This lackluster season of Top Model may have finally found a way to get interesting: Race play. According to The CW, on tonight’s episode, “Tyra surprises [the contestants] by transforming them into bi-racial models.” Insert the world’s biggest cringe right here. (That’s Nicole in the photo.)
The CW had nothing further to add when asked about the episode, and a rep for Banks did not respond to requests for comment.
It’s impossible to “transform” someone’s race without setting off some serious blackface alarms, and Top Model has historically been pretty tone-deaf about how problematic and often offensive images like this can be. In cycle 4, the models underwent similar cosmetic racial transformations with nary a mention of how loaded that kind of picture can be.
Do I think Tyra’s setting out to dehumanize anyone, or to ridicule or demean people based on their race or ethnicity? I really, really don’t. But it’s weak and irresponsible to act as if dressing up a white girl so she looks black doesn’t have major cultural baggage.
The real question is, though, will this make you watch tonight’s Top Model, PopWatchers?
Photo credit: Ryan Goble/The CW
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What a friggin’ idiot. Why is this woman allowed on television, let alone on two shows??
NO one likes jealousy!
It went along with the theme. You would’ve had to see the episode to understand. Idiots like yourself usually don’t understand things like this.
Oh please. Blackface is one thing, but changing a “models” ethnicity on tv is another. Much ado about nothing.
I agree. I’m black, but never thought Tyra committed foul play when she did the racial transformations, back in cycle four. I’m assuming the same case applies here as well.
I certainly heard no complaints when Ice Cube turned white people black with his experimentative reality show “Black.White.” And unlike Tyra, Ice Cube was actually going for the hidden racial biases in contemporary America.
When I read this post I thought the same thing. Tyra has done this before, twice and no one said a word. She had those models turn to another race to pose with those kids. She also did that thing where the models posed as past supermodels and some of their races were changed.
I don’t know when this was filmed, but maybe Tyra thought that the fuss over the recent French Vogue issues with models in blackface were getting more attention than her and wanted a piece of it.
It’s just never appropriate, ever. Even Harry Connick Jr. just called it out a few weeks ago on that Australian talent show. Tyra seems to have no finger on the pulse of what non-rich-and-famous black women consider important to them, and this just demonstrates her obliviousness once again.
While I enjoy ANTM I find it the epitome of racist – many times the bottom two comes down to a black girl & a white girl and most times the white girl deserves to stay but *shocker* the black girl is given another chance to stay in the competition. I am surprised that Tyra continues to include race in this show, and am disappointed that she is stooping to this level with this episode tonight. She should just do a season with all black girls (but I’m sure the network hasn’t OK’d that yet, but it’s coming…)
I wonder how the contestants felt about that (especially the black ones, isn’t it somewhat of a mockery?)
Oh good grief. Your definition of blackface is from a 3rd grader’s perspective at best. Blackface involves far more than just cosmetic transformation, and presumably Tyra Banks is intelligent enough to know not to photograph these women eating chicken and watermelon.
Ok, wait, did I just defend Tyra Banks? See what you’ve brought me to, EW!
“Blackface involves far more than just cosmetic transformation…” – Quoted For Truth!
This was done way back in Season 4, all of the models had makeup to appear as a different ethnicity. I’m actually enjoying this season. It’s a big improvement over the last few.
I am not even watching this season, but this made me think of Season 4 first. Thanks for pointing that out.
i think it is completely different than black face. No one cried foul when “Mad Men” did it because it reflected the period. This is an excercise in perception of beauty across ethnicities…
if this is the case, shouldn’t they try to use some prosthetics to try to tweak other features other than just the color of the hair and skin? unlike the black barbies, real black and biracial people aren’t just white people with great tans. I’m just sayin’ . . .
You have a point, however people of mixed-race can certainly have features considered to be more typical of one race and skin tone more typical of the other, just as applying makeup could illustrate.
When they did this in season 4, I thought it was one of the highlights of the season. What I got from it was how alike we all are.
i think its interesting that in the model industry there is outcry about the lack of african amercian models on the covers of magazines and who are successful and yet tyra is trying to make a white model black (i dont know what she’ll do with the other models, this is just based on the photo above).
I don’t know, I thought it was interesting when they did it back in season 4. To me “blackface” has the connotation of racial parody, and I seriously doubt that Tyra would be that insensitive. I hesitate to even label this an ignorant move on her part, because I think she’s pretty racially conscious.
Like you, I’ve always thought the problem with blackface was the racial parody but the uproar over french vogue would indicate this is not the case.
I think that if Tyra were to read this article, the only thing she would find offensive is the incorrect use of “smize.”
I just can’t believe they let her say ’smize’ on TV. Have you looked it up on Urban Dictionary? The first meaning listed is FILTHY!
Maybe you should’ve read urbandictionary’s second definition instead (i.e, to smile with your eyes; smile + eyes = smize…get it?). It even referenced Tyra’s explanation, unlike the more perverse definition you read.
The only problem I have with the word is how she spells it. Hello–”eyes” is in the word and has the right sound in it. Why didn’t she spell it “Smeyes?” Then there wouldn’t be any confusion with other words which may have other derogatory meanings.
Yes I did read it, of course I read it. I understand it. I just find it amusing that she keeps saying that. It’s a stupid word to begin with, and it’s just bizarre that no one in her entourage has pulled her aside to say, hey Tyra, you might want to know what ELSE your word means.
That is pretty hilarious.
The only way that I would watch Top Model is if it were transformed into Glee. Or Veronica Mars, since it’s the CW.
But I agree, saying “Are we smized about blackface” makes no sense, not that “smize” is what I consider a valid word, anyway.
History is one thing, but as long as it’s all fair (are the black girls going to be made to look white?) then what’s the big deal? It’s a show about fashion and modeling–makeup (whether natural or theatrical/over-the-top/race-bending) is part of the scene. I think the idea is that if you just look at a picture of someone can judge them by their skin color, can you even believe what you are seeing? And what does it tell you about that person? Absolutely nothing. People are people. I’ll be watching–but I would have been watching anyway.
To me there’s a difference between someone dressing up in blackface, which is intended to be derogatory, and using makeup to alter someone’s look in order to play a fully human character. For example, the Australian skit that Harry Connick Jr. protested was offensive. Billy Crystal playing Sammy Davis Jr. on SNL was not.
Are you high? Your saying the Australian skit was offensive? I can assure you it wasn’t, considering the blokes who dressed up as them were multi-cultural, but if i was saying that Jackson Jive skit was racist, then i would also call this racist, Blackface is Blackface, Theres no 2 ways about it
hold on, wait…..
People still watch this show?!
Watching right now, being offended didn’t even cross my mind. I was more annoyed at that girl Erin’s ungratefulness for winning that helicopter tour.
I don’t know the history of blackface, but I watched the show tonight and I didn’t see anything offensive. Just another day of Tyra . . . being Tyra. Nicole for the win, BTW. She is fierce. Seriously, the best. Which probably means her chances of winning are very slim.
To me, it’s not the blackface in particular that’s offensive, it’s that she seems to be making a cheap reference to a very loaded and unpleasant part of our history as a way to build buzz and draw a few more eyes to her awful, stupid show.
I agree. What I found offensive was the way that she built a photo shoot that seem to glamourize the mistreatment and exploitation of immigrant labour that continues to this day.
Ugh, major fail, Tyra. As a black model, you think she’d be sensitive to the utter dearth of models of color – if you wanted to do a photo shoot of biracial individuals, why not use ACTUAL biracial models, instead of just using white people? And ethnicity is not something you can just put on and then take off again when it’s convenient – race and ethnicity are loaded concepts, and while Tyra’s not engaging in traditional blackface which involves making fun of people of color, it’s still offensive to act like white people can just pretend to be biracial for a little while and it’s no big deal.
It’s not the fact that she’s putting these models in “blackface” that bothers me. It’s the stereotyping that occurs as a result. Quotes like, “In Botswana, there’s music everywhere.” and “Think of the Egyptians, what they’ve been through.”
As if entire countries and cultures can be represented by feathers and African drums. It’s insulting.
That’s what bugged me more than the makeup, though I wasn’t loving it. The Indian headdress was just wrong. The warbonnets have traditionally been worn by warriors, mostly in the Great Plains tribes, and each feather represents an act of bravery. They are hardly accessories. And telling a model to channel the Dalai Lama to get a Tibetan vibe? Oh, brother! The whole thing was culturally insensitive. And dumb. What have the Egyptians been through? They had a mighty empire, complete with slaves. Fashion is best when it sticks to pretty clothes.
Ok, Tyra has done this kind of shoot before though in cycle 4, if it was rlly that bad why didn’t anyone say anything then??
I actually think this is one of the best seasons of Top Model in a LONG time. The girls are nicer. The challenges are better. The judging is better. I guess some people equate craziness with better. I think this season has been surprising realistic for Top Model. Well, relatively speaking, of course.
And I thought Tyra was just celebrating the beauty of mixed heritage. I don’t see what all the fuss is about. (And I can’t believe I just defending Tyra Banks!)