Netflix docuseries revisits the obvious
REALITY CHECK: INSIDE AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL. “That is the only way you change. That is the only way you get better: by someone calling you on your shit.” These are the words of legendary supermodel Tyra Banks at the close of Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, Netflix’s newest conversation-stoking docuseries unpacking the dirty and fairly conspicuous inner workings of the iconic early 2000s show. In three episodes, directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan allow the show’s three henchmen: runway coach Ms. Jay Alexander, makeup artist Jay Manuel and photographer Nigel Barker, former contestants, ; executive producer Ken Mok and Banks herself to come forward with their (more or less) honest reflections of the reality series. What this documentary offers is not surprising. The optics of a “reality” show about modeling were always sure to be rife with — at its most tame — insensitive conversations about women’s bodies, beauty and their value to the industry. Given the climate of modeling at the time where cocaine-skinny chic was sold to the public as the most desirable body type, it is difficult to stomach clips featuring some of the show’s most degrading, racist and exploitative moments without thinking that its 24 seasons should’ve been cut short. Over and over, Banks says these things look bad “in hindsight,” a defensive argument that seeks to relinquish blame from her past self. Hindsight is satisfying to the most empowered only after the services have been rendered and the money counted.
In episode one, Tyra is framed as a door-opener, describing the adversity she faced breaking into the modeling industry in the ’90s as a Black woman and her rise to supermodel stardom. In the 2000s, she has the idea that a television show where women are trained to be models could create opportunities for women from a variety of backgrounds. She meets with television producer Mok, he says yes, they assemble a team of talented people from the industry who are close to Tyra, the now-absorbed United Paramount Network takes on the show, the rest is well-documented history.
“Let’s show people what they think beautiful is, and now let’s show them something not obvious,” Banks says of her show’s intent. It pushes the story that she wanted America’s perception of beauty to go beyond the conventions afforded by white supremacist ideology and incentivized by free market competition. But it’s not a great sentence and it doesn’t tell the full truth. For those who don’t know, I’ll catch you up on the show’s logistics: Every season would feature 10 to 15 contestants who would complete weekly modeling challenges and compete in a photoshoot competition from which the best and worst photo of the week would be chosen, sending a young woman home. The camera would follow the girls around documentary-style, recording them at their proudest and most vulnerable moments — even as they struggled with eating disorders and exhaustion. The editing, often controlled in part by Banks and Mok, took cheap shots and crafted narratives as unforgiving as anything you’d see on reality TV today, despite being a program with the purported intent to provide essential career skills. Dani Evans, winner of season six, was interviewed for the documentary and told the story of having her diastema (cute little tooth gap) closed — on the coercive word of Ms. Banks — only to win and not have a career. Evans breaks down recalling Banks’ words over the phone: “To have her, a Black woman, say, ‘I knew you were struggling and did nothing.”’
One of the most damning stories in the documentary is that of season two’s Shandi Sullivan. Sullivan was a 21-year-old cashier from Kansas City, Missouri, who hadn’t considered that a career in modeling could even be possible for her. Her boyfriend encourages her to audition, one thing leads to another and she’s rocking it on the show. In the latter part of the season, the group is taken to Milan and a night of partying becomes an event with harrowing consequences. In Shandi’s interview, she describes being blacked out on two bottles of wine (empty stomach, of course) with brief lucid memories of a man on top of her. The cameras keep rolling. And they keep rolling when she’s crying the next morning. They keep rolling when she calls her boyfriend after days of not being able to access a phone and they both sob over the line. They keep rolling as Banks lectures her about “cheating.” “That was, for good or bad, one of the most memorable moments in Top Model,” says Mok, a callous prick. Where was the protection? Where is the accountability?
For everything we know, there are probably worse secrets. Karen Mulder was a Dutch model discovered in the ’80s known for her work on the runways of high fashion, in the most prestigious catalogues and as an original Victoria’s Secret angel. In the early 2000s, she began to speak out about her experiences of sexual violence in the industry, naming Gérald Marie (former president of Elite Model Management, incidentally one of the first places Banks was signed) and Jean Luc Brunel (founder of MC2 Model Management financed by Jeffrey Epstein), among others, as abusers. Her sister put her in a psychiatric hospital for five months. Save for an album and a few runway shows, she left modeling and the public eye all together soon after. Brunel has recently been named in the Epstein files. At what point does an industry built upon the use of beautiful human bodies to sell (anything) become an empire worth criticizing? Have we reached that point? Listening to the experiences of the interviewed contestants, the story of a vulnerable, naive girl with big dreams was a consistent theme. These women were promised a career that was merely aspirational for most, isolated from loved ones, broken down physically and emotionally, used for profit and discarded, with only a rare few exalted in the end. That’s what a pimp does. Banks is defensive, claiming ignorance — that she didn’t know in 2004 that models need protection. I say, bullshit. TVMA. 165M. NETFLIX.
Sasha Senal (she/they) is a writer, environmental educator and aspiring farmer. She can be found exploring Humboldt forests (not unlike her home redwoods on the Sonoma Coast) and considering Black eco-feminism.
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This article appears in The Siren’s Song Returns at Jim Dunn’s.