America's Next Top White White Girl

     America's Next Top Model just ended it's 20th season, meaning that the show has been on for just about ten years now. I have been watching the show since I was young but have not become so invested in critically critiquing it's messages about black and queer female beauty until recently. While the show is indeed searching for the best possible model, it also searching for the best possible role-model. For this reason, the model that they pick must reflect not only the values of the show producers, but of Americans as well.

     While specifically addressing issues of race and gender in this show, it is especially important to point out that Tyra Banks is the host and producer of this show. She is one of the most famous women of color internationally and has been enormously successful as a model, actress, talk show host and businesswoman. However, Tyra's politics aren't always on the right side of things. Often times, I believe she uses her singular success as a tool for oppressing other people in her community as well as her straight and cis-gender identities to oppress queer models on her show.

Tyra consistently asks models on her show to compromise their self-identity to gain success. Many models of color have been forced to wear longer, straighter, and blonder hair pieces. In some cases, she has even asked them to change the way they speak in an effort to sound more white. Danielle, who won the show was consistently criticized by Tyra about her country accent, though many white contestants with accents were given a free ride.

She told one potential contestant that she didn't want "another black bitch"on the show and has criticized black and African contestants for wearing clothing that is too afro-centric. ( though she has no problem allowing white contestants to mis-appropriate the clothing in their photo shoots: see below)

Most viciously, Tyra lashed out at a black model for the attitude that she consistently tried to reign in. My belief is that this episode was an effort to control her blackness and force her to have a sense of gratitude, which is so often asked of black women who deserve the things they have achieved.

Most interestingly, Tyra also plays the role of the stereotypical black woman when it is convenient for her. In times where she needs to establish herself as credible within the black community, she code switches. She speaks of herself as a strong black woman, though she consistently erases many of the things that code her as such, including her skin tone. 

What drives me most crazy about Tyra Banks is the way she treats queer contestants. When a queer model named AzMarie would not wear a butt pad meant to enhance her curves because it caused her gender dysphoria, Tyra would not allow her to participate in the challenge. 

See the Booty Tooch refusal HERE

Overall, I would say that America's Next Top Model is a great example of the ways in which the white centered media teaches women of color to feel empowered by black role models more interested in their financial success than the success of other black women.