America's Next Top Model (Cycle 8) - 8x11 "The Girl Who Does Not Want To Dance"

If Natasha had done heretofore nothing before to make me a fan of hers, then I'm firmly in her corner now since all the other girls conspired to try to get her eliminated. Unless the editors left on the cutting room floor some damning footage of "Nata" stealing granola bars or wiping her woman juices across Melrose's face, then . In fact, I suspect that Jaslene and "Wholahay" were infected by "Néné's" (supposedly abandoned) pernicious attitude. Renee, I've found you out!



Anyway, Natasha's diplomatic performance at the judging was nothing short of amazing. When the other three girls each called Natasha the weakest remaining contestant and some kind of phony to boot, she thanked the other girls for their criticisms with grace unseen before on this show, turned it back around on them, and even put the smack down on one Gisele Bundchen. Now that Dionne and her "Haaayellll no!" have been reTyred, Natasha bumps herself up in the running towards becoming the girl whom I want to win America's Next Top Model.

Onto more series-wide themes. During elimination, we briefly saw a clip of Renee's Tyra-imposed dunk tank session where Renee had to sit there and hear everyone bitch her out, which continues the shotgun moralism that Tyra makes up as she goes along. A lot of reality programs are partly founded on a kind of moralism -- in Survivor, many of the show's jurors vote for whom they believe "deserves" -- or use morals in their inter-episode discourses -- on The Amazing Race: All-Stars, witness how virulently Eric & Danielle complained about the unfairness of getting Yielded; ANTM builds its own every season. Some cycles, girls are persecuted for being weak (and stupid; file under Gina), for being phony (Natasha, this cycle), or for being atheist cutie indie geniuses. Seeing that ES's LJ has resumed, and buying a buttload of Amazon stuff, I've lost my train of thought, but it probably had to do with how these shows build their own specific realities, particularly how moralities define and (in)form these reality worldviews. At this point, mostly an observation, nothing approaching a thesis.

Indie rating: Isis - "Celestial (The Tower)"

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 8) - 8x04 "The Girl Who Changes Her Attitude"

Even though this cycle has entertained reasonably well, this episode in particular has undermined or violated some basic reality tv rules to only minor consequences.

First, this episode tried to humanizeour villain du cycle Renee when they showed her resolving to change her attitude -- an alleged change that prompted the episode to be named after her -- because of how lonely and isolated she feels, and because she's so stony broke that she wanted to pawn off this episode's reward. Actually, this whole cycle has worked double-time to make me feel bad about laughing at certain of these girls -- either that or I'm wising up to ANTM's tricks of picking an assortment of dim-bulbs.

Second, they eliminated Felicia. Maybe it's true that she really hasn't been all that in her shoots lately, but Felicia also had at least an ounce of wry self-awareness which would've been refreshing in the midst of all these delusional girls. And shewas lighthearted and nice enough to (try to) teach Jael how to dance, and so we lost more than just another baby Tyra, but we lost a girl who could've risen to become America's Next Top Model – Cycle 8's heroine.

There's more here to think about once I recover my intelligence.

"Recover."

Indie rating: Jesu - "Dead Eyes"

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 8) - 8x03 "The Girl Who Cries All The Time"

Here I was, worried about how Renee was being villainized because she suffered from low self-esteem, and then she has to go ahead and act like the über-bitch who took it upon herself to talk down to a whimpering Brittany, and to continue to be a professional model — in not getting it! ("Brittany doesn't stand out to me... she's boring, and I don't understand why she keeps winning these challenges. If she wants to win all the little battles and I'll win the big war, that'll be fine.") Nice to see that she thinks she's the all-that judge of FIERCE when we all know that the real arbiter of talent in this competition is Sarah. Ah, someone to hate with no moral qualms! Renee, I salute you.



And just to make that I've said this someplace, a good villain is only one half of the equation for a classic season — the second half being a girl to root for. At the moment, we've not anybody who fits the bill. Early frontrunner Brittany is a whiner for sure, but she has so far complained her way to success. Also, her makeover is ugly. Jael is the only other non-evil girl who stands out in a memorable way, but at points during this episode, she sounded exactly like Tyra's favorite winner Adrianne; once Tyra realizes the aural resemblance, Jael'll be dropped like she's proverbially hot.

And this episode being the vaunted makeover episode, I was disappointed by both the staggeringly safe and boring new styles the girls all got (except for Brittany's "what were they thinking" do), and as a corrollary, the lack of unjustified freakouts. (Freakouts of course being one of the most surefire ways to identify villains.) Where are the Cassandras? The Jaedas? Jael was extremely teary, but her crying was completely warranted by getting a weave installed and then ripped out in an 8-hour span.

Jael, if you haven't noticed, has been getting a lot of camera-time so far in a way that kind of reminds me of CariDee, but more out of control, if you can imagine that.

Indie rating: Paula Frazer - "Halfway to Madness"

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 8) - 8x02 "The Girls Go To Prom"

With this episode, ANTM seems to be positioning Renee as its dominant villain for Cycle 8, though I've heard in other web discussions that Sarah would make a more appealing villain. But I'm not interested right now in arguing which of the two contestants will be the cycle's villain; instead, I realized how exploitative reality tv can be when it makes villains out of people with obvious self-worth issues.

In both cases, Sarah and Renee have considerably low self-confidence. Sarah keeps telling people how much more she knows about fashion and modeling and photography -- and some of the time, she's right -- but then in the midst of her boasting, she'll kick off a heel during a rehearsal catwalk. Sarah, then, falls into the type of the know-it-all who just wants to impress others. Renee, on the other hand, has an outward swagger, especially when she put down Jaslene in the last episode; but when she performs below the level at which she expects to perform, or she doesn't get her way just right, she'll blame everything but herself (e.g. she said that Jaslene had an easier look to fierce up). Take your pick -- if you dislike know-it-alls (even if they have cute pixie cuts!), get ready to hate on Sarah. If you dislike people who don't own up to their shortcomings and in the face of failure doggedly cling to their inflated, illusory self-image, there's Renee. This cycle, we certainly don't have a shortage of people to hate on.

But then you'd be taking pleasure in someone's insecurities, which is one (unsettling) aspect of reality schadenfreude. In fact, a lot of reality villains, memorable or not, can be categorized as villains because of their low self-esteem. All-time villains like Jade or Robin have hard, aloof exteriors, but when Tyra confronted them, they both made with the penitent waterworks. On the other end of the spectrum is someone like Melrose, whose worst faults were being distant and stuck up (which, honestly, are traits of a certain kind of professionalism). Yet, she had to endure childish name-calling and open loathing literally a few feet behind her back, and she was still painted as her cycle's bad guy. Melrose is a slightly different matter than Jade or Robin, I'll admit, but the bottom line is that we're delighting in the failings of pitiable girls. (ANTM isn't the only show guilty of trotting out drama-prone individuals for the benefit of viewer yuks -- see The Amazing Race bringing Charla and Mirna back for the all-stars edition.)

Reality tv viewers are willing to dislike contestants who might in real life otherwise elicit pity -- nothing new in that respect -- but they also seem to buy into the fictions presented onscreen when it comes to characterizations, even though they're aware of how reality tv producers edit with extreme prejudice. Another way to look at this is that viewers are generally mean, and they tend not to tolerate ignoble or even naive behavior (another TAR see also: David and Mary Kentucky).

Indie rating: Mira Calix - "Picture 4 You"

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 8) - 8x01 "The Girl Who Won't Stop Talking"

Last season, as I've said several times before, was disastrous because the girls weren't inspiring models and because, after CariDee and Melrose, they had zero personality. This being ANTM, the girls of Cycle 8 probably don't know how to model either, but at least we're not lacking for personality. (Especially since, you know, Cycle 8 has two plus-size girls, hurr hurr!)

More seriously, ANTM already has a passel of severe self-esteem issues that promise to make Cycle 8 infinitely more rewarding than Cycle 7. Sarah who has the knowledge, experience, and albino street urchin/waif/elf look going for her...



... yet her insecurity compels her to constantly boast about her accomplishments to so that others can validate her. Also:



Then there's Jael who seems to dread success so much because she's afraid that she won't be a lovable loser anymore. Another thing that irked me about Jael -- and really, it's about Jael, as it has little to do directly with her -- is her race. Jael looks like a slutty, punked out Gwyneth Paltrow...



... her father is a German Jew, and her mother is black ("African-American" were Jael's exact words).



(Which prompts Ms. J to say, "That is some strong DNA on your daddy's side," though we'll ignore the eugenic undertones of his statement.) Accordingly, Tyra identifies Jael as "half-black," an identification which brings up really bothersome ideas about
racial purity. Simply looking at the above picture, the complexion of Jael's mom is rather light, which suggests that -- if we're go by archaic notions of "blood" vis-a-vis race -- mom has a fair amount of white "blood" in her ancestry. And Jael is still half-black? Is white blood that weak that a drop of black and you don't go back?

Anyway, you get the picture with the insecure girls, which also includes Renee.

Since this post is so late, I'll just say that Kathleen is the Mirror Universe Bre (minus the Mirror Universe goatee): they're both black girls from Noo Yawk with big hair, but Kathleen was preoccupied with being everyone's best friend.

Also, Gia from Veronica Mars season 2 was at the Goodwill fashion show.



Indie rating: Smoosh - "About the Picture"