When this week's episode
of America's Next Top Model
opened with a Whitney confessional, I actually moaned out loud.
Esteban, who was fleeing the room in a Pavlovian response to the
question "You Wanna Be On Top?" replied, "Oh come on, now, just because
she's the first one doesn't mean she's going home." "Yes it
doooooooooooes!" I wailed. Ever since the Top Editors started
repetitively reminding us that Whitney is a plus-sized model and also, a plus-sized model, I've been cringing that the token thick girl's
exit strategy was approaching. And now that her body is mostly
uncovered on the final fade-out collage, it's only a matter of time
until she's outtie. Especially when the pre-models travel to Roma and
immediately Whitney is faced yet again with the disaster that is a
designer's sample size rack. Sample sizes are 2, and from a previous
episode, we know that this girl they call a "plus-sized" model is
wearing a size 10.They do eventually find something for her (I suspect
it was a designer throw pulled from the designer's fainting couch) and
when Gai Mattiolo tells Whitney that she has a very pretty face, you
could hear every fat girl in the viewing audience shudder in unison.
It sounds so much like a compliment, it really does. I understand that a person's heart might be in the right place,
but when they specifically call out a pretty "face," they're implying
that the rest of the person in question? Not so much. Or there's the
unspoken, "If only the rest of you...". Or the slight tinge of regret as
though your pretty face? You're wasting it by carting around all that
ugly ass. It's as obvious an implication
as Gai's comment that Dominique didn't look fresh. We all know that it
means Dominique looks like she was rode hard and put away wet a few too
many times. And also, you'd think with the makeovers, Miss Tyra would
pay to get her grill fixed.
I was the classic "such a pretty face" girl.
When I was in my early 20s, I was always getting calls from the local
plus-size stores to do runway in their cut rate Fashion Shows, which I
did, because the stores would give me an employee discount as
compensation. They would dress me up like a bank teller or in a
flowered church dress, clothes I'd never ever wear, paired with enormous and expensive costume jewelry.
Seeing a girl who looked 17 in the clothes they preferred, it gave the
mothers and grandmothers in the audience some hope that they were
actually hip. And the manager at Maurices always pseudo-kvetched to the
manager at Lane Bryant
when we were lining up that it must be nice to actually have TALL
girls, unlike her little cheerleaders. Then she'd look over at me--6
feet tall in heels that I would only tolerate for the 60 feet of runway--and
say, "You slim down and I'll give you a spot in my show!" Which was, you
know, the same show I was walking in right at that moment, so I wasn't
sure what the deal was there, but ok, Ms. Maurices lady, I'll get right
on that. But I digress.
My prediction at the beginning of the
episode was partially accurate. Whitney and Lauren were the bottom two.
Whitney was chastised for being too fakey, while Lauren's sin was not
being fake enough. In the end, Lauren, who ON CAMERA stated that she
had no interest in being a Cover Girl (which is the thing the
pre-models are competing for...uh, who what now?), was Auf'd, leaving Whitney with a giant plus-sized target on her back. But at least she has a pretty face. Whatevs.
Related Links from Elastic Waist and SELF:
ANTM thinks you have such a pretty uvula
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