Race Swap Card

ANTM was one of the most racially diverse reality shows of its era. So why did so many of its episodes look so racist? This episode investigates how ANTM represented, performed, and exploited race. We hear from models who were put in Blackface for the infamous race-swapping photo shoots and talk about the racial dynamics at play during the “We Were Rooting for You” moment. We unpack the show’s racial stereotypes and contradictions, including the paradox of a Black woman at the helm of a show that stereotyped and harmed other Black women. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week, we've learned all about makeup and the power
that it has to transform people. Today we are doing
this shoot for Got Milk.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
There are a lot of moments from America's Next Top
Model that haven't aged well. We've been revisiting them all season,
but for a lot of people, there's one that towers
above the rest.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Now there's a twist.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
We are actually going to switch your ethnicities.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Even diehard A ANDTM apologist can't deny the cringiness of
this photo shoot.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Christina, you're going to be an East Indian. Tiffany, you're
going to be Native American.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Of course, I'm talking about the race swapping photoshoot. Believe
it or not. A and TM actually did a version
of this photo shoot twice. The first time was on
cycle four. They assigned each of the contestants to portray
a race that was not their own. Britney Brower, a
white girl from Tallahassee, was straight up put in black face.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Brandy an African American woman, Kenya Korean, Michelle an Eskimo woman.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yikes.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Now you'mas going to be an Icelandic Scandinavian. Tatiana a
biracial woman, UV Swedish milkmaid.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Becca really dark tanned Italian Sicilian woman. And Noel, we're
making you into a traditionally African woman with a head
wrap and everything.

Speaker 5 (01:30):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Everybody else got a country or ethnicity. Noel had to
represent a whole continent. They didn't just change their skin color.
The models got a makeover, complete with costumes and wigs.
It was as stereotypical as you can imagine. They gave Tiffany,
a black woman, a long black wig with two braids
on the side because she was portraying a Native American woman. Christina,

(01:55):
a white model, got a straight wig with a dupata
or headscarf because she was a to be East Indian. Brittany,
the one who was in blackface, wore a huge afrowig
because she was portraying an African American woman. Here's Brittany
when she finally saw her completed look in the mirror,
A black girl with a nosehall.

Speaker 6 (02:14):
Come on, you're rejectioning.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
People refer to this as the black face photoshoot. For
the two models who were supposed to be black, the
makeup artists actually painted their entire faces with the dark
brown makeup, but it didn't end there. There's something for
everyone to be offended by. In this photo shoot, Kenya,
who's black, was supposed to be Korean for the shoot,
so she was given lighter skin. Naima, who's multiracial, was

(02:41):
portraying an Icelandic woman, so they gave her makeup to
make her pale as if there are no multiracial people
in Iceland. This is shocking to us today, but if
you watched it play out live, I want you to
think back to how it made you feel in two
thousand and five, if you were truly a fan, or
if your outrage is revision is history. Several of the

(03:04):
models who competed on that season say at the time
they didn't see anything wrong with the race wopping. Here's
Tiffany and Kenya talking about it in an interview with Nightline.
I didn't think too much of it at the time.

Speaker 7 (03:16):
It was fun.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Do you feel like the people watching it now they
have a much different reaction than the folks who were
watching it at the time.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Do you chalk some of it up to the popularity.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Of the show, the things that they were able to get.

Speaker 8 (03:31):
Away with on television, to the fact that we were
just living in a different time.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Then yeah, I do. Yeah, just living a different time.
Maybe they didn't think too much of it back then,
but these days they've had to think about it a lot.
I really wanted to talk to Britney Brower, the white
girl who was put in blackface. Here's what she remembers
from that photo shoot.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
They wanted to give us all different ethnicities and give
me blackface and make me an African American woman and
not clearly did not age very well. But I'll be
very very honest. At the time, none of us thought
anything of it. I hope that doesn't sound wrong.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
It was just fun.

Speaker 6 (04:09):
You know.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
You got to think the host of our show is
Tyra Banks, and mister and missus Jay are right there
as well. It never crossed my brain at all as
Tyers want me to do something that it would ever
ever end up being, like, you know, anything offensive.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Then she must not know about Tarah Banks. To this day,
if you google Britney's name, that image pops up. Did
it work out? For the long run?

Speaker 3 (04:33):
I have felt more than uncomfortable with it, Obviously. I
don't mean offending anybody like twenty years later of something
I did when I was twenty two years old.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
And I'm forty two years old now, you know. But
there was one contestant I talked to who said, at
the time the whole thing felt off to her, and
that was Uvi Gomez.

Speaker 8 (04:54):
I knew it was wrong, like I absolutely knew it
was wrong. And I was trying to talk the girls
into all of us, saying we didn't want to do it.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
But like Brittany, most of them thought Tyra knew best.

Speaker 8 (05:09):
They didn't want to say not to do it. So
they're like, well, if Tyra wrote off on it, then
it's fine. I'm like, oh, you do. I knew the
fallout was going to happen, you know, and it ensured.
Twenty years later still people are talking about it.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
People are talking about it now, but when it aired,
there wasn't a lot of concern. In fact, Brittany told
me after she was eliminated, she did an interview tour
and the black face photo shoot never came up.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
I had interviews all day long with every kind of
radio show, talk show, television show. The day after my elimination.
I never got one question about it, not one, not one.
I mean, that's just how it was then. Nothing thing
was ever said about it back then I'm not defending it.
I'm just telling you nobody ever said anything.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Blackface is a specific practice that has racist origins. It's
based on ugly stereotypes. It was created to mock and
degrade black people. I know anything even reminiscent of blackface
feels offensive. And I'm not trying to defend this incredibly
insensitive photoshoot, but I don't think it was A and
TM's goal to mock and degrade black people. For me,

(06:31):
the worst part of this photo shoot wasn't the wigs
or even the makeup. It was when Ja Manuel said.

Speaker 9 (06:37):
This, the challenge here really is taking on the persona
of that other ethnicity while in the photograph and owning it.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
It wasn't just about how they looked. Mister j wanted
them to act their racial parts, whatever that means. And
I think that desire for contestants to embody a racial
stereotype didn't just happen in the racewapping challenge. It played
out on every season of the show. Want to Beyond Some,

(07:11):
Want to beyond Some.

Speaker 10 (07:16):
To be on show.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Welcome to the Curse of America's Next Top Model. I'm
Bridget arm Shan. No matter what a and TM intended
the race swapping photoshoot was based on stereotypes and narrow
ideas about race. They had the nerve to do a
version of this again years later, but those were just
two photoshoots. From season one all the way to the end,

(07:42):
America's Next Top Model always prioritize racial and ethnic diversity.
They depicted beauty across racial lines, but the way contestants
were cast and edited often played into racial stereotypes. The
early two thousands was a different time when it came
to race and representation. That's why I can give A

(08:02):
and TM's race swapping challenge some grace. But even for
the times, A and TM's use of racial tropes stands out,
and they continued until the show ended in twenty eighteen,
which is hard to reconcile with the fact that A
and TM was created by a black woman and an
Asian man, Tyra Banks and Ken mob Plus the head
casting director was a black woman and the jas were

(08:24):
queer men of color. So how did A and TM's
episodes end up looking so racist. Maybe it's because racial
stereotypes are low hanging fruit, or maybe it's because they're
a tried and true moneymaker. So on this episode, we're
going to talk about identity on A and TM. We'll
explore the stereotypes and tropes we saw across seasons and

(08:47):
talk about the models who say they were harmed by
their edit once they left the house. If there's anything
about A and TM Tyra Banks is most proud of today,
it's the show's diversity. She talks about it all all
the time. She even brought it up in twenty twenty
five when she was accepting an award from Essence.

Speaker 10 (09:05):
Over twenty years ago, I created a television show called
America's Next Top Model, and I fought, and you guys
have no idea how hard we fought to bring the
diversity to that television show at a time where it
didn't exist, to show different beauties.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
At a time when the world was like what you
cast in that? And what and what is that?

Speaker 6 (09:32):
That might be the narrative she's trying to push, but
you know they were just trying to create a great show.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
That's Barez Hilton. You heard him on the second episode.
He was a gossip blogger in the early two thousands
and a guest judge on A and TM.

Speaker 6 (09:47):
Top Model really was a pioneer in terms of diversity.
I do give her credit for that diversity in color,
in socioeconomic background, in trans representation, queer representation, but while
that was a factor, that wasn't an important one.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Perez doesn't think Tyra was a champion of diversity like
she said she was, or that A and TM had
this diverse cast because she wanted to change the world.
He thinks they prioritize diversity because it makes great TV.
At first, when Perez said this in our interview, I
didn't agree with him. I thought he was a white

(10:30):
guy who just didn't get it. But now, after six
months of reporting, I got to admit Perez might be
onto something. I do believe Tyra when she said she
created A ANDTM to challenge traditional notions around beauty. I
think she wanted the audience to see that women of
all shapes and colors are beautiful. But I also think

(10:53):
it was more than that. Bringing together strangers from completely
different backgrounds and walks of life, throwing them into a
and seeing what happens is a proven formula. The reality
show The Real World pretty much invented and perfected it
in the nineties. A and TM just took that model
and will applied it to models because it works. Remember

(11:15):
the drama on Cycle one between Christian Robin and atheist Elise.
How many times did we see A and TM put
small town sheltered contestants in a house with loose, big
city girls, or rich contestants with contestants who grew up
in trailer parks, or girls from the hood clashing with
girls from the suburbs. I'm convinced A and TM did

(11:35):
the British Invasion season just to see the cultural clash
between the UK and American models. Last episode, we talked
about the way A and TM created characters and why
it resonates with audiences. Characters in reality TV help us
put the cast in the categories, and that in turn
helps us understand the story better. It works best when

(11:57):
the characters aligned with tropes we already know. Most of
us have an idea of the girl next door, or
the quiet wallflower or the pageant queen. Those are common
tropes we see on television. Picking up on a contestant's
personality and then casting and editing them to align with
the character trope isn't wrong. The problem is audiences are

(12:17):
also looking for characters that align with preconceived racial biases
and tropes. Bethany Butler is a freelance journalist who writes
about race and reality TV.

Speaker 5 (12:28):
There's an understanding from the very beginning of reality TV
that like, you need to have these archetypes in these
characters and oftentimes the stereotypes, the biases we have in
our country. In many ways, it's such a microcosm of
how we are in real life.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
And A and TM was more than happy to give
the audience what they were expecting for all of its diversity.
There were less than twenty five Asian contestants in A
and TM history, but the few Asian American models who
were on the show faced micro aggressions and storylines and
edits that were based on racial stereotypes. They were fetishized,

(13:05):
like Sheena Sakai from Cycle eleven. The edit made it
seem like all she wanted to talk about was sex.
She was a go go dancer, something the show focused
on a lot, but she was also a stunt woman
and we never heard about that on the show. Aside
from that, Asian models were typecast and edited is model
minorities or perpetual foreigners. Gina Cho from Cycle six is

(13:29):
Korean American. On the semi finals audition episode, her ethnicity
was the main focus of her conversation with the judges.

Speaker 11 (13:37):
So why do you want to be America's text top model?

Speaker 12 (13:38):
I think not.

Speaker 13 (13:39):
There's just not enough Asian models out there. I feel
that I can break down that barrier. And I think
it's for responsibility.

Speaker 11 (13:46):
You say that you're you're not the girl next door,
you're wild.

Speaker 13 (13:48):
What do you mean If you're to ask me to
get down ship naked, I will do it.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
That's just how I am. Well, the thing is, like,
my parents.

Speaker 13 (13:55):
Kind of have a thing with that, So I mean,
I don't know if I would go against my parents
or I mean I kind of believe more in the
American culture more than my parents. Oh, I'm not into
Asian guys. Why the thing is are a lot shorter
than I am, which is something that I can't tolerate.

Speaker 12 (14:12):
You've come so full circle from your initial statements, But.

Speaker 11 (14:15):
Do you understand how you were a contradiction. First you
were saying I'm Asian, I'm strong, I'm Korean, and then
you're saying scrue Korean boys and I want.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
A white boy.

Speaker 13 (14:23):
I don't know what exactly happens, but I got confused
and I started contradicting myself.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Gina's right when she said there aren't a lot of
Asian models, but her personal feelings about identity and dating
have nothing to do with that fact. But Gina's comments
about her race are exactly what captured the judge's attention.
Gina was ultimately chosen to go into the house, and
I think that's because they wanted to explore an Asian

(14:49):
identity crisis storyline. Her questions about her identity and lack
of confidence were central to her edit. There was a
press conference challenge later that episode where Janis asked Gena
about her identity.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Again, Gina, how does being an Asian woman factor into
your determination to win this competition?

Speaker 2 (15:07):
I guess I don't know. I just I don't know.
I don't know I answer that question.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
So, Gina, when you met us during casting week, that
was the first thing you mentioned.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
So why do you want to be America's sext top model.

Speaker 13 (15:19):
There's just not enough Asian models out there?

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Why in a room with all these reporters, why would
you not take this opportunity to put it in the forefront.

Speaker 13 (15:27):
I'm just I'm twenty one years old, and I don't
know who I really am yet.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
I'm kind of like struggling. I'm like having an identity
crisis here. Gina's parents immigrated from Korea. A lot of
first generation Americans have talked about the push and pool
between their parents' culture and their American upbringing. It's a
lot to navigate, especially on a reality show that keeps
bringing it up. My issue is that ANTM casts so

(15:51):
few Asian American models, and when they finally did, they
chose a girl who was clearly struggling with her identity.
Then they made that struggle her storyline, which reinforces stereotypes
and distracts from the whole purpose of her being on
the show, which was supposed to be modeling. But Gina
didn't even get it the worst. April Wildner was a

(16:13):
contestant on cycle two. April is biracial, Japanese and white.
One of the first photoshoots of the season was a
take on the Garden of Eden. Each model was supposed
to portray a different Eve. They wore body paint, headdresses,
and little elks. They painted one model purple and gave
her a crown and wings like a Cherub, another model

(16:36):
they painted all silver and gave her a chain mail
head covering like a sexy medieval eve. It's hard to
understand what they were going for there, but with April
they were very clear. April was supposed to be Asian Eve,
and despite being half Japanese, they painted a giant Chinese
dragon on her and adorned her head with little lanterns,

(16:58):
another Chinese symbol. April Asian.

Speaker 5 (17:02):
April was gorgeous.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
How Bonny is fantastic?

Speaker 14 (17:05):
I face is haantastic.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
My goodness me, That's exactly.

Speaker 5 (17:08):
What I'm looking for.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
H Sometimes Nigel just gives me the creeps. April did
very well in the competition. She was constantly praised by
the judges for hitting the mark during her photoshoots, and
April took the judges it vice seriously. But she was
also consistently criticized for lacking personality. They said she was
too analytical, too mechanical, and too perfect.

Speaker 11 (17:33):
There was absolutely no personality and didn't make me like
you and say, oh, I want to be like April.
To April, we're not sure if you want this because
you want to be a top model and you want
to be in this fashion industry, or is it that
you just want to win for the sake of winning? April,
I still feel like you're very analytical, but I want

(17:56):
to see the sensitive and beautiful side of you too.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
But the problem to me with April is that you
know she's clinical. She's like a technician. I want to
see some more sex appeal.

Speaker 11 (18:05):
I would love to see a more romantic side of her. April.
This is the strongest picture of the bunch. But when
you talk and how you move in your hands so
like this, it's not a likable, warm person.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Again, you believe after all that they kept going, April.

Speaker 11 (18:21):
You are so technical. But if you want a model
and just relax and exhale, now you look like you
know you need to go to the emergency room needed
most soul.

Speaker 8 (18:30):
It was almost too clinical.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
America's Next Top Model was a competition reality show. Every
contestant was trying to be perfect. Everyone was analyzing the
challenges and the feedback from the judges. But with April,
they made that her storyline. April was so good at
the competition, the judges said she was too perfect to them.
The fact that she was good at everything made her unrelatable,

(18:55):
and that plays into model Minority tropes. April made it
to the top four on her season. When she was eliminated,
Here's what Tyra said.

Speaker 11 (19:03):
April and your pictures, we feel like you post better
than all the girls here.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
But modeling isn't about being mechanical.

Speaker 11 (19:11):
It's about emotionally connecting with the camera.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Per Sae these congratulations when her name wasn't called, April
broke down crying. I think they eliminated her just to
get that emotional reaction. Tyra said she wanted A and
TM to show the audience that women from different ethnic
backgrounds can be top models, but the editing and typecasting

(19:36):
of April reinforced the opposite. There's an ugly belief about
East Asian people that while they may be smart and
high achieving, they lack creativity and charisma. April's storyline told
the audience that an Asian model can be beautiful and
even better than her competitors, but there will always be
something inherently missing, which just isn't true. Jaslene Gonzalez, who

(20:02):
you heard from a few episodes ago, is Puerto Rican.
She grew up in Chicago. On Cycle eight, Jaslene was
framed as a cha cha diva a moniker she still
proudly uses to this day. Here's Jazleene recalling her A
ANDTM audition. I said my name, my heights, and where
I'm from, like the most cha cha diva ever. It's

(20:23):
one thing to showcase the contestants love for their culture.
It's another thing to make them a caricature. When Jaslene
originally auditioned on cycle seven, she came in the room
already turned up. She had a big personality, she was
salsa dancing. ANTM played salsa music during her scene, but

(20:44):
when she came back from cycle eight, her entrance was
a lot more muted. Jaslene was still proudly Latina, but
she wasn't embodying the spicy Latina character ANTM wanted her
to be. There was a photo shoot where Jay Manuel
basically said that I.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Need you to bring me that Latina fire.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
I don't know if Jazleene felt pressured to fit a
certain character or if the producers told her to really
lean into her Puerto Rican heritage, but when I talked
to her, she certainly didn't seem like a spicy Latina.
She's actually really soft spoken. That's the thing about tropes.
Real people don't neatly fit into a stereotype. Jaslene is

(21:25):
often called the first and only Latina winner of America's
Next Top Model, but she's not. Yauanna House, the winner
of Cycle two, is half Mexican, and I don't think
it's something she's trying to hide. She mentioned her mother's
heritage in her interview with me unprompted, But unlike Jaslene,
Yawana's edit didn't revolve around being Latina. It was barely

(21:47):
mentioned on the show, and I think it's because Youana
doesn't fit the stereotypical image of a Latina woman. She
has pale skin and green eyes. But that gets into
the difference between race and ethnicity, which is the nuance
antm couldn't handle. That dynamic is something we saw play
out with other contestants whose heritage wasn't mentioned because they

(22:09):
didn't look the part. Uvy Gomez, who is Mexican American,
told me producers definitely wanted her to fit into a
racial stereotype.

Speaker 8 (22:20):
They wanted me to be like a crazy Latina girl,
you know, the ex gang member. They wanted drama.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
On cycle for Uvi's initial storyline revolved around her being
a reformed gang banger turned model. UV told me when
she was in middle school, she was kind of a
latchkey kid. Her mom worked a lot, so she didn't
have the most supervision. UV said she got into trouble,
skipped school, and got into fights.

Speaker 8 (22:49):
I did hang out with people that did hood rade things,
and I was the hood rade doing of with my friends.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
But when UV started to get suspended from school, her
mom pulled her out and put her in a new school,
and You've made new friends. By the time she got
to high school, things had turned around for her. UV
says she shared all of this with the A and
TM producers, but she also told me she never said
she was in a gang, despite Tyra asking her about

(23:20):
it during her audition.

Speaker 8 (23:22):
When I was a kid, I went through basically every
stage that you could think.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Of you'd be on your application, it says she used
to be in a gang. You've told the casting producers
that her friends used to be in a gang. So
when Tyra asked her this in the audition, she throws up.
The camera cuts away from UV space while you hear
her reply, which you can tell clearly sounds edited.

Speaker 11 (23:46):
Oh goodness, being in a gang and doing all that stuff.
I think it's the worst stage of my life.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
I was just an angry kid. It's sad, like I
hate talking about it. It gets me kind of oh loofy.

Speaker 11 (23:58):
But I just had a lot of like resentment against
It's a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Here's UV today.

Speaker 8 (24:03):
I don't know how they edited it because I didn't
say I was in a gang, but I said I
hung out with people that were in a gang.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
I did have cousins in gangs and uncles. UV was
twenty one when she went on the show. The Troubled
Path the producers tried to make into her storyline would
have happened when she was twelve or thirteen, and UV
said that wasn't the only time they tried to make
her into a stereotype.

Speaker 8 (24:29):
When I filled out my application, they ask you, where's
the last three places you've lived, last three jobs you've had,
and your three favorite food. So I had lived in
San Francisco, Newport, and Modesto. They chose Modesto. I worked
as a model, a janitor and for Abercrombie and Fitch.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
And what did they choose? Janitor?

Speaker 8 (24:55):
And then my favorite food was sushi? Mighta said Italian
or pizza and Taco Bell.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
They picked Taco Bell.

Speaker 8 (25:02):
So I was the ex gang member, her nice girl
that lived in Modestra was a janitor.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
At a Taco Bell. Sounds helar racist.

Speaker 8 (25:13):
If you asked me, it could have easily said sushi,
Newport and model.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
But that's not what they wanted. What they wanted was
for UV to be a stereotype and to act like
a stereotype. But on set she refused to act like
that gang banging, taco bell eating Mexican janitor, so producers
decided she had to go. By episode four, they'd given
you V a new storyline, the girl who can't take

(25:43):
a decent picture. Tyra humiliated her at a judging panel
over one photo in particular, and one of.

Speaker 11 (25:50):
You has only taken one good photo tonight about your
Pisces picture. I even said that it's the worst photo
in the history of America's Next Top Model.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Can you imagine Tyra Banks herself telling you that you
have the worst photo in A and TM history.

Speaker 8 (26:11):
Here's UV so dramatic, too, worst fixture in America's Next
Tomato history. It was like there had only been four seasons.
Let's calm down, now.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Here's the thing about that photo. UV told me she
felt set up. The photoshoot was supposed to be an
interpretation of the zodiac signs. UV represented Pisces, so they
made her a fish. They literally glued huge shiny sequence
to her face and suspended her in a harness. But
how can you surface if it's completely covered in sequence?

(26:47):
UV was in the bottom after that photoshoot, but she
didn't get sent home. That came later. At the photoshoot
that got her eliminated, the models had to pose while
being blown with wind and pelted with water. Was supposed
to look like rain despite having to work against the elements.
Someone behind the scenes told u V they'd seen some
great photos of her, so u V was surprised to

(27:10):
see an awful photo of her at the judging panel.
Here's what one of the judges, Nole Marin said about her.

Speaker 6 (27:17):
Photo's as like a wall on an expressover.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
She got sent home. UV thinks Top Model started the
narrative that she couldn't take a photo because once they
realized she wasn't going to be a Mexican gang banger,
they didn't know what to do with her. Ironically, that
gang banger stereotype they pushed so hard didn't follow her
after the show, but the model with the worst picture
title did.

Speaker 8 (27:42):
They signed with a celebrity agent after the show, and
he laughed because he's like, man, they painted you like
you didn't know how to take a picture. I'm looking
at your portfolio. He's like, but people are gonna remember
that from the show, so you're gonna have to work
a little bit to show them you know how to
take a good picture or you know how to pose.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Uve told me when she saw her edit after the show,
she knew A andtm's commitment to diversity wasn't what it seemed.
They were like, no, look at us.

Speaker 8 (28:15):
We're so diverse. We have plus models, we have all
different ethnicities. But then we're gonna paint you as your stereotype.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
After the break, we're going to talk about one of
the most pervasive racial stereotypes on A ANDTM. I'm talking
about the angry black woman. And what better place to
start than right here.

Speaker 11 (28:38):
I was rooting for you. We're all rooting for you
out damn you.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
A andtm's relationship with its black contestants was complicated in
part because Tyra is a black woman, and it's no
place if you can see that dynamic play out more
then in her we were rooting for you. Confrontation on
cycle four with Tiffany Richardson. Tiffany had just been eliminated
from the competition. It was a double elimination. Oh girl, stop.

(29:17):
Unlike the other contestant who'd just been sent home, Tiffany
didn't seem all that emotional when she went over to
say goodbye to the other girls, who were clearly upset
about her leaving, Tiffany tried to cheer them up. She
told them to stop crying. She even chuckled. It was
that attitude. Tyra took issue with Jeffany.

Speaker 11 (29:36):
I'm extremely disappointed in you.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
This is a joke to you.

Speaker 11 (29:40):
You've been through anger management, You've been through your grandmother
getting her lights turned off to buy you a swimsuit
for this competition, and you go over there and you joking,
you laugh. This is serious to this girls, and this
should be serious to you.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Looks can be deceived.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
I'm hurt, I am, but.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
I can't change it. Tiffany tried to explain to Tyra
she was disappointed about going home. Then she seemed to
allude to feeling defeated, but Tyra wasn't having it. She
cut her off. You can't change what.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
I'm sick of crown about stuff that I cannot change.
I'm sick of being disappointed. I'm sick of all of it.
I'm not it ain't sick of being disappointed.

Speaker 11 (30:17):
I know you're not. If you were sick of being disappointed,
you would stand up and you would take control of
your destiny. Do you know that you had a possibility
to win? Do you know that all of America is
rooting for you?

Speaker 2 (30:27):
In this moment, it seemed like Tiffany had given up.
It seemed like everyone, including Tyra, wanted her to win
America's Next Top Model more than she did. On the show,
we saw Tiffany's enthusiasm for the competition Wayne and it
was framed as indifference. But according to some of the
models who were on that season with her, there was

(30:47):
a lot going on beneath the surface. Here's Britney Brower.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
Tiffany and I were actually really close bust of You
all don't know because they don't show us together a
lot on the show. I loved Tiffany, and Tiffany was struggling,
like not even with the modeling stuff. She missed her child,
her son. You can't call it, make phone calls, and
it's just sort of getting to her.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Tiffany got criticized for being ghetto, even by the other contestants.
Everybody always talking about the ghetto like that's something man likely.

Speaker 4 (31:16):
There are intelligent people in the ghetto. My mom's intelligent,
my grandma's very intelligent.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Trying to be someone she wasn't was getting to her.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
I just felt so upset to myself that I've been
trying to change all these different things about me and
I'm unhappy. Maybe I can't be this person that this
model girl, and maybe that's not who I am.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
I think Top Model was putting Tiffany in situations that
would make her uncomfortable. When Tiffany signed up for the show,
she knew it would be hard, but she didn't expect
to feel so manipulated. Here's Tiffany years after the competition ended,
talking about it with Oliver TwixT. Everything just seen so staged.

(31:59):
I never knew what was going on.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
It was so much pressure. And when I first got
I was so excited. Then it just became like just
a bunch of pressure. It was at least thirty people
on the side waiting for you to jump off or
do anything and lay on your neck by Tyre.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
We saw Tiffany put on a brave face, but behind
the scenes she was crumbling. I cried every freaking episode.
It wasn't that Tiffany didn't care. In fact, she told
Oliver she didn't want to get sent home. She really
wanted to go on the international trip, and she thought
winning the competition could change her life. But by the

(32:39):
time we get to the we were rooting for you elimination,
Like I.

Speaker 8 (32:43):
Cried so much.

Speaker 4 (32:44):
I was just like, I'm not crying them all.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
I'm gone. Brittany Brower said she didn't see Tiffany's reaction
to being eliminated as a sign of indifference. She thought
Tiffany was just trying to hold it together after shedding
so many tears. She also told me that Tiffany was
a really funny person who was always trying to encourage
the other girls and make them laugh. So when Tiffany
tried to cheer them up at her elimination, it was

(33:09):
on brand. I don't know Tiffany. We reached out to
her and she declined to talk. In twenty twenty three,
her son was shot and killed, the same son we
hear her talking about on the season, and since his death,
she's been out of the public eye. But based on
what we saw on A and TM and on previous interviews,

(33:31):
she's done. Tiffany didn't have an easy life before getting
cast on the show. She described herself as being from
the hood. She said she'd grown up poor and she
still was. She was a single mom. She slept on
a mattress on the floor at her grandma's house. Apparently
Tyra brought up that mattress detail when she was yelling

(33:51):
at Tiffany. Here's sal mixer, Jose Torres. Jose saw the
whole thing go down.

Speaker 12 (33:58):
Tyra took some mean sh She said some things to
her about you know, what are you gonna do when
you go back home and you're sleeping on that mattress again,
when it's just you and your baby.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
That line ended up getting cut, but it was a
low blow, especially coming from a woman making millions off
these very contestants and paying them nothing. I do think
Tyra was genuine in saying she was rooting for Tiffany.
Tiffany was and still is drop dead gorgeous. She looks
like a model. We know A and TM loves the

(34:33):
Cinderella story, and Tiffany was the perfect candidate. Tiffany was
there to answer the age old question, if you take
the girl out the hood, can you indeed take the
hood out the girl. Here's what Tyra said about the
perception of girls from the hood.

Speaker 10 (34:50):
People in the fashion industry were telling me, are you
putting the girls in the hood on your show?

Speaker 2 (34:56):
I was like, why can't.

Speaker 10 (34:57):
The girl from the trailer park become a supermodel, but
the girl that's showing in the park in the hood can't.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Tiffany was supposed to be Tyra's ghetto glow up story.
I think that's why Tyra got so mad when she
saw Tiffany giving up. I'm gonna be real honest with y'all.
After reporting on ANTM for months, I do believe certain
girls are set up to win. They're usually the good
models who also have a compelling storyline, and I think

(35:27):
Tyra wanted Tiffany to win. But Tyra was rooting for
Tiffany the character, not Tiffany the person. Brittany Brower has
always wondered why Tyra didn't do more to show Tiffany
she cared before that we were rooting for you moment,
She's like, we're rooting for you, We're all roady for you.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
I guess it, you're rooting for me. She did not
give up, Like, have some compassion for her. And if
you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning,
what do you help her?

Speaker 2 (35:56):
What do you pull her aside?

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Have production pullers, give her a little pep talk, be like, hey,
what's going on with you? I mean, if you see
someone really struggling, let's have some compassion.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Do you want to call your son?

Speaker 3 (36:10):
You wantn't you go make a phone call, Go call
your grandma?

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Brittany was Tiffany's competitor. She could have easily said that
would have been an unfair advantage. Instead, she says it
would have been the compassionate thing to do. Whether you
agree with this or think Tiffany should have been sent
home because she couldn't handle the pressure in the moment
when she was eliminated, she wasn't given the grace to

(36:36):
process the situation the way she needed to. Instead, Tyra
chose that moment to bereak Tiffany. When I watched the
we were rooting for you seen the first time, I
was shocked because it was so out of character for Tyra.
It was one of those scandalous moments. I couldn't wait
to talk about it at school the next day. Now,

(36:57):
after rewatching it, I wanted to have a grown version
of that conversation with my understanding of the complicated layers
of that moment. So I called up someone who, like me,
watched it live in two thousand and five, someone who's
thought about it a lot over the years. Racal Gates
is an associate professor of Film at Columbia University. She

(37:18):
wrote a book all about race and pop culture, and
back in the day, she loved A and TM two.
So I asked her to help me break down that
we were rooting for you moment when Tyra Yell's at her.

Speaker 15 (37:30):
I find that moment so disturbing, not just because it's
one black woman yelling at another black woman, but because
of the way that I think Tiffany gets completely misread
in that moment. It just feels really obvious to me
that she wanted it so much, She's so disappointed, but
she doesn't feel she can be vulnerable in that moment,
and that resonates completely with me. As a black woman,

(37:51):
like you're in this environment trying to sort of hold
it together, and so to see that be read as
defiance or lack of care, I find really offensive.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
When I watched this scene air live, I didn't give
much thought to how Tiffany must have been feeling. But
now when I watch it back, after having some life experience,
I actually get a little emotional. I know what it's
like to be in a situation and feel like you
don't belong. I know what it's like to try to
hold it together when all you want to do is cry.
I know what it's like to have my hurt feelings

(38:27):
the misconstrued is indifference, and I bet Tyra does too,
which is what makes this scene so painful to watch.

Speaker 15 (38:35):
Because I want to believe that maybe in a different context,
maybe if Tira could take a beat and wasn't filming
a show, that she would get it. And for me,
it's a missed opportunity for a black woman to recognize
the very sort of unique situation that another black woman
is in.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
When Tiffany tried to put on a brave face after
her elimination, Tyra chose to humiliate her and then said
she should go back to sleeping on a mattress with
her baby. Tiffany finally broke, I.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Don't have a bad attitude. Maybe I am angry inside.
I've been through stuff, so I'm angry.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
It was the same Tiffany we met in the Cycle
three auditions when she got into a bar fight. Once again.
The show got Tiffany to perform one of their favorite
character tropes, the ABW or angry black woman. Let me
just give you a little definition here. You can think
of the angry black woman label as an umbrella. You

(39:34):
have the ghetto girl, the diva, the mean girl. There
are a few variations, but in the end, it all
comes down to black women being perceived as having a
bad attitude. During the Cycle three audition episode, Tyra acknowledged
the angry black woman trope in a conversation with Cycle
three winner My Girl Eva Pickford. Eva seemed like a

(39:58):
mean girl and a deep but rather than just letting
her be the villain, A and TM gave Eva a
chance at a redemption arc during the auditions. It was
the very first episode of the season, but Eva had
already rubbed a few girls the wrong way. There was
a girl in particular named Amy, Amy was very very thin.

(40:19):
When it was Eva's turn in front of Tyra and
the judges, she had the nerve to say something mean
about Amy, and Tyra wasn't feeling it.

Speaker 14 (40:27):
How are you gonna want to become a model and
take criticism?

Speaker 2 (40:29):
But do you feel there's a need to be nasty?

Speaker 11 (40:31):
Do you feel there's a need to be negative?

Speaker 14 (40:33):
I'm not nasty and I'm not negative. Well, I vocally
said Amy looks nasty. That was very mean, but Amy
looks nasty.

Speaker 10 (40:40):
The first two seasons of America's Next Top Model, we
had girls that were bitches.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
They didn't walk in as bitches.

Speaker 8 (40:44):
That they get to the house and.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
They're considered a bitch.

Speaker 11 (40:47):
I don't want to cast another black bitch.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
This is a rare moment where we see Tyra talking
to a contestant in a way I imagine she must
have talk to her producers. I think it's proof that
Tyra was aware that the show used the angry black
woman's stereotype, or, as she said, the black bitch. So
she gave Eva a chance to prove that she was
not another black bitch, that she could be vulnerable, and

(41:18):
that gave Eva a path to the wind. In Eva's audition,
Tyra asked her about her difficult childhood and her strange
relationship with her family. Eva revealed that her parents and
siblings had said some really mean things to her. Tyra
brought her to tears when she left the judging room.
Before they made the final cut for who would be

(41:40):
in the house, Eva gathered up all the girls and
made a public apology.

Speaker 14 (41:45):
I guess the whole reason I'm standing here and I
want to say something is because I know I have
been rude to a lot of people. I've said hurtful things,
and so I'm apologizing. I'm sorry for anything that I've.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Said to hurt your feelings. Because I don't want you
to leave here with an I get a.

Speaker 14 (42:00):
Depression of me. I do want to apologize to each
and every one of you, because you are our exceptional help.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Not everyone bought it, especially Amy. The girl Eva said
looked nasty, but it did help with Eva's storyline. She
was still a little mean in the house and definitely
a diva, hence the Eva the Diva nickname, but she
got a chance to redeem herself, unlike the other so
called black bitches on the seasons before her. After the break,

(42:28):
we'll talk more about that trope and the contestants who
didn't get a redemption arc. The angry black woman trope
is offensive because it's used in a way that implies
that black women are just inherently angry for no reason,

(42:50):
or it's applied whenever black women are assertive, raise their voice,
or when we show any emotion other than agreeableness. And
A and TM used this trope every season from beginning
to end. Back on episode two of this podcast, you
met Ebonie and Robin, two of the black contestants on
cycle one. Robin was the diva, but Ebone got the

(43:13):
classic angry black woman at it when she got into
arguments with the rest of the cast. It was Ebony
who was too loud, just like bark over your voice
and it's so freaking annoying. In an acting challenge where
all the girls had to do a breakup scene, it
was Ebony's that went too far.

Speaker 4 (43:31):
To ebane, She's very aggressive and she's very frustrated, which
can make her very angry.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
And one judge Kimora Lee Simmons even insisted on saying Ebony,
a dark skinned black woman, was hard looking, which is
the biggest stretch in all of this, Ebony.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Is much too harsh for me.

Speaker 12 (43:52):
They just don't get it.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Ebony was very focused and driven, but it was a
competition and Ebane was there to win. And sure she
got into a few arguments on her season, but she
was far from the only one. They were all at
each other's throats. That's what they were cast to do,
and when Ebane did get angry, it always seemed justified

(44:17):
to me. In fact, the one time she would have
been really justified and flipping out because when she asked
the other models if her girlfriend could come over.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
I wanted to know if it's okay if my girlfriend
come over for about an hour or two today?

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Where were you guys to be at my bedrooms?

Speaker 3 (44:31):
My voice?

Speaker 2 (44:33):
I think definitely it is wrong. It says in the
Bible that it's an abolation to the Lord.

Speaker 4 (44:37):
I don't like her agreed with you you start, I mean,
just because you know I don't agree with you know,
you know, live in and gave relationships.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
But I mean, I can't judge you the fine.

Speaker 4 (44:47):
I just you know, like I just don't want and
ours living foss fabulous.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
I understand we work in this I'm trying to work
it okay after all those negative comments, Ebanie didn't get angry.
She was downright polite, but Tyra and the judges didn't
see that side of her. According to Tyra, Ebanie was
sent home because of her attitude.

Speaker 11 (45:09):
You are beautiful and your smile is breath taking, but
you have when you come into the room, we sense
a chip on your shoulder, a type of anger that
makes you push yourself too hard, to the point where
you lose focus and you become difficult.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
To work with. It was as if Tyra was trying
to teach her a lesson. You could hear it in
her tone. Tyra was a good black woman who was
accepted in predominantly white spaces while black women like Ebanie
couldn't cut it. This scene on the first season positioned
Tyra as a respectability role model for how a black

(45:44):
model should act. I didn't get to interview Ebany for
this podcast, but judging by what she said in other
interviews and on social media, Ebanie seems to be the
first ANTM contestant to fall victim to the angry black
woman at it. Last year, on Instagram, Ebanie said Tyra's

(46:05):
comment affected her career. She said she had a really
hard time getting signed with an agency, and she thinks
it had a lot to do with the way she
was portrayed on the show. But Ebane was the first
of many. The angry Black Diva trope continued into the
last season of A and TM. I actually wanted to
give y'all a whole play by play with breakdowns of

(46:26):
who said what, but we'd been here for another two hours,
So at the risk of flattening these women again, here's
A and TM's Angry Black Women greatest hits, starting with
Camille from cycle two, Tyra's other so called black bitch.
People can say what they want to say. They could
feel the way they want to feel, honestly, like I

(46:48):
couldn't really care less. My objective is to win.

Speaker 7 (46:53):
And we didn't get kicked off for hitting somebody. Don't
ask me toe up right now, but I.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Can tell the truth to save your life.

Speaker 11 (46:59):
Your kids?

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Shut up?

Speaker 5 (47:01):
Does she not come up to me and say that
your angers?

Speaker 4 (47:05):
This is a competition.

Speaker 11 (47:06):
This is not America's next top best friend.

Speaker 5 (47:10):
All these girls hair bitches, And that's all I gotta say, honestly, How.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Managing my competition?

Speaker 4 (47:15):
I don't say your body type is not better than me.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
Plus, no matter what any girl am saying, I ain't
gonna be anybody.

Speaker 11 (47:26):
Why are you?

Speaker 2 (47:29):
This is making me anxious. I don't know how I
watched this season after season.

Speaker 4 (47:33):
Yeah, if you so, you're able to shut up or
go to the But I know if I see one
of my items on someone, I'm gonna be.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Like, take my jo and stole that from me, take
it off, Thank you, bitch. I'm uneducated.

Speaker 11 (47:47):
I went to a red boss and fifty school.

Speaker 8 (47:49):
Look it up.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Can you believe we're only at cycle fourteen. We're gonna
have to speak this thing up. Everyone here didn't like you.
That what it is got to be looking the question
about my factuse I'm about to go off and closing
out the hit list is real Summers from cycle twenty
four You don't have to do anything.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
You just like standing there and was like, oh my
god a clause, Yes, you're amazing.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
I had to work spier to.

Speaker 8 (48:14):
Work my ass off.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
I had to change everything. There's nothing wrong with getting angry.
Everyone feels anger. There's nothing wrong with being loud, and
in a modeling competition, I'd argue there's nothing wrong with
being a diva. As I pointed out in an earlier episode,

(48:35):
the show loved to air contestants angry tirades. That was
the show's bread and butter. But the danger of the
ABW trope is that it flattens people into one dimensional characters.
Most of the women you just heard were villains on
their season. And remember A and TM is about a Cinderella,
not Flupu's wicked ass. Very few of the black women

(48:59):
were set up to win a bw's were cast and
created on set for a reason because they're fun to
watch and fun to hate. Here sound engineer Jose Torres.

Speaker 12 (49:10):
When casting Top Model, it became obvious to us after
certain number of seasons. Some people were cast on the
show to be on the show, and some people were
cast on the show to do well or to win.
But some girls got cast on the show because they're
just they're gonna give you good TV.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
You know.

Speaker 12 (49:32):
It's like they're gonna get a couple of good photoshoots
out of them, but we'll get good TV out of
them and people will remember them for a while. You know.
I don't think they cast Jade from cycle six.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
To win, And yet Jade is one of the most
memorable contestants of the whole franchise. She's the one you
just heard in the Angry Black Woman montage saying.

Speaker 11 (49:59):
This is not America's next top best friend.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
And this is years before Lashawn Beyond uttered those famous
words on RuPaul's Drag Race. After the show, Jade quit
modeling in part because of how bad A ANDTM made
her look. That's the harsh reality of the ABW trope
in action. A and TM made a lot of money
on how volatile and funny women like Jade could be,

(50:24):
but it was at the contestants expense. The show reinforced
the message that working with the black woman was a
risk because that angry, loud, hard to work with diva
could always jump out. Of course, there are black women
who avoided the angry Black Women edit on A ANDTM,
black women who never got angry even when the situation

(50:47):
warranted a crash out. But that didn't mean they avoided
being humiliated for the cameras. Jada Young was a contestant
on Psycho seven. Jada was in the competition long enough
to go on the trip to Space. While there, the
models had to shoot a commercial where they were paired
with male models. The day before the shoe, the A
and TM girls went out to dinner with their partners

(51:09):
to practice their lines and hopefully build some chemistry before
the commercial's big makeout scene. The white model Jada was
partnered with seen stand offish compared to the other guys.
He didn't want to talk to her or go over lines.
Then he told her why he didn't like black girls.

Speaker 6 (51:27):
You wasn't.

Speaker 11 (51:33):
I feel like this good?

Speaker 13 (51:36):
Jada's partner, Natcho tells Jada that he doesn't even liked
black girls.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
She's like, are you serious?

Speaker 11 (51:42):
No one should be treated like that.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
He doesn't want to help me.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
You liking the rabbits, He doesn't want to help me.

Speaker 7 (51:48):
I'm worried about tomorrow shoe because I have to make.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
Out with this guy who's an idiot and a jerk,
and he says he doesn't like black girls.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Jada was shaken the next day when she showed up
on set. The guy was there. US hadn't recast him,
and that meant she had to kiss this guy who
the day before told her he didn't like black girls.
Jada was clearly still upset at the SHOOTE and Tyra
was there. When Jada told Tyra what the guy had said.

(52:15):
This was Tyra's response, Well, you're gonna have.

Speaker 11 (52:18):
To give him a kiss to make him love some
black girls, because what do they say once they go black?

Speaker 2 (52:23):
They don't go black? Tyra banks Ladies and Gentlemen, a
champion of diversity. At the shoote Jada struggled to remember
her lines, which were in a different language. She was
at a disadvantage. The guy refused to rehearse with her,
and when the time came for the kiss, she cried.
When her commercial was shown at the judging panel, it

(52:45):
wasn't great. She may have expected empathy from Tyra and
the judges, but she was met with the opposite. I
was nervous and I was thinking about then, okay, this
guy doesn't like me.

Speaker 11 (52:56):
When I spoke to you guys, you told me that
this is the guy that said that he didn't want
to it's a black girl.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
He doesn't like black girls. Ooh, now guy said that
he told.

Speaker 13 (53:05):
Me that to me the night before, and I feel
like he's crawling and it's skinned.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Just to excuse me.

Speaker 11 (53:10):
On mine is you're gonna take control?

Speaker 1 (53:12):
He loos on him.

Speaker 8 (53:13):
It's just an.

Speaker 11 (53:13):
Extra that should not have stopped her from doing the
job that she was sent there to do.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
After this, Jada was sent home and that racist extra
goddess paycheck. I will say Jada wasn't consistent in the competition.
She had been saved from elimination before, but if there
was any time to save her, this should have been it. Unfortunately,
things like this happened in the real world, but this
was a production. If they were champions of diversity, they

(53:44):
could have used this moment to take a no tolerant
stance on racism. They should have replaced that male model
he was an extra, but instead they put Jada, a
black model, in an uncomfortable and dehumanizing situation, and that
sent the message to the audience that the onus is
on black people to rise above the racism, not on

(54:06):
the racist themselves to you know, not be racist at work.
I want to tell you about one more time A
and TM put a black woman in an uncomfortable situation
and then punished her for her reaction. For a lot
of black women who watched the show, this moment is
seared into our memory and I think it says a

(54:28):
lot about the way the show thought about race, particularly
when it came to black contestants. Ya Ya DaCosta was
the runner up on cycle three. She's African American with
some Afro Brazilian heritage. Ya y'all was afrocentric, meaning she
embraced her connection to Africa. You could see it in
how she styled her hair, the clothes she wore, and

(54:48):
how she carried herself in the competition. Ya Y'all's afro
centricity was a big point of contention with the judges.
There was a judging panel where the girls had to
pick from a selection of hats and build an outfit
around it. There was a leather hat, a black fascinator hat,
a cowboy hat, and a kin take cloth hat. Kentte
is a really well known fabric that originated in Ghana,

(55:10):
West Africa. Much to the judge of surprised, yah Ya
chose the cowboy hat, not the kent hat. Why did
you choose the cowboy hat.

Speaker 7 (55:19):
It's more on the simple side compared to the other hat,
so that I can go crazy with accessories and express
myself without being cliche.

Speaker 8 (55:26):
Yeah, yeah, I think you look beautiful.

Speaker 9 (55:27):
I think everyone probably pegged you if going for the
typical African hat.

Speaker 11 (55:31):
Yah Ya your I feel half African, half cowgirl, looks
like you're about to write a giraffe.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
I think I'm not feeling.

Speaker 11 (55:39):
That you have this intensity to prove your sort of africanness,
and I think that sometimes it's overbearing.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
It's just too much. The judge who just said ya
Ya was overbearing, that was a guest judge. She was white,
and that comment from her would have sent me over
the edge. But I think yah Yah handled it well.

Speaker 7 (55:57):
In response to trying to prove myself as an African.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
That's just where I come from.

Speaker 7 (56:02):
It's very natural to me. And I did not choose
that hat for the very specific reason that it's very cliche,
that's a that breck that it's made from, its very artificial,
very cheap.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
They can'te I didn't have the time.

Speaker 7 (56:15):
I know, I'm running on.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
There's a different way.

Speaker 11 (56:17):
Of explaining yourself and being defensive, and you're being very
defensive and it's not attractive.

Speaker 7 (56:22):
Just because we had to talk about you know, I
feel centricity before and it's kind of misunderstood.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
I'm all about like you can hear the strain in
Yaya's voice. She's trying not to get loud or seem
angry even though the judges just completely attacked her identity.
A and TM set her up to take the Kinta cloth.
I think it's because they wanted to reprimand her for
wearing her culture on her sleeve. A and TM wanted

(56:49):
to get an angry moment out of yah Ya, and
when they couldn't get that, they wanted to humble her.
In their eyes, she was wrong for not taking the hat.
Then they criticized her for explaining why she didn't take
the hat. And even though she never lost her caol,
Tyra called her defensive. Yah Ya couldn't win. Tyra said

(57:12):
it was her mission on ANTM to portray diverse beauty,
but it seemed like another mission got in the way,
her desire to make a hit TV show. ANTM traffic
then negative racial stereotypes, ones that fed into the audience's
most base nature. The show could have challenged those stereotypes. Instead,

(57:33):
it appealed to the lowest common denominator. But a funny
thing happens when you appeal to that lowest common denominator,
you can't choose to be above it. There's only one
time on the show where we saw Tyra get really angry.

Speaker 11 (57:52):
I've never in my life yolded the girl like this.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
And isn't it ironic that even Tyra couldn't escape the
angry black one in trope, because after all these years,
that is still her most memorable moment. I was rooting
for you.

Speaker 11 (58:07):
We're all rooting for you.

Speaker 13 (58:09):
Out damn you.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
On the next episode, our conversation about A and TM
and identity continues. America's Next Top Model featured an openly
trans contestant in two thousand and eight, something that was
shocking at the time, but they made her time on
the show a spectacle.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
I was there as a trans woman, so like, that's
enough of an empire.

Speaker 12 (58:36):
I don't need to do a homeo shot on camera.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Thanks for listening to the Curse of America's Next Top Model.
We're grateful for your support. We'd love for you to
really show your support by subscribing to our show on
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maybe keep that to yourself. The Curse of America's Next

(59:04):
Top Model is a production of Glass Podcasts, A division
of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcast. The
show is executive produced by Nancy Glass, hosted and senior
produced by me Bridget Armstrong. Our story editor is Monique Leboord,
also produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Associate producers
are Alisha Key, Christin, Melcrerie and Curry Richmond. Consulting producers

(59:28):
on this podcast are Oliver TwixT and Kate Taylor. Our
iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio editing
on this episode by Matt del Vecchio, Andrew Callaway and
Tanner Robbins. The Curse of America's Next Top Model theme
was composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by my
Music Special Thanks to everyone we interviewed, especially the former contestants,

(59:51):
and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Also check
out the ed Glass Podcast Instagram for Curse of America's
Next Top Model behind the scenes content