Top Model’s beautiful corpses: the nexus of reality TV misogyny and ad industry ideology
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Posted by Jennifer L Pozner March 22nd, 2007 |
Ain’t nothin’ hotter than a dead girl. That’s the take-away message from this week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model, in which Tyra “I care so much about my girls” Banks & co. created the most brazen bit of ad-industry misogyny ever to grace the reality TV genre: an entire episode presenting a gaggle of underfed model wannabes as the mutilated, mangled and murdered epitome of beauty.
I’m so disgusted by the photos that I refuse to give them extra visual traction on this blog - but do click over to Zap2it’s photo gallery if you’d like to see for yourself how ANTM gives new definition to the phrase “suicide girls.” The lithe lot of ‘em are arrayed in awkward, broken poses, splayed out in cold concrete corridors, lifeless limbs positioned bloodily, just so, at the bottom of staircases, bathtubs and back alleys, mimicking their demise via stabbing, shooting, electrocution, drowning, poisoning, strangulation, decapitation and organ theft (!), to judges’ comments of “Gorgeous!” “Fantastic!” “Amazing!” “Absolutely beautiful!” and, of my favorite, “Death becomes you, young lady!”
For decades, media critics such as pioneering advertising theorist Jean Kilbourne have argued that ad imagery equating gruesome violence against women with beauty and glamour works to dehumanize women, making such acts in real life not only more palatable and less shocking, but even aspirational. ANTM’s pretty-as-a-picture crime-scene challenge epitomized the worst of an insidious industry trend that, ahem, just won’t die.
The “beautiful corpses” episode of Top Model (a series that traffics in bottom-feeder humiliation, objectification and degradation of women in the name of fashion, fun and beauty for the deep profit of integrated marketers such as Cover Girl and Seventeen magazine) serves as sharp reminder that what millions of reality TV viewers believe is harmless fluff… is anything but. ANTM is less a “guilty pleasure,” as TV Guide and infotainment shows have called it, than it is a cynical CW cashcow guilty of making product placers, and Tyra Banks, rich at the expense of not only the self-esteem of the few hungry (in every sense) young strivers appearing in the modeling competition, but of the millions of girls and women, boys and men, who watch the show uncritically, learning that unhealthily underweight, Brazilian-waxed waifs can only achieve the ultimate in beauty when they appear to be erotically, provocatively maimed and murdered (as they were this week), self-abusive (as when models were made to pose as bulimics mid-purge last season), corpses (as they were during a prior season when the challenge involved posing in caskets lowered into open graves in a cemetery).
Since 2001, I’ve been monitoring the deep-seated bigotry against women in the reality TV genre, especially in the modeling and cosmetic surgery series such as the competitive farces and the butchered-for-beauty gorefests of Top Model and The Swan. In articles (such as “The Unreal World” for Ms. magazine and “Triumph of the Shill: Reality TV Lets Marketers Write the Script“) and in multi-media presentations on the college lecture circuit (such as “Bachelor Babes, Bridezillas & Husband-Hunting Harems: Decoding Reality TV’s Twisted Fairy Tales” - email info[at]wimnonline.org if you’d like to bring this lecture to your community), I’ve been arguing that we need to pay critical attention to the reality TV genre’s function as the cultural arm of the current political backlash against women’s rights.
Some of what deserves deconstruction is subtle — say, the way adult women in reality TV are constantly infantilized, only called “girls” regardless of age, never referred to as “women” — but much of what passes for entertainment in this genre couldn’t be more a more blatant nexus of the worst of the ad industry’s long-held hostility toward women coupled with corporate media’s ever-present pursuit of the almighty dollar. This misogyny has been manifesting itself in print for years as advertising’s fetishization of images of beautifully beaten, raped, drugged, tortured and murdered girls… today, advertisers are advancing these same backwards notions in 3-D, in the name of “reality,” their product placement bucks allowing them to influence and sometimes even control the dialog, sets, themes and plotlines of primetime’s most popular “unscripted” programs.
This is deeply dangerous to our culture, as I wrote in Bitchmagazine:
Advertising is profoundly manipulative at its core. Its imagery strives to deprive us of realistic ideas about love, beauty, health, money, work, childhood, and more in an attempt to convince us that only products can bring us true joy; numerous studies show that the more ads we view, the worse we feel about ourselves. How much worse will this psychological exploitation become when woven directly into our narratives?
Again, do contact WIMN if you’d like me to bring a discussion of gender roles in reality TV to your campus or community group.
And, if you notice noteworthy tidbits in any reality TV shows you watch that you think deserve comment, please let me know. If you can provide DVD or VHS copies of the shows you’re commenting on, all the better — I might be able to use them for an upcoming book I’m planning on this topic.
Thoughts on Top Model? Share them in the comments field.
March 22nd, 2007 17:09
[…] It goes and surprises you. […]
March 22nd, 2007 20:01
[…] But this week really takes the cake. According to Jill at Feminste, via Jennifer at WIMN’s Voices, for this week’s photo shoot, the women got all made up and were dressed in revealing clothing…and then had to play dead. One is pushed down stairs and so has bruises all over her body. Another dies when her organs are stolen (was Stephen Colbert watching?), another is strangled. One woman “dies” when she is pushed off a rooftop. The photos are all here. […]
March 22nd, 2007 20:15
[…] First, we have last night’s episode of America’s Next Top Model, where the photo shoot consisted of simulations of murdered models. Jill mentioned it over at Feministe, and Jennifer at WIMN’s Voices has a much longer post, including this link to the actual pictures. The pictures also include the comments of the judging panel, which adds another touch of misogyny to the photo shoot. I saw the episode last night and dropped my jaw in amazement. […]
March 22nd, 2007 21:06
I couldn’t believe it when I saw it, and this is coming from someone who, sadly enough, likes fluffy fashion shows. Who finds a dead stabbing victim sexy? At the end of the show the models had to make up a cutsie little story to explain how they were murdered. I’m sure the producers anticipated some controversy and thought this would lighten things up. Jean Kilbourn could make a whole new Killing us Softly video based on this episode.
March 22nd, 2007 23:25
[…}Tyra,
America’s Next Top Model has often pushed the boundaries of good taste but has somehow managed to keep it kitschy and light. That all changed with tonight’s photo shoot. I cannot believe that The CW or you, who claim to be as pro-woman as you do, would allow a photo shoot in which models are made up to portray sexy murder victims, of all things. Horrifying. Yes, models are canvases and art is subjective, but a show with so many impressionable young viewers—both male and female—should be more responsible. Why feed into the idea of women as nothing more than pretty, inanimate objects? Hot corpses? Really?[…]
March 23rd, 2007 07:26
Nice blog Jenn. I don’t have TV so I would have missed this if it weren’t for your piece. The sad thing is, most Americans probably don’t think twice about how disgusting and dangerous such images are. “It’s all in good fun,” right?
March 23rd, 2007 22:59
Gaah! I’ve watched ANTM here and there but never seen them go that far disgusting. Glad I haven’t been watching this season.
March 24th, 2007 12:46
Did you actually see the episode, or just the zap2it photos?
It wasn’t “an entire episode presenting a gaggle of underfed model wannabes as the mutilated, mangled and murdered epitome of beauty.”
There was also a posing contest in which the girls wore normal clothes, and the girls went through a laser maze dressed as secret agents, and a scene at the house where they fought over who gets to use the phone.
March 24th, 2007 15:01
The letter I wrote to CW (feedback@CWTV.com):
I must say that CW has reached a new low with America’s Next Top Model’s last episode, “Crime Scene Victims.” I sadly admit that I watched this show for a season and found the fashion side of it entertaining, but trashed it when it took on a mysogynistic tone I couldn’t ignore. While flipping through channels the other day, I came upon ANTM’s dead models photo shoot and was absolutely disgusted. When violence against women is SUCH a problem in this world, you find it fitting to show dead women as beautiful and entertaining? I’m shocked that the station and the show, which undoubtedly has many young impressionable viewers, would find this appropriate material. You’ve made it easy for me to stop watching your station with this kind of a lineup.
March 24th, 2007 19:07
Eric, yes, I did watch the episode. And, you’re right, there were other moments in the episode, but if you know the Top Model series, you know that the most time-consuming portion of every episode, and the part of the show which is deemed most significant by judges (and by the advertisers and product placement brand marketers who sponsor the show) are the photo shoot challenges. These are the ways in which “the girls” are judged (I put “girls” here in quotes because not all of them are young girls, many ANTM contestants have been adults in their mid-20s). And not only are these the ways the “girls” are judged and what their fate in the competition hinges on, the photo shoot challenges are the part of the show that live outside the show — promoted on the CW’s website, higlighted throughout major media and infotainment sites and programs, and sometimes even run as real advertisements in corporate media outlets. Beautiful corpses was the overarching theme of this episode, and how beautifully and erotically the girls did or did not approximate death was the basis for the extensive discussions and critique by photographers and judges.
Discounting my post about the dehumanizing of women (and my outrage about the gross glorification of violence against women as the primary theme of the episode) by saying that I should really have paid attention to the scene where the girls are filmed sniping at one another about telephone usage is like that stupid old cliche:
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
March 24th, 2007 21:01
Jennifer L. Pozner -
If someone wrote that Abraham Lincoln was shot during the “entire” time he watched he watched a play for the last time, then someone should question the use of word “entire.” People can write about Lincoln’s assasination without using “entire” in that way, and you could have written about these photos without calling them the “entire episode.”
The majority of the episode didn’t involve these photos. I’m not sure, but I think the photos were only involved in 2 segments (a segment in which the photos were taken and a segment in which the judges looked at the photos.)
March 25th, 2007 09:06
[…] (I won’t try to sum up or repeat other people’s discussions on the photos, but check them out by all means.) […]
March 25th, 2007 09:35
Dead-girl chic
This is entirely too creepy: America’s Next Top Model is doing dead girls. No, really: You can see the full gallery at Zap2It. Not that you’d want to, necessarily: The lithe lot of ‘em are arrayed in awkward, broken poses,…
March 25th, 2007 09:55
Eric, your quibble over the word “entire” is an amusing attempt at obfuscation, and though I get that you’re just trying to distract from the larger arguments in play, it’s worth noting that it is actually rhetorically accurate to describe “an entire episode presenting…” the dead model photo shoot, because the (entire) point of the episode was this shoot. “Entire” here refers to the fact that whatever else happened in the episode was simply filler.
March 25th, 2007 10:42
administrator -
If the contestants had been judged based on the laser-maze photos instead of the corpse-photos, would you say that the corpse-photos are just filler?
March 25th, 2007 10:56
Eric,
The laser maze thing was a small part of the episode. If the lase maze thing had been turned into the major photo shoot challenge, and had several segments devoted to it, had judges and photographers debating how the women performed in those segments to determine who stays and who gets eliminated, and if in that context the crime scene segment had only a couple of moments devoted to it - then yes, I’d say the crime scene photos were filler… disgusting, misognyistic filler typical of ad industry ideology.
March 25th, 2007 11:21
administrator-
For people who didn’t see the episode which of these phrases explains it more clearly:
“an entire episode presenting a gaggle of underfed model wannabes as the mutilated, mangled and murdered epitome of beauty”
or
“an episode presenting a gaggle of underfed model wannabes as the mutilated, mangled and murdered epitome of beauty”
March 25th, 2007 11:43
Hollywood’s Misogyny: Top Model’s Beautiful Corpses
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Jennifer L. Pozner exposes the decadent garbage that Hollywood peddles as “entertainment” under the rubric of “free speech,” but which is, in reality, “deeply dangerous to our culture.” Are TV v…
March 25th, 2007 12:11
Eric, I’m not going to engage this minor semantic quibble anymore. It’s silly, and I’m sorry I even took the bait, especially since I knew it was bait…
March 25th, 2007 12:58
Not really that big a deal to me.
So much of your concern is for others who just don’t get it. But my guess is that most young girls and younger women who watch this show have no trouble separating the model shoot from unhealthy behavior. Horror movies, in an of themselves, don’t inherently lead others to kill, want to kill, or even unconsciously devalue life. This episode, in the same way, doesn’t lead young girls to embrace or allow misogyny.
I mean if you want a target, forget this portion of one episode that doesn’t have the profound effect you’re desperate to place on it, and just condemn the whole show which obviously exploits women and perpetuates the whole mindless, hollow fashion ethic.
I happen to think the show’s pretty harmless, though. You might want to guide young women to your way of thinking, but by now anybody with a brain has heard your point of view in one form or another hundreds of times. If they still watch something like ANTM and aren’t bothered, it isn’t because they’re naive or victims. It’s because they choose to both know the realities of the world you portray and enjoy the show nonetheless.
That said, keep up the good fight.
March 25th, 2007 13:09
I’ve noticed that an important feature of the nightly crime dramas is the presentation of the predominantly female victims’ bodies in poses and lighting remniscent of ANTM’s photo shoot. Autopsy scenes linger on undraped limbs. Hair is carefully arranged as though women are waiting against a pillow for a lover. Rather than blame advertising, I wonder if it might be interesting to examine our culture’s delight when beautiful women play dead.
March 25th, 2007 13:23
“most young girls and younger women who watch this show have no trouble separating the model shoot from unhealthy behavior”
Try teaching in the public school system before making this conclusion.
March 25th, 2007 13:49
Fair enough.
I’ve been a teacher for twenty years. I’ve taught English in two different schools–one inner-city public and currently a Catholic private school. The young women in my current school–mostly white and upper middle class–are the ones I’d worry most about of the two groups.
But my sense about both groups is that, yes, most of them can easily enough separate the shoot from unhealthy behavior.
Honestly, it’s not the young women I worry about. I see them as ultimately having to capitulate to a male ethic of beauty that is only getting more exaggerated.
It’s the guys I would work on. But good luck.
Given the easy availability of porn, given Maxim and FHM, given that a visit to the local gym is a virtual visual tour of the fruits of plastic surgery’s labor, given that these young men are surrounded by images of women that only lead them more and more to desire an almost unattainable female body type–given all of this, it’s inevitable that they will want that body type. And once that happens it’s inevitable that girls will have little choice but to try to attain it.
March 25th, 2007 16:38
This sort of imagery–weapons, blood, violence, death — have been a mainstay in the alt porn/pin-up/glamour scene for half-dozen at least; a scene that (mostly) sees itself as feminist and sex-positive. The alter would tell you they are subverting the idea of glamour by mixing it up with blood, bruises and death. To me, the Top Model photos, it looks like the beauty and fashion industry is doing what it’s always done, looked “downtown” for inspiration, and then doing their version with more polish and professionalism.
Also, if you’ve got the stomach for it, head over to withoutsanctuary.org and browse through the lynching photos. I find there’s a strange and disquieting eroticism to those images, maybe because eroticism in photography is so strongly linked to breaking taboos; or maybe it’s that lynching is a species of orgy, passions inflamed, our rational selves abandoned to satisfy our lust.
In any case, it’s an odd testiment to our values that these photos of sexualized violence are considered suitable for unrestricted public exhibition, while photos of fare more wholesome expressions of sexuality are not.
March 25th, 2007 18:11
I made a slideshow using the ANTM photos and domestic violence stats. It’s here if you want to check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCIl3Vvorhs
This whole situation makes me sick.
March 25th, 2007 21:45
“Not really that big a deal to me…That said, keep up the good fight.”
What useful and insightful comments, privileged male commentor.
March 25th, 2007 23:41
I am privileged, as are you. And of course if you read everything I wrote in between what you quoted you’d realize that the reason I don’t think the photos are a big deal has to do with the young women I’m around almost every day of my life, with my sense that they aren’t victims, don’t see themselves as victims, and are able to navigate a world that objectifies them while tacitly empowering them.
And it is a good fight, what this blog does. What would you rather I say: “Go away” or “Stop whining” or “Stop wasting your time.” No you wouldn’t want me saying that. What you really want, what your response clearly implies, is that I shouldn’t have any part in the discussion, that I can’t possibly add anything worth hearing. That’s nonsense. And what’s even more nonsense is to dismiss me with a cavalier and self-safisfied wave or your hand, as if this discussion is only open to a few, to those you see as privileged to be heard.
March 26th, 2007 06:34
My eleven-year-old daughter was lobbying me again last night to watch this show–I banned it last season after the “underfed model gets hypothermia (literally) in the freezing cold pool” episode. Last night I was thinking, “Oh, what’s the big deal? I let her DVR American Idol.” Then I saw this blog about the CRIME SCENE episode. Ban continues to be in effect. If anyone has any info on anyone organizing a write-in campaign or a boycott, please let me know.
March 26th, 2007 06:40
I happened to pass through the room as my eleven-year-old niece was watching the show last night, and I was horrified and astonished to see those images. At least I was able to use the show to start a discussion with my niece about why it is wrong to portray victims of violent crime as sexy and appealing. I asked her if she thought the show made it seem more or less acceptable to hurt women, and she thought about it and said, “I think it makes it look like a dead woman is more beautiful.”
The sickest thing that I saw in the ANTM episode was the way in which the show treated one model who was unable to complete her photo shoot because her dear friend had recently been killed.
March 26th, 2007 09:04
Nancy (and anyone) -
You can contact the show and tell them what you think here:
feedback@CWTV.com
(via Feministing http://www.feministing.com/)
March 26th, 2007 19:07
We are going after the CW affliates who air Top Model and their advertisers– want to join?? let me know if you want the list to email!! ann@mediawatch.com
March 26th, 2007 19:58
I’m not a woman or gay but I love ANTM. The point you and the other feminists have missed about the “death” photo shoot is these young women do more damage to each verbally than any photo shoot. ANTM does exactly opposite of what you fear, it shows ordinary women being transformed into beautiful models, whether full figured or not they are ordinary young women being groomed for modeling. ANTM, like most men, showcases the beauty of all young women.
Secondly, these young women are also showcased for acting roles, roles were women may be beaten or made to look dead. Feminists never watch CSI episodes? Are only fat, ugly women are allowed to appear dead in “Saw I”, “Saw II”, “Saw III” or “Casino Royale”?
Earlier ANTM series, undertook the anorexia among models problem long before the press addressed it. Of the many photo sessions, this is only one.
March 26th, 2007 20:00
[…] A couple of days later, the feminist blogosphere exposes some pretty offensive photos from the most recent America’s Next Top Model challenge. And I agree with Bean, Jill, Jessica, Jennifer Pozner that these photos are absolutely vile. […]
March 26th, 2007 20:14
Michael, you’re right that violence against women in slasher movies and in action flicks is very prominent - but where in this post did I say that wasn’t problematic as well? Interesting that you and a few other commenters have mostly ignored the substance of my critique of this particular “reality tv” episode, instead pointing to other genres that are more routinely violent as a “Hey, look over there!” bait-and-switch. That approach is intellectually lazy. Your other point — that the show highlights (and I’d say foments) bickering and hateful ranting among the young women — is true, and I’ve written extensively about the problems with other kinds of content on ANTM and related reality shows. But, that has nothing to do with the photos in this particular episode, and I’ve yet to hear anyone on this blog or elsewhere offer any strong counter argument that the death-becomes-you photos, and comments, do not dangerously glamorize and eroticize violence against women, which is especially worrisome considering the huge number of very young girls who watch the show uncritically.
March 26th, 2007 20:37
Here’s what I sent to CWTV:
FROM:
“carol” | Save Address
DATE: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:33:41 -0700
TO:
SUBJECT: dead model porn show
Yeah, you’re making money showing dead women as sex objects but you are going to need that money because you are going to be made to pay for what you’ve done.
Once we, the Blonde people, destroy the Bleached Brunettes stranglehold on entertainment/prostitution there won’t be much left of your ‘business’ anyway.
FOESAD yourself.
Carol E. Cox
March 26th, 2007 20:57
I am carolecox@blondfrombirth.org and I was in a documentary film that aired in Europe in February 2007.
I was invited to be in the film Farbe Blonde, Die (The Colour Blonde) specifically so that I could speak for Blondes instead of having Bleached Brunettes speak for Blondes.
70% of prostituted women are Bleached Brunettes and the pornogrification of women cannot survive without them because frankly, ladies and gentlemen, without LiveNudeBlondes and BlackonBlondes to bait the men with there just won’t be any interest because all the guys already have Brunette mothers, Brunette wives, Brunette girlfriends and Brunette daughters.
They want to see BLONDES stripped and spread and since only 3% of adult American Caucasian women are Blonde they are never going to see them.
95% of adult American Caucasian women are Brunette.
That’s quite the majority and 40% of them are bleached and have assumed the name Blonde because they get money and attention by degrading Blondes. Degrading Brunettes won’t pay for cat food.
Blondes and Brunettes are normal people and together we can take all this power away from the porntainment industry just by taking the name Blonde away from the Bleached Brunettes.
Let’s do it.
March 27th, 2007 02:49
[…] Alert women’s issues sites like Feministing and Broadsheet were on the case right away, excoriating the show and expressing disgust at the salt-in-gushing-wound responses of the judges, which included lines like, "What’s great about this is that you can also look beautiful in death;" "I think you look absolutely wonderful;" and "Death becomes you, young lady." As Broadsheet noted, the decision to feature "dead" models is made even worse (if such a thing is possible) by the fashion industry’s recent eating disorders controversy, in which several models died from anorexia. Classy move, guys! Jennifer Pozner over at Women In Media & News offered this insight about the show (which she described as "a series that traffics in bottom-feeder humiliation, objectification and degradation of women in the name of fashion, fun and beauty for the deep profit of integrated marketers"): For decades, media critics such as pioneering advertising theorist Jean Kilbourne have argued that ad imagery equating gruesome violence against women with beauty and glamour works to dehumanize women, making such acts in real life not only more palatable and less shocking, but even aspirational. ANTM’s pretty-as-a-picture crime-scene challenge epitomized the worst of an insidious industry trend that, ahem, just won’t die. […]
March 27th, 2007 11:49
[…] It’s rare that a pop culture criticism post generates this many ripples in both the blogosphere and the corporate media, but ever since I wrote “Top Model’s beautiful corpses: the nexus of reality TV misogyny and ad industry ideology,” many of you have waved the outrage flag high and loud, leading the critique from the blog to the major media. […]
March 28th, 2007 06:43
Outstanding work! I went to the YouTube montage of the dead women and couldn’t watch the whole thing - made me physically ill. I don’t think anyone who has worked with victims of domestic violence, or the grieving families of victims of domestic murder, can seriously claim this show is “entertainment.”
My wife and partner Lucinda watches this show, and has been voicing similar arguments to Michael - “why don’t you and your friends protest other shows?” Thanks for your articulate response that I will now share with her! We should challenge sexism (racism, homophobia etc.) wherever we see it - any place is a good place to start or continue. ANTP is a wonderful place to raise our voices - hopefully others will do the same with other shows - it’s not like there’s a lack of sexism and eroticized violence out there!
March 28th, 2007 10:23
[…] It’s my policy to avoid politics at my knitting blog. I will mention America’s Top Model’s decision to use images of apparently freshly murdered women “entertain” its audience has raised eyebrows at the feminist oriented blogs like Feministe, WIMN and Amptoons. […]
March 28th, 2007 19:31
Just want to thank you for writing about this. I found your entry on a Google search after turning off the episode in horror, and hoping to find other people as horrified as I was. I will never watch that show again, holy crap.
March 31st, 2007 21:04
Thank you for writing about this. As someone who has worked as an advocate for victims of domestic violence, and now works in a County Attorney’s office, I find any glamorization of crime and crime victims abhorrent. The pain and trauma is real, and is not for entertainment, or glorification through fashion. While my opinion of ANTM until now had been that it was fairly harmless fluff, although I didn’t watch it, I feel very differently now.
April 2nd, 2007 06:19
I am writing in response to a current episode of “Top Model’ depicting the model contestants as “murder victims”.
First of all, I would like for you to know that my daughter, Aubria Nichole Cleckley, 21 years young, died on December 16, 2000 of a gunshot wound to the head, a victim of Domestic Violence. There was NOTHING BEAUTIFUL about her death, nor the injuries she sustained.
My daughter was very beautiful and was an aspiring model who had earned a contract. I would like to share with you and the producers of that show, how I watched my daughter’s life slip away from us, as a result of her injuries.
She was shot in the back of the head, while attempting to abandon her abusive relationship.
When I arrived at the hospital, I did not recognize my daughter. Her head was wrapped in bandages, which, to me, resembled a blood soaked turban and was swollen beyond recognition. I fainted at the sight of my baby laying there, on a life support system, that was keeping her alive. I later found out that she was brain dead. When we looked at her X-rays, we could see that her brain had been shattered by the bullet that entered the back of her head. Her eyes were swollen shut, and her eyelids were seeping blood, resembling little red beads of sweat. She was totally unrecognizable. I had to identify her by her beautiful hands and feet, and the tatoos she bore on her body. For 12 hours she lay there, lifeless, not able to move, or speak. I sat next to her bed, talking to her, but they said she could not hear me. I sat there, for hours, holding her hand until we had no other choice but to disconnect the life support system that was sustaining her life, and she took her last breath. The most difficult thing I have ever had to endure, in my life, was watching my beautiful young daughter dying. Aubria was so unrecognizable, we decided to have a closed casket funeral, so that her friends, family and peers would remember her as they knew her when she was alive, absolutely beautiful.
Does this sound BEAUTIFUL or FIERCE to you? I am now an Advocate against violence, namely, Domestic Violence. I speak out on behalf of Aubria, because she no longer has a voice.
This episode of Top Model was truly appalling and an outrages me.Although it may not have been intentional, in my opinion, it was a mockery of all lives lost to violent crimes, a slap in the face. I deeply admire you Tyra, but this episode was just not appropriate in my eyes.
April 11th, 2007 10:58
[…] Jennifer Pozner, Founder and Executive Director of Women in Media and News spoke at the WAM conference about one of the recent socially irresponsible episodes of America’s Next Top Model that featured the contestants in “sexy and glamorous death scenes.” The brutal murder scenes once again try to make violence against women sexy. Ms. Pozner had written an analysis of this episode and its social implications. I really urge you to read this article and think about what she is saying. Ever since reading this and hearing what she and other panelists had to say, I’ve been noticing just how awful women are portrayed in the media. […]
April 12th, 2007 23:52
Hello,
My name is Katarina and I found this website through my former teacher, Mr. Mick VanValkenburg. After reading the entire blog, I just wanted to share my opinion. I watch ANTM every week. I am 15 yrs old, and, although I fully understand the points of most of the feminist commentors on this site, I just wanted to offer the opinion of a young girl who is watching the show, especially since many of you are worrying that the show/photo shoot is influencing young “impressionable” female viewers. I love ANTM, and the “crime scene victims” photo shoot did not shock me at all. The show is merely trying to create challenging photo shoot themes in order to test the models’ capability to take beautiful photos. They are not trying to encourage domestic violence or violence against women in any way, and, according to about 15 of my friends, the show is not inadvertently affecting America’s teenage girl population either. I fully support the show and don’t quite understand why so many people are finding this photo shoot inappropriate or appalling, when the media is chock-full of other negative images…This photo shoot truly isn’t a big deal, and I will continue to watch ANTM, a show that empowers women and gives aspiring models a chance at their dream and young teenage girls the notion that they too can achieve their goals.
April 13th, 2007 08:10
Katarina,
Good for you, for reading the blog and for expressing your opinion.
I’m glad that you are confident enough in your body and your self that you do not believe that ANTM will have a negative effect on you.
Your experience, though valid for yourself, is just that — your experience. After speaking to thousands of young women on high school and college campuses over the past six years, I have heard a great many people tell me the exact opposite point: they have said that shows such as this one have contributed to skewed and negative self-images that they have had to work hard to get over. (Other girls, of course, disagree.)
My point is not that every single person who watches this show conciously experiences low self esteem or actively believes that violence against women is acceptable. My point is that a series that is explicitly about berating young women for falling short of a specific ideal of beauty, and then posing those youg women in increasingly degrading and violent positions week after week, contributes to a *culture* that diminishes women - a culture of sexism in which what we consciously and unconsciously think, as girls and women, as boys and men - is shaped and mutated by bias until those biases become perceived more as norms.
You are of course entitled to your opinion. But one person’s opinion that the show is not damaging does not meant he show is not damaging.
It certainly, however, is the farthest thing from empowering that there is on television.
April 13th, 2007 10:06
I fully agree that my individual experience that the show is not influencing American culture does not mean that it truly isn’t. However, I find it a little funny that, being an overweight (yet if you knew me, you would know that I am not self-conscious whatsoever) teenager in a large private school, that I find that most teenage girls my age (including myself to some extent) are unconsciously becoming more and more self-conscious about their bodies, not through reality TV shows that supposedly degrade women and create a sexist culture, but through our classmates and peers. Seeing Size 0 girls strut around school and all of the boys running after them drooling is definitely (again in my own individual experience) more a factor that shapes biases in my life.
Also, as I said before, I fully support the show, and, unfortunately I do find seeing all these pretty girls taking beautiful photographs very entertaining. However, I do find certain problems with the show, as with most popular TV shows these days. Much like in MTV hits “Laguna Beach” and “The Hills,” the media is spreading the idea that if young girls can attain a certain beauty (regardless of their IQ), they can be rich and famous. I do believe that ANTM, unfortunately, is a very small factor in that sense, but I believe that this “dead model” photo shoot is not spreading any negative images. Teenage girls just aren’t stupid enough to see a photo shoot like that, and say “Oh hey, well if America’s Next Top Model models are beautiful when they are dead, maybe I should go committ suicide, but first pose myself so that I, too, will be a beautiful corpse.” And while that is an extreme, teenage girls also aren’t impressionable/stupid enough to say, “Oh well, since on ANTM, the girls were killed by other GIRLS, that means that domestic violence is OK.” And that is another thing: the girls were killed by other bitchy models, not by large drunken abusive men. I still don’t see the issue with this dead model photo shoot and I think that America is just trying to find a target for the real problems that are domestic violence and sexism.
April 13th, 2007 10:35
I am a 17 year old girlmwho wathches ANTM after i get home from a 4 hour fencing practice on wednesdays. I have read the comments including the one to Katarina, and the response and would just like to say that you are both making this such a black and white issue, when really there are shades of grey. You could take every person who watches this show, and their experiences would be different; some would be empowered by it, and some would develop body issues, there are also those who would be unaffected. Personally I feel that a TV show has very little affect on my identity as a strong confident person/girl/women/whateverfor meither good or bad. But I would like to aknowledge that the fasion industry (not nessicarilly just ANTM) has had disasterous affects on many people. In the end I geuss I am just trying to say that this issue is not so black and white as you make it seem and does not just involve these pictures (whether they are o.k. or not)
April 13th, 2007 10:41
I forgot to put this in my original post and I know this does not relate to the topic at hand, but I thought your response to Katarina was condescending, and I think teenagers are continually undervalued by our society, something that I would not have expected from some one who is so seems so dedicated to reversing wrongfull stereotypes
April 13th, 2007 10:54
Mandoline and Katarina,
First, thank you for participating in this discussion. I did not by any mneans intend to be condescending - I appreciate and value the input of young women both as writers of this blog and as commenters on this blog.
Second, I think that you’ve missed my larger point. I did not say, nor intend to say, in any of my writing about ANTM or reality TV in general that any one particular episode of any one particular program is going to cause any one, specific reaction among viewers. Media consumers take in images differently, filtered through their ideology, vantage point, self-esteem and personal and community value systems.
My point is that shows like ANTM play a larger role in affecting community/cultural norms, shaping ideas about what is and is not acceptable, about who we should value and who we should not, about what kinds of behavior is seen as funny and what as dangerous, about which people can be beautiful and important vs. which seen as ugly and worthless, and more. Media not only reflect but shape our cultural norms, our ideas about ourselves and others. This fact has been proven by endless research by advertising critics (and by advertisers themselves, for opposing purposes), by media and communications scholars, by user experience studies, etc. — media images matter.
You enjoy ANTM? Fine, enjoy ANTM. My purpose is not to convince every single woman everywhere that they shouldn’t watch shows they enjoy. But I would suggest that whether or not you enjoy a particular program, does not erase the larger role that program plays in a media landscape that is riddled with sexism and, as you both point to, plays a calculated role in a continuum of unhealthy images (from scriptd programs like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit which fetishizes violence, or endless MTV and CW shows parading around size 0 girls and women as if they are the only types of women who can be seen as lovable, and more).
Feel free to continue to debate this in the comments, if you like. Your opinions, even if they are drastically different than mine, are welcome here.
However, this will be my last point for a while, as I’m on deadline today and can’t write more right now.
April 14th, 2007 00:19
Mandoline,
You are absolutely right about the grey area on this topic. I did not mean to make my opinions seem so one-sided, but my main point is that I do agree with most of the people here in that violence against women and sexism are huge issues and are definitely influenced by the media, but the entire topic of this blog is how or how not ANTM’s dead model photo shoot is a bad influence on young women. I was simply sharing my INDIVIDUAL experiences that the show does not affect my decisions or opinions about certain topics such as self-confidence, etc.
April 14th, 2007 00:44
Geez, what more can this show do to try and please groups such as these?? I mean, they fire Janice after season 4, a judge who continually appeared to be unfair and closeminded to girls who weren’t a size 0. And, now ANTM is even including and supporting “plus size models”–continually telling them they’re just as beautiful as everyone else. Why??: THEY SUPPORT YOUR CAUSE. They’re pro-feminism. They want to be seen as a show who does just the opposite of what your accusing them of doing, and yet you continue to tear this show apart. And, don’t tell me, you all are just criticizing this single episode. I read the blog. For God’s sake, you’re trying to take the show off the air. I’m 16 years old. I’m not perfect. I have my insecurities. This show has nothing, whatsoever, to do with my insecurities. It’s entertainment, people. It does not affect me; and many other girls will agree with me when I say that. As Katarina said, you all are fully underestimating young girls. We’re not as ignorant as you seem to think we are. We do not walk away from watching an episode such as this one thinking, “ANTM must support death; ANTM must be trying to tell me that death=beauty; wow, if I want to beautiful, I better go find a knife and take it to my throat.” Please, we’re not idiots. This show is merely tring to be creative–not always stick with the same photo shoot. Please, people, lay off this harmless show and focus on what really condescends women these days. Out of all the problems out there today, it seems quite petty and small of you guys to criticize this show. You may tell me you speak at high schools; you are able to personally hear young girls tell you this show hurts them. I’m IN high school. All my friends watch and talk about this show. My opinion on this show and its affect on young girls is just as valid as your own.
Thank you
Ps Overall, I support your cause; and, NO, of course I am not an anti-feminist. It’s just, you guys just seem to take your arguements too far at times.
April 14th, 2007 05:33
Veronica, no one said you are (or any other teenaged girl is) an idiot. There’s also an assumption that I am critiquing these shows primarily because of the impact on young girls, and that’s not the case - I’m speaking about the larger culture. And, I certainly never said the show should be taken off the air, nor has my organization to date ever engaged in any campaign to remove the show.
As for the negative effects of such shows: Feel free to disagree. But, also, do note that while you absolutely have the right to your opinion, I have spent years monitoring these shows and the reality TV genre, and there’s solid data to back up the idea that media images such as these impact people’s ideas - both anecdotal and empirical. You can disagree, but that doesn’t remove the validity of the evidence.
Finally, as I’ve said numerous times in this conversation field, differences of opinion are welcome here. Express yourself - we encourage it. There’s no need for excessive punctuation, like all-capital screaming sentences, or multiple question marks in a row…
April 14th, 2007 13:04
jpozenr: I agree Reality showsare definitely a part of this problem today. I never said reality shows–as a whole–weren’t. But, this blog is about ANTM, and I came here to oppose your excessive critiquing on….ANTM. It’s as if, you all were just searching for a way to jump on ANTM and start criticizing it alonf with the rest. And I never said that anyone said I was an idiot, but you’re most certainly implying it. It’s quite clear that you all seem to think we young girls are going to walk awaly from an episode thinking death is truly beautiful. ANTM does not support suicidal women…duh…who, in the right mind, would? As for the “all-capital screaming sentences, or multiple question marks in a row,” that only helps me express my emotions and opinions online, and if you’re all about allowing me to express my opinion, which you claim you are, I suggest you leave that out of this dispute.
April 18th, 2007 05:28
[…] I found a new blog the other day (not really new, just new to me), called Majikthise. I was looking through her posts on Gender Issues, and I came across something that had slipped by me a few weeks ago…do any of you watch America’s Next Top Model? I have never seen it, and never plan to, especially after reading about an episode a few weeks ago, in which the models were all posed in photographs as though they had been murdered. WTF? Majikthise linked to an article at Women in Media and News about this episode. […]
April 25th, 2007 19:59
Hey Jennifer,
Sorry, I know this message doesn’t really belong here, but I saw you speaking on “Scarborough Country” tonight, regarding Rosie O’Donnell, and I just wanted to thank you for helping bring intelligent debate back to TV. The world needs more women like you… no, I take that back. The world has women like you, we just need them to speak up more often.
Thanks again, and I wish you continued success for the future!
May 13th, 2007 16:55
It seems so easy to say that the problem lies with shows like Top Model. I’ll agree it’s a load of crap. You’ve got someone like Tyra who on her show gets pissed when someone calls her fat. But will never do a show with women who are larger than a blade of grass. She’s not stupid, it won’t make money. People don’t want to see real women. We want to see thin girls we can hate, and say they’re worthless because they’re parading around treating each other like they’re nothing to have the world view them as beautiful. It’s horrible that we find that to be entertainment. But think in your own life. Women are the cause for the injustice towards women. We hate eachother, we’re insecure creatures. We see it every day, “Oh I don’t like her, she thinks she’s cute.” Yeah it’s easy to blame Tyra or the media, they make it easy. But look at ourselves. We allow ourselves to buy into the crap. you’re beautiful if you buy this make-up. Read this magazine, and your man won’t stray. We’ve brought ourselves down, and we won’t pick ourselves up until we stop hating others for what they have and we lack. And start teaching women and our daughters that looks fade it truly is who you are on the inside. In 50 years no one will say. Oh Oprah was such a gorgeous woman. No it’ll be she did so much for people. If women want to change the way they’re viewed. We first have to change how we view ourselves and others.
July 4th, 2007 19:45
ANTM strikes again!!
I had literally just finished reading the Bitch magazine article about the “death” episode on Top Model, when I turn on the TV and find them showing the “Model Stereotypes” episode.
In this, models are forced to portray nearly every negative stereotype about women, including “anorexia”, “bullimia”, “plastic surgery”, “back-stabbing”, “drug OD”, and just plain “dumb”. Tyra was gushing with praise for the number of different ways the model embodied the concept of “dumb.” I’ve never seen a more deliberate attempt to poison the souls of youth.
This epiosde was at least as bad as the death one. Let’s do something about it!
August 6th, 2007 16:59
The irony here is that you all propagate stereotypes about femininists. You sound like extremists, and ugly ones to boot. Art is a reflection of life, and death is just another part of life. The crusifixion, for example, is replicated by hundreds of artists, yet no one gets their panties in a bunch about what a horrific image that is. The shoot was creative and thought-provoking. It was art. What I’m hearing is advocacy of censorship, something I think we can all agree would be detrimental not only to women’s issues, but our society as a whole.
“Do something about it”? How about shaving your armpits.
August 6th, 2007 19:08
Khali - you disagree with this blog post, so you call me “ugly” and tell me I should shave my armpits.
Remind me, again, who is “propagating stereotypes about feminists”?
(PS: I never called for censorship, which if you’d read the post fully you’d clearly see. I did call for analysis of the impact of the content they choose to present, and some manner of responsibility in terms of the images they promote. Never once did I say that the producers did not have the *right* to run this episode — just that they were not right to do so.)
October 21st, 2007 07:43
I stumbled across this blog. It strikes me that one post that has been completely ignored in this discussion is the wrenching testimony of a mother who lost her daughter to exactly the sort of violence that is portrayed in ANTM. It’s hard to know how to respond, I know, but to me the silence speaks volumes.
I, too, am a teacher of teenage girls, and I know that many of them, outwardly at least, have more than enough emotional and intellectual strength to withstand the onslaught of damaging images they’re assaulted with every day. I sometimes worry more about the boys I teach who are reminded every day that if they’re not violent, foolhardy or misogynistic, they’re not really guys. Yeah, it’s the job of everyone to be able to distinguish reality from entertainment, but when the purveyors of these programs start billing them as “reality shows,” haven’t they ceded at least some of their right to invoke the “it’s just entertainment” defense?
In addition to being a teacher, I’m a father of a very spirited and imaginative 7 year-old girl and an energetic 4 year-old boy. Even at 7, my daughter is able to distinguish reality from fantasy, but it isn’t easy for her, and I’d hesitate before being glib enough to claim that it’s easy for the rest of us, too.
Prosecutors have recently claimed that it is hard for them to secure guilty verdicts because juries who have learned about trials from police procedurals like “CSI” expect either incontrovertible DNA evidence or a weeping surprise confession on the witness stand. If they don’t get it, they won’t convict. Seymour Hersch wrote this year in the New Yorker that army intelligence officers actually met with the producers of “24″ to ask them to tone down the torture scenes on the show because they are having trouble training young officers in non-violent interrogation techniques–the ones that actually work–because the recruits say, “but it works on ‘24.’ Jack Bauer does it.” I, too, am pleased that the young women who posted here are able to maintain a healthy sense of themselves despite what they see on television, but I have to take issue with the argument that TV shows have no effect beyond the screen.
Hard as it is to face, if we read Aubria’s Mom’s post, we’re forced to face a stark dimension of this debate and put ourselves in her shoes. Her daughter was not killed because her murderer watched ANTM, but she was killed in a manner that is horrifyingly consistent with that reenacted in “Shot By a Model,” and as her mother points out, it was anything but beautiful. And it happens all the time.
We would not tolerate depictions on television of Nazi death camps intended to portray the extermination of Jews as beautiful without raising our objections and withholding our support. We wouldn’t allow depictions intended to portray the lynchings of blacks as beautiful without raising our objections and withholding our support (I’m not trying to equate domestic violence with the Holocaust, but if only in numbers, it is more than the equal of the lynchings of African-Americans between 1870-1960 in this country).
On one level, a reasoned academic discussion is fine, but on another, I’m tempted not to over-think this. As a father and a human being I can tell you that those photographs were despicable and there’s something wrong with a society that can see them as beautiful. For the sake of my daughter and for young women like Aubria, I’m going to say something.
October 21st, 2007 07:56
In support of Jennifer Pozner, let me second what she says to Khali: Too many people conflate objections to something that is printed or broadcast with censorship. This is wrong.
Censorship is the prohibition of the dissemination of speech in any of its recognized forms by the government. If you want to construe censorship broadly, I think you could count an organized effort by a group to destroy such speech before it can reach the public (a mob’s effort to burn every copy of a newspaper or magazine it can lay its hands on to prevent people from reading something inside it).
Pressure from private citizens on a corporation discouraging it from showing something those citizens find objectionable is not censorship. Letters to network executives or boycotts are not censorship. Even if that network decides that it would be better for business (or, gasp! the right thing to do) to refrain from broadcasting that speech and decides to pull it, that’s not censorship. There is no constitutional right to be on TV (though what else might explain the continued life of “Two-and-a-Half Men” is beyond me), just a right to be protected from the government preventing you from being on TV. I hate censorship, but let’s know what it is before we yell it.
And as for Ms. Pozner’s armpits, they are hers to do with what she wants. I don’t imagine she needs personal grooming tips from you, nor did she encourage you to shave your back. That sort of silly personal remark doesn’t do much to raise the level of discourse, and it undermines the credibility of anything else of merit you might say.
October 30th, 2007 15:08
[…] Meanwhile, here’s a dissenting voice: Jennifer L Pozner, from Women in Media and News: […]
February 6th, 2008 06:13
[…] http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog/?p=462 http://sourduck.blogspot.com/2005/09/retraining-eye-women-as-depicted-in.html http://www.mediawatch.com/gallery/ads?page=1 […]
February 16th, 2008 00:11
[…] http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog/?p=462 http://sourduck.blogspot.com/2005/09/retraining-eye-women-as-depicted-in.html http://www.mediawatch.com/gallery/ads?page=1 […]
September 13th, 2008 19:28
[…] Not that you’d want to, necessarily: The lithe lot of ‘em are arrayed in awkward, broken poses, splayed out in cold concrete corridors, lifeless limbs positioned bloodily, just so, at the bottom of staircases, bathtubs and back alleys, mimicking their demise via stabbing, shooting, electrocution, drowning, poisoning, strangulation, decapitation and organ theft (!), to judges’ comments of “Gorgeous!” “Fantastic!” “Amazing!” “Absolutely beautiful!” and, of my favorite, “Death becomes you, young lady!” […]
October 6th, 2008 12:57
[…] Quick hit: several of us here at WIMN’s Voices have written about how misrepresentative media treatment of violence against women too often is — that is, when this kind of abuse isn’t missing entirely, or portrayed as alternately glamorous or hilarious. […]
September 30th, 2009 22:31
The lithe lot of ‘em are arrayed in awkward, broken poses, splayed out in cold concrete corridors, lifeless limbs positioned bloodily