Electric Lib

Oh Tyra...

Last night, I went over to join some girlfriends in their weekly viewing of America's Next Top Model and we were, as usual, entertained by the petty fights, the ridiculous challenges and the ever disappearing presence of "high fashion" (they did an add for Payless last night, and I like Payless, but I don't know if it qualifies as high fashion). Anyways, in the absence of any real work to do this morning, I began thinking about America's Next Top Model, especially in relation to The Tyra Show. During the Tyra show, Ms. Tyra Banks addresses many issues ranging from racism, to poverty, to make up, fashion and, her biggest issue--body image.

Although Tyra assures women everywhere (herself included) that you can still be gorgeous and... well, healthy, I have to say that I am not convinced she really believes it. She pounds the message into women's heads everday on the Tyra Show, and then once a week on ANTM she coaches a bunch of ten foot tall, 90 pound women (along with the one "plus-sized" model) on how to look sexy.

Well thank you Tyra, how ambitious of you to go out there and really change the perception of beauty. It seems to me that if she was really cared about the body image of young girls, she would not have a whole show dedicated to perpetuating the negative images. Perhaps she would have a show that was dedicated to aggresively changing the modeling industry to represent a diversity of healthy bodies. Then again, I think Tyra has shown us many times that she does not have a real understanding of many of the social ills she is so determined to "fix," as demonstrated during last week's episode of ANTM where the girls posed as victims of violence. Classy Tyra. If someone is going to put themselves out there as a voice for an issue, they should, at least, understand it.

In other news, school ends in less than a month! Crazy. Posted by lib at April 12, 2007 11:14 AM