Americas Next Top Model
Americas Next Top Model is back, and the contestants areshorter than ever? This season, Tyra Banks has decided to cut the short girls a break and shes excluding tall girls the way that girls under 57 have been historically barred from the runway. One of these girls is going to win and prove to the world that you can be short and still stand tall, and model.
Perhaps Tyra should be commended for going against the grain by trying to insert a few girls here and there who wouldnt fit into the modeling industry according to its standards. Americas Next Top Model gave us plus size Whitney Thompson, who is nowhere near a size 0, and next its going to produce a girl that doesnt measure even close to 510. Its yet to be seen whether these girls will really make it big in the modeling world, but thats a whole nother Top Model issue. The main issue here is whether Tyra and these girls are really defying the norm.
Take the Make Me Tall photoshoot, in which the girls were encouraged to make themselves look taller than they really are. During judging, some of the girls were criticized for making themselves look shorter. But wait a minutedidnt you say that it was okay to be short and still model? That kind of makes this photoshoot one of the biggest contradictions in the history of Top Model. Its like Tyra isnt challenging current modeling standards after all. What shes really doing is allowing girls that were previously denied to conform to them. Cycle 13 of Americas Next Top Model is telling us that short models can be tall, rather than models can be short.
The critique isnt necessarily that Tyra is failing to break down barriers. Of course modeling has to have standards. Whats next, a cycle full of unattractive girls, and a cycle of overweight girls after that? Thats a huge exaggeration, but its meant to illustrate the fact that not everyone can be a model, or else it wouldnt be modeling anymore. Maybe the modeling industry needs a bit of a makeover, but you cant strip it apart until nothings left. The real problem is the apparent hypocrisy. Modeling has strict, sometimes harsh requirements and its okay if you and Americas Next Top Model support that, thats your right. You dont have to pretend to believe and say otherwise. And by the way, if its okay to be just the way you are, its odd to spend an entire show segment demonstrating how the real reason you looked fat was because of unflattering photo angles.
