If anyone expects an apology from Tyra Banks in Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,<\/em> they will surely be disappointed. The new Netflix docuseries chronicles the evolution of America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/em>\u2014and the toxic messaging about beauty it pushed upon audiences\u2014featuring interviews with some of its judges and contestants, executive producer Ken Mok, and host-slash-creator Tyra Banks. To a millennial viewer such as myself, watching it felt like a sort of seance\u2014a call into the void, making contact with the meltdown voyeurism, diet culture, and reality TV ghosts of the early aughts.<\/p>\n The reality competition series ran for 24 seasons (or \u201ccycles,\u201d as they\u2019re called) between 2003 and 2018. Contestants vied for the title, a cash prize, and a loosely defined modeling contract. Each week, they endured challenges\u2014mostly themed photo shoots\u2014that have since been lampooned across social media for their cultural insensitivity, all-around weirdness, and lack of relevance to modeling. (Cycle four contestant Keenyah Hill shares in the docuseries that she couldn\u2019t use her photos from the show in her modeling portfolio because they were so thematically nuts.)<\/p>\n Every cycle, beauty makeovers were the highlight\u2014and the biggest point of cognitive dissonance. Banks says in the docuseries, as she has many times in the past, that she made a point of casting models whom the fashion industry writ large excluded at the time\u2014Black models, brown models, queer models, curvier models\u2026 only to bind them in the same impossible beauty standards she claimed to denounce. Weaves, extensions, and drastic haircuts or color changes were ostensibly forced upon contestants for the sake of making them more fashion-forward. Cycle six\u2019s Joanie Dodds and Danielle Evans were vaguely threatened with elimination unless they agreed to permanent, painful dental work. (Dodds was asked to straighten her smile, which required surgically removing several teeth and replacing them with implants; Evans was asked to have the gap between her two front teeth surgically closed because it wasn\u2019t \u201cmarketable,\u201d which she vocally opposed on camera.)<\/p>\n Criticisms about contestants\u2019 looks from Banks and her judges ran the gamut in their cruelty. And when receiving feedback on their performance in challenges from week to week, panel critiques frequently strayed from modeling prowess to aesthetics. Contestants were measured and weighed on camera at times and were often interrogated about their eating habits in front of the entire cast and crew. In cycle one, Banks openly criticized 18-year-old contestant Giselle Samson for having a \u201cwide ass.\u201d In the docuseries, cycle 18 contestant Ebonee Davis describes the joy she felt being a Black woman on a television show created by a Black woman\u2014and how that joy deflated when Banks told her the judges thought she looked \u201cashy.\u201d<\/p>\n Naturally, these instances didn\u2019t age well and have long drawn post-mortem criticisms. Reality Check<\/em> makes a point to mention ad nauseam that much of the public backlash toward America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/em> took hold following the pandemic, when a majority of people were blowing through their to-watch queue, desperately seeking fresh viewing fodder. A \u201c2020 lens\u201d is how members of the cast describe this perceived shift in the public reaction in the docuseries. The general sentiment is that things were \u201cdifferent\u201d when the show originally aired\u2014back when reality TV was built on a foundation of shock, awe, and scrutinizing women\u2019s bodies. (Anyone else remember The Swan<\/em> and Extreme Makeover<\/em>? Yikes!) There is a kernel of truth there, but it does not absolve Banks, Mok, or anyone else involved in the show\u2019s production of their behavior.<\/p>\n I watched America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/em> in that fabled \u201cdifferent\u201d time, when I was a tween-going-on-teen. I remember judges calling contestants around a size six \u201cplus-size\u201d and criticizing them for being too big. I remember contestants who were a size four being told to lose weight\u2014the how<\/em> didn\u2019t matter. In Reality Check<\/em>, Whitney Thompson (cycle 10) and Bre Scullark (cycle five) recall the proliferation of eating disorders on set, where some contestants skipped meals ahead of photo shoots and challenges. The docuseries also features a brief archival clip of Banks and judge Jay Manuel discussing an unnamed contestant he said \u201cisn\u2019t plus-size and isn\u2019t model-size\u201d; Banks responded that the model should gain weight to become \u201cplus size.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Thompson, the show\u2019s first \u201cplus-size\u201d winner (she was a size six at the time), said that when she signed to Elite Model Management after the series, a contingency of her victory, the agency didn\u2019t even have a plus division. The way models\u2019 weight was treated on ANTM<\/em> communicated to my younger self: Be skinny or be fat; pick a side\u2014but if you fall into \u201cfat\u201d territory, beware the consequences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I have struggled with disordered eating my entire life. Being 13 years old and obsessed with America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/em> in tandem with the ever-pervasive diet and tabloid culture of the 2000s absolutely contributed to my shaky body image. With a frontal lobe about as firm as overnight oats, I, like many others my age, fell victim to the ideals presented in the docuseries: It\u2019s just how things are. My friends and I entered middle school and traded juice boxes and multiplication tables for diet soda and calorie counting. We didn\u2019t understand at the time how the media we consumed, not our diets, was causing our anguish.<\/p>\n But in Reality Check,<\/em> Banks\u2014who has been interviewed about the negative impact of her show multiple times\u2014smizes unflinchingly into the camera lens as she utters every adage and platitude instead of, “Hey, I’m sorry for fucking up a generation of young people\u2014particularly young women.” (For what it\u2019s worth, Banks has said in past interviews that she \u201cagreed\u201d with criticisms for \u201coff choices,\u201d but it was still predicated on the \u201cit was a different time\u201d spiel.)<\/p>\n But the sins against contestants\u2014and society writ large, for that matter\u2014extend beyond distorted conversations about beauty. The highlight reel of what-the-absolute-hell moments on America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/em> also include the now-infamous race-swap photo shoot, a photo shoot where the models pose as unhoused people, and a spine-chilling photo shoot where the models (one of whom was the daughter of a gun-violence survivor) pose as murder victims. The models Banks vied to empower so audaciously became her dolls for makeovers and playing pretend. It stripped contestants of their bodily autonomy\u2014if they could not protest a bob, they did not have a leg to stand on when the series took unpredictably dark turns.<\/p>\n As many fans vividly remember, the production filmed and aired cycle two contestant Shandi Sullivan\u2019s intoxicated encounter with a man in Milan, which she describes in the docuseries as sexual assault. \u201cIt\u2019s a little hard for me to talk about production because that\u2019s not my territory,\u201d Banks says when asked why production did not intervene to protect a clearly intoxicated Sullivan, blaming Mok and other members of the team. (Writer’s note: Banks also held an executive producer title on the show; the docuseries does not interrogate exactly how production wouldn\u2019t have been her \u201cterritory\u201d in this instance.)<\/p>\n In one instance, she does apologize\u2014on camera, not face-to-face\u2014to cycle four contestant Keenyah Hill, who faced unwanted sexual advances from a male model on the set of a photo shoot. These instances happened on camera and in front of the entire production crew, but when Hill stopped the shoot to share her distress, she was dismissed, and later told she needed to take more control. Banks\u2019s response in hindsight: \u201cNone of us knew\u2026 but she needed more [protection],\u201d Banks says of Hill\u2019s experience. \u201cBoo-boo, I am so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n And that\u2019s ultimately how Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model<\/em> unfolds. Banks acts as though she parted the Red Sea to make her vanity project come to fruition\u2014all to change the modeling industry by way of reality television\u2014and mostly refuses to acknowledge the gravity of her choices. But Banks believes what she believes: that her work was groundbreaking. “Twenty-four cycles of changing the world,\u201d she said last year while accepting an award from Essence<\/em>.<\/p>\n Watching Reality Check<\/em>, I could only surmise that Banks wasn\u2019t just drinking her own Kool-Aid; she had manufactured an ayahuasca-like substance from contestants\u2019 distress that transported her from this reality we\u2019re all living in. She uses words like \u201caccountability\u201d as a shield, and her loose apologies feel hollow and flippant to me as a result.<\/p>\n But who is<\/em> to blame for America’s Next Top Model<\/em> going off the rails? The networks, Banks, or executive producers? For viewers, it’s hard to navigate the finger-pointing. The buck is passed around as liberally as hair wefts are in the show\u2019s makeover episodes. From judges to Banks. From Banks to Mok. From Mok to network executives. For God\u2019s sake, Banks blames the viewers at one point, saying, \u201cYou guys were demanding it. And so we kept pushing\u2026 more, and more, and more.\u201d<\/p>\n In the many dropped bombs in this docuseries, one explosion still rings in my ears: Banks\u2019s out-of-nowhere revelation that cycle 25 is coming. For all the discussion about accountability and how America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/em> was a sign of the times, I\u2019m not confident Banks and her peers can be trusted with a reboot, especially now with diet culture and body shaming resurgent, and cosmetic procedures of every sort multiplying; beauty standards remain as rigid as ever.<\/p>\n At one point in the docuseries, Banks says, \u201cHindsight is 20\/20 for all of us. It just so happens that a lot of the things that are 20\/20 for me happened in front of the world.\u201d If you ask me, it\u2019s time she gets glasses.<\/p>\n More from the beauty news and culture desk:<\/strong><\/p>\n Now, watch Dove Cameron’s 10-minute beauty routine:<\/strong><\/p>\n Follow<\/em> Allure on<\/em>\u00a0Instagram<\/em>and<\/em>\u00a0TikTok, or<\/em>\u00a0subscribe to our newsletter<\/em>to stay up to date on all things beauty.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.allure.com\/story\/tyra-banks-americas-next-top-model-documentary-apology”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/media.allure.com\/photos\/698f3a6b0cb5bb527ecd3ac5\/16:9\/w_1280,c_limit\/tyra%20banks%20americas%20next%20top%20model%20documentary.jpg”] If anyone expects an apology from Tyra Banks in Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, they will surely be disappointed. The new Netflix docuseries chronicles the evolution of America\u2019s Next Top Model\u2014and the toxic messaging about beauty it pushed upon audiences\u2014featuring interviews with some of its judges and contestants, executive producer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[52,226],"class_list":["post-1783590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-allure-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1783590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1783590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1783590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1783590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Reality](\"https:\/\/media.allure.com\/photos\/69933a5b80869158b50f16f2\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/reality%2520check%2520americas%2520next%2520top%2520model%2520documentary.jpg\")
<\/span><\/div>\n![\"americas](\"https:\/\/media.allure.com\/photos\/69933a7091e57e665566443f\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/americas%2520next%2520top%2520model%2520stage.jpg\")
<\/span><\/div>\n\n