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Today, Explained
The reality TV that made us
00:25:55
A new documentary about America's Next Top Model has people reckoning with its legacy and the industry that birthed it.
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- [00:01]
Noel King
I think it came out when I was 12.
- [00:02]
Sachi Cole
America's Next Top Model.
- [00:05]
Noel King
Every conscious thought I've had about my body and sexuality and being a girl and how to eat has been guided by this show that was on until I was 28.
- [00:20]
Sachi Cole
You went from an impressionable age to young adult to fully an adult. And Tyra and the show were there every step of the way.
- [00:27]
Noel King
Yeah, Tyra was with me through puberty and my divorce. And you can't say that about a lot of people.
- [00:34]
Sachi Cole
A new documentary tries to reckon with the show's toxic legacy. Do you think that Tyra Banks learned anything, feels anything about all this?
- [00:43]
Noel King
Who cares? Like she's, she's like, I don't know, maybe. Do I think the man on the moon considers his moral obligation to me
- [00:53]
Sachi Cole
not really the reality TV that made us Coming up on TODAY Explained. Support for TODAY Explained comes from Talky A Tree. It's a 100% online psychiatry practice that provides evaluations, diagnoses and ongoing medication management for conditions such as adhd, anxiety, depression, bipolar, ocd, ptsd, insomnia, so much more. Tochiatry says it takes just a few minutes to get started. You complete a short online assessment, get matched with clinicians who fit your needs and schedule your first visit in days, not in months. Head to tochiatry.com explained. Complete the short assessment to get matched with an in network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's talkiatry.com explained to get matched.
- [01:39]
Sponsor/Announcer
This show is brought to you by south by Southwest. Ready for seven days of discovery. South by Southwest is the premier destination for creative professionals from around the world. Experience bold storytelling, thrilling live performances, cutting edge innovations and so much more. At the south by Southwest conferences and festivals this March 12th through the 18th in Austin, Texas. Expect the unexpected at south by Southwest. Driven by rivian. Unlock a 10% discount on your innovation badge when you use code VOX10@SxSW.com VOX discount on badge price only, not combinable terms apply.
- [02:24]
Sachi Cole
America's next top model is.
- [02:33]
Brian Moylan
Today explained.
- [02:38]
Sachi Cole
I'm Noel King with Saatchi Kol. She's a senior writer for Slate covering culture. Tell me why we're talking about America's Next Top Model again.
- [02:47]
Noel King
Well, I mean look, culture moves in like 20 to 30 year cycles and so there's always nostalgia that comes up with these things. That is a show that premiered right after 9 11. It speaks to a very particular slice of kind of early to mid aughts reality show culture. We are in a phase where we're rethinking all of those things. And, I mean, Netflix is doing it in particular. They did a Jerry Sprigger documentary a little while ago. They just did one on the Biggest Loser. I mean, it is an interesting time to reassess the culture that continues to dominate all of the things we watch. They are all guided by these reality shows from 2000 to, oh, 2010. What a rough decade. Honestly.
- [03:26]
Sachi Cole
What a rough decade.
- [03:27]
Noel King
They should give us the purple heart for surviving it. Cause, like, it's crazy that we're alive.
- [03:32]
Sachi Cole
What was America's Next Top Model?
- [03:35]
Noel King
America's Next Top Model is about dreams, plain and simple. And it's about accomplishing these dreams through hard work, talent, and passion. I want to take someone from obscurity to fame, and I want to chart
- [03:46]
Sachi Cole
the entire process and show America how it happens.
- [03:50]
Noel King
It was a reality competition show. They would bring on a bunch of very young, old teenagers and young women. Some girls were still, you know, like, 18, 19, and then 23, 24. They would get these girls, they'd put them in a house together, and they would have to do these modeling competitions every week.
- [04:07]
Brian Moylan
We are gonna give you girls three minutes to put together an outfit using your own clothes that best evokes one of these three walks that you are going to see on this screen right here to my left. So the shoot is you girls are all gonna be crime scene victims. Tiffany, you're gonna be Native American. Brittany, an African American woman. Kenya, Korean. And Noelle, we're making you into a traditionally African woman with a head wrap and everything.
- [04:39]
Noel King
You know, the show created, like, a whole lexicon for us that we didn't have before. We know the word smize, which is the dumbest word. That's a verb meaning smiling with your eyes. But it was. It was such a strange fever dream of a show. It is exactly like a lot of reality competitions still.
- [04:58]
Sachi Cole
But it.
- [04:58]
Noel King
It. It was so specific and weird and saliently hel. A lunatic. Like, Tyra was cuckoo bananas. And that's why we loved her. She was amazing tv. She would just. She was always trying to trick the girls. There's one where she, like, pretends to faint in front of them. Tyra, please. Oh, my. Please don't hurt you.
- [05:20]
Sachi Cole
Oh, God.
- [05:22]
Noel King
That's our phone.
- [05:22]
Sponsor/Announcer
Take our phone.
- [05:23]
Noel King
And then she's like, I'm acting today. You guys are going to learn about acting. We learn about acting. Acting, acting, acting.
- [05:31]
Brian Moylan
That was fake.
- [05:33]
Noel King
And then they put it in the show. Like, it's not just that she was doing it. I guess that's what's so remarkable about the product and the documentary. She was just doing it. Then they were like, right, let's put music over it. And then we're gonna put a little code thing here.
- [05:47]
Sachi Cole
This is Tyra Banks.
- [05:48]
Noel King
We're gonna put on tv and you're gonna watch it. And boy, did I.
- [05:55]
Sachi Cole
And boy, did we all. You used the word lunatic. I think it is fair. I think it is kind. I think it is appropriate.
- [06:02]
Noel King
I say that with affection.
- [06:03]
Sachi Cole
Yes, yes, yes. It is right for Tyra. And so much of what the documentary has to grapple with ultimately, is what was happening on that show. That was sheer lunacy. And some of what went on on the show, if not much of what went on on the show, is, in retrospect, rather appalling. So let's talk through some of the things that the documentary tries to address. And I wanna start with a model named Shandy.
- [06:28]
Noel King
Yeah. Shandi has one of the most devastating. I think she has maybe the most devastating story in the documentary. She was someone that I still. I mean, she was on the second season of the show.
- [06:39]
Sachi Cole
My name is Shandy.
- [06:40]
Noel King
I work at a Walgreens.
- [06:41]
Sachi Cole
I'm a service clerk.
- [06:43]
Noel King
She seemed primed to win, in fact. And so near the end of the show, they take all the models to Milan because there's always a travel portion where they, you know, have the finale there. And while she was there, she got really drunk, and there were a bunch of male models.
- [06:55]
Sachi Cole
We were just, like, talking, drinking this wonderful company to you. I don't think I'd eaten anything at all or had any sleep.
- [07:05]
Noel King
And in the show's version, when you watch it in real time, it's like a drunken hookup. Like, she cheats on her boyfriend in Milan, and that's how it's framed. And her shame is, I can't believe I did this to my boyfriend. Did your boyfriend cheat on you? He cheated on him. Really? Everybody's messed up.
- [07:24]
Sachi Cole
Shandy,
- [07:26]
Noel King
when you watch the documentary, it is recast. Not. I wouldn't even just say, like, oh, it's a 20, 26 lens. I don't necessarily think that it is. I think a lot of people still view sexual assault like this and still view drinking in women like this. But she's an adult, and so now, really, in her adulthood, she's able to look at this and be like, yeah, that wasn't a place where I could consent.
- [07:48]
Sachi Cole
I think after getting out of the hot tub and, like, whatever happened after that, I think they should have fucking, like, been like, all right, this has gone too far. Like, we got it. We gotta pull her out of this. Does anyone in the documentary, is anyone held to account for the way Shandy was treated?
- [08:08]
Noel King
It's interesting. A lot of people want more responsibility from Tyra, and I get that. Like, she's the face of it, and it's a good person to ask, but these shows are constellations of people. There's a lot of people who work on these shows, and there's a lot of people who have responsibility for it. And some of them are in the doc, and maybe some of them aren't. But, like, what happened with her is, like, there's, like, five, six, 10 people who have to say okay to that. And you keep saying it, and you keep saying it. That is what's interesting to me about how the machine lets that pass.
- [08:36]
Sachi Cole
One that I remember. I'm surpri. I'm surprised. It means so much to me. But there was a model, Dani, who had a beautiful, charming, delightful gap in her front teeth, and she was made to close it.
- [08:51]
Noel King
Yeah. They made her fill it.
- [08:53]
Sachi Cole
Yeah. Look, it sounds minor. There might be people listening who'll be like, noelle, that is so minor. I don't know. It was like. It was part of Dani's face. It was part of her charm. And she was told, no, we don't like this.
- [09:04]
Noel King
Do you really think you can have a CoverGirl contract with a gap in your mouth? Yes.
- [09:07]
Sachi Cole
Why not? This is all people say. It's easy reads, beautiful covergirl.
- [09:11]
Noel King
It's not marketable.
- [09:12]
Sachi Cole
Tell me about how the documentary deals with young women. Being told something distinct about you is not right. It's not good enough.
- [09:23]
Noel King
It's a tough gig that Tyra gave herself because she's trying to tell these women, this is how the industry works, and these are the things you need to do to be able to thrive in it. At the same time, she is propagating those same things. So I believed her, and I still believe her when she would say, you need to lose weight because you're not gonna get a covergirl campaign if you're bigger. Which was true at the time. It's still true for a lot of campaigns. Her telling Dan, I think you should close your gap at the time with the information she had. And Tyra says this. This is what I knew. With the information that I had, I kind of believe her. There were agents that would tell me, she will not work with those teeth. It's just not going to happen. That's what they told me. The show was still interested in moving that narrative forward and making sure that was the tension. There was all the point of the show was the tension between who you were and who you are supposed to become.
- [10:15]
Sachi Cole
Hey, so you watch a documentary and what did you want to get out of it? And what do you feel like you got out of it? Did it feel like an honest reckoning, an attempt to do something real here? Or was it just more sort of patting Tyra on the back for her years of service?
- [10:31]
Noel King
Intent and result is always different. And I don't know what the intent was, but I think with the result, she comes off looking kind of like what we knew her to be, which is like pretty craven. Pretty, pretty craven and like pretty aware of what she's done and not. Not that. Sorry. And like, yeah, that's what we bought. That's what we paid for. That's what we bought. And the idea that she is going to be this font of accountability, I don't think that's likely. And also it's sort of that question, you know, a lot of her answers are like, well, this was, you know, this. It was just. That was the time. That was always. That's always the argument people make. That was the time none of us knew. Network executives didn't know. And I did the. That I could at that time, but she deserved more. I don't really. I never really get that in hindsight because it's like. But it's still the time the President is posting GIFs or video AI videos of the one and only black president we've had as a monkey. So I don't actually know that it is that of a time. It's just of a different place. That kind of stuff maybe doesn't live in reality TV like it used to or on prime time slot. It maybe doesn't do that anymore, but it is permeated everywhere else and it has always been there. So, yeah, she was responding to what she had, but we are always responding to what we have. And we always have this. It actually has never really improved. One day we get to decide if we'd like to improve it. I think those retrospectives are worthwhile because they help us see how the Overton window has moved and where it's moved and how we can maybe shift it back. These shows sometimes operate with success only if you as the viewer are making fun of those girls and if you're sneering at them. We were staring at them and we. And we have to, as viewers acknowledge that and be at peace with it. We are still doing it. These were really young people and they didn't really entirely understand what kind of machine they were getting into. I think competition, reality and what it wrought back then is very different than, like, the Vanderpump rules or the Real Housewives of today. Those are adults, adults with money often and with family and connection kind of entering these spaces. These were really vulnerable girls. Some of them had nowhere to go after the end of the show, you know, didn't have family to go back to. But those shows don't succeed. And Tyra doesn't put them in blackface and she doesn't make them, like, walk along a tiny Runway between gongs. She doesn't lecture them about how to eat or to take the bread off their burger if we don't watch it and then go to work the next day and be like, God, I know, like, Kenya did look really big in that photo. That only works if we engage with it. And it's hard. It's hard to not engage with it because it's what you know, the machine wants blood.
- [13:23]
Sachi Cole
Sachi Cole. She writes about culture for Slate. Her book is called One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of this Will Matter. Her other book is called Slate Sucker Punch. Coming up, should we have taken reality TV more seriously?
- [13:42]
Sponsor/Announcer
Support for the show comes from Talkiatry. For a lot of people, getting help with mental health begins and ends with talk therapy. But if you find that you're still struggling to manage symptoms of anxiety, depression or adhd, it might be time to meet with a psychiatrist. And Talkiatry wants to make that as simple as possible. Talkiatry is a 100% online psychiatry practice that says that they can provide comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses and ongoing medication management for conditions like adhd, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, ocd, ptsd, insomnia, and more. Unlike therapy only apps Talkiatry is psychiatry. That means you're seeing a medical provider who can diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe medication when it's appropriate. You'll also be able to meet with experienced licensed psychiatrists who takes the time to understand what's going on and builds a personalized treatment plan. Head to talkiatry.com explain to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's talkiatry.com explain to get matched in minutes. Support for this show comes from found. If you're a small business owner, wrangling your finances can feel like an ongoing struggle. You might be anxious about your taxes or stuck chasing receipts and invoices all while toggling between multiple disconnected apps. And at the end of the day, that time could be better spent on your customers. But Found says they can help you finally get a hold on your business, finances and all from a convenient place. Found can help you eliminate your finance clutter by giving you one platform that handles it all, including banking, bookkeeping, invoices and taxes. That means no more paying for multiple subscriptions or dealing with clunky, outdated apps. Plus, Found says they want to help make tax season a little less stressful. By automating things like tracking expenses and finding write offs, you can take back control of your business. Today you can open a Found account for free@found.com that's f o u n d.com found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by lead bank member fdic. You can join the hundreds of thousands who have already streamed their finances with Found.
- [16:19]
Sachi Cole
Support for Today Explained comes from Chime. In this day and age, it's very difficult to live your life and not spend money. Chime says you should spend money smartly. Chime says they're not another banking app. They want to unlock banking for everyday people such as you by getting rid of overdraft fees, minimum fees, monthly fees. Chime says they make your everyday spending work harder with tangible rewards and clear financial progress. They say they can help you build up your credit history. Plus you can earn up to 3% APY on savings, which they claim is eight times higher than a traditional bank. Chime is also rated five stars by USA TODAY for customer service complete with real humans available and work in 24. 7. Chime says it's not just smarter banking. It is the most rewarding way to bank. You can join the millions of people who are already banking fee free today. Go to chime.com explained that's chime.com explained. They say it only takes a few minutes to sign up and Today Explained listeners can earn up to an extra 350 bucks.
- [17:15]
Noel King
Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services and the secured Chime Visa credit card are provided by the Bancorp Bank NA or Stride bank na. Optional services and products may have fees or charges. See chime.com fees info terms apply. Limited time only. Must open the new account and complete qualifying activities to earn rewards. Advertised annual percentage yield with Chime plus status only. Otherwise 1% APY applies. No minimum balance required. Chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See chime.com for details on applicable terms.
- [17:43]
Sachi Cole
Beauty style
- [17:47]
Brian Moylan
today explained. My name is Dame Brian Moylan. I am the president and founder of Vultures Real housewives Institute. And I have been writing about TV and reality television specifically for a very long time.
- [18:08]
Sachi Cole
All right, so take me back in time. Where does reality TV start? And where does America's Next Top Model fall in that?
- [18:18]
Brian Moylan
There's kind of a couple starting points. One of the biggest was an American Family, which was a PBS show in the 70s. The Louds are neither average nor typical.
- [18:30]
Sponsor/Announcer
No family is.
- [18:33]
Brian Moylan
They are not the American family. They are simply an American family, which was a documentary just about a real life family. But it was more of a documentary than reality TV as we know it today. The next big Milestone was in 1991 when the Real World started on MTV. Find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. What they invented that changed the genre was the confessional.
- [19:00]
Noel King
I don't think that I've ever experienced
- [19:02]
Brian Moylan
stress of this magnitude before. If I do leave, the show is
- [19:05]
Sachi Cole
gonna be for beating her ass.
- [19:07]
Brian Moylan
So not only were you seeing real people living their real lives, they were talking about how they were feeling about them in the moment, you know, and we were seeing them kind of in these confessional interviews. The watershed moment was when Survivor became a huge hit in the summer of 2000. And that really kicked off the reality TV arms race. And so you had all of these different networks and channels looking for this new, hip, cheap way of. Of making television. And so there started to be all these experiments. Everybody was trying to get their big reality hit.
- [19:42]
Sponsor/Announcer
50 women will compete to marry a mystery multimillionaire. She won't meet him till they say I do.
- [19:48]
Brian Moylan
What are you scared of?
- [19:50]
Sponsor/Announcer
You'll probably see it on fear factor.
- [19:53]
Brian Moylan
Just 40 kids with a chance to
- [19:55]
Sachi Cole
build their own society.
- [19:56]
Brian Moylan
Our work is cut out for us. Welcome to Kid Nation. And that's when kind of Tyra came up with the idea for Top Model in the early aughts. And it was kind of a combination of Survivor, like a elimination style show where everybody's living together, as well as American Idol, which was a talent based competition. And so what Tyra was one of the first to do was combine those two things into something greater than the sum of its partners.
- [20:28]
Sachi Cole
If we were to talk about the last 25 years or so, say, starting with Survivor, how was reality TV made in the early days?
- [20:35]
Noel King
Like, what were the tactics?
- [20:37]
Brian Moylan
The tactics? I think it was kind of an anything goes atmosphere. It was very wild, wild west. I mean, if you read about the history of Survivor, the cast on that first season got all sorts of infections and terrible things and, you know, came back with, yeah, who knows, who knows what kind of parasites, you know. And so I don't think people are really prepared for what it was going to take to have real people in front of the camera and also to turn real people into overnight celebrities. You know, there had never been someone like Richard Hatch before who went from being a nobody to being one of the most famous men in America. Kind of overnight, what's happened in my head is here's the conflict, here comes the dynamics that suck, here come the people that just shout and don't listen. Here comes the negativity, and here comes the crap. And I also think that with the producers, there were were a lot of people coming out of the documentary space doing it, but there were also a lot of people coming from more tabloidy type backgrounds. And so there might have been a little bit more exploitation, a little bit more looking for the craziest possible angle, the craziest possible stunts. And it was kind of the bigger and louder and crazier, the better. Especially right after Survivor, it became a very crowded marketplace. So you needed something different about you to really stand out.
- [22:02]
Sachi Cole
And then how does it start to change over time?
- [22:06]
Brian Moylan
Well, I think that viewers got hip to reality shows and how they're made and that they're producers, et cetera. And so I think the expectations of the audience change. And I think because enough people had watched reality shows, they kind of knew a bit what to expect. And when they went on those shows, you know, what they should and shouldn't be treated like. But I still think that there's a lot of craziness, there's a lot of exploitation, there's a lot of, you know, people pushing buttons and trying to amp up drama that still goes on. But I think now we know that the production companies have a duty of care to the people who are participating on these shows and the people who are making these shows. And so that, you know, no one is coming back from Survivor with a parasite anymore. Though there was someone on the last season who got bit by a snake.
- [22:59]
Sponsor/Announcer
Come check this out. The snake just came and latched on me.
- [23:02]
Brian Moylan
So, I mean, who knows?
- [23:04]
Sachi Cole
Okay, so in some ways it's safer. In some ways, would you say it's more professionalized?
- [23:10]
Brian Moylan
I think absolutely. And I think now a lot of people, especially since the advent of social media, see it as a stepping stone to some kind of career. Right. Like most of the women who are going on the Bachelor or the men going on the Bachelorette are going to develop a social media following so they can become an influencer of some sort rather than finding love. So, you know, they're looking at being on the show as a professional opportunity, just like the. The women who were on Top Model did. But without social media, their only professional opportunity was the modeling industry. And in many instances, they didn't want any of the women who were models on Top Model.
- [23:48]
Sachi Cole
What I was told was that no one wanted to book me for their shows because I was viewed as, like, this reality star, and designers didn't want me walking in their show to take attention, if you will, off of their collection and onto myself. Do you think that the changes we've seen are reflecting changes in what we think is entertaining, or are they just, like, nobody wants to get sued and everybody wants to be, you know, a star and influencer?
- [24:22]
Brian Moylan
Reality television is always a reflection of us. And I do think that tastes have changed and the things that we deem are acceptable have changed. Like there's a season of Survivor where they divided everybody by race. They have been divided into four very unique tribes. Asian American, Caucasian, Latino, and African American. You know, after all the things that we've been through in the past 25 years, like, things like that are no longer cool, and so you're not going to see that happening again. And so I do think that, yes, tastes continue to change and evolve, and I think that that is a bit of a reflection of that, and most of it has been for the better. That's the thing about these shows that have been on forever is that you get to see them change and evolve kind of as we have.
- [25:14]
Sachi Cole
I think I hear you saying things have gotten better. Is there stuff where you would say we still need to improve?
- [25:21]
Brian Moylan
Absolutely. I mean, I feel like some of the deals that reality people have with the networks are some of the worst deals in entertainment, you know, and that, like, they're on these shows creating catchphrases and making intellectual property that these networks are then going on to sell on merch and to market and make money off of, and they're not getting any residuals when they rear these shows.
- [25:44]
Noel King
Do you.
- [25:45]
Sachi Cole
Do you happen to know what Ted Koppel said about reality tv?
- [25:49]
Brian Moylan
Oh, my God, No, I don't, but I'm sure it's not great. I'm already rolling my eyes.
- [25:54]
Sachi Cole
He said it marked the end of civilization. Was he being a stick in the mud? Did he have a point? What do you think?
- [26:02]
Brian Moylan
No, I. I always think he's a stick in the mud. And listen, I mean, if it wasn't reality television, before that it was rap music. Before that it was Elvis Presley shaking his hips. Before that it was, you know, they've always touted the end of civilization and yet here we are thr staying in the present. And so. But I, I think that that stigma is part of what allows reality television to be as bad as it was because serious people weren't looking at it seriously. And I, and I think that people don't take the stars that come out of it seriously. So people aren't holding the people that make it accountable for what they were doing because they're kind of just like Ted Koppel, like, well, you're all terrible. What did you expect? But, you know, there's levels of terrible
- [26:53]
Sachi Cole
and we have lived through them. We have seen the levels of terrible. So where do you think, where do you think reality TV goes next? Like, what's the next big advancement?
- [27:04]
Brian Moylan
I mean, I think it's gonna be interesting to see and usually advancement comes with technology. And I think that the biggest advancement has been that we're now all a reality show. We're all living our lives on camera. We're all performing for likes and attention and, you know, making content. And so I think that it's going to take another big technological advancement to see what comes around. But if you look at what's happening in the realm of reality television itself, you have shows like the Beast Games where it's bigger and crazier, and it's more about putting the contestants in moral situations where they have to make difficult choices that are either going to help them or harm somebody else. Which is kind of implicit in Survivor but much more explicit in some of these shows like Beast Games or Squid Game, the TV show, things like that. More what they would like to call social experiments than just watching people living their real lives or playing these kinds of big format game shows.
- [28:07]
Sachi Cole
Up the stakes.
- [28:08]
Brian Moylan
Always up the stakes. Yes, ma'. Am. Always upping the stakes.
- [28:11]
Sachi Cole
Dame Brian Moylan of Vulture, thank you so much. We appreciate it.
- [28:15]
Brian Moylan
Thank you.
- [28:20]
Sachi Cole
Danielle Hewitt produced today's show. Amina El Saadi edited Andrea Lopez crusado checked the facts and Patrick Boyd and David Tadashore engineered. I'm Noel King. It's Today Explained.
- [28:40]
Noel King
Foreign.
- [28:45]
Sponsor/Announcer
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- [28:50]
Brian Moylan
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- [29:10]
Brian Moylan
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