"America's Top Model is about dreams, plain and simple," the voice-over punditry of Tyra "Tyra, Pants On Fyra" Banks shares with us from its disembodied, godlike perch. "And it's about accomplishing these dreams through hard work, talent, and passion." And sheer, mind-blowing bitchcakes, flame-broiled on high and tossed back up in the restaurant's bathroom stall with a carefully placed finger at the back of the soft palate. A career retrospective's worth of Tyra headshots and b-roll fly before our eyes as she continues introducing herself through the fine art of hiring herself as her own publicist, informing us, "I worked my butt off to get to the top of the modeling industry." Oh, is that what informs the frequently-noted butt-free quality of the average model's body? See, because I thought it was a thirty million pack of Diet Coke and a big Hoover-looking thing that sucks the offending cellulite right outta said butt. But it's just the work. And now we know. And all my teachers said UPN wasn't educational television.
Now, let me preface by saying this: I didn't watch so much as one minute of last season. But let me also say that, having watched one episode of this season...well, I get it. Tyra agrees that past is past, regaling us with the one-sentence glory that was the fifteen minutes of first-season winner Adrienne's fame, adding, "But this business moves fast, and fashion waits for no one." After a "nationwide search" (and I'm just saying, but no one came to my door) that we see in a millisecond montage of skinny girls picking up telephones, Tyra discovered twelve fresh faces: from all "ethnicities" (shot of an African-American girl) "figures" (shot of a girl who owes her doctor a sizable chunk of change, not to mention Dupont's entire supply of saline products), including "edgy" (girl in a ripped shirt); "waif" (girl who got lost on her way to audition for American Juniors); "plus-size" (girl who's really skinny); and "petite" (girl who's really skinny). Tyra all but sneers that each of these girls believes that she has "it," which she signifies with giant hand-quotes, because everyone knows that the correct grammatical purpose of quotes is always to signal emphasis, such as in the sentiments "Please Do Not 'Smoke' Here or I Know Your Breasts Are 'Fake.'"
Opening credits. A "W" train chugs on an outdoor track. I can literally see my house from here. We meet twelve girls we're going to meet again a hundred more times. Theme songs are played. Phat beats not in short supply.
New York! Home of the bravest, finest, rudest, fastest, richest, me-ist, and top model-iest. The skyline looms as public transportation not one of these women would dare buy a designer Metrocard for zooms by. Meanwhile, twelve skinny girls wander the streets. The screen splits itself into four frames because these Mike Figgis-directed reality shows always have the auteur's personal stamp on them someplace, don't they? One of the women, possessing a southern accent and an "ask my about my children...SERIOUSLY, DO IT" t-shirt stashed away in her luggage asks a passerby where she might find Broad Street. Wherever you are, keep going south. Meanwhile, having already found Broad and Water (what is this, The Amazing Race: Manhattan Island? I'm sure half these bitches took taxis anyway, but even half of the taxicabs in New York would be like, "Broad and Water? Is that even in New York?" The correct answer is a tentative, "Sooooort of"), a blonde girl sits on her suitcase, embodying the young-girl- about-to-be- corrupted-by- the-devious-ways- of-the-old-and- infirm-and-in- their-mid-twenties reality-show archetype. She is soon to be joined by a very tall African-American girl wearing hoop earrings Siegfried and Roy's tigers used to jump through flaming versions of before that whole ouchy faster-pussycat-kill-kill thing we don't have time for here, and sporting her hair in a bandanna. She introduces herself as Xiomara, which has its phonetic origins less closely to a name and more closely to the sentiment "See you tomorrow." And I hate people whose names are whole sentences. Except you Native folks among us, who are named that way by tradition. Particularly "He Runs With Djb's Recaps." I love that guy. Thanks for reading, buddy.
“ A big, pimping coach bus pulls up to the corner. The interior looks like the limo I would take to a prom if I had been asked to go to said prom by Tenacious D. ”
SeeYouTomorrow flexes her arm and shows off the best of her I-have-just- danced-out-of-the-video- for-Paula-Abdul's- Cold-Hearted-Snake ensemble, from her black tank top to her Bedazzled black belt. Oh, and army fatigues. Because she loves the troops, is why. She shakes Blondie's hand, the latter of whom introduces herself veeeeeeeeeery quietly as "Catie." A quick cut later, another girl approaches, and SeeYouTomorrow barely registers her, communicating that "I do not have any change, scrappy beggar" glance of horror I have a feeling we'll get to know in a big, big hurry. But, it turns out, that girl is Anna, the token "plus-size" model whose weight must top out...almost in the triple digits! She's fuller than the rest, of that there is no doubt. But in that relative way where people get the McNuggets because they're "less unhealthy" than anything else on the menu. Not any of these girls, mind you. Including Anna. Because of how not fat I mean to explain she is. Or is not. Oh, never mind.
A big, pimping coach bus pulls up to the corner. The interior looks like the limo I would take to a prom if I had been asked to go to said prom by Tenacious D. It's enormous and all leather, ridiculously ostentatious for any age group, tour group, or '80s hair-metal band. SeeYouTomorrow tells us in her very first confessional that they were picked up in a "rock-star bus." For the band Stryper, maybe. SeeYouTomorrow is twenty-five and from Morganville, NJ. And my thighs are sticking to those seats just looking at them.
Oh, look. They can talk. A lightning-quick cut later (because if that bus montages under 50 miles per hour, look out), we're in the getting-to-know-you chatty stage. Anna kicks things off by telling her two new best friends (and, I mean, considering the stakes and the reputation of this show and the clich of girls spending long periods of time competing for something, why wouldn't they all be close as sisters?) about the husband and two-year-old son she left at home. And I guess "husband" must have been the Pee-wee's Playhouse Word Of The Day, because SeeYouTomorrow goes crazy when she hears it. Anna is twenty-four and from LaGrange, Georgia, and her life flashes before our eyes in the same film stock they used to film the videotape scenes in The Ring, as we montage through shots of Anna playing with her son and hugging her husband on September 5, 2003 at 7:15 PM, if that date stamp is to be believed. Back on the bus (seeeeeeeven daaaaaaaays), Catie pipes up, asking Anna what her husband thinks of her ditching the family to try for a job where the luckiest people don't have stretch marks and travel constantly and are never, ever, ever with their families. Anna says her husband thinks that's fine. Ring. Hello? Seven days! HELLO? Click.
Catie is eighteen (awwww!) and from Willmar, Minnesota (guuuuh?), and she confessionalizes that the bus "picks up more girls," apparently because she didn't say anything else compelling enough for the producers to use for her introductory shot. She's really, really blonde. Her nose seems to get smaller every time I look at it. Maybe it's still healing.
“ I've been to a Bar Mitzvah, a prom, and a very-easy- to-get- invited-to party at SeeYouTomorrow's 'Tah-vern ahn the Greeeeen,' and I've got to say...meh. It's like the Planet Hollywood of high-end eating. All glitz, all name, shitty food, Bon Jovi's guitar. ”
In what I'll guess was an attempt at a fake highbrow accent, SeeYouTomorrow tells us that they'll be having dinner at "Tavern on the Green." Camille adds that it's a "fabulous" restaurant, and that it takes "a very long time to get a reservation there." Yeah. It takes as long as it takes for a phone to ring twice. Okay. Note to the producers of America's Top Model. It's not hip and trendy if everyone's heard of it. In my life, I've been to a Bar Mitzvah, a prom, and a very-easy-to-get-invited-to party at SeeYouTomorrow's "Tah-vern ahn the Greeeeen," and I've got to say...meh. It's like the Planet Hollywood of high-end eating. All glitz, all name, shitty food, Bon Jovi's guitar. Just kidding about that last one. But seriously, listen to me if you're coming to New York: short of eating at Le Cirque, the hippest eatery in New York is the one none of us has ever heard of and which can't be seen from the street. You find out about it from a starfucking publicist or a rich friend from work. You don't flip through the Manhattan yellow pages and then get on the horn with Tavern on the Green and be all, "Zagat says you're okay and I think your eating establishment might have been in Big Business at some point, so...table for twelve?"
Lara Klingon Boyle steals toilet paper, Shandi puts her elbows on the table, and Camille judges silently, telling us that "it's embarrassing!" to do that at so "classy" a place. But, as someone pointed out to me once, the word "classy" usually connotes the opposite of whatever the speaker is trying to say is "classy," and that is definitely true in the case of Tavern on the Green.
During dinner, a piece of TyraMail conjures itself from seeming nowhere, April reading aloud, "Ladies, it's your birthday. You're gonna work the lens like it's your first day." Who is she, the new millennium's answer to Nipsey Russell? Why does this all rhyme? Anyway, there's a photo shoot at 6 AM the day, and April promises to wake up the other girls and make sure they're all up, inspiring Jenascia to muse, "She's that sweet of [sic] a person." And off they go from the Tavern, a final button on the scene finding one of the girls (see, now I don't remember who they are) asking, "Can I have my Coke, please?" How campy. Maybe it's just one more light moment before...
...DOOM! An alarm clock buzzes (and freaks me out anew every time I rewind back into it) at 5:10 AM. Everyone piles into the elevator, and it's not until they're in a slightly more downmarket mini-van that someone asks, "Where's Jenascia?" She's inside, still sleeping. April stands outside, asking if she can go wake her up, but all the girls say they'll just leave if she walks away. Wow. April hops in, feels slightly bad, and that's that. Double-stuffed wow. But seriously, how does anyone sleep through eleven girls getting ready to leave the house? April, dude. Hit the buzzer. Sucks that they take away everyone's cell phones, eh? HIT THE BU...well, very little we can do from here in the future, I guess.
“ I hope it's Jenascia who gets booted. Her name is much, much harder to type. ”
Catie is the "Heavenly Eve," and I think she makes a reference to something called "The Fifteenth Chapel." Is she just guesstimating? Man, these girls are dumb.
"Their coochie [sic] was showing," Anna reports. "Plus, the male models down there. Where your private party is." Um, "private party"? Is she kidding? Have you guys ever heard it? I don't know if I love it or wish I were dead. ["Plus, this does not bode well for her ability to educate her child properly about...you know, his peanut and its eventual relation to ladies' hoo-has." -- Wing Chun] Anna starts to cry and decides she's not going to do it. She tells Nigel, who tells her they'll "do whatever we need to do" including shrouding her in a robe and making sure she's not showing any naughty bits. Anna holds her ground, and Nigel asks her to leave. A giant neon sign goes on above my TV reading: "Jenascia vs. Anna: two enter, one leaves" and they could just stop the episode right now and skip to the end, for my money.
Back in her earlier, wail-ier confessional, Jenascia tells us, "If this doesn't get me eliminated, it's on. It's so [bleep]ing on." Nevertheless, I hope it's Jenascia who gets booted. Her name is much, much harder to type.
Back at the loft, Anna tells us that she feels like her decision not to pose nude "didn't jeopardize [her] chances at all." And I think wearing socks means you're not wearing socks at all. See, saying that is dumb and false. Do you see the comparison, dear? But never mind, because she's reading. So...ssssh. Because there are a lot of words to sound out on the TyraMail! To wit: "Tomorrow is your first meeting with the judges. Only eleven of you will continue on." Word on the importance of the TyraMail.
One by one they walk into what Tyra calls "the infamous judging room." First of all, saying that something is infamous does not automatically deem it so. Second of all, the first truism is made all the truer if you don't really know what the word "infamous" means. Tyra introduces her (everything is "hers") panel of judges: Janice Dickinson, back in the day "one of the first supermodels." Now, Courteney Cox trapped in the chamber of The Fly with The Joker. is Eric Nicholson, the senior fashion editor at Jane. He's supermodel, thanks for asking. Lastly is -- dun-dun-DUN -- Nigel Barker, porn-y photographer of the naked contact-lens shoot. What a twist! Tyra reminds us that the winner of the competition gets a contract with IMG Models, a cosmetics campaign with Sephora, and a spread in Jane, which she calls "the hippest, trendiest magazine out there right now." Hee! Good one, Tyra! See? She's just like folks. Oh, wait. She wasn't kidding. Even Nicholson gives a look that's all, "Oh, man. I can't believe she just said that." Eric! I live in New York! Call me!