Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Tyrant Banks
FIERCE! America's Next Top Model, Living, 8.00pm Labels: America's Next Top Model, Living, TV
WARNING: We will be discussing, at length, the elimination from last night's episode of America's Next Top Model, so if you haven't seen it yet, or were planning to watch tonight and don't wish to be spoiled, don't read beyond this paragraph because we're going to give everything away. Okay? Don't say we didn't warn you. But do make sure you come back and read once you've seen the episode, because we're about to get on our soapbox about this and it will be a matter of great importance.
Ready? Okay.
So, if you're still reading, we'll assume that you watched last night, and you saw Top Model history in the making, where despite being the girl in the bottom two who got given a "fo-to" and a chance to continue, poor doomed Ebony told Tyra to shove her stupid-ass modelling competition sideways (okay, perhaps not quite in those terms, but wouldn't that have been great?) and for her trouble found herself on the receiving end of a ferocious Tyrade of the kind not seen since that time in cycle four when Tiffany had the bare-faced cheek not to cry when she got eliminated.
You want to see that again, right? Of course you do:
If there was one thing we learned from that clip, it's that Tyra does not like it when anyone implies that winning America's Next Top Model may not be the most important thing in the world, so perhaps Ebony shouldn't have been surprised by Tyra's reaction. It's interesting that in a season where the show fell over itself to appear understanding and sympathetic towards Heather and her Asperger's, they decided to completely ignore Ebony's obvious body image and self-esteem issues, and chalked them up to a "stank attitude" that needed a "high-fashion ass-whoopin'."
Indeed, you might argue that a girl with obvious self-image problems is probably better off not trying to be a model, and you'd have a point, which is probably why Ebony decided she'd be better off leaving the show. But Tyra disagreed: "I don't think this is about modelling," she snipped. "You know what I think? I think this is about you not being able to handle criticism. This is about you not liking it when people aren't telling you you're pretty. And the most unattractive thing in the world to me is a quitter. So with that, you can go." So presumably we can look forward to some kind of female empowerment special on Tyra's car-crash of a talk show, where she explains that it's far better to stick at something that is potentially psychologically damaging, than to leave while you still have your head together, and be that most satanic of all peoples: a Quitter. We've got to say: our love for this show has led us to handwave some seriously iffy mixed messages while it's been on the air, but this one was a step too far.
(Also, were we alone in noticing the irony of Tyra yelling at Ebony that she "can't handle criticism" when Tyra's meltdown seemed to be prompted purely by Ebony noting that Tyra's beloved show might be kind of stupid?)
The funny thing is, we weren't even especially big fans of Ebony (it's Jenah ftw, as far as we're concerned). We just felt the need to stand up for someone who was getting such a hatchet job at the hands of the show's editors, because seriously? That little montage at the end, showing Ebony's audition video, presumably in the hope of filling the audience with a righteous fury that this ungrateful girl dared to trick Tyra into letting her on the show when she didn't really want to be a model? All that made us feel was that this show needs a reality check. Guys, she quit. She didn't die. Enough with the morbid montage. We're not that easily led.
And seriously: when lowculture, of all sites, is telling you that you've officially crossed the boundary into being unforgivably tacky and crass, that probably means you have a serious problem. Maybe someone needs an inTyravention. (Sorry.)
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Monday, February 04, 2008
Tyriffic
SMOKY EYE! America's Next Top Model, Living, 9.00pm Labels: America's Next Top Model, Living, TV
If there's one thing we admire about Tyra Banks, it's her vast collection of wigs her impressive talent for self-promotion the way she screamed at Tiffany in cycle four her dogged determination that through this show, she will uncover a world-class modelling talent, despite eight seasons worth of evidence to the contrary. Unless we missed Jaslene's Vogue cover, or Naima becoming the face of Gucci. Anyway, Tyra's never been one to let repeated failure stand in her way (unless you count her abortive attempt at a pop career), so here she is with a ninth "cycle" of crazy bitches all competing to be Tyra's biggest kissass.
Tyra's experimenting a little with the audition format this year, as instead of holding them in a grotty-looking hotel in LA, this time Tyra's taking the 33 semi-finalists on a cruise ship, for high fashion on the high seas, or something to that effect. They're then forced to parade in front of Tyra, Ms J and Mr Jay, selling their dignity to the highest bidder, revealing all manner of X Factor-style personal traumas. Brilliantly, one of this year's hopefuls is named Spontaniouse. We're not even kidding. We won't tell you if she makes the shortlist or not, but damn. If nothing else, this show never fails in its bid to redefine what qualifies as an acceptable name for a person.
There's plenty of bitchery afoot even in the first episode, as Ebony tries to start drama by asking which of the girls has an eating disorder, and red-weaved Bianca from Queens picks a fight with anyone who stands still long enough. (In a later episode, she comes up with the best ANTM insult since "first of all, I didn't even know you were a bitch" by casually referring to another girl as "borderline plus-sized" in the middle of an argument.) Our big criticism, however, is that we guessed who the winner would be after watching the first episode, and we turned out to be right, so don't go expecting any big surprises. Unless you count a number of deeply dubious eliminations along the way - with episode six having the most distasteful elimination since...well, this:
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Monday, December 17, 2007
Runway for your life
FIERCE! America's Next Top Model, Living, 9.00pm Labels: America's Next Top Model, Living, TV
It's ANTM finale time again - hooray! Assuming you don't already know who won, this is a very exciting time. Unfortunately, as LoveMusic on the boards discovered, it's very hard to exist on the internet without accidentally being spoiled for the latest handful of Top Model winners. We not only know who won this cycle, we also know the winner of cycle nine, the finale of which just aired in America last week. Sigh. However, there be no spoilers here, so do not worry; we're just going to assess the chances of the three finalists. And talk about how amazing Dionne was. Wasn't she great? She was never going to win, but she was the most entertaining contestant in years. We have a .wav file of her trademark "what the hay-ell?" exclamation and everything.
So, our three finalists are Natasha, Jaslene and Renee. Perhaps surprising to some - we thought Brittany was a lock on for the top three, perhaps even the win, until she had that spectacular freak-out during the go-sees in Australia and blamed "the fucking cab driver", leading to her being the first girl in ANTM history who didn't get a single designer on the go-sees saying they would book her. That's not a record anyone is likely to be proud of. Equally, we didn't expect Renee to get this far because she was getting the obligatory "you photograph old" comments a lot at the beginning, which are generally considered a portent of doom. Also, she was a bit of a raging bitch, but then she calmed down a lot and has had quite a nice redemption edit, so she could totally be the surprise winner.
Jaslene, the charming but utterly unintelligible girl who claims to have been raised by drag queens, has been putting in a pretty strong showing. She's got a strong portfolio behind her and looks to be the girl to beat - but so did Nik and Joanie, and look what happened there. And finally we have the lovely Natasha, the Russian girl who insists she's definitely not a mail-order bride, even if no one entirely believes her. We thought she was being kept around for the hilarious culture-clash comedy and the obvious laughs to be gained from the language barrier, but she's proven herself to have serious model potential, even if she let herself down at last week's outback photo shoot.
As ever, the finale involves them all shooting a CoverGirl print ad and commercial, after which one girl will be eliminated, leaving the other two to stomp each other to death on the final runway challenge. Let the weaves fly!
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Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Promface
FIERCE! America's Next Top Model, Living, 8.00pm Labels: America's Next Top Model, Living, TV
Don't ask us how it happened, but somehow in all the excitement of recent weeks, we completely forgot to mark the arrival of a new "cycle" of America's Next Top Model. How could we be responsible for such an oversight? We can only apologise, and we trust that you've been making your appointment to view without us. And for those of you who missed last night's new episode, here's another chance to see it.
There's a sense of change in the air this year, since the benevolent Tyra(nt) Banks has selected not one but two plus-size models in her final thirteen, because real women have curves, y'all. Of course, "plus size" on this show still means "thinner than everyone watching" and you know damn well that neither of them will win, because eventually someone on the judging panel will just go "eh, she's too fat for couture" or something equally disparaging, and we'll be left with a bunch of skinny bitches as usual.
But! There's still quite an impressively motley selection of girls this year: early standouts for us, entertainment-wise, include Jael, who is so spacey we're surprised she manages to stand up unaided; Brittany, who is incredibly photogenic but also kind of complains a lot; Natasha, who may possibly be a mail-order bride and whose grasp of English is perhaps not the best (her standard response to criticism from the judges seems to be "I like this picture, I look nice, thank you, I am America's Next Top Model", or something along those lines); Jaslene, who claims to have been raised by drag queens; Renee, the token bitch; and best of all, Dionne. Oh, Dionne. The best thing about Dionne is the way she narrates the story of the episode in her confessionals, with frequent uses of the phrases "day-am" and "what the hay-ell"? And her main passion in life is actually dentistry. Dionne is amazing. (And this is even before she decides to change her name to Wholahay.) Give Dionne a spinoff!
This week, Tyra takes the girls back to school (assuming they all actually went there in the first place) to walk the runway in a prom-themed fashion show, after which they have a high school stereotype-themed fashion-shoot. It's perhaps not a vintage episode in itself, but the combined presence of Dionne and Natasha and their unique narration skills make any episode of this cycle worth your attention.
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Monday, April 23, 2007
CariDee (or Melrose, or Eugena) on Down the Catwalk
FIERCE! America's Next Top Model, Living, 9.00pm Labels: America's Next Top Model, Living, TV
If we can be brutally honest, we don't think we're going to look back on this series of Top Model as one of our favourites in the future. It's been fairly entertaining, but will never be one of the classics. (Cycle eight, now, that's a different story. That's shaping up to be quite awesome so far. We're not going to give out any spoilers, but so far Dionne is one of our favourite contestants ever.)
Also, in the top five, this show made one of the most idiotic decisions ever, when they decided to cut Michelle over Amanda in the twin-versus-twin elimination, despite everyone on the show seeming to be of the opinion that Michelle was the better model, because Amanda "want(ed) it more". And Michelle, bless her, rather impaled herself on her own sword for that very reason, because she's a good sister, but then of course Amanda went and got eliminated the week after anyway, so it wasn't a terribly wise move on Michelle's part either.
Anyway! We have our final three: CariDee, Melrose and Eugena. We think it's safe to say without spoiling things that Eugena is clearly not going to win, because she's only taken about one good photograph in the entire competition (although her Matador picture was brilliant, we freely admit) and has largely coasted this far purely on the basis that there's always been at least one girl who was slightly more inept than she was. So the real battle here is clearly between CariDee and Melrose. We've had rather a soft spot for Melrose, who's been shown as this season's bitch despite the fact that the other girls have been every bit as hostile towards her, as far as we could see. But will she win? Well, we personally think that CariDee's been telegraphed as the winner since about week three, but then she did accuse Nigel of having a stick up his ass the other week, and it never does to puncture the judges' egos, especially not at this late stage. This cycle boasts the dubious honour of having the most ridiculous final catwalk-off ever, with a ghost bride theme and a grand total of about six people in the audience. But who will be America's Next Top Glorified CoverGirl Salesperson? We're saying nothing.
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Monday, January 29, 2007
Smile wit' ya eyes
WORK IT! America's Next Top Model, Living TV, 9.00pm Labels: America's Next Top Model, Living TV, TV
Oh, Top Model. You most faithful of mistresses. No sooner than you've crowned your latest winner, you are back to entertain us with more weave-pulling, more fugly model wannabes, and above all else, more outright bitchery. What would we do without you?
So, at the end of cycle six, Jade was finally given the heave-ho and Danielle and Joanie were left to fight it out for Top Bitch, with Danielle finally taking the honours. By and large we were happy with that result - ultimately we were rooting for Joanie, but we weren't actually that concerned who won because Danielle and Joanie were both - in a surprising outcome for this show - talented and capable, and more importantly, neither of them was Jade. So while Danielle heads off to shoot her cover for Seventeen magazine and hawk CoverGirl products in supermarkets across America before presumably fading right off the radar (seriously, anybody know what America's Last Top Model Nicole is doing these days?), Tyra brings in the next batch of willing victims model hopefuls.
This was a two-hour opening extravaganza in America, but we're only getting the first half tonight, which means that we can't talk too much about the prospective runway walkers this "cycle" because we don't want to spoil you over who gets through. But among the hopefuls are a conservative preacher's daughter who's absolutely horrified by nudity, gaiety, and presumably everything else she's likely to encounter in the fashion industry. Well thought-out career choice there, girlfriend. There's also a girl who claims that all the contestants last season were "boring" (and of the many accusations we can throw at the last lot of nimrods, "boring" is not one of them), a girl whose ultimate aspiration in life is to be just like Tyra (uh oh), and a rather mannish-looking set of identical twins. Bring. It. On.
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