# Race Swap Card | EP 7 | Curse of America's Next Top Model

An episode of [Curse of: Miss America](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1838536758), 28 Oct 2025, 1 h 01 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/b7c08843-5b35-449e-9e7c-b34600eb7c4b/4e499a2c-abfa-43b0-a045-b383011e6080/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8ff5545f-f28f-407c-9154-b34600eb83b6

ANTM was one of the most racially diverse reality shows of its era. So why did so many of its episodes look so racist? This episode investigates how ANTM represented, performed, and exploited race. We hear from models who were put in Blackface for the infamous race-swapping photo shoots and talk about the racial dynamics at play during the “We Were Rooting for You” moment. We unpack the show’s racial stereotypes and contradictions, including the paradox of a Black woman at the helm of a show that stereotyped and harmed other Black women. Looking to place a face to the name and hear bonus content? Check out our Instagram account, @glasspodcasts, where we recap each episode with show notes that include the people, places, and even video clips referenced in the episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi, Curse Up listeners, I know you miss me on
[0:02] Speaker 1: your feed. Don't worry. We're working on an all new
[0:05] Speaker 1: season of Curse Of coming out later this year. In
[0:08] Speaker 1: the meantime, if you can't stop thinking about the shocking
[0:11] Speaker 1: stories you heard about America's Next Top Model, you'll definitely
[0:15] Speaker 1: want to check out our new docuseries from E Dirty
[0:18] Speaker 1: Rotten Scandals. In the series, you'll hear from the America's
[0:21] Speaker 1: Next Top Model participants you heard from on Curse Of,
[0:24] Speaker 1: and a few you didn't like former A and TM
[0:27] Speaker 1: judge Janis Dickinson. Dirty Rotten Scandals unveils the dark underbelly
[0:32] Speaker 1: of the long running TV series through the untold stories
[0:35] Speaker 1: of former contestants, and shows what happens when a golden
[0:38] Speaker 1: opportunity for aspiring models unravels into a harrowing saga of exploitation,
[0:44] Speaker 1: shattered dreams, and resilience. You can find the two part
[0:47] Speaker 1: docuseries Dirty Rotten Scandals America's Next Top Model on E Network.
[0:52] Speaker 1: Check your local TV provider schedule. This week, we've learned.
[0:57] Speaker 2: All about makeup and the power that it has to
[0:59] Speaker 2: transform people. Today we are doing this shoot for Got Milk.
[1:06] Speaker 1: There are a lot of moments from America's Next Top
[1:09] Speaker 1: Model that haven't aged well. We've been revisiting them all season,
[1:13] Speaker 1: but for a lot of people, there's one that towers
[1:16] Speaker 1: above the rest. Now there's a twist.
[1:19] Speaker 2: We are actually going to switch your ethnicities.
[1:23] Speaker 1: Even diehard antm apologist can't deny the cringiness of this
[1:28] Speaker 1: photo shoot.
[1:30] Speaker 2: Christina, you're going to be an East Indian. Tiffany, you're
[1:34] Speaker 2: gonna be Native American.
[1:35] Speaker 1: Of course, I'm talking about the race swapping photo shoot.
[1:39] Speaker 1: Believe it or not. A and TM actually did a
[1:42] Speaker 1: version of this photo shoot twice. The first time was
[1:46] Speaker 1: on cycle four. They assigned each of the contestants to
[1:49] Speaker 1: portray a race that was not their own. Brittany Brower,
[1:53] Speaker 1: a white girl from Tallahassee, was straight up put in blackface.
[1:57] Speaker 2: Brittany an African American woman, Kenya Korean, Michelle an Eskimo woman.
[2:05] Speaker 1: Yikes. Now you're most.
[2:07] Speaker 2: Gonna be an Icelandic Scandinavian, Tatiana a biracial woman, UV
[2:13] Speaker 2: Swedish milkmaid. Wow, Becca really dark tanned Italian Sicilian woman.
[2:20] Speaker 2: And Noel, we're making you into a traditionally African woman
[2:24] Speaker 2: with a head wrap and everything.
[2:25] Speaker 3: Wow.
[2:26] Speaker 1: Everybody else got a country or ethnicity. Noel had to
[2:29] Speaker 1: represent a whole. Confident they didn't just change their skin color.
[2:35] Speaker 1: The models got a makeover, complete with costumes and wigs.
[2:39] Speaker 1: It was as stereotypical as you can imagine. They gave Tiffany,
[2:43] Speaker 1: a black woman, a long black wig with two braids
[2:46] Speaker 1: on the side because she was portraying a Native American woman. Christina,
[2:50] Speaker 1: a white model, got a straight wig with a dupata
[2:53] Speaker 1: or headscarf because she was supposed to be East Indian. Brittany,
[2:58] Speaker 1: the one who was in blackface, a huge afro wig
[3:01] Speaker 1: because she was portraying an African American woman. Here's Brittany
[3:05] Speaker 1: when she finally saw her completed look in the mirror.
[3:08] Speaker 1: A black girl with a Nosehall, come on, you're rejection.
[3:13] Speaker 1: People refer to this as the black face photoshoot. For
[3:16] Speaker 1: the two models who were supposed to be black, the
[3:18] Speaker 1: makeup artists actually painted their entire faces with the dark
[3:22] Speaker 1: brown makeup, but it didn't end there. This is something
[3:25] Speaker 1: for everyone to be offended by in this photo shoot. Kenya,
[3:29] Speaker 1: who's black, was supposed to be Korean for the shoot,
[3:32] Speaker 1: so she was given lighter skin Naima, who's multiracial, was
[3:36] Speaker 1: portraying an Icelandic woman, so they gave her makeup to
[3:39] Speaker 1: make her pale as if there are no multiracial people
[3:42] Speaker 1: in Iceland. This is shocking to us today, But if
[3:48] Speaker 1: you watched it play out live, I want you to
[3:50] Speaker 1: think back to how it made you feel in two
[3:52] Speaker 1: thousand and five, if you were truly offended, or if
[3:55] Speaker 1: your outrage is revision is history. Several of the models
[3:59] Speaker 1: who can on that season say at the time they
[4:02] Speaker 1: didn't see anything wrong with the race. Wopping. Here's Tiffany
[4:06] Speaker 1: and Kenya talking about it in an interview with Nightline.
[4:09] Speaker 1: I didn't think too much of it at the time.
[4:11] Speaker 4: It was fun.
[4:13] Speaker 5: Do you feel like the people watching it now they
[4:16] Speaker 5: have a much different reaction than the folks who were
[4:19] Speaker 5: watching it at the time.
[4:21] Speaker 1: Do you chalk some of it up to the popularity.
[4:24] Speaker 5: Of the show, the things that they were able to
[4:26] Speaker 5: get away with on television, to the fact that we
[4:29] Speaker 5: were just living in a different time.
[4:31] Speaker 1: Then yeah, I do. Yeah, just live in a different time.
[4:35] Speaker 1: Maybe they didn't think too much of it back then,
[4:38] Speaker 1: but these days they've had to think about it a lot.
[4:42] Speaker 1: I really wanted to talk to Britney Brower, the white
[4:44] Speaker 1: girl who was put in black face. Here's what she
[4:47] Speaker 1: remembers from that photo shoot.
[4:48] Speaker 5: They wanted to give us all different ethnicities and give
[4:51] Speaker 5: me blackface and make me an African American woman and
[4:53] Speaker 5: not clearly did not age very well. But I'll be
[4:58] Speaker 5: very very honest at the time of thought anything of it.
[5:01] Speaker 5: I hope that doesn't sound wrong.
[5:03] Speaker 1: It was just fun. You know.
[5:04] Speaker 6: You got to think the host of our show is
[5:07] Speaker 6: Tyra Banks, and mister and missus Jay are right there
[5:11] Speaker 6: as well. It never crossed my brain at all. If
[5:13] Speaker 6: Tyers want me to do something that it would ever
[5:15] Speaker 6: ever end up being, like, you know, anything offensive, then.
[5:18] Speaker 1: She must not know about Tarra Banks. To this day,
[5:22] Speaker 1: if you google Britney's name, that image pops up. Did
[5:27] Speaker 1: it work out for the long run?
[5:28] Speaker 5: I have felt more than uncomfortable with it, obviously. I
[5:33] Speaker 5: don't mean offending anybody like twenty years later of something
[5:37] Speaker 5: I did when I was twenty two years old and
[5:38] Speaker 5: I'm forty two years old now, you know.
[5:41] Speaker 1: But there was one contestant I talked to who said,
[5:44] Speaker 1: at the time the whole thing felt off to her,
[5:47] Speaker 1: and that was Uvi Gomez.
[5:49] Speaker 7: I knew it was wrong, Like I absolutely knew it
[5:53] Speaker 7: was wrong, and I was trying to talk the girls
[5:57] Speaker 7: into all of us saying we didn't want to do it.
[6:00] Speaker 1: But like Brittany, most of them thought Tyra KNWBST.
[6:04] Speaker 8: They didn't want to say not to do it, so
[6:07] Speaker 8: they're like, well, if Tyra wrote off on it, then
[6:09] Speaker 8: it's fine. I'm like, oh, you know, I knew the
[6:15] Speaker 8: fallout was going to happen, you know, and it Ensure died.
[6:20] Speaker 8: Twenty years later, still people are talking about it.
[6:25] Speaker 1: People are talking about it now, but when it aired,
[6:28] Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of concern. In fact, Brittany told
[6:31] Speaker 1: me after she was eliminated, she did an interview tour
[6:34] Speaker 1: and the black face photoshoot never came up.
[6:38] Speaker 5: I had the interviews all day long with every kind
[6:42] Speaker 5: of radio show, talk show, television show. The day after
[6:46] Speaker 5: my elimination. I never got one question about it, not one,
[6:51] Speaker 5: not one. I mean that's just how it was then.
[6:54] Speaker 5: Nothing Nothing was ever said about it back then.
[6:57] Speaker 1: I'm not defending it.
[6:58] Speaker 5: I'm just telling you nobody ever said anything.
[7:02] Speaker 1: Blackface is a specific practice that has racist origins. It's
[7:06] Speaker 1: based on ugly stereotypes. It was created to mock and
[7:10] Speaker 1: degrade black people. I know, anything even reminiscent of blackface
[7:15] Speaker 1: feels offensive. And I'm not trying to defend this incredibly
[7:19] Speaker 1: insensitive photoshoot, but I don't think it was A and
[7:22] Speaker 1: TM's goal to mock and degrade black people. For me,
[7:26] Speaker 1: the worst part of this photo shoot wasn't the wigs
[7:29] Speaker 1: or even the makeup. It was when Jay Manuel said this, the.
[7:33] Speaker 2: Challenge here really is taking on the persona of that
[7:38] Speaker 2: other ethnicity while in the photograph and owning it.
[7:43] Speaker 1: It wasn't just about how they looked. Mister Jay wanted
[7:47] Speaker 1: them to act their racial parts, whatever that means. And
[7:50] Speaker 1: I think that desire for contestants to embody a racial
[7:54] Speaker 1: stereotype didn't just happen in the race wiping challenge. It
[7:58] Speaker 1: played out on every season of the show. Want to
[8:02] Speaker 1: Beyond Some, want to Beyond Some. Welcome to the Curse
[8:15] Speaker 1: of America's next Top Model. I'm Bridget Armshan. No matter
[8:22] Speaker 1: what A and TM intended, the race swapping photoshoot was
[8:25] Speaker 1: based on stereotypes and narrow ideas about race. They had
[8:28] Speaker 1: the nerve to do a version of this again years later,
[8:32] Speaker 1: but those were just two photoshoots. From season one all
[8:35] Speaker 1: the way to the end, America's Next Top Model always
[8:38] Speaker 1: prioritize racial and ethnic diversity. They depicted beauty across racial lines,
[8:44] Speaker 1: but the way contestants were cast and edited often played
[8:47] Speaker 1: into racial stereotypes. The early two thousands was a different
[8:52] Speaker 1: time when it came to race and representation. That's why
[8:56] Speaker 1: I can give A and TM's race swapping challenge some grace.
[9:00] Speaker 1: But even for the times, A and TM's use of
[9:03] Speaker 1: racial tropes stands out, and they continued until the show
[9:06] Speaker 1: ended in twenty eighteen, which is hard to reconcile with
[9:10] Speaker 1: the fact that A and TM was created by a
[9:12] Speaker 1: black woman and an Asian man, Tyra Banks and Ken Mock.
[9:16] Speaker 1: Plus the head casting director was a black woman and
[9:18] Speaker 1: the j's were queer men of color. So how did
[9:21] Speaker 1: A and TM's episodes end up looking so racist? Maybe
[9:26] Speaker 1: it's because racial stereotypes are low hanging fruit, or maybe
[9:31] Speaker 1: it's because they're a tried and true moneymaker. So on
[9:34] Speaker 1: this episode, we're going to talk about identity on A
[9:37] Speaker 1: and TM. We'll explore the stereotypes and tropes we saw
[9:40] Speaker 1: across seasons and talk about the models who say they
[9:43] Speaker 1: were harmed by their edit once they left the house.
[9:47] Speaker 1: If there's anything about A and TM Tyra Banks is
[9:50] Speaker 1: most proud of today, it's the show's diversity. She talks
[9:54] Speaker 1: about it all the time. She even brought it up
[9:57] Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five when she was accepting an award
[9:59] Speaker 1: from Essen.
[10:00] Speaker 9: Over twenty years ago, I created a television show called America's.
[10:04] Speaker 10: Next Top Model, and I fought, and you guys have
[10:11] Speaker 10: no idea how hard we fought to bring the diversity
[10:16] Speaker 10: to that television show at a time where it didn't.
[10:18] Speaker 9: Exist, to show different beauties at a time when the
[10:23] Speaker 9: world was like what.
[10:24] Speaker 1: You cast in that? And what and what is that?
[10:27] Speaker 11: That might be the narrative she's trying to push, but
[10:30] Speaker 11: you know they were just trying to create a great show.
[10:34] Speaker 1: That's Barez Hilton. You heard him on the second episode.
[10:38] Speaker 1: He was a gossip blogger in the early two thousands
[10:40] Speaker 1: and a guest judge on A and TM.
[10:42] Speaker 11: Top Model really was a pioneer in terms of diversity.
[10:47] Speaker 11: I do give her credit for that diversity in color,
[10:51] Speaker 11: in socioeconomic background, in trans representation, queer representation. But while
[11:01] Speaker 11: that was a factor that wasn't an important one.
[11:04] Speaker 1: Perez doesn't think Tyra was a champion of diversity like
[11:08] Speaker 1: she said she was, or that A and TM had
[11:11] Speaker 1: this diverse cast because she wanted to change the world.
[11:14] Speaker 1: He thinks they prioritize diversity because it makes great TV.
[11:20] Speaker 1: At first, when Perez said this in our interview, I
[11:23] Speaker 1: didn't agree with him. I thought he was a white
[11:25] Speaker 1: guy who just didn't get it. But now, after six
[11:28] Speaker 1: months of reporting, I gotta admit Perez might be onto something.
[11:35] Speaker 1: I do believe Tyra when she said she created A
[11:38] Speaker 1: ANDTM to challenge traditional notions around beauty. I think she
[11:42] Speaker 1: wanted the audience to see that women of all shapes
[11:45] Speaker 1: and colors are beautiful. But I also think it was
[11:48] Speaker 1: more than that. Bringing together strangers from completely different backgrounds
[11:53] Speaker 1: and walks of life, throwing them into a house and
[11:55] Speaker 1: seeing what happens is a proven formula. The reality showed
[11:59] Speaker 1: the real world pretty much invented and perfected it in
[12:02] Speaker 1: the nineties. A and TM just took that model and
[12:05] Speaker 1: will applied it to models because it works. Remember the
[12:10] Speaker 1: drama on Cycle one between Christian Robin and Atheis Elise.
[12:14] Speaker 1: How many times did we see A and TM put
[12:17] Speaker 1: small town sheltered contestants in a house with loose, big
[12:20] Speaker 1: city girls, or rich contestants with contestants who grew up
[12:24] Speaker 1: in trailer parks, or girls from the hood clashing with
[12:27] Speaker 1: girls from the suburbs. I'm convinced A and TM did
[12:30] Speaker 1: the British Invasion season just to see the cultural clash
[12:33] Speaker 1: between the UK and American models. Last episode, we talked
[12:39] Speaker 1: about the way A and TM created characters and why
[12:42] Speaker 1: it resonates with audiences. Characters in reality TV help us
[12:46] Speaker 1: put the cast into categories, and that in turn helps
[12:49] Speaker 1: us understand the story better. It works best when the
[12:52] Speaker 1: characters aligned with tropes we already know. Most of us
[12:55] Speaker 1: have an idea of the girl next door, or the
[12:58] Speaker 1: quiet wallflower or the pageant queen. Those are common tropes
[13:02] Speaker 1: we see on television. Picking up on a contestant's personality
[13:06] Speaker 1: and then casting and editing them to align with the
[13:08] Speaker 1: character trope isn't wrong. The problem is audiences are also
[13:13] Speaker 1: looking for characters that align with preconceived racial biases and tropes.
[13:19] Speaker 1: Bethany Butler is a freelance journalist who writes about race
[13:21] Speaker 1: and reality TV.
[13:23] Speaker 3: There's an understanding from the very beginning of reality TV
[13:26] Speaker 3: that like, you need to have these archetypes in these
[13:29] Speaker 3: characters and oftentimes the stereotypes, the biases we have in
[13:35] Speaker 3: our country. In many ways, it's such a microcosm of
[13:38] Speaker 3: how we are in real life.
[13:40] Speaker 1: And A ANDTM was more than happy to give the
[13:43] Speaker 1: audience what they were expecting for all of its diversity.
[13:46] Speaker 1: There were less than twenty five Asian contestants in A
[13:49] Speaker 1: and TM history, but the few Asian American models who
[13:53] Speaker 1: were on the show faced microaggressions and storylines and edits
[13:56] Speaker 1: that were based on racial stereotypes. They were fetishized, like
[14:00] Speaker 1: Sina Sakai from Cycle eleven. The edit made it seem
[14:04] Speaker 1: like all she wanted to talk about was sex. She
[14:06] Speaker 1: was a go go dancer, something the show focused on
[14:09] Speaker 1: a lot, but she was also a stunt woman and
[14:11] Speaker 1: we never heard about that on the show. Aside from that,
[14:15] Speaker 1: Asian models were typecast and edited its model minorities or
[14:19] Speaker 1: perpetual foreigners. Gina Cho from Cycle six is Korean American.
[14:25] Speaker 1: On the semi finals audition episode, her ethnicity was the
[14:29] Speaker 1: main focus of her conversation with the judges, So why
[14:32] Speaker 1: do you.
[14:32] Speaker 9: Want to be America's sex top model.
[14:33] Speaker 12: I think that there's just not enough Asian models out there.
[14:37] Speaker 12: I feel that I can break down that barrier, and
[14:39] Speaker 12: I think it's her responsibility.
[14:41] Speaker 1: You say that you're you're not the girl next door,
[14:43] Speaker 1: you're wild.
[14:44] Speaker 12: What do you mean that If you're to ask me
[14:45] Speaker 12: to get down ship naked, I will do it.
[14:48] Speaker 1: That's just how I am. Well, the thing is, like,
[14:50] Speaker 1: my parents kind of.
[14:50] Speaker 12: Have a thing with that, So I mean, I don't
[14:52] Speaker 12: know if I would go against my parents or I
[14:55] Speaker 12: mean I kind of believe more in the American culture
[14:58] Speaker 12: more than my parents. Oh, I'm not into Asian guys.
[15:03] Speaker 12: Why the thing is are a lot shorter than I am,
[15:05] Speaker 12: which is something that I can't tolerate.
[15:07] Speaker 2: You've come so full circle from your initial statement, But.
[15:10] Speaker 9: Do you understand how you were a contradiction hers You
[15:12] Speaker 9: were saying, I'm Asian, I'm strong, I'm Korean, and then
[15:15] Speaker 9: you're saying it's through Korean boys and.
[15:17] Speaker 1: I want a white boy.
[15:18] Speaker 12: I don't know what exactly happened, but I got confused
[15:21] Speaker 12: and I started contradicting myself.
[15:23] Speaker 1: Gina's right when she said there aren't a lot of
[15:26] Speaker 1: Asian models, but her personal feelings about identity and dating
[15:30] Speaker 1: have nothing to do with that fact. But Gina's comments
[15:33] Speaker 1: about her race are exactly what captured the judge's attention.
[15:37] Speaker 1: Gina was ultimately chosen to go into the house, and
[15:40] Speaker 1: I think that's because they wanted to explore an Asian
[15:44] Speaker 1: identity crisis storyline. Her questions about her identity and lack
[15:48] Speaker 1: of confidence were central to her edit. There was a
[15:51] Speaker 1: press conference challenge later that episode where Janis asked Gina
[15:55] Speaker 1: about her identity again.
[15:57] Speaker 2: Gina, how does being an Asian woman fat you're into
[16:00] Speaker 2: your determination to win this competition?
[16:02] Speaker 1: I guess I don't know.
[16:03] Speaker 12: I just I don't know. I don't know I answer that question.
[16:07] Speaker 2: So, Ginaman, when you met us during casting week, that
[16:11] Speaker 2: was the first thing you mentioned.
[16:12] Speaker 1: So why do you want to be America sex top model?
[16:14] Speaker 12: There's just not enough Asian models out there.
[16:16] Speaker 2: Why in a room with all these reporters, why would
[16:19] Speaker 2: you not take this opportunity to put it in the forefront.
[16:22] Speaker 12: I'm just I'm twenty one years old and I don't
[16:24] Speaker 12: know who I really am yet. I'm kind of like struggling.
[16:27] Speaker 12: I'm like having an identity crisis.
[16:28] Speaker 1: Share Gina's parents immigrated from Korea. A lot of first
[16:33] Speaker 1: generation Americans have talked about the push and pool between
[16:36] Speaker 1: their parents' culture and their American upbringing. It's a lot
[16:39] Speaker 1: to navigate, especially on a reality show that keeps bringing
[16:42] Speaker 1: it up. My issue is that ANTM casts so few
[16:46] Speaker 1: Asian American models, and when they finally did, they chose
[16:50] Speaker 1: a girl who was clearly struggling with her identity. Then
[16:53] Speaker 1: they made that struggle her storyline, which reinforces stereotypes and
[16:58] Speaker 1: distracts from the whole purpose of our on the show,
[17:01] Speaker 1: which was supposed to be modeling, but Gina didn't even
[17:05] Speaker 1: get it the worst. April Wildner was a contestant on
[17:09] Speaker 1: cycle two. April is biracial, Japanese and white. One of
[17:14] Speaker 1: the first photoshoots of the season was a take on
[17:16] Speaker 1: the Garden of Eden. Each model was supposed to portray
[17:20] Speaker 1: a different eve. They wore body paint, headdresses, and little elks.
[17:25] Speaker 1: They painted one model purple and gave her a crown
[17:28] Speaker 1: and wings like a cherub. Another model they painted all
[17:32] Speaker 1: silver and gave her a chain mail head covering like
[17:35] Speaker 1: a sexy medieval eve. It's hard to understand what they
[17:38] Speaker 1: were going for there. But with April, they were very clear.
[17:43] Speaker 1: April was supposed to be Asian Eve, and despite being
[17:47] Speaker 1: half Japanese, they painted a giant Chinese dragon on her
[17:51] Speaker 1: and adorned her head with little lanterns, another Chinese symbol.
[17:56] Speaker 13: April Asian Eve was gorgeous, fantastic, I face this fantastic.
[18:01] Speaker 1: My goodness me, that's exactly what I'm looking for. H
[18:05] Speaker 1: Sometimes Nigel just gives me the creeps. April did very
[18:11] Speaker 1: well in the competition. She was constantly praised by the
[18:14] Speaker 1: judges for hitting the mark during her photoshoots, and April
[18:17] Speaker 1: took the judges it vice seriously. But she was also
[18:20] Speaker 1: consistently criticized for lacking personality. They said she was too analytical,
[18:26] Speaker 1: too mechanical, and too perfect.
[18:28] Speaker 9: There was absolutely no personality and didn't make me like
[18:31] Speaker 9: you and say, oh, I want to be like April.
[18:33] Speaker 9: To April, We're not sure if you want this because
[18:39] Speaker 9: you want to be a top model and you want
[18:40] Speaker 9: to be in this fashion industry, or is it that
[18:43] Speaker 9: you just want to win for the sake of winning. April,
[18:48] Speaker 9: I still feel like you're very analytical, but I want
[18:51] Speaker 9: to see the sensitive and beautiful side of you too.
[18:53] Speaker 1: But The problem for me with April is that you
[18:56] Speaker 1: know she's clinical. She's like a technician. I want to
[18:59] Speaker 1: see some more sec.
[19:00] Speaker 9: I would love to see a more romantic side of her.
[19:02] Speaker 14: April.
[19:03] Speaker 9: This is the strongest picture of the bunch. But when
[19:07] Speaker 9: you talk and how you move in your hands so
[19:09] Speaker 9: like this, it's not a likable, warm person.
[19:12] Speaker 1: Again, you believe after all that they kept going April,
[19:16] Speaker 1: you are so technical.
[19:18] Speaker 9: But if you want a model and just relax and exhale,
[19:21] Speaker 9: how you look like, you know, you need to go
[19:23] Speaker 9: to the emergency room.
[19:24] Speaker 1: Needed more soul. It was almost too clinical. America's Next
[19:28] Speaker 1: Top Model was a competition reality show. Every contestant was
[19:32] Speaker 1: trying to be perfect. Everyone was analyzing the challenges and
[19:35] Speaker 1: the feedback from the judges. But with April, they made
[19:39] Speaker 1: that her storyline. April was so good at the competition,
[19:43] Speaker 1: the judges said she was too perfect to them. The
[19:46] Speaker 1: fact that she was good at everything made her unrelatable,
[19:50] Speaker 1: and that plays into model minority tropes. April made it
[19:54] Speaker 1: to the top four in her season. When she was eliminated,
[19:57] Speaker 1: Here's what Tyra.
[19:58] Speaker 9: Said, April pictures, we feel like you post better than
[20:02] Speaker 9: all the girls here, but modeling isn't about being mechanical,
[20:06] Speaker 9: It's about emotionally connecting with the camera.
[20:08] Speaker 1: Per se these congratulations. When her name wasn't called, April
[20:13] Speaker 1: broke down crying. I think they eliminated her just to
[20:18] Speaker 1: get that emotional reaction. Tyra said she wanted A and
[20:24] Speaker 1: TM to show the audience that women from different ethnic
[20:27] Speaker 1: backgrounds can be top models, but the editing and typecasting
[20:31] Speaker 1: of April reinforced the opposite. There's an ugly belief about
[20:36] Speaker 1: East Asian people that while they may be smart and
[20:38] Speaker 1: high achieving, they lack creativity and charisma. April's storyline told
[20:44] Speaker 1: the audience that an Asian model can be beautiful and
[20:48] Speaker 1: even better than her competitors, but there will always be
[20:51] Speaker 1: something inherently missing, which just isn't true. Jaslene Gonzalez, who
[20:57] Speaker 1: you heard from a few episodes ago Puerto Rican, She
[21:01] Speaker 1: grew up in Chicago. On Cycle eight, Jaslene was framed
[21:04] Speaker 1: as a cha cha diva, a moniker she still proudly
[21:07] Speaker 1: uses to this day. Here's Jazleene recalling her antm audition.
[21:12] Speaker 13: I said, my name, my heights, and where I'm from,
[21:15] Speaker 13: like the most cha cha diva ever.
[21:18] Speaker 1: It's one thing to showcase the contestants love for their culture.
[21:22] Speaker 1: It's another thing to make them a caricature. When Jaslene
[21:26] Speaker 1: originally auditioned on cycle seven, she came in the room
[21:30] Speaker 1: already turned up. She had a big personality. She was
[21:34] Speaker 1: salsa dancing. ANTM played salsa music during her scene, but
[21:39] Speaker 1: when she came back from cycle eight, her entrance was
[21:41] Speaker 1: a lot more muted. Jaslene was still proudly Latina, but
[21:46] Speaker 1: she wasn't embodying the spicy Latina character ANTM wanted her
[21:50] Speaker 1: to be. There was a photoshoot where jay Manuel basically said.
[21:53] Speaker 2: That I need you to bring me that Latina fire.
[21:57] Speaker 1: I don't know if Jazleene felt pressure to fit a
[21:59] Speaker 1: certain character or if the producers told her to really
[22:03] Speaker 1: lean into her Puerto Rican heritage, but when I talked
[22:06] Speaker 1: to her, she certainly didn't seem like a spicy Latina.
[22:10] Speaker 1: She's actually really soft spoken. That's the thing about tropes.
[22:14] Speaker 1: Real people don't neatly fit into a stereotype. Jasleene is
[22:20] Speaker 1: often called the first and only Latina winner of America's
[22:24] Speaker 1: Next Top Model, but she's not. Yauanna House, the winner
[22:28] Speaker 1: of cycle two, is half Mexican and I don't think
[22:31] Speaker 1: it's something she's trying to hide. She mentioned her mother's
[22:34] Speaker 1: heritage in her interview with me unprompted, but unlike Jaslene,
[22:39] Speaker 1: Yawana's edit didn't revolve around being Latina. It was barely
[22:42] Speaker 1: mentioned on the show, and I think it's because Yuana
[22:46] Speaker 1: doesn't fit the stereotypical image of a Latina woman. She
[22:50] Speaker 1: has pale skin and green eyes. But that gets into
[22:52] Speaker 1: the difference between race and ethnicity, which is a nuance
[22:55] Speaker 1: antm couldn't handle. That dynamic is something we saw play
[23:00] Speaker 1: out with other contestants whose heritage wasn't mentioned because they
[23:04] Speaker 1: didn't look the part. UV Gomez, who was Mexican American,
[23:10] Speaker 1: taught me producers definitely wanted her to fit into a
[23:13] Speaker 1: racial stereotype.
[23:15] Speaker 8: They wanted me to be like a crazy Latina girl,
[23:19] Speaker 8: you know, the ex gang member.
[23:21] Speaker 1: They wanted drama on cycle for UV's initial storyline revolved
[23:27] Speaker 1: around her being a reformed gang banger turned model. UV
[23:32] Speaker 1: told me when she was in middle school, she was
[23:34] Speaker 1: kind of a latchkey kid. Her mom worked a lot,
[23:36] Speaker 1: so she didn't have the most supervision. UV said she
[23:40] Speaker 1: got into trouble, skipped school, and got into fights.
[23:44] Speaker 8: I did hang out with people that did hood rade things,
[23:49] Speaker 8: and I was the hood rade doe ofup with my friends.
[23:54] Speaker 1: But when UV started to get suspended from school, her
[23:57] Speaker 1: mom pulled her out and put her in a new school,
[24:00] Speaker 1: and You've made new friends. By the time she got
[24:03] Speaker 1: to high school, things had turned around for her. UV
[24:06] Speaker 1: says she shared all of this with the A and
[24:08] Speaker 1: TM producers, but she also told me she never said
[24:12] Speaker 1: she was in a gang, despite Tyra asking her about
[24:15] Speaker 1: it during her audition.
[24:17] Speaker 15: When I was kid, I went through basically every stage
[24:20] Speaker 15: that you could think of.
[24:22] Speaker 1: You'd be on your application, it says she used to
[24:24] Speaker 1: be in a gang. You've told the casting producers that
[24:30] Speaker 1: her friends used to be in a gang. So when
[24:32] Speaker 1: Tyra asked her this in the audition, she throws up.
[24:35] Speaker 1: The camera cuts away from UV space while you hear
[24:38] Speaker 1: her reply, which you can tell clearly sounds edited.
[24:41] Speaker 15: Oh goodness, being in a gang and doing all that stuff.
[24:45] Speaker 15: I think it's the worst stage of my life.
[24:47] Speaker 4: Ow.
[24:48] Speaker 15: She just an angry kid. It's sad, like I hate
[24:50] Speaker 15: talking about it. It gets me kind of ah loofy. But
[24:54] Speaker 15: I just had a lot of like resentment against us.
[24:56] Speaker 5: A lot of people.
[24:57] Speaker 1: Here's UV today.
[24:58] Speaker 8: I don't know how they edited because I didn't say
[25:01] Speaker 8: I was in a gang, but I said I hung
[25:04] Speaker 8: out with people that were in a gang.
[25:07] Speaker 1: I did have cousins in gangs and uncles. UV was
[25:11] Speaker 1: twenty one when she went on the show The Trouble Path.
[25:14] Speaker 1: The producers tried to make into her storyline would have
[25:17] Speaker 1: happened when she was twelve or thirteen, and UV said
[25:20] Speaker 1: that wasn't the only time they tried to make her
[25:22] Speaker 1: into a stereotype.
[25:24] Speaker 8: When I filled out my application, they ask you, where's
[25:27] Speaker 8: the last three places you've lived, last three jobs you've had,
[25:32] Speaker 8: and your three favorite food. So I had lived in
[25:35] Speaker 8: San Francisco, Newport and Modesto. They chose Modesto. I worked
[25:43] Speaker 8: as a model, a janitor and for Abercrombie and Fitch.
[25:47] Speaker 1: And what did they choose?
[25:49] Speaker 8: Janitor? And then my favorite food was sushi? Mighta said
[25:53] Speaker 8: Italian or pizza?
[25:54] Speaker 1: And then Taco Bell? They picked Taco Bell.
[25:57] Speaker 8: So I was the ex gang member, her nice girl
[26:01] Speaker 8: that lived in Modestra was a janitor at a Taco Bell.
[26:06] Speaker 1: Sounds hellar racist?
[26:08] Speaker 8: If you asked me, it could have easily said Sushi,
[26:14] Speaker 8: Newport and Model.
[26:16] Speaker 1: But that's not what they wanted. What they wanted was
[26:20] Speaker 1: for UV to be a stereotype and to act like
[26:23] Speaker 1: a stereotype. But on set she refused to act like
[26:26] Speaker 1: that gang banging, taco bell eating Mexican janitor, so producers
[26:31] Speaker 1: decided she had to go. By episode four, they'd given
[26:35] Speaker 1: you V a new storyline, the girl who can't take
[26:38] Speaker 1: a decent picture. Tyra humiliated her at a judging panel
[26:43] Speaker 1: over one photo in particular, and one.
[26:45] Speaker 9: Of you has only taken one good photo tonight about
[26:49] Speaker 9: your piss picture. I even said that it's the worst
[26:54] Speaker 9: photo in the history of America's Next Top Model.
[27:00] Speaker 1: Can you imagine Tyra Banks herself telling you that you
[27:03] Speaker 1: have the worst photo in A and TM history.
[27:06] Speaker 8: Here's UV so dramatic, too, worst fixture in America's Next
[27:11] Speaker 8: timauto history. It was like there had only been four seasons.
[27:15] Speaker 8: Let's calm down.
[27:16] Speaker 1: Now, here's the thing about that photo you've told me?
[27:22] Speaker 1: She felt set up. The photoshoot was supposed to be
[27:25] Speaker 1: an interpretation of the zodiac signs. UV represented Pisces, so
[27:30] Speaker 1: they made her a fish. They literally glued huge shiny
[27:34] Speaker 1: sequence to her face and suspended her in a harness,
[27:37] Speaker 1: but how can you surface if it's completely covered? In sequence,
[27:42] Speaker 1: UV was in the bottom after that photoshoot, but she
[27:45] Speaker 1: didn't get sent home. That came later. At the photoshoot
[27:49] Speaker 1: that got her eliminated, the models had to pose while
[27:52] Speaker 1: being blown with wind and pelted with water that was
[27:55] Speaker 1: supposed to look like rain. Despite having to work against
[27:58] Speaker 1: the elements. Someone behind the scenes told u V they'd
[28:01] Speaker 1: seen some great photos of her, so you V was
[28:04] Speaker 1: surprised to see an awful photo of her at the
[28:07] Speaker 1: judging panel. Here's what one of the judges, Nole Marin
[28:11] Speaker 1: said about her photo, you can't as like a wetch
[28:14] Speaker 1: while on I'm Express over she got sent home. UV
[28:19] Speaker 1: thinks top Model started the narrative that she couldn't take
[28:22] Speaker 1: a photo because once they realized she wasn't going to
[28:25] Speaker 1: be a Mexican gang banger, they didn't know what to
[28:27] Speaker 1: do with her. Ironically, that gang banger stereotype they pushed
[28:31] Speaker 1: so hard didn't follow her after the show, but the
[28:35] Speaker 1: model with the worst picture title did.
[28:37] Speaker 8: They signed with a celebrity agent after the show, and
[28:41] Speaker 8: he laughed because he's like, man, they painted you like
[28:44] Speaker 8: you didn't know how to take a picture. I'm looking
[28:46] Speaker 8: at your portfolio. He's like, but people are gonna remember
[28:51] Speaker 8: that from the show, so you're gonna have to work
[28:54] Speaker 8: a little bit harder to show them you know how
[28:57] Speaker 8: to take a good picture or you know how to pose.
[29:01] Speaker 1: Uve told me when she saw her edit after the show,
[29:04] Speaker 1: she knew A andtm's commitment to diversity wasn't what it seemed.
[29:09] Speaker 8: They were like, no, look at us, We're so diverse,
[29:11] Speaker 8: we have plus models, we have all different ethnicities. But
[29:15] Speaker 8: then we're gonna paint you as your stereotype.
[29:21] Speaker 1: After the break, we're going to talk about one of
[29:23] Speaker 1: the most pervasive racial stereotypes on A ANDTM. I'm talking
[29:27] Speaker 1: about the angry black woman. And what better place to
[29:32] Speaker 1: start than right here. I was rooting for you.
[29:34] Speaker 9: We were all rooting for you out damn you.
[29:47] Speaker 1: A andtm's relationship with its black contestants was complicated in
[29:51] Speaker 1: part because Tyra is a black woman, and it's no
[29:54] Speaker 1: place you can see that dynamic play out more than
[29:57] Speaker 1: in her We were rooting for you. Confrontation on Side
[30:00] Speaker 1: four with Tiffany Richardson, Tiffany had just been eliminated from
[30:07] Speaker 1: the competition. It was a double elimination. Oh girl, you're
[30:11] Speaker 1: gonna stop. Unlike the other contestant who'd just been sent home,
[30:15] Speaker 1: Tiffany didn't seem all that emotional. When she went over
[30:18] Speaker 1: to say goodbye to the other girls, who were clearly
[30:21] Speaker 1: upset about her leaving, Tiffany tried to cheer them up.
[30:24] Speaker 1: She told them to stop crying. She even chuckled. It
[30:27] Speaker 1: was that attitude Tyra took issue with such.
[30:30] Speaker 9: Now, I'm extremely disappointed in you. This is a joke
[30:34] Speaker 9: to you. You've been through anger management, You've been through
[30:37] Speaker 9: your grandmother getting her lights turned off to buy you
[30:39] Speaker 9: a swimsuit for this competition, and you go over there
[30:41] Speaker 9: and you joke and you laugh. This is serious to
[30:44] Speaker 9: this girls, and this should be serious to you.
[30:46] Speaker 16: Looks can be deceived, and I'm hurt. I am, but
[30:51] Speaker 16: I can't change it.
[30:52] Speaker 1: Tiffany tried to explain to Tyra that she was disappointed
[30:56] Speaker 1: about going home. Then she seemed to allude to feeling defeated,
[31:00] Speaker 1: but Tyra wasn't having it. She cut her off. You
[31:02] Speaker 1: can't change what.
[31:03] Speaker 16: I'm sick of crown about stuff that I cannot change.
[31:06] Speaker 16: I'm sick of being disappointed. I'm sick of all of it.
[31:09] Speaker 16: I'm not.
[31:09] Speaker 1: Ain't sick of being disappointed?
[31:12] Speaker 15: No, you're not.
[31:12] Speaker 9: If you were sick of being disappointed, you would stand
[31:15] Speaker 9: up and you would take control of your destiny. Do
[31:17] Speaker 9: you know that you had a possibility to win? Do
[31:19] Speaker 9: you know that all of America is rooting for you?
[31:22] Speaker 1: In this moment, it seemed like Tiffany had given up.
[31:25] Speaker 1: It seemed like everyone, including Tyra, wanted her to win
[31:29] Speaker 1: America's Next Top Model more than she did. On the show,
[31:33] Speaker 1: we saw Tiffany's enthusiasm for the competition Wayne and it
[31:37] Speaker 1: was framed as indifference. But according to some of the
[31:40] Speaker 1: models who were on that season with her, there was
[31:42] Speaker 1: a lot going on beneath the surface. Here's Britney Brower.
[31:47] Speaker 1: Tiffany and I were actually really close. Most of you
[31:49] Speaker 1: all don't know because they don't show us together a
[31:50] Speaker 1: lot on the show.
[31:51] Speaker 5: I loved Tiffany, and Tiffany was struggling, like not even
[31:56] Speaker 5: with the modeling stuff.
[31:57] Speaker 1: She missed her child, her son.
[31:59] Speaker 5: You can't call it, make phone calls, and it's just
[32:03] Speaker 5: sort of getting to her.
[32:04] Speaker 1: Tiffany got criticized for being ghetto, even by the other contestants, everybody.
[32:09] Speaker 3: Always talking about the ghetto like that's something man likely.
[32:11] Speaker 16: There are intelligent people in the ghetto. My mom's intelligent,
[32:13] Speaker 16: my grandma's very intelligent.
[32:15] Speaker 1: Trying to be someone she wasn't was getting to her.
[32:19] Speaker 16: I just felt so upset at myself that I've been
[32:20] Speaker 16: trying to change all these different things about me and
[32:24] Speaker 16: I'm unhappy. Maybe if I can't be this person, that
[32:27] Speaker 16: this model girl, and maybe that's not who I am.
[32:32] Speaker 1: I think Top Model was putting Tiffany in situations that
[32:36] Speaker 1: would make her uncomfortable. When Tiffany signed up for the show,
[32:42] Speaker 1: she knew it would be hard, but she didn't expect
[32:45] Speaker 1: to feel so manipulated. Here's Tiffany years after the competition ended,
[32:50] Speaker 1: talking about it with Oliver TwixT. Everything just seem so stage.
[32:54] Speaker 1: I never knew what was going on.
[32:57] Speaker 16: It was so much pressure, and when this guy was
[33:00] Speaker 16: so excited, then it just became like just a bunch
[33:03] Speaker 16: of pressure.
[33:05] Speaker 1: It was at least thirty people.
[33:06] Speaker 16: On the side waiting for you to jump off or
[33:09] Speaker 16: do anything and lay on your neck box tire.
[33:13] Speaker 1: We saw Tiffany put on a brave face, but behind
[33:16] Speaker 1: the scenes she was crumbling. I cried every freaking episode.
[33:22] Speaker 1: It wasn't that Tiffany didn't care. In fact, she told
[33:25] Speaker 1: Oliver she didn't want to get sent home. She really
[33:29] Speaker 1: wanted to go on the international trip, and she thought
[33:31] Speaker 1: winning the competition could change her life. But by the
[33:34] Speaker 1: time we get to the we were rooting for you elimination, Like.
[33:38] Speaker 16: I cried so much.
[33:39] Speaker 12: I was just like, I'm not crying them all.
[33:41] Speaker 14: I'm gone.
[33:42] Speaker 1: Brittany Brower said she didn't see Tiffany's reaction to being
[33:45] Speaker 1: eliminated as a sign of indifference. She thought Tiffany was
[33:49] Speaker 1: just trying to hold it together after shedding so many tears.
[33:53] Speaker 1: She also told me that Tiffany was a really funny
[33:56] Speaker 1: person who was always trying to encourage the other girls
[33:59] Speaker 1: and make them laugh. So when Tiffany tried to cheer
[34:02] Speaker 1: them up at her elimination, it was on brand. I
[34:07] Speaker 1: don't know Tiffany. We reached out to her and she
[34:10] Speaker 1: declined to talk. In twenty twenty three, her son was
[34:13] Speaker 1: shot and killed, the same son we hear her talking
[34:16] Speaker 1: about on the season, and since his death, she's been
[34:20] Speaker 1: out of the public eye. But based on what we
[34:23] Speaker 1: saw on A and TM and on previous interviews, she's done.
[34:27] Speaker 1: Tiffany didn't have an easy life before getting cast on
[34:30] Speaker 1: the show. She described herself as being from the hood.
[34:35] Speaker 1: She said she'd grown up poor and she still was.
[34:38] Speaker 1: She was a single mom. She slept on a mattress
[34:40] Speaker 1: on the floor at her grandma's house. Apparently Tyra brought
[34:44] Speaker 1: up that mattress detail when she was yelling at Tiffany.
[34:48] Speaker 1: Here's how mixer Jose Torres Jose saw the whole thing
[34:52] Speaker 1: go down. Tyra took some mean shots.
[34:55] Speaker 17: She said some things to her about you know, what
[34:58] Speaker 17: are you going to do when you go back home
[35:01] Speaker 17: and you're sleeping on that mattress again, when it's just
[35:04] Speaker 17: you and your baby.
[35:06] Speaker 1: That line ended up getting cut, but it was a
[35:09] Speaker 1: low blow, especially coming from a woman making millions off
[35:12] Speaker 1: these very contestants and paying them nothing. I do think
[35:17] Speaker 1: Tyra was genuine and saying she was rooting for Tiffany.
[35:21] Speaker 1: Tiffany was and still is, drop dead gorgeous. She looks
[35:25] Speaker 1: like a model. We know A and TM loves the
[35:28] Speaker 1: Cinderella story and Tiffany was the perfect candidate. Tiffany was
[35:33] Speaker 1: there to answer the age old question, if you take
[35:36] Speaker 1: the girl out the hood, can you indeed take the
[35:39] Speaker 1: hood out the girl. Here's what Tyra said about the
[35:43] Speaker 1: perception of girls from the hood. People in the fashion
[35:47] Speaker 1: industry were telling me, are.
[35:48] Speaker 9: You putting them girls in the hood on your show?
[35:51] Speaker 9: I was like, why can't the girl from the trailer
[35:53] Speaker 9: park become a supermodel, but the girl that's showing in
[35:57] Speaker 9: the park in the hood can't.
[35:59] Speaker 1: Tani was supposed to be Tyra's ghetto glow up story.
[36:03] Speaker 1: I think that's why Tyra got so mad when she
[36:06] Speaker 1: saw Tiffany giving up. I'm gonna be real honest with y'all.
[36:12] Speaker 1: After reporting on A and TM for months, I do
[36:15] Speaker 1: believe certain girls are set up to win. They're usually
[36:18] Speaker 1: the good models who also have a compelling storyline. And
[36:22] Speaker 1: I think Tyra wanted Tiffany to win. But Tyra was
[36:26] Speaker 1: rooting for Tiffany the character, not Tiffany the person. Brittany
[36:33] Speaker 1: Brower has always wondered why Tyra didn't do more to
[36:35] Speaker 1: show Tiffany she cared before that we were rooting for you.
[36:38] Speaker 5: Moment she's like, we're rooting for you, We're all roady
[36:40] Speaker 5: for you. I guess it, you're rooting for me. She
[36:42] Speaker 5: did not give up, like have some compassion for her.
[36:46] Speaker 5: And if you were so rooting for her and saw
[36:48] Speaker 5: her drowning, what did you help her? What do you
[36:52] Speaker 5: pull her aside? Have production pull her aside, give her
[36:56] Speaker 5: a little pep talk, like, hey, what's going on with you?
[36:59] Speaker 5: I mean, if you see someone really struggling, let's have
[37:02] Speaker 5: some compassion.
[37:03] Speaker 1: Do you want to call your son?
[37:05] Speaker 5: Why don't you go make a phone call, Go call
[37:07] Speaker 5: your grandma.
[37:10] Speaker 1: Brittany was Tiffany's competitor. She could have easily said that
[37:13] Speaker 1: would have been an unfair advantage. Instead, she says it
[37:17] Speaker 1: would have been the compassionate thing to do. Whether you
[37:22] Speaker 1: agree with this or think, Tiffany should have been sent
[37:25] Speaker 1: home because she couldn't handle the pressure in the moment
[37:28] Speaker 1: when she was eliminated, She wasn't given the grace to
[37:31] Speaker 1: process the situation the way she needed to. Instead, Tyra
[37:35] Speaker 1: chose that moment to bereak Tiffany. When I watched the
[37:41] Speaker 1: we were rooting for You seene the first time, I
[37:43] Speaker 1: was shocked because it was so out of character for Tyra.
[37:46] Speaker 1: It was one of those scandalous moments. I couldn't wait
[37:49] Speaker 1: to talk about it at school the next day. Now,
[37:52] Speaker 1: after rewatching it. I wanted to have a grown up
[37:55] Speaker 1: version of that conversation with my understanding of the complicated
[37:59] Speaker 1: layers of that. So I called up someone who, like me,
[38:03] Speaker 1: watched it live in two thousand and five, someone who's
[38:06] Speaker 1: thought about it a lot over the years. We'rekal Gates
[38:10] Speaker 1: is an associate professor of film at Columbia University. She
[38:13] Speaker 1: wrote a book all about race and pop culture, and
[38:16] Speaker 1: back in the day, she loved A and TM two.
[38:19] Speaker 1: So I asked her to helped me break down that we.
[38:21] Speaker 18: Were rooting for you moment when Tyra Yell's at her
[38:25] Speaker 18: I find that moment so disturbing, not just because it's
[38:29] Speaker 18: one black woman yelling at another black woman.
[38:31] Speaker 1: But because of the way that I think.
[38:33] Speaker 18: Tiffany gets completely misread in that moment. It just feels
[38:36] Speaker 18: really obvious to me that she wanted it so much,
[38:39] Speaker 18: she's so disappointed, but she doesn't feel she can be
[38:42] Speaker 18: vulnerable in that moment, and that resonates completely with me
[38:45] Speaker 18: as a black woman, like You're in this environment trying
[38:48] Speaker 18: to sort of hold it together, and so to see
[38:51] Speaker 18: that be read as defiance or lack of care, I
[38:54] Speaker 18: find that really offensive.
[39:00] Speaker 1: I watched this scene air live. I didn't give much
[39:02] Speaker 1: thought to how Tiffany must have been feeling, But now
[39:05] Speaker 1: when I watch it back after having some life experience,
[39:08] Speaker 1: I actually get a little emotional. I know what it's
[39:11] Speaker 1: like to be in a situation and feel like you
[39:13] Speaker 1: don't belong. I know what it's like to try to
[39:16] Speaker 1: hold it together when all you want to do is cry.
[39:19] Speaker 1: I know what it's like to have my hurt feelings
[39:22] Speaker 1: the misconstrued is indifference, and I bet Tyra does too,
[39:27] Speaker 1: which is what makes this scene so painful to.
[39:29] Speaker 18: Watch, because I want to believe that maybe in a
[39:33] Speaker 18: different context, maybe if Tira could take a beat and
[39:36] Speaker 18: wasn't filming a show, that she would get it. And
[39:39] Speaker 18: for me, it's a missed opportunity for a black woman
[39:44] Speaker 18: to recognize the very sort of unique situation that another
[39:47] Speaker 18: black woman is in.
[39:48] Speaker 1: When Tiffany tried to put on a brave face after
[39:51] Speaker 1: her elimination, Tyra chose to humiliate her and then said
[39:56] Speaker 1: she should go back to sleeping on a mattress with
[39:58] Speaker 1: her baby. Tiffany finally broke I.
[40:02] Speaker 16: Don't have a bad attitude. Maybe I am angry inside.
[40:05] Speaker 16: I've been through stuff so I'm angry.
[40:08] Speaker 1: It was the same Tiffany we met in the Cycle
[40:10] Speaker 1: three auditions when she got into a bar fight. Once again,
[40:14] Speaker 1: the show got Tiffany to perform one of their favorite
[40:17] Speaker 1: character tropes, the ABW or angry black woman. Let me
[40:24] Speaker 1: just give you a little definition here. You can think
[40:26] Speaker 1: of the angry black woman label as an umbrella. You
[40:30] Speaker 1: have the ghetto girl, the diva, the mean girl. There
[40:33] Speaker 1: are a few variations, but in the end, it all
[40:36] Speaker 1: comes down to black women being perceived as having a
[40:39] Speaker 1: bad attitude. During the Cycle three audition episode, Tyra acknowledged
[40:45] Speaker 1: the angry black woman trope in a conversation with Cycle
[40:47] Speaker 1: three winner My Girl Eva Pickford. Eva seemed like a
[40:53] Speaker 1: mean girl and a diva, but rather than just letting
[40:57] Speaker 1: her be the villain, A and TM gave Eva a
[41:00] Speaker 1: cants at a redemption arc during the auditions. It was
[41:03] Speaker 1: the very first episode of the season, but Eva had
[41:06] Speaker 1: already rubbed a few girls the wrong way. There was
[41:09] Speaker 1: a girl in particular named Amy. Amy was very very thin.
[41:14] Speaker 1: When it was Eva's turn in front of Tyra and
[41:16] Speaker 1: the judges, she had the nerve to say something mean
[41:18] Speaker 1: about Amy, and Tyra wasn't feeling it.
[41:22] Speaker 19: How are you gonna want to become a model and
[41:24] Speaker 19: take criticism?
[41:24] Speaker 1: But do you feel there's a need to be nasty?
[41:26] Speaker 9: Do you feel there's a need to be negative.
[41:28] Speaker 19: I'm not nasty and I'm not negative. Well, I fucally said,
[41:30] Speaker 19: Amy looks nasty. That was very mean, but Amy looks nasty.
[41:35] Speaker 9: The first two seasons of America's Next Top Model, we
[41:37] Speaker 9: had girls that were bitches. They didn't walk in as bitches,
[41:39] Speaker 9: but they get to the house and they're considered a bitch.
[41:42] Speaker 9: I don't want to cast another black bitch.
[41:49] Speaker 1: This is a rare moment where we see Tyra talking
[41:52] Speaker 1: to a contestant in a way I imagine she must
[41:54] Speaker 1: have talked to her producers. I think it's proof that
[41:57] Speaker 1: Tyra was aware that the show used the angry black
[42:00] Speaker 1: woman's stereotype, or, as she said, the black bitch. So
[42:06] Speaker 1: she gave Eva a chance to prove that she was
[42:08] Speaker 1: not another black bitch, that she could be vulnerable, and
[42:13] Speaker 1: that gave Eva a path to the wind. In Eva's audition,
[42:18] Speaker 1: Tyra asked her about her difficult childhood and her strange
[42:21] Speaker 1: relationship with her family. Eva revealed that her parents and
[42:25] Speaker 1: siblings had said some really mean things to her, Tyra
[42:28] Speaker 1: brought her to tears when she left the judging room.
[42:33] Speaker 1: Before they made the final cut for who would be
[42:35] Speaker 1: in the house, Eva gathered up all the girls and
[42:38] Speaker 1: made a public apology.
[42:40] Speaker 19: I guess the whole reason I'm standing here and I want
[42:42] Speaker 19: to say something is because i know I have been
[42:45] Speaker 19: rude to a lot of people. I've said hurtful things,
[42:48] Speaker 19: and so I'm apologizing. I'm sorry for anything that I've
[42:51] Speaker 19: said to.
[42:52] Speaker 8: Hurt your feelings.
[42:53] Speaker 19: Because I don't want you to leave here with a
[42:54] Speaker 19: negative oppression of me. I do want to apologize to
[42:57] Speaker 19: each and every one of you, because.
[42:59] Speaker 12: You are are.
[43:01] Speaker 5: Not.
[43:02] Speaker 1: Everyone bought it, especially Amy. The girl Eva said looked nasty,
[43:06] Speaker 1: but it did help with Eva's storyline. She was still
[43:10] Speaker 1: a little mean in the house and definitely a diva,
[43:13] Speaker 1: hence the Eva the Diva nickname, but she got a
[43:16] Speaker 1: chance to redeem herself, unlike the other so called black
[43:20] Speaker 1: bitches on the seasons before her. After the break, we'll
[43:24] Speaker 1: talk more about that trope and the contestants who didn't
[43:27] Speaker 1: get a redemption arc. The angry black woman trope is
[43:39] Speaker 1: offensive because it's used in a way that implies that
[43:42] Speaker 1: black women are just inherently angry for no reason, or
[43:45] Speaker 1: it's applied whenever black women are assertive, raise their voice,
[43:49] Speaker 1: or when we show any emotion other than agreeableness. And
[43:53] Speaker 1: A and TM used this trope every season from beginning
[43:57] Speaker 1: to end. Back on episode two of this podcast, you
[44:01] Speaker 1: met Ebonie and Robin, two of the black contestants on
[44:04] Speaker 1: cycle one. Robin was the diva, but Ebone got the
[44:08] Speaker 1: classic angry black woman at it when she got into
[44:11] Speaker 1: arguments with the rest of the cast. It was Ebony
[44:14] Speaker 1: who was too loud, just like, bark over your voice
[44:18] Speaker 1: and it's so freaking annoying. In an acting challenge where
[44:22] Speaker 1: all the girls had to do a breakup scene, it
[44:24] Speaker 1: was Ebony's that went too far. It's gonna be hard
[44:26] Speaker 1: with Ebany.
[44:27] Speaker 3: She's very gressive and she's very frustrated, which can make
[44:32] Speaker 3: her very angry.
[44:33] Speaker 1: And one judge Kimora Lee Simmons even insisted on saying Ebony,
[44:37] Speaker 1: a dark skinned black woman, was hard looking, which is
[44:41] Speaker 1: the biggest stretch in all of this.
[44:42] Speaker 2: Ebany is much too harsh for me. I just don't
[44:48] Speaker 2: get it to.
[44:51] Speaker 1: Ebony was very focused and driven, but it was a competition,
[44:55] Speaker 1: and Ebane was there to win. And sure she got
[44:59] Speaker 1: into a few arguments on her season, but she was
[45:02] Speaker 1: far from the only one. They were all at each
[45:05] Speaker 1: other's throats. That's what they were cast to do, and
[45:08] Speaker 1: when Ebane did get angry, it always seemed justified to me.
[45:12] Speaker 1: In fact, the one time she would have been really
[45:15] Speaker 1: justified in flipping out because when she asked the other
[45:18] Speaker 1: models if her girlfriend could come over.
[45:20] Speaker 13: I wanted to know if it's okay my girlfriend come
[45:22] Speaker 13: over for about an hour or two today?
[45:24] Speaker 1: Where were you guys to be at bedrooms? My voice
[45:27] Speaker 1: on six?
[45:28] Speaker 3: I think that.
[45:28] Speaker 1: Definitely it is wrong. It says in the Bible of
[45:30] Speaker 1: that it's an abomination to the Lord.
[45:32] Speaker 13: I don't personally agree with you your why, I mean,
[45:35] Speaker 13: just because you know I don't agree with you. Know
[45:37] Speaker 13: you know Lisbandon gave relationships. But I mean I can't judge.
[45:41] Speaker 17: You the fine.
[45:42] Speaker 13: I just you know, like I just don't want and
[45:45] Speaker 13: ours living foss fabulous.
[45:47] Speaker 17: I understand we work in this.
[45:49] Speaker 14: I'm trying to work it.
[45:52] Speaker 1: After all those negative comments, Ebanie didn't get angry. She
[45:55] Speaker 1: was downright polite. But Tyra and the judges didn't see
[45:59] Speaker 1: that side of her. According to Tyra, Ebanie was sent
[46:02] Speaker 1: home because of her attitude.
[46:04] Speaker 4: You are beautiful and your smile is breathtaking, but you
[46:10] Speaker 4: have when you come into the room, we sense a
[46:12] Speaker 4: chip on your shoulder, a type of anger that makes
[46:15] Speaker 4: you push yourself too hard, to the point where you
[46:17] Speaker 4: lose focus and you become difficult to work with.
[46:20] Speaker 1: It was as if Tyra was trying to teach her
[46:22] Speaker 1: a lesson. You could hear it in her tone. Tyra
[46:26] Speaker 1: was a good black woman who was accepted in predominantly
[46:29] Speaker 1: white spaces while black women like Ebanie couldn't cut it.
[46:33] Speaker 1: This scene on the first season positioned Tyra as a
[46:36] Speaker 1: respectability role model for how a black model should act.
[46:43] Speaker 1: I didn't get to interview Ebanie for this podcast, but
[46:46] Speaker 1: judging by what she said in other interviews and on
[46:49] Speaker 1: social media, Ebanie seems to be the first ANTM contestant
[46:53] Speaker 1: to fall victim to the angry Black woman at it.
[46:57] Speaker 1: Last year on Instagram, Ebanie said Tyra's comment affected her career.
[47:02] Speaker 1: She said she had a really hard time getting signed
[47:04] Speaker 1: with an agency, and she thinks it had a lot
[47:07] Speaker 1: to do with the way she was portrayed on the show,
[47:11] Speaker 1: but Ebany was the first of many. The angry Black
[47:14] Speaker 1: Diva trope continued into the last season of A and TM.
[47:18] Speaker 1: I actually wanted to give y'all a whole play by
[47:20] Speaker 1: play with breakdowns of who said what, but we'd been
[47:23] Speaker 1: here for another two hours, So at the risk of
[47:26] Speaker 1: flattening these women again, here's A and TM's Angry Black
[47:30] Speaker 1: Women greatest hits, starting with Camille from cycle two, Tyra's
[47:36] Speaker 1: other so called black bitch. People can say what they
[47:39] Speaker 1: wanna say, they could feel the way they wanna feel, honestly,
[47:43] Speaker 1: like I couldn't really care less. My objective is to win, and.
[47:48] Speaker 14: We didn't get kicked off for hitting somebody. Don't ask
[47:50] Speaker 14: me told up right now, if.
[47:52] Speaker 1: You can tell the truth to save your life, are
[47:54] Speaker 1: you kidding?
[47:55] Speaker 9: Shut up?
[47:56] Speaker 1: Did she not come up to me to say that
[47:58] Speaker 1: your anger you in trace? This is a competition.
[48:01] Speaker 9: This is not America's next top best friend.
[48:05] Speaker 16: All these girls in here bitches, And that's all I
[48:07] Speaker 16: gotta say.
[48:08] Speaker 1: Honestly, how manas in my competition? I don't manage your
[48:13] Speaker 1: your body. It's not better than me.
[48:14] Speaker 12: You're on plus saying.
[48:17] Speaker 9: No matter what, any girl a calm saying anybody.
[48:24] Speaker 1: This is making me anxious. I don't know how I
[48:26] Speaker 1: watched this season after season.
[48:29] Speaker 17: If you're talking, so you're able to shut up or
[48:31] Speaker 17: go to the living.
[48:33] Speaker 16: But I know if I see one of my items
[48:35] Speaker 16: on someone, I'm gonna be.
[48:36] Speaker 1: Like, take my you stole that from me, Take it off,
[48:38] Speaker 1: Thank you, bitch.
[48:40] Speaker 9: I'm uneducated. I went to a red boss top and
[48:43] Speaker 9: fifty school.
[48:44] Speaker 8: Look it up.
[48:46] Speaker 1: Can you believe we're only at cycle fourteen? We're gonna
[48:49] Speaker 1: have to speak this thing up? Everyone here doesn't like me?
[48:52] Speaker 1: Is that what it is? People put the question of
[48:56] Speaker 1: my back because I'm about to go off and closing
[49:00] Speaker 1: out the hit list. It's real Summers from cycle twenty
[49:03] Speaker 1: four You don't have to do anything.
[49:04] Speaker 16: You just like stand there and I was like, oh
[49:06] Speaker 16: my god a clause.
[49:07] Speaker 1: Yes, you're amazing. I had to work spier to work
[49:09] Speaker 1: my ass off. I can change everything. There's nothing wrong
[49:17] Speaker 1: with getting angry. Everyone feels anger. There's nothing wrong with
[49:21] Speaker 1: being loud, and in a modeling competition, I'd argue there's
[49:25] Speaker 1: nothing wrong with being a diva. As I pointed out
[49:28] Speaker 1: in an earlier episode, the show loved to air contestants
[49:32] Speaker 1: angry tirades. That was the show's bread and butter. But
[49:36] Speaker 1: the danger of the ABW trope is that it flattens
[49:40] Speaker 1: people into one dimensional characters. Most of the women you
[49:44] Speaker 1: just heard were villains on their season. And remember A
[49:48] Speaker 1: and TM is about a Cinderella, not lupus wicked ass.
[49:53] Speaker 1: Very few of the black women were set up to win.
[49:56] Speaker 1: Abw's were cast and created on set for a reason
[50:00] Speaker 1: because they're fun to watch and fun to hate. Here
[50:03] Speaker 1: sound engineer Jose Torres.
[50:05] Speaker 17: When casting Top Model, it became obvious to us after
[50:10] Speaker 17: certain number of seasons. Some people were cast on the
[50:14] Speaker 17: show to be on the show, and some people were
[50:18] Speaker 17: cast on the show to do well or to win.
[50:23] Speaker 17: But some girls got cast on the show because they're
[50:25] Speaker 17: just they're gonna give you good TV.
[50:27] Speaker 16: You know.
[50:27] Speaker 17: It's like they're gonna get a couple of good photoshoots
[50:30] Speaker 17: out of them, but we'll get good TV out of
[50:32] Speaker 17: them and people will remember them for a while.
[50:35] Speaker 3: You know.
[50:36] Speaker 17: I don't think they cast Jade from cycle six.
[50:41] Speaker 1: To win. And yet Jade is one of the most
[50:47] Speaker 1: memorable contestants of the whole franchise. She's the one you
[50:51] Speaker 1: just heard in the Angry Black woman montage saying.
[50:54] Speaker 9: This is not America's next top best friend.
[50:57] Speaker 1: And this is years before Lashawn Beyond and uttered those
[51:00] Speaker 1: famous words on RuPaul's Drag Race. After the show, Jade
[51:04] Speaker 1: quit modeling in part because of how bad A ANDTM
[51:08] Speaker 1: made her look. That's the harsh reality of the ABW
[51:12] Speaker 1: trope in action. A and TM made a lot of
[51:15] Speaker 1: money on how volatile and funny women like Jade could be,
[51:19] Speaker 1: but it was at the contestants expense. The show reinforced
[51:23] Speaker 1: the message that working with the black woman was a
[51:25] Speaker 1: risk because that angry, loud, hard to work with diva
[51:29] Speaker 1: could always jump out. Of course, there are black women
[51:35] Speaker 1: who avoided the angry black women edit on A ANDTM,
[51:38] Speaker 1: black women who never got angry even when the situation
[51:42] Speaker 1: warranted a crash out. But that didn't mean they avoided
[51:46] Speaker 1: being humiliated for the cameras. Jada Young was a contestant
[51:50] Speaker 1: on Psycho seven. Jada was in the competition long enough
[51:54] Speaker 1: to go on the trip to Spain. While there, the
[51:56] Speaker 1: models had to shoot a commercial where they were paired
[51:58] Speaker 1: with male models. The day before the shoe the A
[52:01] Speaker 1: and TM girls went out to dinner with their partners
[52:04] Speaker 1: to practice their lines and hopefully build some chemistry before
[52:07] Speaker 1: the commercial's big makeout scene. The white model Jada was
[52:11] Speaker 1: partnered with seeing stand offish compared to the other guys.
[52:15] Speaker 1: He didn't want to talk to her or go over lines.
[52:17] Speaker 1: Then he told her why he didn't like black girls.
[52:22] Speaker 11: You didn't I.
[52:28] Speaker 7: Feel like this good?
[52:31] Speaker 12: Jada's partner, Natcho tells Jada that he doesn't.
[52:34] Speaker 1: Even liked black girls. She's like, are you serious? No
[52:37] Speaker 1: one should be treated like that. He doesn't want to
[52:39] Speaker 1: help me. You like it, rabbits, He doesn't want to
[52:42] Speaker 1: help me.
[52:43] Speaker 14: I'm worried about tomorrow shoe because I have to make
[52:45] Speaker 14: out with this guy who's an idiot and a jerk,
[52:47] Speaker 14: and he says he doesn't like black girls.
[52:50] Speaker 1: Jada was shaken the next day when she showed up
[52:53] Speaker 1: on set. The guy was there. Producers hadn't recast him,
[52:57] Speaker 1: and that meant she had to kiss this guy who
[52:59] Speaker 1: the day before told her he didn't like black girls.
[53:03] Speaker 1: Jada was clearly still upset at the shoot, and Tyra
[53:06] Speaker 1: was there. When Jada told Tyra what the guy had said.
[53:10] Speaker 1: This was Tyra's response, Well, you're gonna have to give.
[53:13] Speaker 9: Him a kiss to make him love some black girls,
[53:15] Speaker 9: because what do they say once they go black?
[53:18] Speaker 1: They don't go black? Tyra Banks Ladies and Gentlemen, a
[53:22] Speaker 1: champion of diversity at the shoot, Jada struggled to remember
[53:27] Speaker 1: her lines, which were in a different language. She was
[53:30] Speaker 1: at a disadvantage. The guy refused to rehearse with her,
[53:34] Speaker 1: and when the time came for the kiss, she cried.
[53:37] Speaker 1: When her commercial was shown at the judging panel, it
[53:40] Speaker 1: wasn't great. She may have expected empathy from Tyra and
[53:44] Speaker 1: the judges, but she was met with the opposite. I
[53:47] Speaker 1: was nervous and I was thinking about then, Okay, this
[53:50] Speaker 1: guy doesn't like me.
[53:51] Speaker 9: When I spoke to you guys, you told me that
[53:53] Speaker 9: this is the guy that said that he didn't want
[53:54] Speaker 9: to kiss a black girl.
[53:56] Speaker 1: He doesn't like black girls. Ooh, now guy said that
[54:00] Speaker 1: he told me that to me the night before, and
[54:02] Speaker 1: I feel like he's crawling and it's skinning. Just exkiss me.
[54:05] Speaker 4: On mine and you're going to take control.
[54:07] Speaker 2: He those on him.
[54:08] Speaker 11: He's just an extra that should not have stopped her
[54:11] Speaker 11: from doing the job that she was sent there to do.
[54:15] Speaker 1: After this, Jada was sent home and that racist extra
[54:19] Speaker 1: got his paycheck. I will say Jada wasn't consistent in
[54:23] Speaker 1: the competition. She had been saved from elimination before, but
[54:27] Speaker 1: if there was any time to save her, this should
[54:30] Speaker 1: have been it. Unfortunately, things like this happened in the
[54:34] Speaker 1: real world, but this was a production. If they were
[54:37] Speaker 1: champions of diversity, they could have used this moment to
[54:40] Speaker 1: take a no tolerant stance on racism. They should have
[54:43] Speaker 1: replaced that male model he was an extra, but instead
[54:47] Speaker 1: they put Jada, a black model, in an uncomfortable and
[54:50] Speaker 1: dehumanizing situation, and that sent the message to the audience
[54:57] Speaker 1: that the onus is on black people to rise above
[55:00] Speaker 1: the racism, not on the racist themselves to you know,
[55:03] Speaker 1: not be racist at work. I want to tell you
[55:09] Speaker 1: about one more time. A and TM put a black
[55:12] Speaker 1: woman in an uncomfortable situation and then punished her for
[55:15] Speaker 1: her reaction. For a lot of black women who watched
[55:18] Speaker 1: the show, this moment is seared into our memory and
[55:22] Speaker 1: I think it says a lot about the way the
[55:24] Speaker 1: show thought about race, particularly when it came to black contestants.
[55:29] Speaker 1: Ya Ya DaCosta was the runner up on cycle three.
[55:32] Speaker 1: She's African American with some Afro Brazilian heritage. Ya y'all
[55:36] Speaker 1: was afrocentric, meaning she embraced her connection to Africa. You
[55:40] Speaker 1: could see it in how she styled her hair, the
[55:42] Speaker 1: clothes she wore, and how she carried herself in the competition.
[55:46] Speaker 1: Ya y'all's afrocentricity was a big point of contention with
[55:49] Speaker 1: the judges. There was a judging panel where the girls
[55:52] Speaker 1: had to pick from a selection of hats and build
[55:54] Speaker 1: an outfit around it. There was a leather hat, a
[55:57] Speaker 1: black fascinator hat, a cowboy hat, and a can take
[56:00] Speaker 1: cloth hat. Kentte is a really well known fabric that
[56:04] Speaker 1: originated in Ghana, West Africa. Much to the judge of surprised,
[56:08] Speaker 1: yah Ya chose the cowboy hat, not the Kentte hat.
[56:12] Speaker 1: Why did you choose the cowboy hat?
[56:14] Speaker 14: It's more on the simple side compared to the other hat,
[56:16] Speaker 14: so that I can go crazy with accessories and express
[56:19] Speaker 14: myself without being cliche.
[56:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think you look beautiful.
[56:22] Speaker 3: I think everyone probably pegged you if going for the
[56:25] Speaker 3: typical African hat.
[56:26] Speaker 2: Yah Ya, your I feel half African, half cowgirl.
[56:30] Speaker 1: Looks like you're about to write a giraffe.
[56:33] Speaker 9: I think I'm not feeling.
[56:34] Speaker 5: That you have this intensity to prove your sort of africanness,
[56:37] Speaker 5: and I think that sometimes it's overbearing.
[56:40] Speaker 1: It's just too much. The judge who just said yah
[56:43] Speaker 1: Ya was overbearing, that was a guest judge. She was white,
[56:47] Speaker 1: and that comment from her would have sent me over
[56:49] Speaker 1: the edge. But I think yah Yah handled it well.
[56:52] Speaker 14: In response to trying to prove myself as an African.
[56:56] Speaker 14: That's just where I come from. It's very natural to me.
[56:59] Speaker 14: And I did not choose that hat for the very
[57:02] Speaker 14: specific reason. That is very cliche. Doesn't that wreck that
[57:05] Speaker 14: it's made from, It's very artificial, very Cheapkante. I didn't
[57:10] Speaker 14: have the time. I know, I'm running on.
[57:11] Speaker 9: There's a different way of explaining yourself and being defensive,
[57:14] Speaker 9: and you're being very defensive and it's not attractive.
[57:17] Speaker 14: Just because we had to talk about you know, I
[57:19] Speaker 14: feel centricity before and it's kind of misunderstood.
[57:23] Speaker 9: I'm all about like.
[57:24] Speaker 1: You can hear the strain in Yaya's voice. She's trying
[57:27] Speaker 1: not to get loud or seem angry, even though the
[57:30] Speaker 1: judges just completely attacked her identity. A and TM set
[57:34] Speaker 1: her up to take the Kinte cloth. I think it's
[57:36] Speaker 1: because they wanted to reprimand her for wearing her culture
[57:40] Speaker 1: on her sleeve. A and TM wanted to get an
[57:44] Speaker 1: angry moment out of yah Ya, and when they couldn't
[57:47] Speaker 1: get that, they wanted to humble her. In their eyes,
[57:50] Speaker 1: she was wrong for not taking the hat. Then they
[57:54] Speaker 1: criticized her for explaining why she didn't take the hat.
[57:59] Speaker 1: And even though she never lost her cool, Tyra called
[58:03] Speaker 1: her defensive. Yah Ya couldn't win. Tyra said it was
[58:07] Speaker 1: her mission on ANTM to portray diverse beauty, but it
[58:11] Speaker 1: seemed like another mission got in the way, her desire
[58:15] Speaker 1: to make a hit TV show. ANTM trafficked in negative
[58:19] Speaker 1: racial stereotypes, ones that fed into the audience's most base nature.
[58:24] Speaker 1: The show could have challenged those stereotypes. Instead, it appealed
[58:29] Speaker 1: to the lowest common denominator. But a funny thing happens
[58:33] Speaker 1: when you appeal to that lowest common denominator, you can't
[58:36] Speaker 1: choose to be above it. There's only one time on
[58:40] Speaker 1: the show where we saw Tyra get really angry. I've
[58:47] Speaker 1: never in my life Yoda the girl like this, And
[58:50] Speaker 1: isn't it ironic that even Tyra couldn't escape the angry
[58:54] Speaker 1: black woman trope? Because after all these years, that is
[58:58] Speaker 1: still her most memorable moment. I was rooting for you.
[59:02] Speaker 9: We're all rooting for you.
[59:04] Speaker 19: Out damn you.
[59:08] Speaker 1: On the next episode, our conversation about A and TM
[59:12] Speaker 1: and identity continues. America's Next Top Model featured an openly
[59:17] Speaker 1: trans contestant in two thousand and eight, something that was
[59:20] Speaker 1: shocking at the time, but they made her time on
[59:23] Speaker 1: the show a spectacle.
[59:26] Speaker 13: I was there as a trans woman, so like, that's
[59:30] Speaker 13: enough of an empire.
[59:31] Speaker 1: I don't need to do a homo shot on camera.
[59:36] Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Curse of America's Next Top Model.
[59:39] Speaker 1: We're grateful for your support. We'd love for you to
[59:42] Speaker 1: really show your support by subscribing to our show on
[59:44] Speaker 1: Apple podcast. Don't forget to give us a five star review.
[59:48] Speaker 1: If you love the show, tell your group, chat, your friends,
[59:51] Speaker 1: your mama to check us out. And if you don't,
[59:54] Speaker 1: maybe keep that one to yourself. The Curse of America's
[59:59] Speaker 1: Next Top Mo is a production of Glass Podcasts, a
[1:00:02] Speaker 1: division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcast.
[1:00:07] Speaker 1: The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass, hosted and
[1:00:10] Speaker 1: senior produced by me Bridget Armstrong. Our story editor is
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: Monique Leboard, also produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning.
[1:00:18] Speaker 1: Associate producers are Alisha Key, Kristin Melciriy, and Curry Richmond.
[1:00:22] Speaker 1: Consulting producers on this podcast are Oliver TwixT and Kate Taylor.
[1:00:26] Speaker 1: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio
[1:00:30] Speaker 1: editing on this episode by Matt del Vechio, Andrew Callaway
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: and Tanner Robbins. The Curse of America's Next Top Model
[1:00:37] Speaker 1: theme was composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: my Music Special Thanks to everyone we interviewed, especially the
[1:00:45] Speaker 1: former contestant, and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the
[1:00:49] Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
[1:00:53] Speaker 1: Also check out the et Glass podcast Instagram for Curse
[1:00:56] Speaker 1: of America's Next Top Model behind the scenes content.

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