Like most things in fashion, early 2000s trends have officially made a comeback over the past year. From low-rise jeans paired with tiny tops to “vintage” chunky heels, a growing number of college students are modeling their wardrobes after the greatest outfits of Rachel Green and Cher Horowitz.
Along with renewed fashion trends, people are also turning to one of the biggest pop culture staples of the 2000s: reality TV.
America’s first reality TV show, “Candid Camera,” began airing on ABC in 1948. The premise of the show revolved around playing pranks on unsuspecting passers-by. This concept of inserting a camera into the public sphere and recording real reactions for the entertainment of the masses has developed over time into shows like “An American Family,” airing in 1973 on PBS and “The Real World”, which began airing on MTV in 1992.
The focus of reality television has shifted between depicting the trials and tribulations of real Americans and pushing the shock factor. In the 2000s, many reality TV producers realized that there was a very effective way to combine these two elements: competition and comparison.
“Some of my favorite TV shows were ‘Project Runway’ and ‘America’s Next Top Model.’ I also really liked ‘Survivor’ and ‘The Bachelor’ of course. I honestly liked them for the drama,” said Jenna Fuller, a junior English student “They were always guaranteed to be just entertaining and suspenseful enough to keep me engaged for about 30 minutes.”
“America’s Next Top Model”, first broadcast in 2003, presented itself as an opportunity for all women to break into the modeling industry. While each season’s castings offered surface diversity, the treatment of people of color and LGBTQ contestants reflected trauma much more than equality. All of the women outside of the generic “girl next door” persona were given storylines that pushed and pushed to their deepest life struggles.
“I remember watching ‘ANTM’ and seeing an episode where they painted all the girls to represent someone of a different race than the girls actually are. I couldn’t “I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. How the hell could anyone think everything was okay?” said Addison Parker, a sophomore majoring in creative media.
Tyra Banks, the show’s host and executive producer, put herself in a position of savior. Banks, who grew up in the California suburb of Inglewood and signed with Elite Model Management at 17, aimed at getting contestants to open up about their past homelessness, mental health issues and family discourse. Many contestants saw the shows as an embodiment of the American dream, a chance to escape their small towns and reclaim their families in difficult times, but Banks did little to help them in that regard.
It’s rare for a contestant to become famous after competing or even winning “America’s Next Top Model.” Contestants such as Yaya DaCosta and Winnie Harlow only achieved degrees of success after stepping away from the show.
Many contestants struggled to find work in the industry after appearing on the show, largely because many brands viewed them as unserious. The producers reduced each woman to her most dramatic life struggle, losing the quality of her modeling abilities in the process, and many women left the show with no chance of reclaiming their professional treatment potential.
“I think if your end goal is to become a model, ‘ANTM’ is a great opportunity to get your name out there. However, it will affect your ability to be taken seriously in almost any other career. It’s hard enough to be taken seriously as a woman in the media industry,” Parker said. “We are often treated as something to watch and not someone to listen to. When you participate in things like ‘ANTM ‘…you allow yourself to be silenced behind a camera.
At the time of its airing, “ANTM” received praise for its diversity and inclusiveness, even winning a GLAAD award in 2009. In hindsight, the series barely deserves an award for placing its contestants in psychologically damaging and potentially dangerous situations.
From pairing a black contestant with a male model who made racist remarks, to introducing and then failing to defend Iris King, a black transgender model who was discriminated against by other contestants, the show contained racism, body shaming, and general cruelty.
“Rewatching shows, I was appalled to find blatant racism and sexism that I missed when I was younger and watched these episodes when they first aired,” Fuller said. “I think many of these shows reinforced negative cultural values and societal expectations that were already prevalent in the early 2000s, creating lasting and detrimental impacts on impressionable viewers.”
Asked by Variety magazine if he thought the creative decisions, particularly the Cycle 4 episode in which contestants traded races for a photo shoot, would be acceptable in current media, former “ANTM” judge Jay Manuel agreed that some aspects of the show deserved a backlash.
“I don’t agree with that statement of people saying it was a different time. I really do. He didn’t fly then,” Manuel said. “It wasn’t cool in 2004. … The mentality was it had to be bigger and it had to be the water cooler.”
Amanda Klien, associate professor of film studies at East Carolina University, agreed that a different timing is no excuse and said it was important to see things in context and understand their audience and why things were said.
“I think understanding the context is always very important when we look at something from a previous historical moment; which is basically all right? Everything will always be in the past at some point. And I think there’s some things that we’re going to look back on now and say, ‘Oh, well, that was another time and we said these things’, but even there are some things that are produced at that time and I think people agreed that they were inappropriate. ,” she said.
Klein said people can attribute the shows’ cultural awareness in part to young people demanding different types of content.
“I think we’re getting better as a culture, but it’s still a process,” Klein said.
Klein said people can still watch those episodes of a show that are “problematic,” but it’s important to be critical and not accept them at face value.
“So it’s worth looking back at this episode of America’s Next Top Model and asking why Tyra Banks decided it was okay to have this photo shoot. It’s a really interesting question to think about,” she said.
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