THE TV COLUMN : Top Model stirring the pot with transsexual contestant
Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008
There are no flies on Tyra Banks.
You’ve got to hand it to Banks and those creative folks at The CW. They know how to create preseason buzz.
America’s Next Top Model returns to the lineup with a twohour special Sept. 3. Those not glued to the nail-biting drama that night at the Republican National Convention will be able to see the introduction of Isis, a transsexual model.
It’s cycle 11 and Isis will be one of 14 contestants who are (say it in your fiercest, most breathless voice ) “in the running to become America’s next top model.”
Banks’ little modeling reality show has continued to gain in popularity and develop quite the cult audience. Top Model’s cycle 6 (2006 ) was won by Little Rock’s own Danielle Evans.
Besides the exposure, the winners usually get a photo spread in a top fashion magazine, a contract with a big-time modeling agency and a contract with a cosmetics company.
The girls then try to turn all that into a career in modeling — careers that are notoriously short and cutthroat. The wise ones plan ahead.
Cycle 1 ’s winner, Adrianne Curry, went on to show it all in Playboy and star in VH 1 ’s reality show The Surreal Life. On that program she met and fell in love with former Brady Bunch kid Christopher Knight, 24 years her senior.
They moved in together and starred in their own reality show, My Fair Brady. Season one highlighted their life together. Season two dealt with them getting married and season three followed the gripping drama of Curry’s breast-enhancement surgery.
There you go. Winning Top Model can lead to an exciting and adventure-filled glamorous life in the spotlight.
Banks, 34, has used Top Model’s popularity to launch her own syndicated talk show and keep her name before the public in a business that spits out its young once they pass age 25 or so.
Other former models who’ve managed to find life on cable include Heidi Klum, 35, host of Bravo’s Project Runway.
Termagant shrew Janice Dickinson, 53, who claims to be the world’s first supermodel, has her own reality show on cable outfit Oxygen, but it’s too painful to watch. Even Oxygen has to put something on.
Dickinson also appeared on The Surreal Life but was too venomous to land a Brady. There was, however, a moment when I thought she and Bronson Pinchot might make a go of it.
In a cycle that included overexposed reality harpy Omarosa, I’m just surprised no blood was shed.
Pinchot, best-known for his Emmy-nominated work on ABC’s Perfect Strangers ( 1987-1993 ), crashed and burned in the three extant episodes of CBS ’ The Trouble With Larry (1993 ) and hasn’t done much since.
There’s always hope. A young actress named Courteney Cox was also on The Trouble With Larry and managed to salvage a career on another sitcom after that.
But I digress.
Us Weekly first broke the big news about transsexual Isis last week. The magazine quotes Isis as saying, “My cards were dealt differently.” The 22-yearold Maryland native describes herself as “a woman born physically male.”
It’ll be interesting to see the reaction to Top Model having an actual transsexual participant.
It was, as you’d expect, good news for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. GLAAD president Neil Giuliano said the program would be “an unprecedented opportunity for a community that is underrepresented on television. We applaud Tyra Banks and The CW for making this historic visibility of [transsexual ] people possible.” It’s Cho time. Premiering at 10 p. m. today on VH 1 is The Cho Show starring comedian Margaret Cho.
It’s another “celebreality” offering where cameras follow Cho around as she does stuff and cracks wise. Other than, say, a weather cam, this is the cheapest form of TV on the tube.
Kathy Griffin does exactly this for Bravo and it’s hilarious. Denise Richards does it for E ! and it works only part of the time. Dina Lohan’s stab at the genre with E ! ’s Living Lohan is a train wreck. Anna Nicole Smith’s shot at the format was lamentable. She sat next to me at our critics’ table for lunch in 2002 when she was publicizing the series on the press tour. I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness around her. “Don’t you feel that E ! is just taking advantage of you ?” she was asked. “Well... yeah,” she answered quietly, seemingly puzzled at what would be wrong with that. The format is tricky. It remains to be seen if Cho can pull it off. Featured on the show will be Cho’s parents and her “little person” (3-foot, 10-inch ) assistant, Selene Luna, and a gaggle of flamboyant hangers-on. The TV column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail:
mstorey@arkansasonline. com
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