Anyone with a Y-chromosome who’s ever watched “America’s Next Top Model” will quickly testify that there are always at least fourteen good reasons to watch the series. Granted, you might need to keep a finger on the mute button at all times, but, still, over the course of the show’s previous ten seasons, the eye candy on display has generally been quite spectacular, and the status quo remains unchanged for Season 11 (premiering on Sept. 3rd at 8 PM), as you can see below:
I’ve never actually sat through a full episode of the series, but my mother-in-law is such a huge fan of the show that, when the screener for the Season 11 premiere arrived, I knew it would make her happy if we watched it when she came over to our house for dinner. As I watched the events unfold on the screen, my jaw kept dropping progressively lower with each passing moment, not because of the gorgeous women filing past the camera (though, certainly, the majority of them were indeed quite attractive) but, rather, because of the complete stupidity of the sci-fi scenario through which hostess Tyra Banks decide to approach the premiere episode.
Using only the cheapest special effects and most ridiculous wigs and costumes, the models were welcomed to The Top Model Institute of Technology, a top-secret, highly-classified building “where we build better models.” Seriously, to use the word “retarded” as a descriptor is to cause insult to the mentally handicapped, so let’s stick with a phrase like “stupid as hell” instead, shall we? One of the contestants makes the comment that she’s excited by this concept because she’s a big fan of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but whatever she says after that is immediately blocked out by all the noise being made by the corpses of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke turning over in their respective graves. You may feel that the height of stupidity has been reached when one of the models feigns fascination with a piece of technology called the Glam-inator 11.0, asking in a shocked tone, “They got technology like that? Are we gonna come back like us, or are we gonna be transformed into a robot or something?” You would be wrong to do so, however, as the Glam-inator promptly overloads and spits out Tyra Banks, dressed in a costume straight out of “My Living Doll,” moving back and forth stiffly, and spitting out excruciating dialogue in a staccato tone because she’s – wait for it – the Tyra-Bot.
“I’m not looking for an ANTM as in America’s Next Top Martian,” says Banks. “I’m looking for America’s Next Top what…?” And when the models reply in unison with the appropriate answer, she responds in her best robot voice, “I’m having a…little bit of a…technical difficulty. I didn’t hear you.”
I believe it was at this point when I turned to my mother-in-law and said, “Really? This is the show that you’ve been watching with such dedication since it first came on the air…?”
“I swear to God,” she assured me, “it has never been this cheesy before. Never. This is awful. This is just…stupid.”
Boy, is it.
The big thing that’s going to bring in curious viewers this time around is the decision to include a trans-gender contestant in the bunch. The contestant’s name is Isis , and…look, I’ve gotta tell ya: no matter what gender she may be, she’s not consistently attractive (she’s definitely someone who needs make-up to be model-worthy), and her lanky figure gives her a really weird stride on the runway. Tyra and company seem to really like her, though, so I think there’s every reason to believe that Isis will be kept around for the long haul, but on the whole, here’s the contestant that I’m rooting for:
Her name is Analeigh Tipton, a 19-year-old from Sacramento, California, who’s a super-cute hippie chick. Whether or not she’ll make it to the end of the contest, I have no idea…and I wouldn’t begin to pretend that I’ll be tuning in every week to find out.
I’ll probably ask my mother-in-law how she’s doing, though.
