My Thoughts - America's Next Top Model, Seasons 1-3 (2003-2004)
After getting caught up with Project Runway, my wife and youngest daughter have started watching re-runs of the show America's Next Top Model, which they found on Disney Plus.
My wife and I have seen some of the seasons from the series before so, as they plowed through the first three, there weren't any surprises about who would win. However, after receiving the refresher, here are some of my thoughts from those first three seasons.
The show does a good job exposing the dark side of professional modeling. My wife and I are already familiar with some of it because she models part time, but the show takes it to an extreme. This includes the impossible body standards, with 25-year-olds being considered too old, 138 pounds being considered too fat and the eating disorders that sometimes come with it. However, I am also going to include photoshoots that require nudity, intimate situations with male models, working with exotic animals, etc. that they are forced to do even if they aren't comfortable with it. It may be their job but no still means no.
This is especially true of the plus-sized models. On one hand, I'll applaud the show for including at least one in these early seasons. However, there was never a time I believed that inclusion would result in a plus-sized winner because the show went out of its way to point out the disadvantages that contestant faced. Frankly, there were times when it felt as though the show was trying to say, "don't bother being a model if you're not super skinny."
The models should have had a mentor. I'm thinking someone similar to Project Runway's Tim Gunn, who is there to offer advice, be a confidant when there's an issue with another contestant and, most importantly, not someone who will be judging them later. The women were getting a crash course into the world of modeling but, at least on camera, they rarely were given advice outside of what they were doing wrong and could explain why some of the winners struggled after the show was over.
And, no, host Tyra Banks wasn't one. Look, I love Tyra, but I think there were just too many times when she wasn't a good role model. How do I put this, she liked to toot her own horn and sometimes that helped the models while other times, it came off as demeaning - "I managed to do this, why can't you?"
Janice Dickinson, however, might have been a good one. OK, I'll be the first to admit she was insufferable as a judge. However, her no-nonsense approach and years of experience would have given the models someone who could help with their runway walk, help them show emotions in photos, etc. while commanding respect. It would have been a better role for her.
Holy crap, did this show have an excessive travel budget or what? This started with auditions in Los Angeles only to fly the contestants to New York but also included one season where the contestants were flown from LA to New York and then immediately boarded another plane to Jamaica for what was basically an overnight trip before sending the models to Tokyo later in the season. Someone was racking up airline rewards.
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