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I had a lot of fun writing last week's post-Top Model post, so I think I'm going to make it a thing, LOL. At the end of the cycle, it'll be nice to go back and see all the ways Tyra Banks has rotted my brain. ;-) But first, I must make a correction to last week's post where I said that Tyra had called herself the "Goddess of Fierceness." I was wrong; she's the Goddess of Fierce, which... is all sorts of wrong. So I guess if I'm going to be a goddess, I'm the Goddess of Mayonnaise-y. And I'll bet you anything Tyra is sooo jealous of my title, because I'm the goddess of something that's not even a real word. HA.
And now, twelve more reasons the human race is going down the tubes things you can learn from watching America's Next Top Model. Plus my thoughts on Tyra's Oprah appearance.
1). Got busted weave tracks? Don't throw them away! Your fake hair can, apparently, double as a stylish vest! How green!
2). Telling someone NOT to get drunk is an act of bitchiness. See, it's good that I watch this show, cause otherwise, I would have thought encouraging the other girls to get trashed, thus making them hot messes for the photoshoot in the morning, would be bitchy -- not telling them to be sober. Here, I thought I had my doctorate in being a bitch, but it seems I have so much to learn. D: I'll go call a pregnant woman fat to make up for the gaps in my education. ;-)
3). Giving models glow sticks and telling them that they are in charge of their own lighting ends in disaster. Imagine that! Models can't multi-task! Thank you, Tyra[nt], for destroying my illusions about the modeling world. I've learned sooo much.
4). One of Tyra's "tips" to becoming fierce: "Beauty is perfected when it is reflected." I... don't even know. Is she telling me that I should just run around with glow sticks in my hands, so I can hold them up to my face randomly? Nevermind, that's CLEARLY a yes, as Tyra is a big supporter of behavior that will get your ass dumped into an asylum.
5). Getting your hair cut and/or dyed is the worst thing EVER. Forget Darfur. Forget Iraq, Afghanistan, rape, murder, etc. Those tragedies PALE in comparison to the horror of having to cut your hair 5-6 inches. Forget that you're on television. Forget that your hair will grow back. Forget that you want to be a model, which will require to have your hair dyed and fried every which way. Forget that we are on CYCLE TWELVE PEOPLE and that this shit always gets back to Tyra and Tyra always bitches out the whiners. Cry, scream, shake, and complain. Then get the hair cut anyway, cry about it some more, and then decide which ANTM story arc you want to be a part of -- the girl who sucks it up or the girl who walks around crying with a do-rag on her head saying that she can't be pretty without her hair. If you think anyone chooses the former, you need to watch more ANTM. ;-)
6). Coincidentally, twelve cycles, and Tyra STILL doesn't know how to bleach hair. Apparently, the temptation to give everyone white hair or hair the color of Sleeping Beauty's tresses is just too hard to resist. To be fair, though, a makeover show just isn't all that fun if they don't fuck it up every once in a while. :D And hey, at least we're past that whole pesky oops-I-accidentally-burned-you-with-the-bleach-and-gave-you-a-nasty-infection thing.
7). No makeover is complete without Tyra playing dress up. Apparently. The last two cycles, she's been a fairy godmother of sorts, although I think the last round, she actually coined herself, "Glinda, the good witch of the fierce north." Yeah, I feel a little dirty just having typed that. Anyway, this time around, we broke away from the good witch motif and went with "spy." And I must say: FAIL. So first of all, Tyra's "spy get up" was... tasteful all wrong. She wore a tan trench coat and black cap and DIDN'T look like she'd raided Sofia Milos' wardrobe. On one level, I'm just confused. Like... Tyra, you're pretending to deliver a "spy message" via your Iphone to the Jays. You're pretending that makeovers is worthy of this huge production. You're on the CW for Christ's sake! Don't be all "understated." Especially when everybody knows spies wear skanky clothes and wigs ala Sydney Bristow and all the messages you send to your agents self-destruct! That Iphone did NOT blow up. So I'm calling foul on the whole thing! D: SHENANIGANS, MADAM. God, I never thought there would be a day where I would be telling Tyra she wasn't over-the-top enough.
8). There are still people who have not been enriched by the phrase, "Smile with your eyes." I mean CLEARLY this is someone EVERYONE should be familiar with. But how can you actually be a contestant on the damn show and not be familiar with Tyra's "dead eye vs. smiled eye" demo?! That's unacceptable, Nijah. You've got smile with your freakin' eyes, girl, or the picture is useless. DUH. Actually, I think the thing to really be learned here is NOT the fact that someone didn't know it but that both Tyra and I were totally like WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU. ... I've been infected. D: It's like in zombie movies. I've been bitten, and I'm slowly changing. There's no hope for me. I'm becoming one of the undead... but damn it, I will NOT have dead eyes when you take a picture of my zombiefied self. :DDD
9). Tyra is God. She actually said something like, "if I give you short hair, you should be thanking ME for your bone structure." Forget your parents. They weren't even really into the three minutes it took to conceive you. Thank TYRA for she is your Lord and Savior and one true creator. Come to think of it, I DO remember "Thou shalt not NOT smile with your eyes" being the eleventh and oft-forgotten commandment. Coincidence? I think not.
10). Nigel Barker can NOT be a pervert. o_O 11 cycles, and I was absolutely sure he could not go five minutes without hitting on some poor girl. Seriously, Nigel fulfills almost every sleezy photographer stereotype that you can think of. And it's nearly for that reason alone that I wasn't thrilled by the Lisa Edelstein photos he took that everyone else seemed to love. The photos seemed incredibly contrived, "arty" for the sake of "artiness," but I could have probably lived with that -- if not for the dialogue occurring in my brain. Ugh, seriously, I don't even want to know what he said to her. But this photoshoot, he was all quiet. Apparently, the girls were so shitty that the sexist part of his brain short-circuited. I didn't think that was possible, but now I'm trying to extrapolate from this, and I realize that it totally is possible; I mean, the DNC wouldn't have given Clinton so much shit if she couldn't run circles around them. Who knew all Hillary needed to do was hold glowsticks in an unflattering manner and the election would have been hers???
11). It's a compliment to tell someone they look like an alien. So the next time someone tells me, "Why, Katie, you look positively Martian," I'll know to say thank you. Thanks, ANTM!
12). We are still keeping up with the inner beauty bullshit. Paulina Porizkova actually said something like, "I respect that she wants to be a model and beautiful person with scars, but that beauty needs to come from the inside." WTF. NO. NO. NO. This isn't Extreme Home Makeover. This isn't "America's Next Top Inner Beauty." This is a show where we take pictures of "attractive people" and then judge them for it. Inner beauty, my ass. This is like every other talent competition, only in this case, we strip away the glossy "talent" veneer and label and let bitchy people like me judge all we want on superficial things. We're not curing AIDS here, Paulina. At this point, we're not even finding models. We're just making fun of delusional people in bathing suits and double-sided tape.
Speaking of delusional people.... oh, Oprah, I hate you so much. I can't deal with your "I know oh so much but I can still be duped by dumb asses" bull shit. I can't handle you being the Obama Kool-Aid supplier. I really can't deal with your "sure, I ate what I wanted and didn't exercise, but I can't believe I got fat again!" crap. Honestly, I don't hate that you gained the weight back, but Jesus fuck, own it at least. If I eat nothing but cookies and coffee for three days, I'm not asking myself why I am fatter/why I feel like shit. It's not exactly a mystery!
But then there's the whole Chris Brown/Rihanna shit, and Oprah's hypocrisy here is beyond irritating. First, she was heard actually defending Chris Brown and saying what a sweet young man he is. Look, I get "innocent until proven guilty." But then, if that's your concern, don't comment at all. Shut up and wait to see what happens. Don't defend the alleged abuser. And DEFINITELY don't backtrack then and act like you're the go-to expert on domestic violence and talk about "teachable moments" when you don't even know how to pronounce Rihanna's name. And don't talk about teachable moments if you're going to simply make this a "real men don't hit women" thing.
Honestly, WHY can't we just say DON'T HIT PEOPLE???? This incident wouldn't be any more forgivable if Chris Brown were a woman or if Rihanna was a man. I get that there's something particularly cowardly about attacking someone who isn't as strong as you are. But if we're really talking about domestic violence, then you can't make it about hitting a woman. Men are abused by their wives and husbands, and lesbians can be abused too. And I wouldn't doubt that, in those cases, the abuse is severely underreported. Those people need you to exploit their pain too, Oprah! Come on!
But you know... I don't care what your message is. When you ask Tyra Banks to sit on the discussion and TYRA comes across as the SMARTER person, you're fucked. I mean clearly, Tyra had her game face on yesterday; I could tell, because she actually took the time to blend in her wig line. But still, she came across as smarter, more informed, more sympathetic, and more self-righteous when self-righteousness was called for. WTF is wrong with you, Oprah!
I loved when Tyra told this teenager that self-defense is one thing; choking someone into near unconsciousness is another. I really loved Tyra's "oh give me a fucking break" face when someone mentioned that Chris and Rihanna were recording a duet about the trials and tribulations.
But I think my favorite part when Oprah was asking Tyra about interviewing Chris Brown. Tyra kept talking about how Chris had revealed to her that he'd witnessed abuse as a kid and, as a result, wet the bed a lot. Seriously, Tyra must have emphasized that Chris was a bed wetter like... 5 times. Now, Chris may have mentioned that to Tyra when he was on her show. But needless to say, the Oprah show has a much wider audience, and you kind of have to love Tyra for being bitch enough to announce that info and reiterate it to millions and millions of people.
See, y'all, we don't need to raise our fists when we have Tyra to publicly humiliate us and our loved ones. ;-)
And now, twelve more reasons the human race is going down the tubes things you can learn from watching America's Next Top Model. Plus my thoughts on Tyra's Oprah appearance.
1). Got busted weave tracks? Don't throw them away! Your fake hair can, apparently, double as a stylish vest! How green!
2). Telling someone NOT to get drunk is an act of bitchiness. See, it's good that I watch this show, cause otherwise, I would have thought encouraging the other girls to get trashed, thus making them hot messes for the photoshoot in the morning, would be bitchy -- not telling them to be sober. Here, I thought I had my doctorate in being a bitch, but it seems I have so much to learn. D: I'll go call a pregnant woman fat to make up for the gaps in my education. ;-)
3). Giving models glow sticks and telling them that they are in charge of their own lighting ends in disaster. Imagine that! Models can't multi-task! Thank you, Tyra[nt], for destroying my illusions about the modeling world. I've learned sooo much.
4). One of Tyra's "tips" to becoming fierce: "Beauty is perfected when it is reflected." I... don't even know. Is she telling me that I should just run around with glow sticks in my hands, so I can hold them up to my face randomly? Nevermind, that's CLEARLY a yes, as Tyra is a big supporter of behavior that will get your ass dumped into an asylum.
5). Getting your hair cut and/or dyed is the worst thing EVER. Forget Darfur. Forget Iraq, Afghanistan, rape, murder, etc. Those tragedies PALE in comparison to the horror of having to cut your hair 5-6 inches. Forget that you're on television. Forget that your hair will grow back. Forget that you want to be a model, which will require to have your hair dyed and fried every which way. Forget that we are on CYCLE TWELVE PEOPLE and that this shit always gets back to Tyra and Tyra always bitches out the whiners. Cry, scream, shake, and complain. Then get the hair cut anyway, cry about it some more, and then decide which ANTM story arc you want to be a part of -- the girl who sucks it up or the girl who walks around crying with a do-rag on her head saying that she can't be pretty without her hair. If you think anyone chooses the former, you need to watch more ANTM. ;-)
6). Coincidentally, twelve cycles, and Tyra STILL doesn't know how to bleach hair. Apparently, the temptation to give everyone white hair or hair the color of Sleeping Beauty's tresses is just too hard to resist. To be fair, though, a makeover show just isn't all that fun if they don't fuck it up every once in a while. :D And hey, at least we're past that whole pesky oops-I-accidentally-burned-you-with-the-bleach-and-gave-you-a-nasty-infection thing.
7). No makeover is complete without Tyra playing dress up. Apparently. The last two cycles, she's been a fairy godmother of sorts, although I think the last round, she actually coined herself, "Glinda, the good witch of the fierce north." Yeah, I feel a little dirty just having typed that. Anyway, this time around, we broke away from the good witch motif and went with "spy." And I must say: FAIL. So first of all, Tyra's "spy get up" was... tasteful all wrong. She wore a tan trench coat and black cap and DIDN'T look like she'd raided Sofia Milos' wardrobe. On one level, I'm just confused. Like... Tyra, you're pretending to deliver a "spy message" via your Iphone to the Jays. You're pretending that makeovers is worthy of this huge production. You're on the CW for Christ's sake! Don't be all "understated." Especially when everybody knows spies wear skanky clothes and wigs ala Sydney Bristow and all the messages you send to your agents self-destruct! That Iphone did NOT blow up. So I'm calling foul on the whole thing! D: SHENANIGANS, MADAM. God, I never thought there would be a day where I would be telling Tyra she wasn't over-the-top enough.
8). There are still people who have not been enriched by the phrase, "Smile with your eyes." I mean CLEARLY this is someone EVERYONE should be familiar with. But how can you actually be a contestant on the damn show and not be familiar with Tyra's "dead eye vs. smiled eye" demo?! That's unacceptable, Nijah. You've got smile with your freakin' eyes, girl, or the picture is useless. DUH. Actually, I think the thing to really be learned here is NOT the fact that someone didn't know it but that both Tyra and I were totally like WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU. ... I've been infected. D: It's like in zombie movies. I've been bitten, and I'm slowly changing. There's no hope for me. I'm becoming one of the undead... but damn it, I will NOT have dead eyes when you take a picture of my zombiefied self. :DDD
9). Tyra is God. She actually said something like, "if I give you short hair, you should be thanking ME for your bone structure." Forget your parents. They weren't even really into the three minutes it took to conceive you. Thank TYRA for she is your Lord and Savior and one true creator. Come to think of it, I DO remember "Thou shalt not NOT smile with your eyes" being the eleventh and oft-forgotten commandment. Coincidence? I think not.
10). Nigel Barker can NOT be a pervert. o_O 11 cycles, and I was absolutely sure he could not go five minutes without hitting on some poor girl. Seriously, Nigel fulfills almost every sleezy photographer stereotype that you can think of. And it's nearly for that reason alone that I wasn't thrilled by the Lisa Edelstein photos he took that everyone else seemed to love. The photos seemed incredibly contrived, "arty" for the sake of "artiness," but I could have probably lived with that -- if not for the dialogue occurring in my brain. Ugh, seriously, I don't even want to know what he said to her. But this photoshoot, he was all quiet. Apparently, the girls were so shitty that the sexist part of his brain short-circuited. I didn't think that was possible, but now I'm trying to extrapolate from this, and I realize that it totally is possible; I mean, the DNC wouldn't have given Clinton so much shit if she couldn't run circles around them. Who knew all Hillary needed to do was hold glowsticks in an unflattering manner and the election would have been hers???
11). It's a compliment to tell someone they look like an alien. So the next time someone tells me, "Why, Katie, you look positively Martian," I'll know to say thank you. Thanks, ANTM!
12). We are still keeping up with the inner beauty bullshit. Paulina Porizkova actually said something like, "I respect that she wants to be a model and beautiful person with scars, but that beauty needs to come from the inside." WTF. NO. NO. NO. This isn't Extreme Home Makeover. This isn't "America's Next Top Inner Beauty." This is a show where we take pictures of "attractive people" and then judge them for it. Inner beauty, my ass. This is like every other talent competition, only in this case, we strip away the glossy "talent" veneer and label and let bitchy people like me judge all we want on superficial things. We're not curing AIDS here, Paulina. At this point, we're not even finding models. We're just making fun of delusional people in bathing suits and double-sided tape.
Speaking of delusional people.... oh, Oprah, I hate you so much. I can't deal with your "I know oh so much but I can still be duped by dumb asses" bull shit. I can't handle you being the Obama Kool-Aid supplier. I really can't deal with your "sure, I ate what I wanted and didn't exercise, but I can't believe I got fat again!" crap. Honestly, I don't hate that you gained the weight back, but Jesus fuck, own it at least. If I eat nothing but cookies and coffee for three days, I'm not asking myself why I am fatter/why I feel like shit. It's not exactly a mystery!
But then there's the whole Chris Brown/Rihanna shit, and Oprah's hypocrisy here is beyond irritating. First, she was heard actually defending Chris Brown and saying what a sweet young man he is. Look, I get "innocent until proven guilty." But then, if that's your concern, don't comment at all. Shut up and wait to see what happens. Don't defend the alleged abuser. And DEFINITELY don't backtrack then and act like you're the go-to expert on domestic violence and talk about "teachable moments" when you don't even know how to pronounce Rihanna's name. And don't talk about teachable moments if you're going to simply make this a "real men don't hit women" thing.
Honestly, WHY can't we just say DON'T HIT PEOPLE???? This incident wouldn't be any more forgivable if Chris Brown were a woman or if Rihanna was a man. I get that there's something particularly cowardly about attacking someone who isn't as strong as you are. But if we're really talking about domestic violence, then you can't make it about hitting a woman. Men are abused by their wives and husbands, and lesbians can be abused too. And I wouldn't doubt that, in those cases, the abuse is severely underreported. Those people need you to exploit their pain too, Oprah! Come on!
But you know... I don't care what your message is. When you ask Tyra Banks to sit on the discussion and TYRA comes across as the SMARTER person, you're fucked. I mean clearly, Tyra had her game face on yesterday; I could tell, because she actually took the time to blend in her wig line. But still, she came across as smarter, more informed, more sympathetic, and more self-righteous when self-righteousness was called for. WTF is wrong with you, Oprah!
I loved when Tyra told this teenager that self-defense is one thing; choking someone into near unconsciousness is another. I really loved Tyra's "oh give me a fucking break" face when someone mentioned that Chris and Rihanna were recording a duet about the trials and tribulations.
But I think my favorite part when Oprah was asking Tyra about interviewing Chris Brown. Tyra kept talking about how Chris had revealed to her that he'd witnessed abuse as a kid and, as a result, wet the bed a lot. Seriously, Tyra must have emphasized that Chris was a bed wetter like... 5 times. Now, Chris may have mentioned that to Tyra when he was on her show. But needless to say, the Oprah show has a much wider audience, and you kind of have to love Tyra for being bitch enough to announce that info and reiterate it to millions and millions of people.
See, y'all, we don't need to raise our fists when we have Tyra to publicly humiliate us and our loved ones. ;-)