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