Thursday, September 21, 2006
All nuded up
I will admit that I was pretty excited for last night's premiere of America's Next Top Model, one of the few remaining reality-TV threads to which I am still clinging. But after 10 minutes it became pretty clear: That thread is quickly unraveling. After seven seasons of this show (yeah, I can't believe it's been that many, either), everything, from Tyra's constant and somehow condescending overacting to Jay Manuel's omnipresent orangeness, is starting to get a little predictable. It doesn't help that they cast the exact same types of girls every season. There's the bubbly blonde who is sometimes revealed to have an "edge" but is mostly deemed too commercial. The girl with the pixie haircut and the baby face who may or may not be a lesbian. The girl whom everyone thinks is secretly a man. The black bitch. (Tyra's phrase, not mine. But seriously, if you were calling yourself on casting this type back in the third season, why have you not stopped doing it?) The girl of varying Asian descent who is convinced she's not pretty because of her heritage. The "alternative" girl who is later revealed to have no personality. And so on.
The problem with casting the same personality types every season is that you get the same situations every season, too. Someone freaks out over her makeover. Someone sabotages someone else's stuff. Someone cries about never feeling beautiful, living in her sister's shadow, etc. And so on. Last night, we had that oh-so-classic scenario, the Christian girl who freaks out about having to pose nude.
Let me just say first of all that I have no beef with people having morals. I think morals are generally a good thing to have. I'd like to think I've got a few myself. But this scenario always bugs the crap out of me for a few reasons, which I have listed here in no particular order:
1. I've never really gotten the connection between nudity and religion. I mean, it's not as if God created the human race and then furnished them with a complete wardrobe from Prada. Adam and Eve ran around naked! Why can't the rest of us? (This is akin to my "Hey, Jesus drank wine!" argument in favor of alcohol consumption, as well as the oft-used childhood justification of "Ass and hell can't be bad words because they're in the Bible.") Anyway, I guess you could make the argument that not posing nude falls under the whole "body as temple" thing, which just seems to cover all manner of really fun and interesting sins. Although if you're going for that blanket statement, wouldn't all modeling kind of be considered objectification of your body? Which brings me to my next point...
2. It's not like you didn't know what you were getting into here. This show has been on for seven seasons, with, as we've already established, very little variation of certain plot points. It's pretty much guaranteed that if you go on the show, you're going to be asked to take off your clothes and strike a pose, and if you refuse to do so, you're going to be kicked off. So why are you even coming on the show in the first place, if you know you're going to be morally opposed to doing something that's required of you? Are you hoping you'll be the one Christian girl to break through the barrier, whom Tyra will grant clemency for sticking up for her beliefs? In seven seasons, this hasn't happened once. It's not gonna happen for you, either.
3. It's not even real nudity! For one thing, all your naughty bits are completely covered up, either by the UPN (oops, The CW!) censors, or by you in the picture. So really, the only people who are actually seeing you naked are the photographer, the video crew and your fellow models. It's like the gym locker room. (Only without the photographer and video crew, I would hope.) Are you morally opposed to locker rooms? In addition, while there's a very fine line between tasteful nudity and objectifying nudity, I think it's safe to say that ANTM shoots fall on the former side of that line. I mean, as an aspiring model, you probably shouldn't drop trou for anyone who promises you a contract, but when the person in question is Tyra Banks, I think you can assume it's legit.
If this situation crops up every season, why is it incensing me so now? Well, I think it was the particular situation of this year's token Christian model, in which she made a huge freaking deal about not doing the nude shoot, then allowed herself to be talked into it, but only for two frames, and instead of removing the towel her damn self, she made someone else do it for her once she was already seated on the platform. And then after it was all over, she said something to the effect of, "I'm just really glad I stuck to my morals." Um, WTF? I realize it's highly possible that the producers nabbed that particular quote before she decided to do the nude shoot and just tacked it on afterward to make her look like an idiot, but seriously. If "Thou shalt not do nude modeling" isn't in the Bible, then I'm pretty sure "Thou shalt only do nude modeling if you take just two frames, and have someone else remove your towel for you, and your ass crack is only part of you that has to be blurred by the censors" isn't, either. I mean, even though they do say "ass" in the Bible, it's not really in that context.
I will admit that I was pretty excited for last night's premiere of America's Next Top Model, one of the few remaining reality-TV threads to which I am still clinging. But after 10 minutes it became pretty clear: That thread is quickly unraveling. After seven seasons of this show (yeah, I can't believe it's been that many, either), everything, from Tyra's constant and somehow condescending overacting to Jay Manuel's omnipresent orangeness, is starting to get a little predictable. It doesn't help that they cast the exact same types of girls every season. There's the bubbly blonde who is sometimes revealed to have an "edge" but is mostly deemed too commercial. The girl with the pixie haircut and the baby face who may or may not be a lesbian. The girl whom everyone thinks is secretly a man. The black bitch. (Tyra's phrase, not mine. But seriously, if you were calling yourself on casting this type back in the third season, why have you not stopped doing it?) The girl of varying Asian descent who is convinced she's not pretty because of her heritage. The "alternative" girl who is later revealed to have no personality. And so on.
The problem with casting the same personality types every season is that you get the same situations every season, too. Someone freaks out over her makeover. Someone sabotages someone else's stuff. Someone cries about never feeling beautiful, living in her sister's shadow, etc. And so on. Last night, we had that oh-so-classic scenario, the Christian girl who freaks out about having to pose nude.
Let me just say first of all that I have no beef with people having morals. I think morals are generally a good thing to have. I'd like to think I've got a few myself. But this scenario always bugs the crap out of me for a few reasons, which I have listed here in no particular order:
1. I've never really gotten the connection between nudity and religion. I mean, it's not as if God created the human race and then furnished them with a complete wardrobe from Prada. Adam and Eve ran around naked! Why can't the rest of us? (This is akin to my "Hey, Jesus drank wine!" argument in favor of alcohol consumption, as well as the oft-used childhood justification of "Ass and hell can't be bad words because they're in the Bible.") Anyway, I guess you could make the argument that not posing nude falls under the whole "body as temple" thing, which just seems to cover all manner of really fun and interesting sins. Although if you're going for that blanket statement, wouldn't all modeling kind of be considered objectification of your body? Which brings me to my next point...
2. It's not like you didn't know what you were getting into here. This show has been on for seven seasons, with, as we've already established, very little variation of certain plot points. It's pretty much guaranteed that if you go on the show, you're going to be asked to take off your clothes and strike a pose, and if you refuse to do so, you're going to be kicked off. So why are you even coming on the show in the first place, if you know you're going to be morally opposed to doing something that's required of you? Are you hoping you'll be the one Christian girl to break through the barrier, whom Tyra will grant clemency for sticking up for her beliefs? In seven seasons, this hasn't happened once. It's not gonna happen for you, either.
3. It's not even real nudity! For one thing, all your naughty bits are completely covered up, either by the UPN (oops, The CW!) censors, or by you in the picture. So really, the only people who are actually seeing you naked are the photographer, the video crew and your fellow models. It's like the gym locker room. (Only without the photographer and video crew, I would hope.) Are you morally opposed to locker rooms? In addition, while there's a very fine line between tasteful nudity and objectifying nudity, I think it's safe to say that ANTM shoots fall on the former side of that line. I mean, as an aspiring model, you probably shouldn't drop trou for anyone who promises you a contract, but when the person in question is Tyra Banks, I think you can assume it's legit.
If this situation crops up every season, why is it incensing me so now? Well, I think it was the particular situation of this year's token Christian model, in which she made a huge freaking deal about not doing the nude shoot, then allowed herself to be talked into it, but only for two frames, and instead of removing the towel her damn self, she made someone else do it for her once she was already seated on the platform. And then after it was all over, she said something to the effect of, "I'm just really glad I stuck to my morals." Um, WTF? I realize it's highly possible that the producers nabbed that particular quote before she decided to do the nude shoot and just tacked it on afterward to make her look like an idiot, but seriously. If "Thou shalt not do nude modeling" isn't in the Bible, then I'm pretty sure "Thou shalt only do nude modeling if you take just two frames, and have someone else remove your towel for you, and your ass crack is only part of you that has to be blurred by the censors" isn't, either. I mean, even though they do say "ass" in the Bible, it's not really in that context.
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