America’s Next Low Model

So on every “cycle” of the veteran reality series America’s Next Top Model, we are treated to a thematic introduction undoubtedly masterminded by the Booze Tube’s favorite borderline psychotic, Tyra Banks.  So on “Le Cycle 13″ (as reads the placard in the hotel lobby the semi-finalists find themselves in) I guess the theme is French leftist revolution.  Get your berets ready, and practice holding your breath for the tear gas ladies; you’re about to change EVERYTHING!

Or so Madame Tyra (who dons an…interesting French accent when introduced to the contestans) would have us believe.  Within the first five minutes we are told several times that Tyra is changing industry standards (um, fashion industry, any comment?) because all the girls on this season are under 5’7”.  Geez Tyra why don’t you just burn the September 2007 issue of Vogue in front of Versailles while you’re at it?  (Friends of the Booze Tube tell us the documentary The September Issue concerning Anna Wintour and company putting together the biggest fashion mag of all time is faaaaaaaaaabuloooooous, btw.)

Revolutionary illusisons aside, it is true, as Tyra has reminded us in the run-up to this cycle, that Kate Moss defied model conventions by being short and successful (she hasn’t provided other examples though), so it’s not impossible for one of these girls to find success.  But, as we all know, none of these girls who win rise to the top of the modeling industry (although their lives are almost uniformly changed for the better from the experience, even for those who don’t win), so I guess building up the possiblity of monumental success that likely will not come to fruition is not unusual.

But we learn from quickly-cut semi-finalist Raven the hard truth about this “earth-shattering” cycle of short model competition.  After not making it through the first cut, she simply states “I guess I’m going to go back to what I was doing, which was nothing.”  These girls don’t even have the usual confidence of most who are kicked off of ANTM, believing that while this may be a set-back, it’s not the end of the road.  These petites know they probably don’t have many more modeling opportunities aside from this since most will be shot down as soon as they walk through the door of a modeling agency.  This cycle could be, despite Tyra certainly thinking she’s changing lives and industries and the human race for the better, one of the sadder ones to watch as each girl is eliminated.  Don’t fret though…this Booze Tuber doesn’t have a sentimental enough heart to stop watching.  I will somehow live through the pain to give our dedicated readers all the model dirt, and of course all the Tyra insanity.

ETA:  I am way too amused by Tyra squealing “…weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeave” everytime she draws one on her Tyra-strator (some sort of Etch-a-Sketch/tv sports illustration thing-y only for makeovers!).  Really, though, who wouldn’t love to draw weaves on a photo as though passing a magic wand over a moldable clay of a person and magically giving them the weave of your choosing?  We’re approaching ‘mo heaven here people, it’s some serious business.