S22.E05: The Guy Who Gets A Hickey

[Watermelon]

Is it really worth it to win ANTM? It doesn't seem to be doing much for a lot of the people who end up getting on the show. Winner Brittani got a high fashion photoshoot but only after they changed her name to Brittani Autumn because they wanted to strip ANTM away from her and Fatima is getting a lot of high fashion work but they also told her that they wanted to strip ANTM away from her and distance her from that show so she can get more work. Fatima like CariDee said that they're not taken seriously in the fashion world because of ANTM, so I think it's best to not be on the show. So for any future aspiring models, don't go on ANTM.

My theory is that it's good to be on ANTM, it's not a good idea to actually win though.

 

Most of the ANTM girls are much older than most aspiring models.  You always hear about models being discovered from 14-17, when ANTM girls are all 18+. I think ANTM works to get them "discovered" but it doesn't guarantee them any work.

[ExMathMajor]

For the last several cycles, there has been a point where I've looked longingly at my stack of books waiting to be read and thought...goddamn...I MUST have better things I could be doing than watching this. I seem to have reached that point with this episode and it may be the earliest I've reached it...not sure though, it may have happened with one of these other Guys/Girls cycles.

 

I said last week that Dustin wasn't going to be around long and sure enough...I figured it out within the first ten minutes. Last week's editing psych-out must have been a fluke. Oh well...now he can go back to being local Baby Hemsworth.

 

Avon Lake (where Courtney is from) is on the other side of Cleveland from me. I was under the impression it was comfortably middle-class compared to the towns around it. It seems like the kind of place where all the kids get braces at the age of 11 whether they need them or not. I could be wrong...anyway, I didn't realize that she's 21; I thought she was the baby of the group the way she was acting. Thing is, she actually takes not-half-bad pics. Hopefully ANTM is messing with my head and she's going to get some kind of redemptive/winners' arc.

 

I'm jumping on the Stealth Lacey train. That pic took me back to the 70s...in a good way. The rest of the pics were forgettable...I seem to remember people tossing too much hair around but that's about it.

 

As for the DRAH-MA...I'm over it. SO over it. Are there any decent modeling competitions left? Or has the whole concept of "competitive modeling reality TV" jumped the shark? What exactly am I watching again?

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

America's Next Top Model Gets Touched And Retouched / Courtney cries, 'Dikey' screams, and Tyra offers mixed messages on the art of Photoshop.

[LibertarianSlut]

In our skinny-obsessed culture, I was surprised that they airbrushed a rib cage out. Things that make you go hmm.

[Kromm]

In our skinny-obsessed culture, I was surprised that they airbrushed a rib cage out. Things that make you go hmm.

Not to sound rude, but I'm not sure you get the real point of the skinny obsession (which might be a good thing!) if you think people (or magazines) want to see ribcages.

 

The point, I'd argue, is this impossible illusion that the woman can be right at that perfect balance point where she's as slim as can be, but not emaciated. Ribcages and the like are anathema to that because they break the illusion.

[LibertarianSlut]

Not to sound rude, but I'm not sure you get the real point of the skinny obsession (which might be a good thing!) if you think people (or magazines) want to see ribcages.

 

The point, I'd argue, is this impossible illusion that the woman can be right at that perfect balance point where she's as slim as can be, but not emaciated. Ribcages and the like are anathema to that because they break the illusion.

Not rude; I appreciate your point of view. On the more editorial side, it appears designers are more tolerant of blatant displays of ribs. An example:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/89/0f/bb/890fbb9630711bd263d8667763442946.jpg

But I get what you're saying: even if this were a real modeling competition, like it had been in the earliest cycles perhaps, they are looking for diverse models who can do commercial, catalogue, and editorial/runway (this is just how I break down the categories after watching all cycles of ANTM & very lazily following the fashion industry. If I'm unfairly conflating editorial with runway, please let me know).

So I appreciate the fact that ribs don't work in, say, the JC Penney catalogue. I just think there's something fundamentally dishonest about simply airbrushing out the ribs, as opposed to something minor, like airbrushing out a piercing or a tattoo. If a photog doesn't like the proportions, use a different model! If no model is as thin as they want her to be without showing ribs and they have to airbrush out an entire section of her body, it becomes eerie, like eugenics after the fact. If the fashion team is going to abjectly reject a major facet of women's bodies, why even use a human model in the first place? Why not just create someone out of whole cloth? The Japanese are really good at creating very lifelike images; why not just cut out the middleman and use that?

America's Next Top Drawing.

[Oranaiche]

Not rude; I appreciate your point of view. On the more editorial side, it appears designers are more tolerant of blatant displays of ribs. An example:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/89/0f/bb/890fbb9630711bd263d8667763442946.jpg

Um, is that real? Not disagreeing that in the real world of fashion, ribs showing would probably be allowed, but that photo doesn't look legit. Edited September 5, 2015 by Oranaiche

[SuburbanHangSuite]

 

I must be getting old because I do not understand how you jump into bed for make-out sessions (and based on some of the comments from the other contestants - more than a cuddle and a kiss was happening) with someone you just met.  In front of a house full of people. On television.

 

When I look at these kids I think I'm getting old too but if I was in a house with Justin, I'd probably be tempted to cuddle (and whatever!) cameras be damned.  Get it Mame--I am not mad at you.  

[LibertarianSlut]

Um, is that real? Not disagreeing that in the real world of fashion, ribs showing would probably be allowed, but that photo doesn't look legit.

You may be right and it might be fake, but I think it's real. It's a model called Ana Carolina Reston. She died of anorexia. I didn't know this when I posted the link to her picture; I just thought she was a swimsuit model. When you google her name, this picture appears, along with her bio. There are other pictures of her where her ribs are prominent.

Like you said, the Internet shows many photos of models walking the runway with ribs showing. More googling, however, has informed me that there is some ambivalence toward ribs in the fashion world, as there was a whole controversy surrounding photos of model Karlie Kloss--Número magazine airbrushed out the ribs, while Vogue Italia left them alone, which led to some of Kloss's pics appearing on anorexia websites (my iPad won't let me post the link, but you can google it).

Ty-ra? Are you listening?!? This could have been such a perfect issue for you to capitalize on! Just as she's now telling us short is acceptable in modeling, why not do a campaign encouraging ribs (as in pork or beef), but discouraging ribs that protrude from the body? Surely if a model can make it under 5'8", they can also make it without fitting into sample sizes? And if your ribs do show? Tyra could have done a teach where she shows the models how to pose in the rafc position (you know, ribs away from camera). They can combine the rafc with a smize, while tooching, and giving "horse" neck.

[btb900]

The Guys on America next top model would never book a real job.   Most are ugly or ok at best.

The show dropped Bryant wood  and now Dustin McNeer. They were the only men on the whole that could book a job.  The men on the show are ugly or ok at best but should not be call "models"

 

Who address with me ?

[HunterHunted]

This season's experiment was supposed to be an exercise in inclusion, but I don't understand how we got such zeros. It just seems like if you threw out the height requirement, you should get a bunch of stunners.

Hadassah , Dustin, and Bello are not models. Hadassah's face in pictures is like a beauty black hole. The laws of beauty and physics start to break down as you get closer and a woman that I can acknowledge is actually attractive in moving pictures looks so meh in still images. Bello needs to book a couple of glasses adds and bounce. In no way is he a model. Neither is my beloved Nyle, but I want him to stick around because he's normal and until I can figure out a way to pay him residuals for staring my dreams.

Unfortunately, the odious Dikey are models. I wish Devin Zoolander would stop putting his hands in his damn mouth. At the very least, he could get bounced for pulling out the bird of paradise when they are shooting something extra butch. I think Mikey looks like a busted Ryan Gosling, but he's a model.

[kitten59]

I don't think that there is anything special about Hadassah. She lacks Mame's fabulous bone structure, among other things.

This group is just busted, for the most part. I don't understand Mikey, with the close set eyes and long, narrow face, Dustin, the short, bland frat boy, Bello, the short vampire drowning in all that hair...the list goes on. Speaking of Bello, I am convinced that he had that new, controversial laser surgery to lighten his eyes.

Although Devin takes some strong pics despite the non-stop voguing, he is not a model.

 

Karlie Kloss- I saw that nude spread she did for Vogue, and she has one of the best bodies in the business. She's very lean, toned, and healthy. Bending a certain way CAN display your ribcage, but it doesn't mean you're too thin.

[ShadowSixx]

I was also bothered by Kelly wanting Nyle to show her his stomach, adonis belt or whatever she wanted to see of his midsection. She's not asking any of the other guys to do it, so she shouldn't be asking just Nyle to do it. Yes, we know he's good looking, but that from a judge is a big no. I mean would we like it if Nigel asked a female contestant to lift up her shirt. We would think he's a creep.

Edited September 8, 2015 by ShadowSixx

[kingshearte]

I'm super late to this game this season (but I'm just about caught up now — yay?), but I found the retouching exercise kind of interesting, but I really wondered about tattoo covering, specifically Mikey's. It makes sense to me to edit out a small one, but for a comp card, removing one that prominent kind of seems like going too far. Putting myself in the shoes of someone who might be hiring a model, I see this picture of a dude with no tats, I decide to book him (hardly, but let's pretend), and he shows up and has huge tattoos on his arm. Seems a bit like false advertising to me. And extra weird in his case, because his grungy rocker look is the sort that you'd kind of expect him to be tattooed.

 

It seems to me that if a model's job is to require as little retouching as possible, then tattoos should either be outright forbidden or presented openly so that a client can decide whether or not they want a tattooed model. Hiding significant ink just seems to be asking for a pile of retouching.

[aradia22]

I can see how Courtney's behavior could be frustrating because she is manipulative in her attempts to get attention. But I don't think she's being dramatic like the other idiot hamsters. The fact that she goes that extra step, sleeping on a couch outside, not eating so people will check on her, hiding in corners and crying so people will come comfort her, is the kind of cry for attention that points to more serious problems. You don't just brush that off and say a person should develop a thicker skin.

 

Also I continue to feel that most of them look 2-5 years older than they claim to be.