“11 beautiful girls stand before me", The disturbing effects of Tyra Banks’ reality tv show America’s Next Top Model, and the beauty ideals which defined a generation
“11 beautiful girls stand before me. But only 10 will continue in the running to be America’s next top model. And the girl whose name I don’t call must return to the house, pack their bags, and go home.” It is these words, delivered by the global supermodel Tyra Banks, that a Y2K generation of women can recite from reality television series America’s Next Top Model. Accompanied by second-hand anxiety for the unfortunate girl whose confidence would be publicly tarnished, a generation of adolescent girls would observe and learn.
The show premiered in May 2003 and produced 24 seasons, finally concluding in the spring of 2018. Each cycle had from 9 to 16 episodes, beginning from 10 up to 16 contestants. Along with Banks, several television personalities judged the prospective models on challenges that became increasingly ridiculous over time.
As each new era dawns, it seems always to bring with it a new “ideal” under which women are socially subjected to strive for.
One personality, as many will regretfully recall, was former supermodel Janis Dickson, who served as the panel’s designated “bad cop” to mortify the girls regarding their physical appearance. She did not speak to the girls – she spoke at them, and her vitriolic attacks were never scolded by the other judges. Dickson’s absurd, almost caricature-like, presence on the show is what, perhaps in retrospect, cemented the show as a reality satire that never truly endeavoured to make any of these women established in the industry.
It is also in retrospect that we can observe how the show premiered during the fashion industry’s darkest hour - featuring extremely underweight models. As each new era dawns, it seems always to bring with it a new “ideal” under which women are socially subjected to strive for. We talk so much about the socially and culturally fabricated objectification of women, which is certainly valid. However, commodification is a more accurate term.
Women are treated and socially presented like commodities, a novelty; which seems to demonstrate value based on their appearance and age exclusively. Thanks to the ubiquitous cataloguing of models, we can track a clear trajectory of what was “in” and “out” over the decades. Former Australian Vogue editor Kirstie Clemens told The Guardian in 2013: “If you look back at the heady days of the supermodels in the late 80s and early 90s, beauties such as Cindy Crawford, Eva Herzigová, and Claudia Schiffer look positively curvaceous compared to the sylphs of today.”
Somewhere between the late 90s and the early noughties, a strange, sick fervour for the “aesthetic” of life-threatening thinness infiltrated the global runway sphere. The noughties’ celebration of this extreme thinness allowed ANTM to flourish.
The kinds of popular culture that we consume, especially as impressionable teens, can cement our worldview.
The consistent oscillation between overweight and underweight was a popular point of commentary made by both the judges on the show. Of course, the latter was much less common and was a poorly illustrated PR attempt at saving themselves from condemnation should one of the girls require hospitalisation, like so many models did during the noughties.
On the show, the contestants were treated more akin to potential products we saw presented on other reality shows like Shark Tank; inanimate, insentient objects that were deemed physically malleable. The issue that arises is the miseducation that inevitably takes place in the minds of its viewers. That is the miseducation towards how we view and treat women.
What better way to form a worldview than through the mass media that envelopes us daily? The kinds of popular culture that we consume, especially as impressionable teens, can cement our worldview. We are, essentially, products of our environments. Not everyone is privileged enough to have someone there, be it a teacher, family member or even a good friend, to guide them away from the deceptive indoctrinations of popular media. If we want to continue moving away from the harmful miseducation of women as mere objects, keeping media like ANTM in the past is crucial.