FULL FIGURES AND HALF-TRUTHS: So another season of ANTM came and went, and I awoke from a nap late yesterday afternoon to find ALOTT5MA management poking me with instructions to open up a thread. By now, you know that Whitney won, and when you think about it, the only thing surprising about it was that Tyra decided to postpone her orgy of self-congratulation about picking a full-figured model, presumably until she had a chance to put Whitney on her talk show. Whitney looked stunning in the walk-off (especially in that pink dress), took some great pictures and consistently good ones, fits the Covergirl/Seventeen Magazine Top Model précis, and to my thoroughly untrained eye has no less a likelihood of success in the niche field of full-figured modeling than any of the other winners has in the business of general modeling. More importantly, she satisfies the real qualifications for topmodelhood: spokespersonality with a garnish of empowerment and an inability to draw attention away from Tyra’s fierceness (not to be confused with ferocity). Once you acknowledge that winning Top Model opens the door to no more non-tie-in modeling jobs than winning, say, Flavor of Love, and you accordingly narrow the selection criteria, the choice this season (at least among the final three) was easy. Don’t embarrass Covergirl, don’t require subtitling on your “My Life as a Covergirl” segments (Jaslene and Anya eye each other uneasily), do give Tyra a reason to tout herself as the Branch Rickey of the fashion-adjacent industry for breaking the size-8 barrier.
For me, though, the real story this season was how irritating I found it. It was an ugly season from the beginning, which always annoys me because “most attractive non-beautiful model” is a bit like “tallest average-height person.” And it only got more ridiculous when they kept eliminating the most model-like women in favor of contestants who looked old and ugly (Dominique) or plain and harsh (Marvita, who, to my surprise, I liked). Query: if “edgy” is so much more important than “pretty,” what explains the success of luminous but edgeless judges Tyra and Paulina (not to mention the victories of Whitney – whose name I tellingly keep typing as “Whitey” – Saleisha, Caridee, Nicole, Eva, Yoanna, and whatshername Brady, who have nary a sharp edge to share, lookswise)? And every time Tyra trots out old chestnuts like “we can’t see your personality” (translation: “you’re too well-adjusted for us to write you a redemption arc”) or “you don’t want to be here” (translation: “you are insufficiently enthusiastic about Tyra”) it makes me forget why I ever watched this show in the first place. I feel like I’m probably through with this show. I’ve felt that before, only to be brought back in by a pretty cycle, but after the way that the show ruined the last pretty cycle – giving the title to the Saleishuleta, who knew Tyra, went to Tyra Camp, and modeled for two Tyra shows before going on the show – I can’t imagine the prospect of seeing my favorite contestant eliminated in Week 6 in favor of an old-looking drag queen with a goiter and Tourette’s is going to bring me back.
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