This lackluster season of Top Model may have finally found a way to get interesting: Race play. Read the full post.
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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!)