Do you want to be on top? This question could quite possibly be a raunchy little pickup line you hear at the club by a sleazy guy, or the lyrics to the theme song of a reality show that takes somewhat normal girls and turns them into top models.
If you guessed the latter you are correct my fellow reality show fan! “America’s Next Top Model” just finished up their 14th cycle of beautiful, normal girls trying to make it in the modeling world.
When the show first started, in May 2003, it was all about everyday girls with model potential getting the opportunity to work with top models, such as the host Tyra Banks, be in professional photo shoots and get lessons and tips on how to become a working, successful model. The winner gets a 6 page spread in what used to be Jane magazine but is now Seventeen magazine, a contract with a modeling agency, and of course prize money.
Since its start in 2003 Top Model has turned into basically the Tyra show part 2. Upon watching the show season to season, Tyra has turned the show from an opportunity for young women to become a known model into a means for attention and performance for her.
Every episode the models are told to “smile with your eyes like Tyra does” or “strike this pose like Tyra does.” Every opportunity Ms. Banks gets to be made the center of attention of the show she takes, by being put into every scene possible, and she’s burned some bridges in the process.
In the beginning fellow top model Janice Dickinson was part of the panel of judges who would critique the girls and give advice. She was known on the show for her sharp tongue when telling the girls “like it is” in hopes of toughening them up for the gruesome industry that they would be entering.
Dickinson was very entertaining and brought in many viewers waiting to hear her cutting comments and colorful personality, it’s no wonder her and Tyra started to feud and eventually Dickinson was forced to leave the show. Dickinson took the spotlight off of Tyra and that did not bode well for Miss Banks.
Since then the show has gone through other former models as part of the judges’ panel, including Twiggy and Paulina Poriskova, both of which probably left due to jealousy from Tyra.
Tyra Banks is just too much. She’s over the top, artificial, and annoying in general. She turned what used to be a good model competition reality show into a “look out how good of a model I am and maybe one day you’ll be as good as me” type show. Face it Banks, you’re a has-been with a talk show that has about as much prestige as Jerry Springer, and a model competition that chooses the next commercial model that we soon forget about once the show is over.
You’re not God’s gift to earth – or modeling.
And that’s the sad part these girls that go through this whole long process in the hopes of being called “America’s Next Top Model” end up with; yes, a few nice prizes but in the end don’t really compare to the Kate Moss’s and Agness Deyn’s of the fashion world.
So, America’s Next Top Model,I think it’s time to hang up your pumps and retire. Dear Tyra Banks, for the sake of us all, please follow suit.