This next cycle of America’s Next Top Model is adding a few new twists. First, all of the contestants will be 5’7” and under, when the industry standard is a 5’7” MINIMUM. This will make it far easier for contestants to justify not working as models, even if they win.
So far, the only contestant to achieve any real success as a model was Season One’s Elyse Sewell, who came in third. The winner, Adrienne Curry, achieved success by appearing on The Surreal Life and hooking up with Peter Brady—ahem, Christopher Knight—and then having a reality show with him in which she strong-armed the diminutive former child star into giving her an engagement ring. Sewell, who planned to return to medical school if she didn’t win in an industry that she believed relied solely on certain genetic traits developed by an abundance of estrogen, continues to model and published a book about modeling. So there you go. Elyse and her biology have made her a pile of money after all.
Tyra Banks: Even Larger Than Larger-Than-Life Among These Munchkins.
Second, after last season’s rather ugly firing of judge Paulina Porizkova, Cycle 13 of ANTM will bring us the usual trio of Tyra Banks, Nigel Barker, and J. Alexander…and a never-ending parade of guest judges. Some of the judges will be current or former models, so they’ll at least have some experience and might have something valuable to say to the next winner to not work as a model.
The other guest judges might as well have had their names picked out of a hat marked “People Famous for Being Famous”. These include Lauren Conrad and Kim Kardashian, who are famous for being on reality TV shows. Lauren took her reality television fame and parlayed it into, well, another reality television show. Kim Kardashian became famous from the reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, a name no one would have recognized if OJ Simpson hadn’t had Robert Kardashian as one of his attorneys. Had it not been for the OJ case, it would have been Keeping Up With Some Vacuous Rich People, which viewers probably would have tuned in to anyway. Kim also became famous for posing in Playboy, and, of course, having a sex tape.
I guess Paris Hilton is too busy picking her new BFF to be a celebrity judge on America’s Next Top Model.
Cycle 13 of America’s Next Top Model premieres on September 9 on the CW. Tyra Banks will undoubtedly continue to put the teeny tiny girls through ridiculous, pointless challenges, and will make them all cry when she forces them to get makeovers. At least, at their size, Tyra won’t have to work hard to intimidate them. In the meantime, Tyra has crossed over to another CW show, Gossip Girl, to play an impossible-to-manage diva.
What an actress!
Tune in to see the latest crop of wannabe models who will soon be asking you: “Do you want fries with that?”