The ’00s were a hot mess. Searing hot.
From the fashions (I’m still trying to wrap my head around the bolero-and-thick-belt era I once embraced) to the music, we were gleefully enjoying many questionable things at the turn of the 21st century. That especially includes what we watched on television.
Reality TV was not entirely new, but its popularity was skyrocketing in the early to mid-2000s. Everything was a competition series, from chances to date Flavor Flav, to prove to Paula Abdul that you could sing, to the opportunity to be the last one standing on a remote island-like location. And folks went to extremes to win, whether it be to gain notoriety, a record contract, or a million dollars. And it was no different with America’s Next Top Model.
Premiering in 2003, the show ran for a whopping 24 seasons, as beautiful women (and eventually men) from all walks of life vied for the chance to get a modeling contract, be a CoverGirl model, and be mentored by creator Tyra Banks. It was enthralling television, watching contestants try to get their best shot during photo shoots and looking to impress during wild challenges. We all had the ladies we were rooting for, and those we pegged as the villains of each cycle.
Was it problematic at times? Absolutely. Banks encouraged a model (Dani Evans in Cycle 6) to close her gap. They had folks appearing in blackface (first in Cycle 4) during ethnicity-switching challenges. Cycle 4 contestant Keenyah Hill was sexually harassed during a shoot and encouraged to push through it despite bringing up the fact that she felt the male model “crossed the line,” and being brought to tears. Instead, her demeanor, as a result, in the final images, was criticized. And I’ll never get over them calling Toccara Jones (Cycle 3) a “plus-size” model because she was fuller breasted stunner.
I think we all agreed for like the last five years or so that people have been digging up old clips from the series, that they, in fact, made some big mistakes. But we’re set to talk about it all over again, because there’s a new documentary arriving at Netflix about it. Former judges Nigel Barker, J. Alexander, and Jay Manuel, along with Banks and former contestants, will dish about what was really going on behind the scenes.
“I knew I went too far,” Banks says in a trailer for Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, premiering February 16. Tears are shed, betrayal is discussed, and awful makeovers are brought back to light. Yep, it was bad. And while it seems there is a hint of regret about many things, there’s also this declaration from Banks:
“It was very, very intense, but you guys were demanding it. So we kept pushing it more and more and more.”
I’m sure people will see that as a cop-out, and no, we didn’t expressly request that she send models down runways with pendulums swinging (insanity!), but we were eating it up, guys. As mentioned, the show ran for 24 seasons. And I literally sat in the car for hours, waiting while a former friend auditioned for the series. So what changed?
We did.
As I said, the ’00s were a hot mess. And if we’re being honest, we all played a part in that. Early social media was up and running by the time this show hit its stride, and the uproar that we have about it now was not the temperature we had when it was live on our television screens. Shenanigans, the very problematic kind, were par for the course in the ’00s. They were ushered in by the “trash TV” years of the late ’90s, when Jerry Springer lore was at a fever pitch. By the early ’00s, we enjoyed ridiculousness, and it continued for some time.
If America’s Next Top Model was unhinged, so was The Biggest Loser, which also recently had a Netflix documentary calling out just that. So was Simon Cowell and the American Idol folks crushing confidence, as well as Flavor Flav, gleefully tonguing down young women looking for 15 minutes of fame on The Flavor of Love. So was Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which left people financially crippled. And don’t forget the Girls Gone Wild video ads playing at night. Foolishness surrounded us.
There was so much in the ’00s that we tolerated because we were entertained that we scoff at now. From the jokes that were made of Whitney Houston as she struggled with drug addiction, to the slut-shaming of Britney Spears at her highest moments, and the picking apart of her while she was clearly facing postpartum depression at her lowest.
With time, people and culture are meant to mature. Shame on us if we don’t. So the behaviors, the body shaming, sexual lewdness (as opposed to sexual empowerment), the foolishness that people turned a blind eye to now reek of toxicity in the post-Me Too era. Because hindsight is 20/20. And there are things I thought nothing about during that young period of my life that, when I watch back now, I can’t believe I thought was funny. Or cute. Or amusing. Hence all the roundups of shows, movies and moments that couldn’t happen today that we allowed in the past. We don’t play that—any longer.
So I say all that to say, while I know it’s a longstanding hobby to continue to drag Banks and America’s Next Top Model when we’re bored, and I’m sure the docuseries will be interesting, we also need to start putting a lens on ourselves when we run down memory lane, taking note of the things that we didn’t bat an eye about during that time. Because if we’re going to continue to call her out, and every project that was developed in that raucous era, we need to call out what everybody was doing during that time—including ourselves.