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The Opinions
Was Tyra Banks the Villain? Or Were We?
00:34:36
A fashion insider and two culture writers dissect “America’s Next Top Model.”
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's Lauren Dragan from Wirecutter, the product recommendation service from the New York Times. And I test headphones. We basically make our own fake sweat and spray it over and over on these headphones to see what happens to them over time. We're gonna put on some noise canceling headphones and see how well they actually block out the sound. I have 3,136 entries in my database. Kids workout. What version of Bluetooth? At Wirecutter, we do the work so you don't have to. For independent product reviews and recommendations for the real world, come Visit us@nytimes.com Wirecutter
- [00:32]
B
this is the Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.
- [00:48]
C
I'm Nadja Spiegelman, an editor at New York Times Opinion. Like so many millennials, I recently binged the Netflix docu series Reality Inside America's Next Top Model. I was in high school when reality show first aired, and I was completely addicted to it.
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D
Five beautiful young ladies stand before me, but I only have four photos in my hands.
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C
The original show was a reality TV contest hosted by Tyra Banks, who plucked young women from all over the country, competing to win a contract with a modeling agency. I'd never seen anything like it. No one had. I'd never seen real girls on television talking about being gay or being curvy in a world of heroin chic thinness. And at the time, I remember that representation felt truly revolutionary. But then revisiting the show now in 2026 through this docuseries, what stands out the most is how these girls were horrifically critiqued for their appearance in a way that we've come to think of now as completely unacceptable.
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D
And as much as I hate and preach about models not having to be stick skinny, we have to face it that we are in the fashion industry. If you don't fit the clothes, you don't work.
- [02:02]
C
The documentary reveals a lot of disturbing details about how those contestants were treated.
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D
We were all rooting for you. How dare you learn something from this?
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C
And as we think about how much has changed in the more than 20 years since this show first aired, we're also confronted with how much hasn't to talk about these changes. I'm joined by opinion writer Jessica Gross, who writes extensively about culture, and Kendall Wirtz, strategist and co founder of the Jeffries, a creative talent agency. Hi.
- [02:30]
E
Hi. Hi.
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C
One of the things Tyra Banks has made most Famous is the word smize, which is a certain kind of look that you can have in your face where you're smiling only with your eyes. And I think everyone who's around our age who grew up watching America's Next Top Model at least tried to smize. So I want to know if you guys know how to smize.
- [02:51]
F
Uh, I'm sure I've attempted to smize, especially when we were pioneering selfies. So in those early Facebook days, especially when you would have the album that had, like 9,000 pictures in them and you thought that was normal to post on a Thursday. So I don't know if I can still smize, but at some point it was attempted.
- [03:13]
E
I mean, I did attempt it, but I think I failed miserably because I don't think I have the gene in me to really know how to turn on that sparkle with the lens.
- [03:23]
C
Well, let's cast ourselves back. So, Kendall, Jess, cast yourself back to 2003. It's low waist jeans, it's flip phones, it's huge belts, it's blowouts. What was your experience of watching America's Next Top Model when it first came out?
- [03:40]
F
So I was in college. A girl that was my year at school tried out, was on Cycle three, and that was when I started watching the show. She was stunningly beautiful. Everyone thought she was the most beautiful person on campus. So it was like, yeah, of course this person would be on a modeling television show. And I was immediately just right. And at the time, I don't even know if I clocked the commentary on the bodies, the sort of fat shaming. Stop.
- [04:08]
D
If you're sporting a gut, then you turn to the side and disguise it,
- [04:13]
F
pointing out the flaws, because, you know, these were the beauty standards that I had been raised with. And the idea that all the fashion magazines talked like this. Your problem spots, how to do exercises to get rid of your problem spots. I went to a predominantly white high school. I went to a predominantly white college. Those were just the beauty standards. And so, as I wrote in the column that I wrote about it at the time, I think had you asked me about the way they talked about the women's bodies, I would have probably just been like, yeah, well, it's a modeling competition. That's what they signed up for.
- [04:50]
C
I think I just pushed myself way past my limit.
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D
She's huge. She's not going to be a top model. I just wish her upper body was bigger and matched her lower body better.
- [04:59]
F
And so I think it was really important for me, having watched that show and not really thought too deeply about it since I stopped watching it probably around 2008, when I was 26. Now, as an adult with a fully closed frontal lobe, seeing how those young girls were treated and talked to was horrifying, you know, from an adult perspective, but also, I think, from a 2026 perspective.
- [05:23]
C
But at the time, you were like, this is the world.
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E
This is the world.
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C
This is the world I live in.
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F
This is how we talk about women's bodies.
- [05:29]
C
Yeah.
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E
Yeah.
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C
Kendall, what was your experience?
- [05:31]
E
This was not the world that I lived in. I'm from Detroit. So when I embarked on, you know, the journey of college, the journey of fashion school, this show was something to me that held a particular place in my heart and my soul, because I've always loved, like, what's going on behind the scenes. What was so great about this show was in my mind then, I had no experience to really put it together. I mean, like, as far as I was concerned, it's basically Star Search. You know what I mean? It's a reality TV show, but I don't have the research to know what reality TV show actually is. And the storylines and the plots and the this and the that. To me, this was something that was going on every day. I was a huge fan of the real world. So this was sort of, in part, kind of similar to that, but with an American Idol, you know, Amazing Race type of component that led me to believe, oh, my God, this is the world that you want to belong to. This is the world that you're escaping to from Detroit. And so I found the show to be extremely effective for my life of saying, you know what? I'm gonna go and I'm gonna work at a modeling agency. Once I got to the modeling agency, I slowly found out that whatever trauma these girls and these young women were going through, it had nothing on the trauma in which was going on in my actual reality TV of my life. So when I look back on the show and look at how much I love this show and this piece of pop culture, I also can't my back on. Wait a minute now. Look at some of these challenges. Look at some of what. This is not really reality in any way, but I ate it up every week. We were tuned in, we were watching. We were smizing with no phone, a digital camera. Where we were at that time, we
- [07:12]
C
were smizing at the pools of water.
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E
Smizing at the pools of water.
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C
Eyes are closed in every shot. You gotta leave them wide open. It's gonna sting a little, but just get used to your eyes just being open underwater.
- [07:25]
E
So, like, basically, what I'm saying is, yes, the show was highly effective. It was also very disrespectful. But in those 2000s early, there was a lot of things happen culturally that I can't wait to dive into with you guys. Of it wasn't just skinny. There was a blackout on the Runway, and the black models that were there were like, wait, girl, it's me. No, it's me. Tokenism at its best.
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C
Yeah.
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E
So what I would say, looking back at the show, is that it's revolutionary. It's revolutionary of the time. But now it's also revolutionary too. When I look back on it, I see all of the bad, but I can't help but see all the good compared to the hell I've seen in the industry.
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C
And that's why I wanna ask you about the hell you've seen in the industry now in 2026. So more than 20 years later, you're watching this Netflix documentary, and you're revisiting it through the lens of 2026. What was it like rewatching it? Were where you shop?
- [08:22]
E
No. The agencies in which I've worked for. Yes. Taught me how to develop an eye for beauty and how to sell that beauty, how to introduce that beauty to a client. But what I will say is that the industry is much harsher than what we saw and what we're unpacking here. This was the one documentary that I shed a tear. Cause I said, oh, my God. These girls thought that they were gonna make their dreams come true. And me, as a person who works with models, knowing that this dream is not even possible for you. Because, girl, just get us. Get a subscription to Vogue. Get a subscription to Elle. Get a subscription to any of these amazing magazines that showcase beauty. And you don't look like that. She was changing something. Yes. She was changing industry standards. And I don't think that the young women that were being a part of this change understood the gravity of the change in which Tyra was trying to do.
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C
Kendall, can you give us really specific examples of how things on the show were different from the actual modeling industry that you then entered?
- [09:26]
E
Well, it's two, actually. Dani and the whole tooth debacle. Agencies would look at Dani's Gap and say, you know what? Actually, this is something that sets you apart from the other girls. So, you know, well, we kind of want to keep this. We want to zero in on this. This is what makes you special. That wouldn't go into, like, oh, let's close this and make you like everyone else.
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D
Do you really think you can have a CoverGirl contract with the gap in your mouth?
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F
Yes.
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E
Why not?
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D
This is all he still sees. Easy reads, beautiful covergirl. It's not marketable.
- [09:53]
E
And so I think that from the agency side, I've seen where there was a girl who was signed at 13 years old. She was from Scandinavia. Okay? So this guy submitted this girl's photos. And this young lady, she gets a job where she's directly booked. She gets on a plane, the client pays for her. So basically what ended up happening is the client called the agency and said, we have an issue here. This girl that you sent us does not look like the Polaroids and the digitals, even the updated digitals that you sent us. Something's going on. There's a fraud here. She's not perfect for this magazine. She doesn't look like a teen anymore. The girl was 15 years old.
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C
Wow.
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E
Okay. I rescued this girl. I'm like, okay, you know, we're gonna go back to the agency because again, we didn't sign her off of anything. But the photos that they had saw two years ago. Right?
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C
Yeah.
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E
And so when she walked into the office, they took her back into another office where they had a meeting with her about her having a breast reduction. Okay. Without parental. Yeah, without parental supervision. So when we're talking about, okay, this contestant on America's Next Top Model is tasked with, okay, a gap being closed versus a 15 year old girl who's not even of age. You know, when you got a decision to make, you're not gonna work unless you get this. That is insane. Yeah, that's crazy.
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C
Yeah.
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E
And that was the industry standard at that time.
- [11:17]
C
That's really useful context. And so when we're watching on America's Next Top Model, the documentary expose, and Dani, the model that you're talking about, it's a really moving storyline on the show. She has this beautiful gap between her teeth, and Tyra forces her to close it, or the show forces her to close it. And she basically talks about how she would have been a more successful working model if she'd been able to have this gap in her teeth.
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E
Me getting my gap closed is not
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B
opening any doors for me.
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E
You knew what you were doing for the show.
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B
You were making good for TV at my expense.
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C
And there's other. All the makeovers sometimes involve irreversible cosmetic procedures like pulling out a lot of teeth. And you're saying that that's really. That's really standard. So Jess, you were a young girl growing up in a world where you were reading these magazines and being given these beauty standards. And when you were watching the show, even though the show purported to change them, it was also in many ways reinforcing them. What was it like to revisit it now and be like, oh, that is the I grew up in.
- [12:17]
F
So I mean that commentary about that young model is so upsetting to hear, but it is also reflected in the show where I'm thinking of the model Shannon, who at the early seasons they did weigh ins so they would give you the model statistics. Right. And so she starts the season, she's I think five, ten and a half, 130 pounds. That is still underweight by BMI standards. You know, I know BMI is not perfect, but like she's already underweight and she is pressured into losing more weight and she says she developed an eating disorder. So I, I think she becomes 114 pounds. And I remembered that actually from watching it at the time. But again, I don't remember being upset about it when I was in my early 20s because again, I was like, well that's just being a model. It's starving yourself. Like that's how it is. And that is a body type that even someone who is extremely tall and willowy and you know, a model body type, most of us don't have that body type to maintain the standard. That is the base standard when you are an actual grown woman intellectually I knew that, but watching it in the documentary as a full grown woman was really illuminating and I think not just with the body image. There is a sexual assault that happens in the show and I thought that was the most upsetting thing that happened and it was very brushed away by everyone. The woman who experienced the assault, her name's Shandy, is still to this day, she's in her 40s, incredibly damaged by what happened, understandably, especially since the entire world saw it. There was no sort of reconciliation or apology. And I think there's a way not to make everything always about the Epstein files. I feel like that's just the way we circle back to them on every topic now. But it's just so, I think a very easy association to make in this moment that there is this way in which these young women are multiply vulnerable. And so that was a really big takeaway for me watching it.
- [14:16]
E
Yes, for the most part for male models, it's mostly over 18 years old is when you're very viable. But for the girls, the women who are perusing through these magazines have no idea that they're looking at a 13 year old, a 14 year old, a 15 year old who's gussied up and made to look like an adult woman. And these women are having a lot of sort of dysmorphia, looking at them and saying, oh, I'm them, I see myself in them. But not realizing that they're comparing themselves. A grown woman is comparing themselves to a teenage girl.
- [14:47]
C
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And it is hard not to think about sort of the currency of girls, the world of Epstein, the world of rich men, where, like, girlness, not womanhood, is a currency and is valuable. And I'm glad you bring up that moment about the assault, Jess. I think, like, part of. Part of what was interesting for me about how the documentary frames that is that they actually, in the documentary, never. I don't think they ever call it assault. It's just that through our contemporary eyes, it is extraordinarily clear that that's what it is. And yet it was possible to watch that and think, that girl had too much to drink and she cheated on her boyfriend. And like. And it is the Rorschach test of, like, actually what's happening is the context of the culture and the perspective that you're bringing to these events. And I don't know, for me, there was things so in a way, kind of healing about revisiting this, because I was like, it's not just the show was bad. This is the context that I grew up in as a person who's not naturally thin, as a person who's queer, who, like, these are the messages I was getting from everywhere. I wonder if there was a way in which it made you just revisit your girlhood, your experience of girlhood in the early 2000s.
- [15:52]
F
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that there's been multiple ways over the past five to 10 years where I have revisited that period. I would say like 95 to 2005. Right. And the messages that were happening not just about what my body should look like and what it was acceptable to say about it, but, you know, what behavior was acceptable. And I think we are sort of continuing to have these conversations and it is two steps forward, three steps back. Right. And I see that actually in both directions with both the sort of MeToo affiliated understanding of consent, and then also the way we think about body image and what is desirable and what is desirable, beauty wise. Right. Because, you know, I do think we had this moment maybe 10 years ago where we were seeing a much Broader range of bodies on the Runway. We were seeing more people of different backgrounds and ethnicities on the Runway. You know, Vogue did and a few other places started keeping statistics about the number of mid and plus size models on the Runway. And we would see those statistics sort of start to creep up and now they're just all the way back again. And so it's also really interesting to think about how progress is not uniform. And there's ways in which I think things are much better. You know, I would not actually watch this documentary with my 13 year old. I wouldn't show it to her, even though I watch a lot of things with her. I mean, we watch tons of 90s shows together and she is often horrified by the way people talk to each other and about bodies at the same time. You look on the Internet and you look at the comments on a TikTok of the most stunning woman you've ever seen in your life, and the comments will be like, she's mid, she's fat. And you're like, what are you talking about? This is Margot Robbie. Like, are you the botsta boss? But still, the kids, you know, we're talking about teenage girls who are looking at this. They're not thinking it's bots, they're thinking like, oh, if Margot Robbie is not even pretty enough, like, I must be a complete monster. Right? So it's like, I think there's ways in which the progress keeps getting made, but it's not uniform. And there's always a backlash. There's always steps back when you say
- [18:11]
E
in terms of diversity.
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F
Yes.
- [18:13]
E
My partner got me an amazing book for my birthday last year. WWD did a history of sort of the fashion business over a hundred years. And so what I found by reading a lot of the articles was that we've been here before over and over and over and over again. In fact, it was black and Jewish people actually who were denied sort of access into this sort of world of fashion and this world of beauty, of being seen. And there was different organizations that were established to sort of bring the industry to the mat and say, you know what? It's our time, this is the time. And as soon as they would move up, they would slowly move backwards because of different moments that were happening. So when I look at what Tyra was trying to do, I get it. Back in those days, the supers were ruling the Runway. And these women were bold. They had body, they had personality. Which I guess was distracting from the clothes, right? I guess that's distracting from the clothes. That we replaced with someone who's very waif. Like, Tyra was a part of that supermodel brigade, right? So she knew that her rates were drying up. Right? So in turn, Tyra changes herself into someone who's more commercially viable in its way. She's abandoning high fashion, and she's gonna go the route of someone who is like, I am an all American girl, not just black girl. I'm the all American girl who has personality. And it could be a little kooky sometimes. A little kooky. Little kooky, yeah. Little kooky. So what I found with just sort of researching what was going on during that time is that she was trying to answer that call with, okay, I'm gonna do a casting, and I'm gonna have four women who are commercially. I'm gonna have one woman who is a curved girl.
- [20:09]
D
There is our plus size model. Do what you can. Be gorgeous, be tall, be fabulous. Work what you got.
- [20:14]
E
I'm gonna have three models who are editorial, and I'm gonna have. She broke it all down in a way in which I found that this show to be really entertaining.
- [20:22]
C
Jess, what do you think? Despite the show's flaws, do you think that it played a role in bringing about such change? And do you think that anything actually has changed? Like, are the messages that your daughter is getting different from the messages that you got? What has changed and why?
- [20:36]
F
I do think the show absolutely deserves some credit for popularizing different kinds of beauty, for showing. You know, I don't think anyone had any idea that a plus size model was a thing. I mean, that is not what I ever saw in the magazines that I looked at. So I think she definitely deserves some credit for broadening the lens of what a model could be and should be. I think to give her some credit here, it's hard to get called out. And I think she came off as sort of seeming very resentful of the fact that people weren't giving her more credit. And it's like, we can hold those two ideas at the same time, right? That she does deserve some credit for breaking a trail for some people. But also she exploited and humiliated so many of these girls in ways publicly that were unnecessary and in retrospect, really damaging to them. I would say, in terms of my daughters and what I think the young girls messaging that they're getting now, it's such a mixed bag. So much of it for girls who are on social media, and this is why my children are not on social media is determined by the algorithm.
- [21:43]
B
Right.
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F
And so if you start liking things or interacting with content, you're just gonna get more of that content. And so I don't think social media is uniformly negative for the body image of all girls, but for girls who struggle with body image, they fall down the rabbit hole. So in the piece that I wrote about America's Next Top Model, there was a study that showed that girls who have eating disorders and bad body image, they looked at their algorithms against a control group, and the images that they were getting were diet, exercise, just over, like, plus 100% more, 300% more than the people in the control group. So I think for kids who already struggle with these things, their experience is even worse. And for the kids who don't already struggle with these things, it might be a little bit better. But I think overall, the ethos, the way that we all spoke to each other in high school in so many ways, is not acceptable for kids to do today. Like, not just the body image stuff. It's just like, I will watch 80s movies with my child, and she will be like, they let you talk like that in so many different slur ways. I'm just like, yeah, it was wild. I don't know how that happened.
- [23:00]
E
One of the things what I was thinking about as I was hearing you, Jess, you talking about your daughter, One thing that I know that creeps through the sort of system all the time is blackface.
- [23:10]
C
Mm.
- [23:11]
E
You know, every once in a while, in a blue moon, the howl goes up, and some white person or somebody then puts some chalk on their face and decided that they're gonna be black and they're gonna put it on. Yeah. That is one thing to see a celebrity literally during Halloween bring down themselves because they want to put on a little, you know, a show. You know, they want to be something outside of reach of who they are. And because they put this makeup on, they're like, oh, yeah, I can feel the pain.
- [23:40]
F
Talk about how ANTM did that was the craziest thing to remember. So on America's Next Top Model, do you want to give the context of America's Next Model?
- [23:46]
C
No, go ahead.
- [23:46]
F
Okay. So America's Next Top Model did more than one race switching photo shoot. I had forgotten all about that. To watch from now was just like, why? Why would you do any of this? Like, it was so easy.
- [23:57]
E
Why would anybody be like. And the way Tyra was positioning this, like, well, first of all, Jay just looked like, I don't want no smoke with this. He looked really uncomfortable even delivering this news to the girls. You could see that there was a hesitation on his face. That's round one. Now round two, which is like, what, like five or six cycles afterwards. Tyra's still at it. Tyra's actually gonna show up this time, and she's gonna be like, oh, now you're an Egyptian. And now you're an Indian.
- [24:27]
D
Aaron, you're going to be Tibetan, like the Dalai Lama, and
- [24:33]
F
Egyptian. Egyptian.
- [24:36]
E
Like, she was like the Oprah of blackface. It's so crazy that this is what she's up here talking about. And so when I look at that episode, I am mortified at the lack of anger I had. I didn't have. This was during a time where your anger is so suppressed in society that screaming out that you're angry doesn't really matter because no one hears your screams. So it's just all of these things that have happened in the show that are unbelievable. And to revisit that made me so angry with my younger self. But I understand why. I was sort of like, yeah, whatever. Because the time did not warrant for your anger. Yeah, the time didn't listen to your anger. The time didn't care about your damn anger.
- [25:27]
C
I'm glad that we're in a time now where you can feel that anger. I think that's sort of where I want to go now is like, have these things actually changed? Because, Jess, in your essay, you write about how we had a body positivity era. We had that. But now we're back into a time when skinny is queen, when diet culture is replaced by JLP1s, when Conservative politics are crowning hyper femininity as the ideal. Are we just with new labels or are we somewhere new?
- [25:53]
F
Well, I think in terms of, like, the extreme skinniness that we are now seeing again, I mean, every red carpet, I truly gasp. Like, we see these actresses bodies change, who were already very thin, and now they are even more thin. And I think that there's this sort of knee jerk. Oh, don't talk about anybody's body. But it's. You can't not talk about it. It is. Is alarming to see. And I think that will be in vogue and that will change. I don't think that that level of extreme skinniness, which it calls to mind the, you know, heroin chic of the 90s, the plus minus of social media is that there are lots of other things.
- [26:31]
C
Right?
- [26:32]
F
So you see, you know, right now we're just after the Olympics, and like Alyssa Liu and all the other women who just won Olympic medals They have incredible bodies. They are so fit. They are doing amazing things with their bodies. And I do think that there are these sort of other role models for girls. That feels better than when we were kids. You know, they're not just, like, cool to look at. Yeah, they're amazing. So I think that there is promise for things to get better. I think we are in a particularly bad moment now. I think the advertising's only gonna get worse. And that's sort of my broad conclusion.
- [27:08]
C
That's so spot on.
- [27:09]
E
Advertising won't even have people. It'll have AI.
- [27:11]
C
Yeah. And kind of as someone, like, still working with, like, casting agents, gatekeepers, as part of your job, do you think that under Trump things are looking different, or do you think this is a moment, a blip? Where do you think we're at in this cycle?
- [27:25]
E
I love the Biden era. I love the DEI of it all, which was even more so than when Obama was president because of social media and, like, how even bigger it got, you know, under the Biden administration. So I think that after Biden exited stage right, then Trump came in and it totally changed the idea of what the system was. Because people who are now talking and being free to say whatever they want are now on the wrong side of the historical facts of today. Because today the rules changed. And being outspoken and being somebody who has a value system and morals and standing on the business of what your morality is, that's not in vogue. That is not in fashion. What is in fashion is quiet luxury. So shut up.
- [28:19]
C
Yeah, I'm hearing you say.
- [28:21]
E
Don't talk.
- [28:21]
C
I'm hearing you say someone who was really wanting to talk about their perspective, the specificity of their background and beliefs was really celebrated during the Biden.
- [28:29]
E
It was celebrated during that time. And then this time. Now we're celebrating a girl who has blue eyes and she loves her jeans that are also blue.
- [28:36]
C
I was gonna say. Yeah. What about how people look? Has that changed?
- [28:38]
E
And the way that people look is now tokenism is back in full force. We just need one of you. So whoever's gonna battle it out, like, here's a piece of meat and you guys figure it out. So people are fighting over opportunities.
- [28:49]
C
Yeah, I wanna go back. Cause we have to sort of near the end. But I really just wanna talk about Tyra. A lot of the discourse around this documentary has been about whether Tyra herself gets what reality TV calls the villain edit, whether she comes off as the villain or. And what do you think is Tyra Banks the villain here?
- [29:09]
F
She's definitely the villain of this documentary. Like also, she dresses the part. She's in her Inspector Gadget like trash.
- [29:15]
E
I was like, what is that?
- [29:16]
F
I was like, she looks ready to escape at any moment.
- [29:19]
C
She looks like she's gonna run out.
- [29:21]
F
She is sort of exquisitely media trained. And I think we're in this moment where everyone wants people to be authentic. You know, it's a performance of authenticity. If you are sitting for a documentary, you are on a podcast. We are performing right now.
- [29:33]
E
I'm being really authenticity doesn't authentic for a bit, but then something takes over.
- [29:40]
A
Right.
- [29:40]
F
But she comes off as inauthentic in that documentary because she's guarded and media trained and not taking responsibility. And not taking responsibility. And I don't. You know what? I don't know if there was anything that she could have said that would have satisfied everyone. But even when given the opportunity to reflect on some of the things that happened, she's either defensive, she will occasionally apologize, but I think doesn't really show growth in terms of how she perceives a lot of the things that happened. I think a lot of it is just like, well, it was 2003, whatever. And you know, again, if that's how she feels like that's her truth. But I think a lot of people felt that that was not sufficient.
- [30:24]
E
I thought that Tyra really did not understand that she was going to be the villain. I don't know who she thought she was in this situation because yes, it starts off where she's like, look at all these things. I did. But my biggest question to Tyra is, how did you land up in that Inspector Gadget outf Because the situation is pretty clear. These people have been doing this documentary for a time and they called you to get a comment here and there and that's when you were like, you know what? Let me go and let me talk to them. Let me do some damage control.
- [30:56]
C
Yeah.
- [30:56]
E
And she went up there and I think that she thought she was doing damage control. And to just. What you were saying is, did she with production, did she hear about these things? I'm not gonna sit up here and say that she did not do anything. She revolutionized TV in a fashion television show, which there's not that many that are on that have been able to have the success that she has. Yeah. But in examining what's going on, you're in a lot of danger, girl.
- [31:22]
C
Yeah. She has this constant defense of just like, well, it was a different time. No one knew. How could I have known? It was A different time that doesn't come off as. That doesn't really convince eventually. But she does have this one moment, or maybe it's a few moments throughout the documentary where she has this defense that is basically like, the audience wanted drama. And that to me is actually the most convincing argument that she has is like, I'm not the villain. America's the villain. I'm just giving America what it wants, and I'm good at that. What do you guys make of that?
- [31:53]
E
The thing is, is that Tyra walked around as if she was like the nicest person. And it's not that she just walked around that way. People put that onto her. She's a leader, she's a black model, has done tremendously, tremendous work in her career in the fashion business. So people, when she's wearing her cape, people are putting the cape on her as strong and someone, most importantly, who is kind, that sort of goes away in a way where we take off that cape of like, oh my God, look at how amazing she is. And she turns into a modern day villain.
- [32:30]
F
I think the analogy I have in my head, hearing you talk, it's like, like Wall street guys never pretended like they were saving the world. They're like, I'm just making a lot of money. And tech industry guys were like, no, I'm saving the world. And we know that to be false now, and we all hate them. And it feels very much like Tyra versus, like Worldwide Wrestling. Right? Worldwide Wrestling never pretended like we're doing something for these wrestlers, like we're doing putting good into the world. It's entertainment, right? And I think why people are mad at tyranny is exactly what you said. It was like she wanted to be like, no, I'm doing. I'm this beneficent person giving all this to the world. And now it's like, actually it's just entertainment. And you can't really have it both ways.
- [33:14]
C
Mm. Yeah, I think. I think you're right. It's the hypocrisy of it.
- [33:17]
F
But I think she's right. And I mean, her telling the audience that they're culpable made me feel like you're right. I was. I saw these girls being treated so ugly at the time and I enjoyed it. And now, with the hindsight of 20 years, I don't think I would even rewatch the show.
- [33:34]
C
Okay, thank you both so much for being here. This has been so fun. It's been such a pleasure to talk about this with you.
- [33:39]
F
Thanks for having us.
- [33:40]
E
Thanks for having us.
- [34:08]
B
If you like this show, follow it on YouTube, Spotify or apple. The opinions is produced by derek arthur, vishaka darba and gillian weinberger. It's edited by kari pitkin and alison bruzen. Mixing by isaac jones. Original music by isaac jones, sonia herrero, pat mccusker, carol sabaro, efim shapiro and amin sahota. The fact check team is kate sinclair, mary, marge locker and michelle harris. The head of operations is shannon busta. Audience support by christina samulewski. The director of opinion show rose is annie rose strasser.