Canada's Next Top Eating Disorder
Are you kidding me??!!
I'm a fan of trashy reality tv - especially in the summer - so, of course, I watched Canada's Next Top Model every damn week. It was much like its American counterpart, with a few key exceptions. Host Tricia Helfer was the anti-Tyra Banks... poised where Tyra is earthy, chilly where Tyra is warm, stiff where Tyra is, well, Tyra-licious, high-fashion where Tyra is oh-so Sports Illustrated. On the plus side, Tricia seemed to offer practical, realistic advice in photoshoots - explaining how and why to do things, whereas Tyra tends to say "just do it like I do it." The photoshoots themselves tended to the arty and high concept, but the Covergirl commercial was laughably low-rent relative to the American version. The strangest element of the Canadian show was its location - in that hotbed of international fashion, Victoria BC. Um, ok. I assume the location was chosen to allow Tricia to work on the Vancouver set of Battlestar Gallactica. It made for some beautiful scenery shots, but added a strange, almost rural feel to the model world.
All the same, the show was good clean fun, until the winner was announced.
Andrea was easy enough to root for. A shy mama's girl who'd never had a boyfriend, who'd been bullied and teased as a child and who had barely a cent to her name. One thing she did have, in addition to lovely bone structure, was a painfully thin frame. Even on a model scale, Andrea is sickly skinny. Seemingly subsisting on candy and little else, it seems clear that Andrea has some serious food issues. As I watched her week to week, I kept thinking that if the camera really does add 10 pounds she must be emaciated in person. To win, Andrea beat out girl-next-door Alanna, who was criticized for her "gym body" and told she had shoulders like a hockey player (no hockey player I've ever seen, but what do I know?). By choosing the girl with the stereotypical waifish model body, the girl who clearly has no idea of what healthy diet and exercise mean, the producers of Canada's Next Top Model have reinforced the beauty myth that fashion has been peddling for years. And that's a very sad message to send to the young Canadian girls who watched the show.
I'm a fan of trashy reality tv - especially in the summer - so, of course, I watched Canada's Next Top Model every damn week. It was much like its American counterpart, with a few key exceptions. Host Tricia Helfer was the anti-Tyra Banks... poised where Tyra is earthy, chilly where Tyra is warm, stiff where Tyra is, well, Tyra-licious, high-fashion where Tyra is oh-so Sports Illustrated. On the plus side, Tricia seemed to offer practical, realistic advice in photoshoots - explaining how and why to do things, whereas Tyra tends to say "just do it like I do it." The photoshoots themselves tended to the arty and high concept, but the Covergirl commercial was laughably low-rent relative to the American version. The strangest element of the Canadian show was its location - in that hotbed of international fashion, Victoria BC. Um, ok. I assume the location was chosen to allow Tricia to work on the Vancouver set of Battlestar Gallactica. It made for some beautiful scenery shots, but added a strange, almost rural feel to the model world.
All the same, the show was good clean fun, until the winner was announced.
Andrea was easy enough to root for. A shy mama's girl who'd never had a boyfriend, who'd been bullied and teased as a child and who had barely a cent to her name. One thing she did have, in addition to lovely bone structure, was a painfully thin frame. Even on a model scale, Andrea is sickly skinny. Seemingly subsisting on candy and little else, it seems clear that Andrea has some serious food issues. As I watched her week to week, I kept thinking that if the camera really does add 10 pounds she must be emaciated in person. To win, Andrea beat out girl-next-door Alanna, who was criticized for her "gym body" and told she had shoulders like a hockey player (no hockey player I've ever seen, but what do I know?). By choosing the girl with the stereotypical waifish model body, the girl who clearly has no idea of what healthy diet and exercise mean, the producers of Canada's Next Top Model have reinforced the beauty myth that fashion has been peddling for years. And that's a very sad message to send to the young Canadian girls who watched the show.
posted by Jen @ 8:24 a.m.
1 Comments:
At 1:08 p.m.,
Jason Carlin said…
On the one hand we have the perpetuating stereo type of the wifish model. On the other hand, she's Canada's Next Top Model. She'll snap like a twig when she puts on her parka for the Sears Catalogue cover shoot. Nature has a way of self correction.
The scary bit is they say the cameras add 10 lbs. She may be 2 dimensional.
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