Tyra Banks, second from left, reigns on “America’s Next Top Model” yet again, alongside judges Law Roach, Ashley Graham and Drew Elliott. (VH1) It’s like 2003 all over again!
Supermodel Tyra Banks is back as host of “America’s Next Top Model,” the reality show she launched 15 years ago. Once a top-rated CW show, “ANTM” faded away in 2015, only to return a year later on VH1 with Rita Ora stepping into Tyra’s stilettos.
But now Tyra has resumed her role as ruler of “ANTM,” which kicks off its 24th cycle at 8 p.m. Tuesday.
The queen of “smizing” (smiling with your eyes) is in fine form, claiming that “ANTM” “changed the definition of beauty” by demonstrating beauty comes “in all shapes, all sizes and all colors.” (Though a review of past winners reveals mainly svelte sizes and no Asians, to name one omitted ethnic group.)
Now Tyra claims “ANTM” will break another barrier with the removal of the age limit for contestants. There is a 42-year-old grandmother, a 34-year-old who dares to TALK BACK TO TYRA and a 32-year-old Siberian immigrant who says she has “cellulite and stretch marks all over me.”
The judges are plus-size model Ashley Graham; Law Roach, stylist to Zendaya, who has Cher hair and says one model “takes my gay away”; and Drew Elliott, creative director for Paper magazine, who supervises shoots by shouting at models, “Do something!”
And even though one contestant says, “Everything’s just so different this time around,” fans will be happy to know it’s really exactly the same. The models cry, scream and call each other “sociopaths.” And of course there’s a mean girl who declares, “Not everybody’s going to like me and I’m not going to like everybody either.”
Read more of Marc’s TV musings:
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