One of the joys of freelance life is the way that you can sit at home and watch TV when you’ve had enough of working. And occasionally, you watch something that normally you normally would never choose to see – but once you start watching, you’re hooked.
That’s what just happened to Journopig One with America’s Next Top Model (Living TV).
In all fairness, Journopig Towers has known about this show – nay, international franchise – for a while, but the episode repeated this morning had all the things that make the series so addictive.
A brief summary of what the show is about, for those who are genuinely too posh to watch.
American chat show presenter and former top model Tyra Banks created and presents this show where lots of wannabes are made to live in a flat together whilst having to compete against each other in various modelling challenges each week. Then their performances are judged by an “expert” panel – headed by Tyra – before one girl each week is voted off.
At the end of the series, one girl is crowned American’s Next Top Model and given a modelling contract and a photoshoot in a magazine we’ve never heard of.
Yes, we know it sounds boring to anyone other than a 17-year-old modelling hopeful. But bear with us.
The show is, fundamentally, about Tyra. It’s the Tyra Show. Every week, Tyra has to smoulder, strut, show us how she is THE BEST by appearing in a photoshoot herself, make smart, witty comments and interact with the other judges, whose job is to tell her how wonderfully funny and beautiful she is.
And the job of the contestants is to bicker amongst themselves, and have catfights, because the bitchy girls tend to be the ones who do best.
In every series, there is one “kooky” girl who you think must have been put in for a joke, but occasionally wins.
Today’s episode was a rerun of “Cycle 12″ (ie series 12), and featured the girls doing a photoshoot with some girl who was supposed to be a rock superstar, but who Journopig One had never heard of. She seemed to have been chosen because she was herself very pretty – and the wannabes were supposed to show how they could grab the attention more than the star.
In reality, though, it’s not the girls that get your interest in the show, any more than they did in the photoshoot. The show is about the judges and professionals.
Oh, and about Tyra. Did we mention that?
One of the regular professionals is Jay Manuel, who, according to Wikipedia, is a “Candaian make-up artist, fashion photographer, and model”. We only know him, though, because of this programme, and its spin-off, Canada’s Next Top Model, which he hosts. He’s no Tyra on that, though, being far too nice, and sounding like he’s doing a weak mimic of Tyra when he tries to be baaaad.
But on this episode, Jay is at the photoshoot, and making some very stagey snide comments about some of the models. The most ironic part was when he decided to take one model, the fantastically named London Levi-Nance, aside, and tell her off for putting on loads of weight (ie, making her look like a normal, slim girl as opposed to skeletal).
Of course, tell an insecure young woman that she’s got fat is no way to improve her confidence, and London was left wondering what she was doing in the competition.
Luckily for her, she was duly voted off at the end of the episode – but apparently because her face wasn’t photographing well, which was, of course, complete rubbish. On ANTM, you can be slagged off for being fat, but nobody will tell you that’s why you’re leaving the programme. Ahem.
What made Journopig One laugh, though, was that there was one hopeful being told off about her size, when Miss Tyra is no scrawny thing herself. In fact, she seems to get larger and larger in each series.
That’s fine – but to slate a contestant for eating when your host is doing exactly the same thing (and then having herself photographed to show that she’s STILL GOT IT) is just hypercritical.
Apart from that, though, it’s quite entertaining, from the girls who don’t have a passport (cos they’re American and don’t realise there are some quite nice little countries outside of their own huge one) and then are told to go overseas; the girls who are unable to find an address when they’re abroad (despite being in a taxi and just being able to point to the written address to the taxi driver); and those who find being put in a nice dress just the most amazing thing EVER.
And if you’ve seen Britain’s Next Top Model – a dreadful thing, hosted by nonentity Lisa Snowdon (allegedly a former model, but so successful as this that she is still better known as having dated George Clooney, despite this having occurred years ago) and with bland Brits as contestants – you’ll realise how good the original is in comparison.
Unlike Snowdon, Tyra has personality, overacting wildly, as though she’s an evil character in a panto. As is perhaps her aim, she overshadows the rest of the judges – even the exuberant manic-dresser J Alexander.
In summary, America’s Next Top Model is fab. It’s like a soap opera, the natural successor to Dynasty, perhaps – all catfights and odd outfits, presided over by the model equivalent of Alexis Colby.
Just leave off the weight comments, though, and concentrate on the entertainment.
