What Is America's Next Top Model

Improved Essays
America’s Next Top Model has been one of the most popular reality television shows since 2003. The show is currently shown on TV all around the world (in more than 160 countries and regions), some other countries including Australia, China, Canada and United Kingdom even have their own version of the Top Model. It is almost impossible to ignore the popularity of the show. Not only people from the fashion industry but also the general public are loyal fans of the show. Regardless of the fact that the show put a lot of its emphasis on the dramatic relationship between models, it shows us the modeling world that we would not see in our daily life. The show allows the audience to get to know the fashion industry, which has always been a mythical …show more content…
In each cycle of the show, around 32 amateur models are selected from places around the U.S, only 14 of them become contestants in the show after the challenge and meeting with judges in the first episode. Every week of the competition, one of the contestants will be eliminated base on their overall performance (judged by Tyra and several other judges), participation in challenges (challenge score), themed photo shoot (fans can vote for their favorite photo of the week through social media in recent cycles). Finally, the winner of the show will earn the title of “America’s Next Top Model” as well as other valuable opportunities such as a contract with famous model Management Company to start their career in the modeling …show more content…
Due to the financial pressure, Banks confessed in an interview that she thought about giving up the show (WENN). In fact, she did give up something else to continue the show. In order to cater for the sponsor’s desire, Banks decides to eliminate the contestant who does not fit the requirement of sponsor. More specifically, in the final episode of Cycle 5, while the judges were evaluating contestants on their Cover Girl mascara commercial, an African-American female contestant was eliminated because the representative from the Cover Girl Company could not accept her black Southern accent. Additionally, the show tried too hard to “not be racist”—by putting too much emphasis on highly racialized personae (Hasinoff). For example, a Latina contestant was told to “work it” as “Cha Cha,” a mixed-race Asian-American contestant was eliminated because her invisible “Asianness.” The stereotypical misrepresentation of minorities in the show shapes our view of modeling industry and affects our narrative toward the minority

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