On Tuesday night’s season premiere of America’s Next Top Model, executive producer Tyra Banks and her panel of judges drew a smutty line in the dirt when they eliminated the only one of twelve contestants unwilling to pose nude for the reality show’s first photo shoot. In a decision that was borderline religious discrimination, wife and mother Anna was sent back to her Georgia home by the judges for refusing to pose clothed only in body paint and jewels for a colored contact lens ad. The connection between colored contact lenses and nudity was never explained by the panel of fashion experts who criticized Anna for “not knowing her argument” for her decision.
The premise of UPN’s reality series is to find an as yet undiscovered beauty who has what it takes to become America’s next top model. The uniqueness of the show is that the winner is actually given a modeling contract with IMG and has the opportunity to make a career for herself based on the outcome of a reality series - something most reality shows cannot claim. All the more odd then that a career based program would take such a risk to eliminate someone based on religion. Supermodel judge Janice Dickenson accused Anna of basing her decision to not pose solely on “her religion”. The unfortunate message that the UPN series has sent potential models is one of intolerance and discrimination.
The show began as most reality shows do, with twenty minutes worth of introductions. And although they have done an admirable job of gathering a nice variety of models, at this stage certain groupings can already be made. The blondes, the wall flowers, the women of color, and the bitches. Tyra Banks claims to have hand selected each one of these girls although not one of them seems to have ever met her before the moment when they caught up with her aboard the USS Intrepid - site of their first runway fashion show. Viewers are left to assume that contestants submitted photos to be on the show, though one has a hard time picturing Shandi, a Walgreens employee from Missouri ever posing for a fashion shot prior to the first day of filming.
Right away, some of the girls stood out as naturals. April, a Fortune 500 employee from Florida, Yoanna, also from Florida who lost fifty pounds to be considered for a modeling career, and Bethany, a Texas beauty are three to watch for being top contenders.
Following the fashion show, the girls all settle in to their penthouse home for the remainder of the series, where talk centered around sleeping arrangements and how difficult Camille from New York was going to be.
“Tyra Mail” arrived informing the girls that they would be expected to be ready to leave for the first photo shoot at 6am. April from Florida went out of her way to say that she would make sure all the girls were up in time to get ready for the morning activities. No surprise that when eleven of the girls were piling into cabs the following morning, one of the girls was “just noticed missing.” Viewers did not see the obviously missing scenes of the girls trying to wake Washington’s Jenascia, or at least commenting on her oversleeping. (I suspect that more accurately they were quietly hoping to get rid of the competition by letting her doze the photo shoot away.) Once at the photo shoot, the girls pulled innocent faces about bitchy, sleepy Jenascia in “Christmas Story” glory. (Flick who?) The photography crew put in a wake up call to her and some three hours later she shows up, furious with her conniving roommates and ready to get painted.
It was then that Anna made her heartfelt, fateful decision to not allow a male model or anyone to “get down there. That’s for my husband,” she decried as she was truly shocked that they would be asked to pose nude. This is a primetime TV show, after all. The photo shoot commenced without Anna who was asked to leave by photographer/judge Nigel Barker, because she was apparently “in the way.”
The only thing left for the season premiere was the voting of the judges who included Tyra, Nigel, Janice, and Eric Nicholson, Editor of Jane magazine. Unfortunately, rather than judging the girls on their modeling session, or their potential as was claimed, they quickly singled out Jenascia for being late and Anna for being a Christian with principles. The standards of the show were slathered out as pretty Anna was told to leave and Jenascia was told she would still be considered as a possible winner.
Now I have to say, being in the theatre and film world, I do not know of another career in the entertainment industry that does not have very strict nudity clauses. Our unions protect us from unnecessary exploitation and exposure. Not one top actress is ever forced to do a nude scene in a movie unless they choose to do it for artistic reasons of their own. Shame on Tyra and UPN for asking it of a naive, modeling novice. Nigel even admitted that in a real photo shoot, models would be warned well in advance if nudity was required. In addition, in an industry like modeling where pretty faces are a dime a dozen, what you're like to work with very often is as important, if not more than, your talent. Besides, modeling is a verb as well as a noun. It implies that you're modeling some-thing other than your body. And I don't know anyone who rewards tardiness over principles.
Eleven girls will advance to next weeks episode where the challenge will be - what? Who will pose nude with a power tool? Let’s hope for the sake of the contestants that the challenges start to move up in class, not down.
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