This week:
- A “come to Jesus” with Tyra Banks.
- What is the deal with MAGA and Kid Rock?
- Crying over the Olympics…still.
- The funniest Olympics video.
- Sorry to this man…
We Need to Talk About Top Model
There was a time when I watched America’s Next Top Model like it was some religious obligation.
Were there new episodes airing on UPN? I was there for mass, ready for worship. Was VH1 airing one of its 15-hour-long marathons of past seasons? Well, apparently I was going to be on a spiritual retreat for the weekend. Cancel all my plans; nothing would come between me and the Patron Saint of Bats--ttery, Tyra Banks.
When you’re so deep into a devotion, the way so many of us were with America’s Next Top Model when it premiered in 2003 and for so many of the 24 (!) seasons that followed, you can’t, as the saying goes, see the forest through the trees.
In this case, the trees were dozens of very tall, very beautiful girls, placing their hopes, dreams, and livelihoods on the promise that, if they survived the trauma gauntlet of Y2K-era reality TV, they could become rich, famous supermodels. And the forest? Well, that would be how problematic, irresponsible, and, far too often, emotionally violent this show we voraciously consumed was. But who thinks of complicity when you’re having so much fun being lost in the woods?
The “come to Jesus,” so to speak, about America’s Next Top Model has been brewing for years, and heightened during the pandemic, when binging the hundreds of episodes of the series became a popular way to pass time. Elements of the show that may have been excused or even encouraged as “of the time” when it aired played horrifically—disturbing, even—against the more sensitive and sophisticated backdrop of today’s culture.
But Top Model Reign of Terror is really making headlines now that Netflix is streaming the new three-part docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.
With the involvement of Banks; executive producer Ken Mock; judges Nigel Barker, J. Alexander, and Jay Manuel; as well as several contestants, it surveys the show’s massive success, the controversies that energized that popularity, and the cultural imprint it left—all, explaining why she would participate in a series that frames her in such a terrible light, in the pursuit of Banks announcing the return of the show for a 25th season.
Reality Check is riveting, if often unsatisfying, television.
It’s essentially a BuzzFeed list of the show’s scandals in documentary form. As the series scrolls through each one, the compounded shock of what Top Model actually aired on television—and we giddily cheered on from our couches—leaves you feeling like you’ve been hit by a wrecking ball of shame.
The series revisits shocking photo shoots that either are seared in your mind forever, or you have completely blocked out, depending on your own personal trauma response: the time the contestants were made to pose as homeless people; when they switched ethnicities, with several models in blackface; when they were made to be victims of gruesome violence, “but make it high fashion.”
During that period in the early 2000s, reality TV competitions were as much about ritual humiliation as about discovering talent. How many snakes can we put on this person who is deathly afraid of them? What is the most disgusting thing we can make them eat? How big a platform can we give this person who can’t carry a tune to sing on, while we all point and laugh?
Top Model was a weekly masterclass in mining its young female contestants’ insecurities and triggers for an almost operatic aria of embarrassment and emotional meltdowns. And we, the fans? Oh, we lived for it. That’s the thing to grapple with now, and what is so disappointing about the documentary series.
The best parts of Reality Check come when past contestants give admirable, vulnerable testimony to the ways in which Top Model and Banks were ill-equipped to talk about race, weight, eating disorders, and sexuality. There are times when the judges are shown a clip and cringe or say, “Yeah, that was rough,” but Banks dodges accountability like she’s Keanu Reeves in that Matrix scene doing a backbend while bullets fly.
It’s kind of a bummer to watch, honestly. And how are we supposed to feel about our role as pop-culture consumers who ate that sh-t up when it was airing? Not a clue that we were, to borrow from one of Top Model’s most famous moments, “rooting for” such harmful content. It was bloodsport, and we were its red-stained fans.
So what kind of show will Top Model be when it returns for Season 25 in today’s climate? Because, frankly, that climate is starting to look not so different than the one the show debuted in.
Fear Factor has returned. American Idol came back from the dead, as eager to mortify delusioned auditioners as ever. Even a show like The Traitors, largely considered the best reality TV show, teeters on the edge of being essentially a high-brow (read: European) Fear Factor.
What will we be “rooting for” next?
Please Remove This Man From the News Cycle
Why is the MAGA crowd so obsessed with Kid Rock?
I am genuinely asking. It is baffling to me.
He performed at Donald Trump’s inauguration. He headlined the disastrous, racistly motivated Super Bowl Halftime Show for Turning Point USA. And now he’s in a video with RFK Jr., in which the two work out shirtless together to, according to a post on X, “deliver two simple messages to the American people: GET ACTIVE + EAT REAL FOOD.”
Am I so siloed in my little bubble that I’ve been unaware that Kid Rock is considered a bastion of male fitness? Is that shirtless body that I’ve seen over the last three decades, beer belly jiggling as he slogs across the stage, considered to be the peak physical form? Is there no one more relevant, more famous, or, for the sake of my eyes, more in shape that could have been recruited for such a video?
And more broadly, are these people really fans of his music? Listen, I was a massive fan…at age 12. “Bawitdaba” was real big in my middle school. Twenty-seven years ago.
I want to restrain myself from getting too snarky because I have a genuine curiosity about this. How did Kid Rock become the MAGA music mascot? Do people really like him? Do they love hearing his music at all these events? Does he get them excited about their political movement? What is the deal here? I’m all ears.
My Olympic Fever Is Spiking
At this point, I don’t even remember a time when I wasn’t obsessed with curling. (Although it was about 10 days ago, and I had barely even heard of the sport.)
The Olympics does something to a person. These athletes are all I think about for these two weeks. Then it’s like those scenes in the Men in Black movies, where they put that flash in your face, and your memory of the events and these people is immediately gone. But still, it’s a blast while it’s happening.
It was an exhilarating few days, watching Mikaela Shiffrin back on the gold medal podium with such a beast of a ski run, the U.S. women’s hockey team beat Canada, and Alysa Liu become such a superstar—skating to a Donna Summer song in a shimmering gold disco dress, as if I had been the creative director of the performance myself. That’s not to mention being entranced all week by Jordan Stolz and his fellow speedskaters’ prodigious derrieres.
It’s not even just the Americans. I was at a karaoke bar where the pairs’ figure skating final was on in a corner on mute, and after the Japanese team’s gold-medal skate, I looked up, and there was a handful of people who had also been watching—again, on mute, while someone was singing Taylor Swift off-key behind us—all of us misty-eyed.
I just love this stuff.
The Gold Medal for Comedy
It is not shade to any of his other projects or jobs, but I truly think the video of him going down an Olympic bobsled track and his ensuing interview about it is the funniest thing Colin Jost has ever done.
Opens in new windowEveryone Has a Limit
You can’t make me find out who a “Clavicular” is. I’m sorry. I refuse.
More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed
The truth about the Beatles reunion that never happened. Read more.
The Toy Story 5 trailer is here to cure our seasonal depression. Read more.
The man behind every celebrity interview that goes viral. Read more.
What to watch this week:
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert: The King on IMAX? We’re all shook up. (Now on IMAX)
How to Make a Killing: Sometimes you just want to see two hot movie stars in a fun movie. (Now in theaters)
The Last Thing He Told Me: In this house, we blindly support Jennifer Garner in all the she does. (Now on Apple TV+)
What to skip this week:
The Voice: Not to be a hater, but it’s been about 47 seasons, and all there is to show for it is Morgan Wallen—and he didn’t even win. (Mon. on NBC)
