Plot: The essential documentary on ANTM. The glamorous modeling competition became a pop-culture phenomenon marked by explosive drama, meltdowns, and controversies that remain viral today.
Review: If you are reading this, you may be wondering why in the hell JoBlo.com is reviewing a docu-series about America’s Next Top Model. We are equal-opportunity offenders at this site and are open to watching and critiquing all sorts of movies and shows, but there is a lot we don’t get to analyze. But when a series strikes a chord, as Reality Check has since its Netflix premiere, we have to give it a shot. A three-part deep dive into the hit reality series America’s Next Top Model, Reality Check is a look at the creation and legacy of a series that looks very different in hindsight than when it originally aired on network television in 2003. With creator Tyra Banks, judges J. Alexander and Jay Manuel, and producer Ken Mok providing interviews along with many former contestants, Reality Check looks at the impact that America’s Next Top Model had on reality television and the dark side of some of the controversial elements that made it into the series.
Comprised of three hour-long episodes, Reality Check starts with the infamous moment when Tyra Banks yelled at a contestant and launched a thousand memes across the internet. Now something of a punchline since leaving the air eight years ago after twenty-four seasons, America’s Next Top Model was a product of its time and the shifting cultural standards in Hollywood in the early 2000s. From the days of dial-up internet, America Online, and more, the reality series was unlike anything on TV and launched countless imitators during its run as one of the most-watched shows on the air. America’s Next Top Model existed before HD programming, and it was one of the last two series to switch to high definition. That should tell you both how fast technology moves and how long this series was on the air. The brainchild of supermodel Banks, who wanted to present a program that showed that models are more than vapid eye candy, the series was a benchmark for early LGBTQ representation on network television as much as it was a controversial contributor to toxic definitions of beauty, health, and more.
The first episode of the series shows the unexpected success of the lower-budget first season and how judges like Janice Dickinson helped shape the series format. The quick pop culture success of the first season of America’s Next Top Model is chronicled through first-hand accounts from Banks, Alexander, and Manuel, as well as producers and executives. The subsequent seasons become more controversial as Reality Check dives into an episode that captured a sexual assault on a contestant but recorded the moment for dramatic intensity. There were also poor choices made involving inappropriate sexual contact between a male model and a contestant, a contestant pressured into major dental surgery, and a truly shocking decision to have a competition featuring all the contestants wearing black and brownface. Most of the judges and producers acknowledge the poor decisions in hindsight, but they do not all seem very contrite, especially Tyra Banks, who holds to a fairly resigned apology while also claiming she did not know any better at the time.
The documentary presents many of the contestants who do not hold back with how disappointed they were in how they were shown on camera. Some of these contestants, Giselle Samson, Ebony Haith, Keenyah Hill, and Danielle Evans, are damning in their opinions of how they were treated during production. The documentary addresses the idea of weight and eating disorders and how plus-size models were handled during the competition, but it does not reference larger controversies, including the treatment of model Winnie Harlow, who has vitiligo, or transgender model Isis King. The fact that the documentary sticks to the relatively safer controversies of the show is underwhelming in the larger scheme of things, but it does provide an indictment of how television executives sacrificed safety and good taste in pursuit of ratings.
Directed by Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan, Reality Check uses extensive archival footage from the twenty-four competitions aired over fifteen seasons, serving as a time capsule of how the world watched America’s Next Top Model. The inclusion of behind-the-scenes and news footage provides a full portrait of the series, with the new interviews offering an opportunity for the creative talent on camera and behind the scenes to own up to their decisions while also offering new insight into how and why the series became as popular as it did. I had expected Tyra Banks to be a bit more transparent about the series, but seeing as she is still hopeful the show could make a comeback, it is not surprising that Loushy and Sivan push the envelope just enough to seem impartial despite the documentary repeatedly including caveats that the show is a product of its era and thus excused from some terrible decisions.
The nostalgia cycle is shortening by the day, and a tell-all retrospective about a show that was on the air less than a decade ago seems a bit unnecessary. I had hoped this docu-series would delve more into the darker side of America’s Next Top Model, but Reality Check is just safe enough to still make the reality series feel like a guilty pleasure worth binging when there is nothing else to watch. Overall, this is an interesting look at a show that helped redefine what reality television is. This is also a shocking reminder of how quickly things can change when a camera is chronicling everything and when it can sometimes go too far. Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is definitely a must-watch for fans of the series or for anyone who wants to see how a show like this could last as long as it did. You will surely be surprised that some of these things happened as recently as they did.
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is now streaming on Netflix.
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Source:
JoBlo.com
