have.’
Hey — at least he’s being honest. Unlike, say, an Andy Cohen, who often dresses up his exploitation of reality stars as empowering for them — liberating, even.
‘I think it’s really a feminist show,’ Cohen told The Hollywood Reporter of his Real Housewives franchise in 2024, ‘because it can be about women finding their voice or finding their power or discovering their sexuality.’
If by ‘feminist’ Cohen means humiliating these women at their lowest moments — drunken fights and falls, getting arrested, going to rehab, getting divorced, viciously outing other cast members’ drug habits or financial frauds or same-sex relationships — then sure, call it ‘feminist’.
The worst you could say about America’s Next Top Model is that Banks initially drew contestants in with something of a fig leaf — her show, she said, was an attempt to push back at an industry that had one standard of beauty: thin and white.
But once the show took hold, everyone knew what they were really signing up for.
‘When we started filming I was a size 6, I was 5’10” and weighed 115 pounds. I thought I looked good, but then you go on TV and you’re like, “Oh shit, maybe not,”‘ Cycle 10 contestant Whitney Thompson says in the doc.
‘It was a big juxtaposition [sic] to go into the fashion world where people are like, “You’re such a fat cow.” It was just demeaning.’
Here’s the deal: Thompson was already very thin for her height. But that was not thin enough for high fashion, where disordered eating, drugs, cigarettes and Diet Coke were the usual calorie restrictors.
Is that completely effed up? Yes, of course.
Then again, Ozempic wasn’t available yet.
Are we really going to blame Tyra Banks for the institutionalized faults of the fashion industry and/or competitive reality TV — both of which have their fair share of known casualties?
The blood oath, the Faustian bargain of reality TV, is this: If you lack talent, intelligence, connections or status, but are dying to be famous, this genre will give you that shot.
In return, you agree to be ritually humiliated, degraded and bullied. That’s it. That’s the deal.
This doc expects us to be outraged that two challenges required every contestant to switch races – white models in blackface, black models turned Asian.
But are we really going to blame Tyra Banks for the institutionalized faults of the fashion industry and/or competitive reality TV – both of which have their fair share of known casualties?
The blood oath, the Faustian bargain of reality TV, is this: If you lack talent, intelligence, connections or status, but are dying to be famous, this genre will give you that shot. In return, you agree to be ritually humiliated, degraded and bullied. That’s it. That’s the deal.
And so, one contestant agrees to sit in a dentist chair for hours and have four teeth yanked to ‘fix’ her smile. Another, Cycle 6 winner Dani Evans, resisted closing the gap between her two front teeth, but lacked the fashion knowledge to cite ’70s supermodel Lauren Hutton and her gap when pressured by Banks — and she ultimately went along with it.
Nothing comes for free, but these griping ex-contestants would have us believe they thought America’s Next Top Model was a finishing school.
The trope of revisiting cultural phenomena through a woke lens, as is attempted here, is utterly pointless. Everything is a product of its time. This doc expects us to be outraged that two challenges required every contestant to switch races — white models in blackface, black models turned Asian.
But guess what? Every contestant went along with it.
Most cynical, to my mind, is former contestant Shandi Sullivan blaming production for not intervening after she got drunk — ‘blacked out,’ she says — and had sex with a male model on camera.
It’s reframed here as a possible sexual assault, rather than a poor personal decision that left her disconsolate because she knew her boyfriend back home would dump her.
Should production have intervened? Ideally, yes, as they did on a 2023 Below Deck episode in which a blackout drunk stewardess appeared to be nearly assaulted by a male castmate.
But reality TV will always go as far as it can, and as far as network lawyers will allow.
Is producer Mok remorseful? Not here.
‘We treated Top Model as a documentary’, he says.
As for Banks, not only will she not be shamed into false apologies, but she’s about to come back with more of ANTM.
‘You have no idea,’ she says, ‘what we have planned for Cycle 25.’
And either despite — or due to — this documentary, there will be no shortage of willing contestants.