America's Next Top Model (Cycle 20) - 20x15 "Finale Part 1: The Finalists Shoot Their Guess Campaign"

So what initially appears to be a final-three runway turns out to be another one of Tyra's cruel hoaxes (the biggest one of course being the promise of a lucrative modeling career to the winner), where one more elimination is to take place just before the final runway. And that's where the last episode ends, which is as good a time to address something critical that I've ignored too long in this space: Tyra's mom hair.

She may or may not be sleepwalking through an otherwise invigorated cycle, but the show (ostensibly) remains concerned with fashion, so you'd think she rock something a little less dowdy. But there you have it.

Anyway, to handicap the probable final two, I doubt Cory will make it, even if he's been one of my favorites for the majority of the cycle. Although he's been featured in (nearly) every episode, he's been used exclusively as a talking head, an observer pithily commenting on the other contestants and the various goings on. He has only started talking in earnest about himself and his own chances of winning the competition as of this episode, and the show didn't even start positioning him as the androgynous alternative between Marvin and Jourdan (both of whom have been allowed to talk themselves up) in an overt way until episode 14 -- yes, it's always been a subtext with him, but a reality program lives almost solely on the surface of events.

A real contender then has to present him or herself as a contender (or by proxy, through other contestants remarking on how s/he is a threat to win), which was underscored for me when Jourdan said that she wants to show that she's more than just a pretty face during the Guess shoot. ANTM supposedly being a modeling competition, a pretty face is fairly crucial to the being a model (notwithstanding the show's increasingly tenuous hold with the industry), but the "more than a pretty face" line goes along with the reality tv narrative impetus to (shallowly) psychologize its protagonists. This psychology then gives the contestants a sense of depth that goes beyond the simple parameters that the show is supposedly measuring. That is, it's not enough that a contestant is technically good at the program's challenges; the exigencies of the reality genre require that they also elicit sympathy from viewers to become someone for whom we can root. This requirement explains why we've been barraged all season by Jourdan talking about her abusive marriage and Marvin being a janitor's son, both reminders of which have only intensified as the competition has narrowed down on the two of them. (You see this tension between the demands of the genre and the demands of the industry/medium most clearly on vote-in shows such as SYTYCD, but it's showed up on ANTM as well, and long before Tyra incorporated the social media element to her show.)

In contrast, Cory mentions his difficulties growing up as a biracial kid in the first episode, and subsequently... a lot of pithiness about Marnee and stuff, which deflects attention away from him (well, it may call attention to him, but as a wit, less so as a model). And it's not as if he lacks a storyline -- the producers could've fashioned a classic plot for him where he struggles against and eventually overcomes Rob's obvious homophobia distaste for him. No, the editing of the cycle telegraphs the improbability of his becoming America's Next Top Model, while keeping him around as America's Next Top Sassy Gay Sidekick.

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 20) - 20x12 "The Guy Who Has a Panic Attack"

True heart, no hurdle, set out by man or nature, will keep me from seeking out thy lovely smizes or the newfangled "booch," not that I swing like that, but hey, it's a novel thing and I'll try anything you suggest once.

In the early parts of the season, I marveled at how much the new format seemed to revitalize the franchise, and the guys have continued to carry the cycle to the overseas portion of the show. Not to say that the girls haven't been pulling their weight -- Nina has finally become the social media beast I expected all along (although I thought she'd be hoovering up all the votes from the start, considering her resemblance to Allison), Jourdan, as boring a reality tv personality as she is, is unparalleled in photos, and Renee has been at the forefront of both the modeling competition and the reality drama (make of that what you will) -- but the guys have provided an unremitting stream of fascinating behavior.

Phil, whose ADHD antics are cast in a negative light on the main show (but which take on a freewheeling and goofy aspect in the recap episode, a portrayal that would complicate the master narrative but which is one of those gems unveiled in recaps), may be old news now, but Cory remains utterly delightful while the lingering figures of Marvin and Chris still captivate because of how they express their masculinities. With the exception of Jeremy, none of the remaining guys are laconic ciphers, and all are in fact so openly expressive that they ably fulfill ANTM's quota of crying. Similarly, Marvin's avowal of camaraderie from a few episodes prior, where he tells his closest friends in the competition in plain (and teary!) terms how he'd be unable to bear any of them going home. Perhaps because of the conventions of the genre as a whole -- not just ANTM, but including series like The Jersey Shore, as well as the wider bro-phenomenon throughout pop culture -- naked expressions of fraternal affection no longer threaten masculinity in a way that used to be automatically coded as gay. What's more, almost none of the guys are too cool for school and are often willing to engage with the show's dumber aspects (at this late stage in the game, I think they're going to miss out on the joys of Tyra's butt-padded tooching teaches, but otherwise, they've played Tyra's games with enthusiasm).

(Meanwhile, over on Project Runway, we've seen the unhinged and violence-threatening male archetype, though of course with a gay spin, with Sandro and Ken. As a further aside, both of them have rather clear rage issues, and I don't mean to make light of them other than to note that traditional modes of maleness are becoming complicated.)

And I'm tickled pink (as it were) that Cory is firmly established as the cycle's den mother, trying to stamp out the pointless blowups that invariably feature on ANTM (my advice to him: Don't! You do realize that's why we I watch this show, yes?). It's preternatural how mature and even-headed he's been in terms of interpersonal dynamics, which would serve him well in his inevitable (I hope!) casting on RuPaul's Drag Race, which would free him from the obvious contempt that Rob Evans has for him.

And finally...

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 20) - 20x03 "The Girl Who Gets Married Again"

The last several seasons of ANTM have seen my favorite show of all time staggering with age and insularity, and when I'd heard that Tyra was letting boys on her show, I feared that ANTM was ready to stumble directly into the shark's mouth on account of being on its last legs -- 20 cycles and 10 years, after all -- which explains why I took almost a full week to watch the first episode(s).

And of course, it was worth the wait, allowing for, you know, the remainder of the season. I'm going to say provisionally that the inclusion of men has revitalized the cast, if only for the novelty of Rob Evans explaining how best to show off one's cuts (in my case, purely hypothetical) and/or the more obvious sexual tension among the contestants. But another new development that has me hopeful is the sudden drag queen subtext, which may not be all that sudden -- this is ANTM, and Tyra, after all -- but I'm noticing it more now that I've immersed myself in RuPaul's Drag Race.

America's Next Top Model: British Invasion (Cycle 18) - 18x13 "Season Finale"

And we all thought that Tyra would barrel over common sense in a rush to exert her brand of global hegemonic dominance, but then, reining in the runaway egotism characterized by using ANTM as a venue to express her unifying theories of everything (which leitmotif has dominated the show for several years running), she surprises us with an astonishing display of sober restraint and chooses the right winner.

America's Next Top Model: British Invasion (Cycle 18) - 18x11 "Jez Smith"

We all knew it was coming, but the magnetism of Annaliese's personality is so heady (and her excitement during the go-sees so infectious) that on the night that this episode aired, it roused me against the plodding quotidian that ANTM has become and gave me hope that we'd be granted the subversive whimsy of two Brit finalists for America's Next Top Model. But instead of a living phantasmagoria of teas and crumpets and the two most charismatic characters of the cycle, the humdrum cynicism that has become ANTM's normal again reasserted itself, where its brand of rationalism -- which, as our better senses could've told us -- dictates that an American must, by hook or by crook, participate in the cycle finale; and here we are, represented by Laura, who books half of her go-sees (the fewest among her competitors), and who struggles still with her walk, which, you know, might be an issue in the final runway. Just saying.

So Annaliese quietly became my favorite of the cycle, though probably more because of her easy, breezy (~sigh~) video recaps than because of how the show features her. By and large, the editors have chosen Sophie as our go-to talking head when a light quip is called for; if the internet is anything to go by (bear with me here), her style of eyelash-batting, über-girly frothiness justifies the amount of attention given to her, but between her and the time ANTM takes nowadays to foreground Tyra's interest in social engineering*, the editors have to leave out what I imagine to be Annaliese's choicest bons mots, to their discredit.

Additionally, Annaliese is more right than she admits when she says that Laura's over-the-top sexuality doesn't mesh well with the Top Model brand; in fact Annaliese's garrulousness is exactly the sort of quality that would've made her an exceptional ambassador for the show. (Sophie, as well.)

America's Next Top Model: British Invasion (Cycle 18) - 18x10 "Nicholas Tse"

Strangely, the better the episode this season cycle, the less I have to say about it, especially in light of Alisha's seemingly abrupt withdrawal from the competition, which overshadows a lot of the other episode's proceedings. Despite the general disdain that arises when a contestant quits, I have to admire Alisha here; the show has so thoroughly gotten into her head that leaving is likely the healthiest thing she could ever do on ANTM. What's more, I've always wondered why more girls don't follow her lead, considering the psychological toll ANTM takes on them and apparent disregard for the health and safety the show has for its contestants (e.g. going up a more-than-700-foot tower in a torrential downpour to do a photoshoot). (Being someone who likes reality tv and particularly how it commodifies emotional vulnerability and distress, I'm undoubtedly part of the problem, but for the moment allow me to remain in my bourgeois complacency.)

As an aside, another thing I've always wondered is why women so often have such an irrational fear of heights, at least from a cultural standpoint. I do like Annaliese's imminently logical take on it, though: "I'm not scared of actual heights, I'm scared of falling from a height."

But as irrationality goes, the real head-scratching decision has to do with the call-out order, yet again. Laura's face is certainly divine, but as Annaliese mentions in her latest recap, she's sitting down when the apparent difficulty in the shoot is simply staying upright in the storm. I also know that the producers have invested a lot of energy into pushing Sophie as the top Brit, but again, her shot doesn't strike me as clearly superior to Annaliese's (and I realize that the key rationale explaining this inanity is in the first clause of this sentence). And in fact, Annaliese's photo is the best in my eyes this week, and she should've won the kung fu challenge... but the enterprise of trying sense of the opaque and incoherent mechanisms that determine the call-out order and challenge wins is best summed up thusly:

America's Next Top Model: British Invasion (Cycle 18) - 18x09 "Barney Cheng"

Ah, Macau! China's newest den of vice and corruption, though it's probably been corrupt for ages, so you know that ANTM is right at home.

Case in point: Catherine's elimination, which, from the perspective of the naif, is inexplicable (she's struck me thus far as the perennially underappreciated indie favorite), while the cynic would remark on the breathtaking (and heavy-handed) predictability of cutting a Brit because the show would never let the competition foreground four Brits against the lone Yank. (Though if the producers had let the numbers skew so mightily Blighty, they could've constructed an exceptionalist narrative where the solitary heroine of the story demonstrates essential American fortitude by overcoming the oncoming invasion of suspect foreigners. We'll just call this a "missed opportunity.")

I happen to fall on the cynical end, because given the particulars of this instance, it's hard not to, even without benefit of tin-foil head-wear. In her latest recap, Catherine herself notes that the obviously terrible photo used in her judging is a test shot (the stylists/makeup people hadn't even finished sprinkling her with silkworms yet). When someone gets saddled with this despite having previously shot this and this, I have a hard time resisting the notion that a production poobah decided Catherine had at last confronted the unflinching pragmatism of their agenda, which cannot involve such a drastic diminution of Americans. It's enough to make me gag, if I weren't inoculated to these editorial shenanigans years ago.

America's Next Top Model: British Invasion (Cycle 18) - 18x07 "Estelle"

Clearly, not much happens that requires extensive scrutiny, mostly because everyone's been expecting the episode's most noteworthy development -- Kyle's elimination -- for weeks now. What's more, it happens in the least dramatic way possible: a normal exit because of a weak photo (also, she's on the short-end of the show's institutional investment in her bottom 2 competition, Alisha). In fact, the most standout thing from this episode is Kyle's completely creepy clapping:

America's Next Top Model: British Invasion (Cycle 18) - 18x06 "Jessica Sutta and Nadine Coyle"

If I weren't so arrogant, I'd have packed my ANTM blogging in by now because Annaliese has got episode recaps on lock:




(Her entries for all the other episodes are here on her website.)

Fortunately, my fondness for the internet equivalent of hearing myself talk is keeping me in the blog game. Still, I'll admit that Annaliese has complicated my job this week, and not just in terms of raising the bar for an episode that's ultimately a little disappointing, considering that it was supposed to combine my two favorite things: drama on ANTM (the fight at the beginning over Laura's teddy), and the non-singing Pussycat Dolls.

At the end of the episode, Tyra tells Az that she thought Az had a real shot at reaching the finale of the competition, which I considered merely an empty platitude spoken by a thin-skinned megalomaniac who couldn't ignore a perceived slight. But then Annaliese mentions (at 8:57 in the second part of her recap) how Tyra prefaces her parting remarks with "I don't know if I should tell you this..." and a wary eye cast towards the production staff, which Annaliese reads as a possible point of tension between the production staff and the judges -- that is, do the judges really have the final say over who goes home, or does production? (Which prompts another question for my fellow ANTM historians: who overruled Tyra in Cycle 16 when she tells Brittani that she wanted to send her home?)

If Annaliese is right, then Tyra expresses a genuine sentiment on AzMarie's elimination, which would thoroughly invalidate my initial interpretation of the elimination, i.e. Tyra seemingly taking so much offense at what happened in the tooch teach that she's willing to overlook a superior portfolio and video shoot/recording session to exact some pissed off judgment. Because, seriously? Every time she's on a runway, Kyle's eyes bug out, and her walk up to Tyra after her last call-out is no exception:

Whatever the case, I have to admire the way AzMarie handles the situation: her refusal to participate is the least attention-seeking of all the non-participatory showdowns in the show's history, all expressed in a preternaturally even-tempered manner. (I can also empathize with the principles of her rationale, because I would've been struck with debilitating horror if I'd been in her position. I mean, come on, learning about the various ways you can (and should not) stick your butt out? For Az, who seems to be a Queer Warrior type of person, I'm sure that kind of objectification is deeply uncomfortable.) And then to swallow her pride and admit that she was wrong for walking out? That's an unusual amount of humility and maturity for this show, though to be fair, they've been in evidence in the way AzMarie generally acquitted herself during her abbreviated stay on the show. To put it another way, I'm glad we'll always have her Hammer Dance.

I was in some empathetic fits throughout this episode, actually, and not just for the tooch teach, but for all the ladies having being subjected to those songs ("songs"). The Brits' pull off their merely dumb verses with panache, although I have to say that the group name they choose for themselves reeks of a panicked, last-second decision:

Annaliese: Oi, luvs, guv'nor 'ere says we 'ave to 'ave a group name, and right quick, yeah?
Sophie: 'ows about "Tees and Strumpets"?
Alisha: "Bri'ish Blimey Chickies", like?
Catherine: Saiy, "The Rine in Spine Stais Minely in the Pline"!
Annaliese: Right then, guv, we're "Fiercely British," wot.

(Incidentally, I've been thinking about Anglophone accents lately, partly because of Nadine Coyle, whom I, at times, thought had a Texas drawl, so honestly, I was never going to twig to her Norther Irish accent without help from Wikipedia.)

The Yanks, on the other hand, are saddled with a tune that, for reasons that have nothing to do with making Seymone say "ain't," makes me physically ill. Lyrically so cloying and lazy! It's not like the Americans, with their overall personality deficits, didn't already need some help, but this song just buries the remotest chance they had at preserving their dignity. So, right, the English misses (I can call them English now that Ashley isn't around repping Scotland) had them over a barrel.

Clearly, the Brits own the challenge, with Alisha and Annaliese being the brightest stars out of a bright bunch (but I was stunned that Sophie, whom I adore, gets the second call-out; I credit her with an A for effort, but in plain terms, she did not outperform both Annaliese and Catherine (who brings her own subtler, elbow-deep fierce to the video)). (And I'm not praising Annaliese just because she checked out my blog -- her moves are smooth.) But I'm not going to quibble too much, as I've been dead curious to see what a British victory looks like (it's been a while since the Falklands).

America's Next Top Model: British Invasion (Cycle 18) - (18x05) "Beverly Johnson"

Tyra's trans-Anglophonic escapades broaden out to our polite Northern neighbors, which lets me make a whole different set of easy jokes, including:

• Mr. Jay notes how the show has never participated in a real Fashion Week before, and after Toronto Fashion Week, they still haven't.
• Only in Canada could Mr. Jay launch a "successful" fashion line.
• Any time CNTM is mentioned = lols.

All the Canada-related lolz somehow involve Mr. Jay -- I smell a theme.

But let's not lose sight of the real issue here: ASHLEY. A TOP MODEL NATION MOURNS.

See, the two Yanks aren't the least bit moved, whilst the two Brits look like frightened kittens. Maybe one of them -- Kyle -- is just catatonic with grief?

Concerning Ashley, it's bad enough that the show is taking a week off (for a One Tree Hill finale -- how long has that show been on? Seriously, like 12 years?), it's bad enough that we'll never get to hear more of her accent (the Scottish pronounce "hippy" like "happy"!), but the notion that we'll never get any further installments of the Ashley 'n Sophie Cracking Wise Show is so distressing that Kelly Cutrone is striving to make up for the French quota that's been lagging since André Leon Talley's departure (matissée this, exotique that, Gaugin the other) and AzMarie is doing the Hammer dance.

Aside from Ashley's elimination and the rest of the cast and crew's various methods for grieving (and also, if you're into it, the Canadian porn), this episode doesn't feature a whole lot that's noteworthy, so now's as good a time as any to mention that considering the nearly universal disinterest in the show beyond the perennial "this is the worst season ever" nonsense, I'm finally beginning to wonder about my taste levels, since I've been loving this cycle without reservation and irony. Could I, in my old age, be settling for the cheap thrills and the grovelling wiles of disposable culture? Well, perhaps as those philosophers of partying LMFAO would say, "WIGGLEWIGGLEWIGGLEWIGGLEWIGGLEWIGGLEWIGGLE..."

And it's not just me! I have a cohort of equally tasteless fellow travelers.

However, I don't think I'm giving myself enough credit (I rarely do, you know), which means that I can blame everyone else, hurrah. Specifically, I see a couple of possibilities:

1. People generally don't know how to watch shows like ANTM, which have been ridiculous and fatally flawed from the start. The first cycle had the execrable Nolé Marin on the judging panel, for example, who would be the analogue to the terrible Kelly Cutrone. Similarly, contestants who don't seem to deserve being on the competition and who become the focus of intense viewer resentment? Again, taking from cycle 1, Robin! (Another example would be the first season of Project Runway, which would've been frothy unadulterated fun if not for all the toxic recriminations surrounding Wendy Pepper.) 
2. People are just tired of the format. You can see this viewer fatigue in any number of shows that have lasted beyond 3-5 seasons -- longtime fans simply reach a saturation point with the structure of the competitions and start to find it stale, and the even if the content is roughly of the same average quality as the preceding seasons, the over-familiarity drags down enjoyment.

And I'll just end this long overdue post on a note that casts aspersions on the majority of the show's viewers. Mazel tov, or something!

America's Next Top Model: British Invasion (Cycle 18) - 18x04

Before I get to this episode, I need to point out something from the previous one: Ashley. So far, she's been portrayed on the show as this meek and retiring bairn whose shyness outside of "The Ashley and Sophie Clown On All The Yank Girls Show" (we're long overdue on the next installment, by the way) seems fated to weigh down her performance in the contest, oh she is a delicate shrinking violet, when in fact her home media had already labelled her a troublemaker, and the Wikipedia entry for her original cycle suggests that she fell up the competition in a drunken and belligerent stupor. We indeed see Ashley's gulliness firsthand in the confrontation with Seymone (even if the editors apparently want to deemphasize just how raw she can get), where her mouth gets blurred out more than anyone else's, and not only does she get right up into Seymone's business, she actually chest-bumps her (and not in a celebratory way):

That's some Scottish gangsta.

This latest episode is lighter in OGs, unless you count the return of Ms. J, who has at last risen to the heights of celebrity heretofore attained only by the likes of Kris Jenner and Kristin Cavallari, to which honor he gets an episode named after him. Also, the guys driving the lowriders, I guess? And Nigel, too?

Rather than getting down like the G's they all surely are, much of the episode's action is an exercise in demonstrating (to me) that in virtually any endeavor, the British girls will always come off as polished and classy as long as the Americans are around for contrast. For instance, Laura's penchant for fist-pumping bugs a lot of us, yet, when Catherine does a double fist-pump, by jove, she's much more cultured or something about it (it's probably the Union Jack).

And so for the challenge of the episode -- hocking ANTM "products" in one take -- I expected the Brits to outclass the Americans by an order of magnitude, if only by virtue of the usual accent reasons (Ashley, as an example, is so adorable even when she describes her deviant, sexual, bum-smelling habits); but as a matter of fact, I think that by any measure, as a group the Brits are collectively more personable and self-assured than their American counterparts. Of course Annaliese's magnetism and effervescence sets her far apart from the rest of the competition, though Sophie's enthusiastic cuteness has an amateurish charm as well. Unsurprisingly, they were both rated among the highest, but their company in the top three -- Kyle -- clearly did not belong.

So clearly, this focus group is a bunch that can't think straight when faced with a pretty white girl droning on painfully about fake breath mints. What's more, we have at least one guy who strains to realize that, in describing what he didn't like about Alisha's spot, he's about to enter racially sensitive territory, and struggling pathetically (in an almost entertaining way) against his deficit of sense and decorum, and settles on saying that he didn't like her "African" accent. This despite Alisha, like all of her British cohorts, having better presence and elocution than the American girls, which, by extension, means she's vastly better-spoken than the idiot who complains about her African accent. (The focus group is in a strange class/race mood generally, as evidenced by another imbecile calling Laura "ghetto.")

But, as I get off my high horse, I realize that I may be suffering from my own lack of moral imagination; maybe the focus group are so bowled over by Kyle's ad because they're, like, all music critics and thought they're seeing a massively stoned Feist in some terrible post-post-modern performance art.

And while I'm in such a charitable mood, maybe I've been unfair to Laura as well, who has been asserting herself as a mainstay at the top of the callout order each week. More importantly, however, she seems to have lost the hideous blue and red tracks from her hair:

Also, I definitely do not laugh at the awfulness of Lisa's ad every time it flashes onscreen:

America's Next Top Model: British Invasion (Cycle 18) - 18x03 "Cat Deeley"

Firstly, as indicated by the episode title, my pretty little mind could barely handle two of my sincerest reality tv loves colliding on the same show. Shame that Cat got completely overshadowed by the whole mess between Kelly Cutrone and Louise, whom I was all set to defend until her outburst at panel -- not that I really blame her for it. Kelly "I'm Not Doing Math" Cutrone did come off as an overbearing micro-manager (way to dispel stereotypes about women in positions of authority), first by pointing to herself as a good leader and to Annaliese as a bad leader, then by making up rules about not running around on set because it creates a chaotic atmosphere. Hm. Maybe this is why I'm an office drone and not upper management, but when there's only a handful of minutes left to finish a shoot (as a result of admittedly ineffectual leadership, but that's closing the barn door after the horse has already bolted), perhaps the last thing to worry about is the appearance of disorganized frenzy, and, I dunno, getting the job done. 

I may be coming down harshly on Kelly Cutrone, but then, this is what she sez when she thinks about punk rock: "Clean, cool rock 'n roll." My only response is to cue Sophieface:

Onto lighter matters, though if you think about this in the context of an American educational crisis, especially at the college level...

If Harvard had known that one of its graduates from the Owner/President Manager Program would go on tv, don a cape, and call herself "Super Smize"* for the second time in her life (that we know of) while wearing a baffling neon strip around her chest, and then use a superhero conceit as an excuse to grope and slap the chests of young girls, then they'd better reassess their admissions criteria, or else... well, they still have more dignity than Stanfurd. Then again, the entire exercise did give Ashley and her amazing accent an opportunity to say "capes." OMG.

* Full disclosure: I love and will forever love any idiotic appearance of Super Smize.

America's Next Top Model: British Invasion (Cycle 18) - 18x02 "Kris Jenner"

As stupid as ever, but it's harder to tell thanks to the British accents and interjections of "tea and crumpets." In fact, the apparent segregation of the girls into American and British quasi-teams inadvertently casts a more historicist despair over the usual ANTM inanities that I cannot live without. Through the magic of putting together a bunch of strangers from disparate backgrounds, strange bedfellows abound on reality tv, but perhaps no fellows (say, what's the female equivalent of "fellow" -- "fella"?) stranger than Mariah, who's Native American, getting in bed with Americans by fixing the blame for the genocide of an aboriginal population on the British. "Tea and crumpets" sounds so much more sinister now.

Beyond historical whitewashing, outsourcing half the spots to foreigners also incites the sadly expected eruptions of nationalist fervor; to say the least, chants of "USA! USA!" on my favorite dollop of surreality television makes me deeply uncomfortable, not to say leery of the most vocal nationalist, Laura. Her Ugly American exceptionalism is matched only by her crimped Ugly American hair; while the former is likely to be a permanent personality defect, at least the latter gives way to the actual heart of the show -- shakeovers! I'm a bit put off that they're not calling them "Ty-Overs," but Tyra's apparently getting into the spirit of Blighty and coined the neologism as a portmanteau of "makeover" and "Shakespeare."

Notwithstanding Eboni's run-in with a curling iron, the usual makeover, excuse me, shakeover histrionics were kept to a disappointing minimum. If I were AzMarie, I'd have been throwing a fit for getting "ANTM" shaved into my head -- it's not the '90s anymore, nor is it 2009 when the '90s were in again. In fact, she and most of the other girls were so equanimous about the shakeovers that she took to shampooing and washing their hair as well. As for more burgeoning bete noire, Laura got rid of that jank hair she came in with, only to be given red and blue tracks to go with her newly bleached platinum hair -- yes, she's red, white, and blue, and it is as belligerently tacky as it sounds. Still, a marked improvement over the so-called 'do she brought into the competition.

At least Louise got right stroppy about getting her hair lopped off and darkened -- from her aggrieved indignation, she seems to have never watched ANTM before which wouldn't be a surprise if it weren't for all the British girls seeing ANTM as a ticket straight to model stardom. Some hard truths don't seem to survive the trip across the Atlantic.

As I'm all out of British slang -- oh wait, fan dabby dozy and the expression of fatal embarrassment Nigel was rocking (for the longest time, he could smugly sneer at the cultural detritus of America, now the tables have turned) (by the way, he's become such a fixture on the show I'd nearly forgotten that he's an English subject) -- I'll end by saying that I'm awfully chuffed that my two favorite British girls -- Sophie (whose delicate kewpie features make her far and away the hottest of all the contestants) and Ashley (who as a Scottish lassie seems to have recovered from the trauma of being a forced to impersonate Princess Di) -- get on like marmite and whatever goes well with marmite.

America's Next Top Model: All-Stars (Cycle 17)

I couldn't live with myself if I didn't say something about the All-Star edition of my favorite show ever, and boy, do I ever have stuff to say about this.

First:


I can fix the results, if not the unfortunate brostep soundtrack.

Next, I'm obliged to mentioned Angelea's disqualification. I've yet to see anyone put forth a compelling case that she did not originally win (because if she was a runner-up, then why did the show have to re-shoot the announcement of the winner?), but Rich doesn't think that she was leaking anything, instead speculating that "it's something that would have shamed the show far more than Angelea. [...] I'd guess the secret information would have somehow revealed a lapse in background checking that would ultimately make the show look negligent for signing Angelea on in the first place." Like Rich, I hope that whatever the reasons for her dismissal, Angelea comes out of the cycle in a good place, because I have had nothing but love for her since cycle 14 and was doggedly pulling for her this cycle.

Another reason that I feel that she was the initial winner is because her triumph seemed overdetermined -- she fell to the bottom 2 four times but was never actually eliminated, as though the judges were saving her so should could fulfill some grander fate than losing out on a reality tv show. Furthermore, given Tyra's penchant for turning the show into a vehicle for social engineering, I can easily imagine that, based solely on her biography and apparent desperation, Angelea would've had to kill someone to not win the competition. Wait a minute... (As I joked elsewhere, she could've gone on Project Runway this season and won it.)

In any case, the harvest of Internet speculation on the possibilities of what may have disqualified Angelea aptly bookends the uneasy way people relate to the blurred line between reality tv and real life. Right from the start, as the show had its live judging (/jealous), we saw how uncomfortably the two realms interact when the creeps in the audience started swearing at or dissing Alexandria. The show wouldn't let us forget about the former, while the latter involved that clever guy in the audience who interviewed to Jay Manuel, "Alexandria needs to go home, I hate her. Even though I love her, I hate her too." Sure. If I had been there (sigh) and I was asked to call out my least favorite all star, I'd have felt remarkably uncomfortable revealing my choice (Alexandria, as it happens) because I have this thing about being rude to people when they're that physically close to me; this guy, though, saw his chance to act like a diva on tv and no amount of propriety was going to stop him.

Those two Alexandria-focused events indicate that for viewers, reality tv and real life share the same essence, and that people who've been designated as villains on tv shows should, in real-life, be treated without respect or decency. I should add that considering all my fondness for inane controversies and unnecessary fights, I don't quite stand on unimpeachable moral ground, but it's one thing to revel in the excesses of the genre with a tv screen between you and the action, and quite another thing to actively precipitate those very excesses. The former is a private act of consumption of a commercial product; the latter typically involves an amount of heedless shamelessness wherein the participants are formally and positively identified as such. In Alexandria's case, though, she was ambushed by someone from the anonymity of a crowd (sort of the Internet made real and fleshy and no less horrible), which collapses the private and public in a way that Alexandria catches all of the heat while the chump who yelled at her is safely shielded within anonymity. (I'm sure that being ganged up on by Brittani et al and then having it televised was bad enough -- having it happen again with a live crowd must've been magnitudes more traumatic.)

Such asymmetry boils down to an unfair breach of privacy as it demonstrates how reality tv can so ravenously distort and bend real life and real people towards cruelty when the two realms collide. To be more precise, though, the dynamics of their interactions are a complex Ouroboros of feedback loops. The genre is omnivorous enough that it easily absorbs rudeness, whether it comes from a reality tv contestant or its observer, and seamlessly transforms it into just another spectacle to be shown on the program. What's more remarkable is that the genre blithely encourages this kind of behavior from its onlookers, and then incorporates that behavior and its aftereffects into the fabric of its episodes, thereby ensuring another source of drama for it to mine. I mean, real life doesn't quite stand a chance; it'll get deformed into reality tv.

We see reality tv and real life intersecting with Angelea's disqualification, that is, something that happens outside of the bounds of the recorded show ended up affecting the course of its events. Strangely enough, though, reality tv sloughs off real life with the finale (rather than absorbing it), since the episode mentions it but once and hardly exploits it for spectacular purposes. Actually, in this rare case, we have real-life encroaching on reality tv, perhaps even inconveniencing it (given the lack of exploitation); either way, we witness how uncomfortably the two interact with each other.

Miscellany:

• Kudos to the final runway organizers for actually installing a deus ex machina for the girls to get into. I haven't seen such a confluence of low- and high-brow culture since Ulysses.
• Oh the irony of Tyra teaching the finer points of becoming viral to Allison of all people. Also, she ruined Allison's music video. 
• Laura's video is probably the best. Unsurprisingly, Lisa's actual song is the most polished.
• Amazed at how put together Dominique is now compared to cycle 10. 
• Bre! Similarly amazed at how emotionally mature she's become; also, the short cut they gave her is marvelous.
• The whole branding enterprise was so stupid. Inevitably, most of the girls took their brand far too literally to the point that their preoccupation with it doomed them. In other words, I don't like the thing that got Kayla eliminated so far before going overseas.  

No Reality But Reality

Kelefa Sanneh, a writer for The New Yorker, recently wrote about reality tv, and far from the hand-wringing moralizing that you tend to get when hoary publications deign to examine the genre, the article has quite a number of insights that are worth highlighting.

After dismissing one author of a book who approaches reality television in a reflexively denigrating and superficial way, Sanneh introduces Brenda Weber, who is a lot more nuanced when she focuses in Makeover TV: Self-hood, Citizenship, and Celebrity on makeover programs (which gets defined so loosely as to include Dog Whisperer and American Idol in addition to The Swan and What Not To Wear).

Makeover shows inevitably build to a spectacular moment when “reveal” becomes a noun, and yet the final product is often unremarkable: a woman with an up-to-date generic haircut, wearing a jacket that fits well; a man who is chubby but not obese; a dog with no overwhelming urge to bare its fangs. The new subject is worth looking at only because we know where it came from, which means that, despite the seeming decisiveness of the transformation, the old subject never truly disappears. “The After highlights the dreadfulness of the Before,” Weber writes. “In makeover logic, no post-made-over body can ever be considered separate from its pre-made-over form.” She might have added that no makeover is ever really finished; there is no After who is not, in other respects, a Before—maybe your dog no longer strains at the leash, but are you sure that sweater doesn’t make you look old and tired? Are you sure your thighs wouldn’t benefit from some blunt cannulation? Weber’s makeover nation is an eerie place, because no one fully belongs there, and, deep down, everyone knows it.

Sanneh alludes to an old reality tv axiom, that is, the genre appeals to viewers because we can easily imagine ourselves in the places of a program's subjects, and so what happens on the program reflects personally back on us -- in a word, projection. However, I use "subject" here instead of my usual "contestant" because I think that while this projection relates directly to makeover shows, it's less apt for or less directly connected to competitive programs -- even accounting for Sanneh's insight that the makeover subtext runs through a surprisingly diverse number of reality series -- because the worlds depicted in this sub-genre are posited as self-sustaining and insular. Moreover, any gestures to an existence beyond the confines of the show are peremptory and mainly serve to bolster the narrative (e.g. the editors including footage of a contestant talking about a difficult upbringing to garner viewer sympathy), which invariably culminates in a coronation of the narrative's winner.

Likewise, the mood of the coronation is always "happily ever after" -- the winner and its judging apparatus might claim that the victory is just the beginning of a journey, but considering the long history of prizes failing to live up to expectations (ANTM, Project Runway, etc.), if the shows admit the stark, tenuous reality (and I mean meat-world reality, not reality tv reality) that awaits their winners after the show, then the producers would undercut the triumphalism of their finales. Consequently, the reality program is inwardly directed, an end in itself, a self-sustaining world (at least for the viewer of the competitive series), one in which the second point I highlighted from the passage -- that the Before and After are inextricably linked -- becomes relevant. After all, when the winner is crowned, the show tacitly (or in some cases explicitly) asks of the winner (and of us viewers) to Look How Far The Winner Has Come! The victorious glow and edification of the winner is generated by its distance from the starting point -- in other words, "no post-made-over body can ever be considered separate from its pre-made-over form."

I want to add that viewers do still project themselves into competitive series in a moral context, though in such instances, they're more likely casting judgment on the contestants than reflecting on themselves, though maybe that's what Sanneh means with his remarks about the liminality of the place where "no one fully belongs there." In any event, the first point he makes -- about how revelation (no matter how mundane) is the raison d'etre of the reality genre -- is spot-on.

Sanneh brings up another provocative theorist, Mark Andrejevic, whom I'm disposed to liking because he recognizes that "there isn’t any one definition [of reality television] that would both capture all the existing genres and exclude other forms of programming such as the nightly news or daytime game shows" -- an observation that can't be emphasized enough. The more interesting bit comes here, though:

Although reality television is often mocked for its frivolity, Andrejevic argues that its success is symptomatic of an age in which labor and leisure are growing ever harder to separate. He tells the tale of DotComGuy, a briefly popular Internet celebrity, who planned to live his life online, funded by corporate sponsors. “To the extent that his life is the show, he is working all the time,” Andrejevic writes, and the same could be said of anyone who appears on any reality show. Pozner asserts that “on series from the ‘Real Housewives’ franchise to MTV’s ‘Paris Hilton’s My New BFF,’ ‘real life’ is all about leisure.” In fact, Hilton’s show, in which she claimed to be searching for a B.F.F. (best friend forever), was an example of how reality television turns social activities into professional ones. Similarly, the “Real Housewives” shows, despite the name, feature very few actual housewives and lots of working women (not all wives or mothers), every one of them eager to sacrifice time, not to mention privacy, for a small payment and a less small portion of notoriety. This is the opposite of leisure, and it may also be a sign of the end of leisure—the end, that is, of our ability to spend long stretches happily engaged in non-work. If this possibility makes us anxious, we’re not alone: judging from their frequent and intricate disagreements, the various “real housewives” are feeling a little anxious, too.

As is my wont, viewing this conflation of leisure and work through the lens of the professional reality sub-genre is fruitful, since, after all, such shows present the interview process maximalized over the course of 13 weeks. First, leisure gets squeezed out by work in a literal sense on Project Runway, which sets out tasks that consume the majority of time (both onscreen and in the lives of the competitors) on the show. (On occasion, designers who don't work -- either through laziness or sleep deprivation or preternatural speed -- have caused minor scandals, because a show that brandishes an unofficial motto of make it work doesn't take kindly to idleness.) Beyond the demands of its various challenges, I figure that part of the reason Runway contestants are worked so hard is to wear down their inhibitions in the hopes of provoking extravagant fights. Of course, in this way Runway is an extreme example, because on other hand, we get plenty of fights on ANTM despite the comparative paucity of work, and in fact, the girls fight probably out of an overabundance of leisure. Either way, both shows are stylized by their unnecessary blow-ups, and Sanneh would argue then that leisure is getting exchanged (Project Runway) or transformed (ANTM) into the work of reality television.

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 16) - 16x06 "Sonia Dara"

Monique is totally over Top Model.

America's Next Top Model - 16x05 "Rachel Zoe"

Was it just me, or did this episode, with all its not-so-subtle innuendo of sapphic intrigue, seem like it was written by a horny teen-aged boy (i.e. me many, many years ago) (i.e. last year)?

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 15) - (15x02) "Diane von Furstenberg"

Because I have to say something about my favorite show ever. So... did you hear how this season cycle of ANTM is trying to escape from its reality tv ghetto fabulousness and gain credibility in the high-fashion world? I don't know if Tyra has mentioned yet about the Vogue Italia cover, or the big-name photographers and designers?

Honestly, though, I'm a little wary, on the verge of disappointment, especially with how awkwardly and obviously Tyra is striving to legitimate her show in the fashion industry. Like, the episodes aren't titled after silly quotations from the show anymore, but are simply named after the high-profile guest (e.g. this episode), as if that's a signal honor she's paying to her guests.

More tellingly, however, is that the first episode of the competition shows its social conscience intentions immediately, e.g. Tyra taking on bullying and empowerment. Granted, other cycles often start with a socially conscious episode, but I get the sense that Tyra's making an extra special effort at social conscience to somehow prove that ANTM deserves to be taken seriously (while also extending Tyra's general socio-media agenda of promoting disadvantaged girls so that she can promote herself) with her taking Anamaria to task and eliminating her for the latter's perceived anorexia. Not to say that we won't get trashy melodrama, but if this episode was any indication, I'm afraid that we'll be seeing more and more moralizing from Tyra this cycle, when the real juice of the show is more along the lines of:

Anyway, Lexie was picked on for having "elf ears"? That must have been before Joanna Newsom happened.

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 14) - 14x04 "America's Next Top Vampire"

Despite my initial excitement for this cycle, I anticipated being disappointed sooner or later, and lo, it turned out to be sooner. But the weird thing is that at least so far, I can't characterize the reason I'm not feeling this cycle. I mean, besides that any girl I've identified as a potential hero has met with reality death, Tyra-style, guaranteed.

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 14) - 14x01 "Be My Friend, Tyra!"

Heading into this cycle, I was inordinately excited, largely because Cycle 13 was so surprisingly awesome. A lot of my love for the previous cycle was due to the fact that the girl whom I wanted to win actually won; I should mention that as Cycle 13 began, I was on the verge of giving up ANTM altogether, pretty much because the winners since Cycle 6 (exclusive) had been so consistenly iffy as to cast a pall over the insipid entertainment of whole cycles, rendering a show that already awarded a meaningless prize to the winner even less relevant.

7. Caridee - crazy. Also, the entire cast was weak in terms of modeling and reality tv.
8. Jaslene - affectless voice, tepid cast, but otherwise, decent winner/season.
9. Saleisha - her "My Life as a Cover Girl" campaign was disastrous -- she had visible bags under her eyes and she couldn't read copy -- on top of her nepotistic connection to Tyra. And Jenah got royally hosed, spoiling this cycle for me.
10. Whitney - no winner hit the bottom two more often than her. Also, punker Lauren hated her, which is good enough for me.
11. McKey - has the distinction of being the show's biggest weirdo who also happened to be completely boring. (She is beautiful, though, and was a way better choice to win than co-finalist Sam.)
12. Teyona - in her appearance in Cycle 13, every time she talked, I had the feeling cue cards were being held up for her just off-camera. Another tepid cast -- no real villain -- with the possible exception of Creepychan.

And then, Nicole! Who almost single-handedly raised Cycle 13 into awesomeness and stoked my interest in this cycle.

So Cycle 14. First, I'm appalled that there exists any criticism for Tyra's cringeworthy themes when she introduces herself, this time involving "social networking" and her myfiercepage.com site. If this show does anything, it's to debase its contestants, and Tyra is not above holding herself up to ridicule, intentional or not. (Remember Super Smize, the all-time most agonizingly amazing 3 minutes of television?)

Second, early favorites:

• Naduah, in spite of/because of her weird, indeterminate accent, and her amazing eyes. And for having a shaved head. Bad on Tyra, though, for bleaching her eyebrows. Bleached eyebrows are never a good look.
• Gabrielle, though I don't know how I feel about her Shakira Ty-over.
• Ren, AKA Ringer. Kind of miffed that they shaved her pits, to be honest.

Third, Krista deserves some love for not dating white men because their pink penises remind her of raw meat.

Fourth, I'm actually impressed with the overall working knowledge of this cast -- Gabrielle and Naduah both picked non-obvious models to emulate, while the rest of the girls at least managed to evoke their more obvious inspirations, except Alasia, of course, whom I naively expected to miss the final cut. Of course, I saw why she made it to the model house after getting smack dab into the middle of the first pointless fight of the season, even displacing Angelea as the source of tension. Wonderful.

Indie rating: Spiritualized - "Out of Sight"