Thoughts on America's Next Top Model

Okay, so normally I never do posts like this! I don't like to do posts without photos. But the topic of this post is something I've been mulling over and I really want to share, and I couldn't really find any images that would express the kind of thing I was talking about. My sisters have become big America’s Next Top Model fans lately, so sometimes if I’m walking past the front room I get caught up watching it too (it’s really addictive once you’ve started!). I think we’re on cycle 16 or somewhere around that? At any rate, it’s the one with Brittani, Alexandria etc, and we’re getting closer to the finals now – last episode I watched, there were four girls left at the end, and it really got me thinking.

As much as I find ANTM entertaining to watch, and I love seeing the final photos and the crazy themes they have each week, I can’t help but think all that doesn’t make up for the strange and (in my opinion) negative message the show gives out. The concept is that the prize – to be a top model, have a few cover shoots, win some money – is amazing and that the role of ‘supermodel’ is something that is fun, exciting, wholesome and positive. Which, for many actual supermodels such as Natalia Vodianova and Gisele Bundchen, I’m sure it is. But the show has come under criticism for the fact that none of its contestants have actually gone on to become ‘supermodels’ and for painting a glossy, glittery surface over the cruel and harsh industry that modeling can be (I say ‘can’ because I don’t mean this to be a criticism of the modeling industry in general. I don’t know enough about it to make general statements and I don’t want to condemn it just because popular opinion often does.).

What disturbed me about the cycle of ANTM that I’ve been watching is that I find the second criticism of the show to be fairly untrue. Yes, Tyra Banks and the ANTM producers do their best to present modeling as glamorous and luxurious, with lots of special rewards and focus on ‘positivity’ and ‘energy’. But what I noticed more was the behaviour of the girls. I find it alarming, and slightly creepy, how all the girls repeatedly stated how ‘desperate’ they were to win and how they ‘wanted it so much’ and how they ‘wouldn’t know what to do if they went home’. Yet as the cycle progressed, their behaviour became more and more erratic and miserable, and I started to wonder, why do they want to win so much when doing this job clearly doesn’t make them happy? As the finals draw closer, increasing numbers of the girls start suffering from panic attacks, crying fits, moodiness and crippling insecurities where once they were confident in their own beauty (looking at you, Kasia). And you start to wonder where the reward is.

Is all the crying, the criticism both from yourself and those you’re working with, the stress, the pressure – is that all worth it? The only moment those girls look happy is when they get their photo and praise from Tyra at the end of the show. But even that is fleeting, because as we all know appearance-based compliments don’t last the way that praise for your intelligence or your hard work or your talents does. And as much as a stranger on the street who compliments you on your outfit may give you a buzz that’ll last the whole day, these girls don’t even have that luxury because their only goal and achievement is tainted by the fact that they’ve got to try harder to be even better next week - and not more hard working, or smarter, or something that can be obtained by effort and practice. They have to be better looking. Their ‘happiness’ is governed by their looks, which everyone knows is a dangerous area to gamble on, because everyone has had bad hair/skin/makeup/outfit-choosing days.

This is what I was seeing: a group of beautiful women putting themselves through emotional turmoil and often destroying their confidence just to win a title that seemingly brought no end benefits except to carry on living in the same destructive way. ANTM confirmed my worst impressions of modeling, rather than convincing me that it was something positive or healthy for the model. And yet the show insists that this path to ‘success’ is not only normal, but also admirable and something to aspire to. Excuse me for finding it disturbing that the media teaches girls to aspire to make themselves miserable and insecure in order to reach a goal that offers them little satisfaction or security.

But maybe I'm looking at it in the wrong way, or being too harsh and critical. What do you all think?