In today's society a person's self image is something that has become increasingly important. Every year millions of dollars are spent on clothes, accessories and makeup. One of the by products of this has been countless reality television shows about fashion such as Project Runway, The Rachel Zoe Project and more recently Fashion Star. Even though I am personally not a fan of many shows that revolve around this there is one that has caught my attention lately and that would have to be America's Next Top Model (ANTM) Cycle 19 College Edition. Now I know what your thinking America's Next Top Model what? Up until a few weeks a go I thought the same thing until I was randomly flipping through channels only to see that the show had completely changed!
From what I remember it was an instant success with viewers everywhere tuning in to watch how the judges would tear into the contests. From girls crying over having their heads shaved to being ecstatic over winning challenge. The show has also been known for its weirdly funny and sometimes just plain awkward judges Tyra Banks (International Super Model), Nigel Barker (Fashion Photographer) and J. Alexander (aka Miss J) (Runway Coach).
Every week contestants would get sent home based solely on the judges decisions. Recently though, Tyra Banks the host and executive producer of the show has decided to go in an completely different direction. By changing the entire judges panel and having the girls scored every week on a scale from 1-10. The new judges include Kelly Kutrone (People's Revolution) , Rob Evans (British Super Model), and Bryanboy (Filipino Fashion Blogger).
To me this new panel seems to be completely different from the old panel and, in some ways not as interesting. With the old panel you could knew that every week there would be some sort of craziness to watch as they judged the girls. With the new panel it seems very lack lustre to me. Even though you do have Kelly Kutrone who tells it like it is the other judges seem to look relatively bored in every episode. For example, Rob Evans opinions of almost every girl is "you look like the girl next door" or "you just look like a pretty face". Now I'm no fashion expert but I believe that when critiquing a photo there needs to be more than one sentence answers.
Along with the judges scores the girls are also receiving scores from social media. Every week the fans are able to vote for there favourite's to stay in the competition. This has changed the show completely due to the fact that it is no longer only the judges decision of who has to leave the show from week to week. Another twist that has been added is that out of all the girls that are eliminated in the competition one will have the chance to come back at some point during the season.
My question is after all these changes are people still going to want to watch ANTM? In my opinion the social media scores do allow for the public to interact with the show and have more of an say in who gets to leave every week. This may allow for the fan base of the show to grow a bit but not by much. But really? After 18 cycle's is anyone still a die hard fan of this show? You hardly ever hear about the winners of this show or about the amazing careers that they were supposedly supposed to have after the show. In my opinion I believe that this is the producers last effort to save the show since its slow decline in ratings the last few years.
I'm one of the few people who actually still watch this show religiously every week. I've never missed an episode and I feel like if I stop now, it will have just all have been a waste of time (I realize that makes absolutely no sense, but that's all I've got.)
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard this season was going to be "college edition" I was really excited! I liked that they were going to take girls from different colleges around America and have them represent their schools. Even though I don't think Tyra meant for it to be "hey quit school to model", that's definitely how it's coming off.
As previously stated, I'm someone who's watched every season, and this whole "social media" aspect is knot doing anything for the show. In my opinion Tyra is just doing it because she is losing viewers and she had to try to find a way to keep people interested. So she gave viewers a voice. Yeah, sure, it's great for the people who want to give their two cents. But now it's the same as So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol. It's not America's best model, it's America's favorite model. What do viewers know about what it takes to make it in the fashion world? Not nearly as much as the experts do.
So I admit, I'm a weekly ANTM watcher, but I can't say I'm necessarily enjoy it. The worst season thus far.
Hi Dani!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you! Yes they added a new twist to the show but like I said before I don't think that it's actually going to help the show in any way. For example, the social media aspect of the show is just causing the show to loose many of its hardcore fans that have been watching the show for years. Such as you! About the whole "quit school to model" idea I never really thought about it that way; but now that you mention it it does kind of seem that the show is somewhat supporting that. I think that if Tyra wanted to keep the show going she should've just kept the old judges or possibly allowed male models to also compete in the competition! I honestly believe that that would've brought in more viewers than just changing the judges panel.
Also, I agree with you about the show being about which models the public likes and wants to keep around rather than being about which girl actually has the most talent.
An only male model season would be fantastic! I'm pretty sure they'd gain back A LOT of their old viewers! They need to do something new, but not in the way they're doing it.
ReplyDeleteI also agree about how they should have kept the old judges. They've had soo much turn over and though I do love Kelly Cutrone (she was way more cut-throat on the Hills though), the other judges are nobodies. Bring back Janet Dickinson, Twiggy or Andre Leon- Tally! They were actually meaningful people in the modeling world!
I used to watch ANTM in high school religiously, but I find in the past years it just hasn't been the same. I tried watching this season just because of the twist, and I wasn't a big fan either. The male judge, regardless of how hot he is, has no personality and just kinda goes with the flow. He doesn't have a personality! At least with Miss Jay you had someone sassy and interesting to watch, and not just for the outfits. I don't see there being that many future cycles.
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