Goodbye crazy Janice, may the fierce be with you
O U T P R A N C E , O U T P O U T , O U T P O S E
Every
Wednesday,
our panel of
Tyramaniacs
sasses the lasses on America’s
Next Top Model. Send your cattiest comments about the show to topmodel@ If the trailer for cycle five of America’s Next Top Model
isn’t having us on, a bunch of very pretty girls are about to get real ugly. And we here at the Outprance, Outpose, Outpout panel could not be happier.
When Tyra Banks first brought her prime-time model search into our lives, we thought we had finally found a way to fulfill all our voyeuristic, cat-fight-loving, eating-disorder-mocking, nudityenjoying needs. But then she had to go all Oprah on us, and the contestants — or “collection,” as Miss Tyra now refers to them – started being happy just to be there. The fight went out of the show, and it started being a little harder for us to defend ANTM as the one valid use of our Wednesday nights.
But the bitches are back, y’all, and this time it’s personal.
The previews of this cycle ( which premieres tonight at 8 ET) don’t leave any doubt about what’s going to go down. The 16 contestants want us to know that they’re spunky, they’re mean and they will tear the weave off the head of any girl who gets in their way.
Unfortunately, while the models might be nastier, the judging panel has lost a five-foot- 10 dose of crazy. Rabid former model Janice Dickinson has left the show and is replaced this season by Twiggy, she of miniskirts and mini hairdos.
ANTM panellist Siri Agrell, for one, will miss Ms. Janice, and is not impressed with the replacement. “Will Twiggy rest her giant breast implants on the judge’s desk? Will Twiggy make out with Tyra or Nigel any time the topic of passion comes up? Will Twiggy mix No-Doz and Red Bull into her morning coffee so she can make it through another snooze of a season?” asks Agrell. “I don’t think so.”
But Janice has, as panellist Aaron Wherry points out, gone to a better place: The Surreal Life. There, her special brand of craziness will surely land her lots of air time and, quite possibly, a Decemberromance. Wherry believes Dickinson’s ouster is an attempt to sober up ANTM, while sabotaging the set of an MTV program. “ Replacing her with Twiggy seems a pretty blunt attempt to move the show in a less drug-ravaged direction,” says Wherry. “ Ratings will likely plummet. And next season they’ll be forced to over-compensate, rehiring Janice and bringing in Kate Moss as the ‘runway walking and slow-motion trainwreck’ expert.”
The panel’s resident trainwreck expert, however, believes Twiggy is — how do the kids put it these days? — all that. “Ms. Dickinson likes to call herself the world’s first supermodel even though she appeared on precisely zero Vogue
covers,” says Craig Courtice. “I think Twiggy will bring a fresh, dare I say, genuine, voice. And don’t forget, there’s still the male version of Janice left. Nigel may not have the cleavage, but he’s just as vacuous and lecherous.”
Speaking of lecherous, Wherry has spent many recent sleepless night purusing the contestants’ Polaroid audition photos on the ANTM Web site. “I like to think these first shots offer the best insight into how the season will play out,” he says to justify his behaviour. “Especially because they look remarkably similar to mug shots. Which can’t possibly be coincidental.”
There is one woman whose mug shot has but the fear of God into the panel’s Courtice. He believes the only threat to ANTM’s prime-time dominance this fall will be the recently free Martha Stewart and her non- judgemental tag line. “ Ms. Stewart is out of jail and as fresh as one of her pumpkinscones,” says Courtice. “ ANTM benefited greatly last year from a large spike in female viewership, especially in the twentysomething demographic. It will be interesting to see what Martha and Mark Burnett come up with, and even more interesting to see how desperate Tyra and her producers become.”
Miss Banks has promised more bling, more drama and more divas in this cycle of ANTM. Let’s just hope that when things get fierce this time around, we won’t be referring about someone’s pose.
National Post