04. America's Next Top Model with Zoë Klar

Zoe Klar

OK. Jump off this building and look pretty. You have one shot. Go

...

 

Helen Grossman

hi and welcome back to class of 03, the podcast, about the year 2003 and all the ways it's still relevant today. I'm your host slash classmate Helen Grossman. And this week our subject is the face that launched 1000 reality shows, Tyra Banks and America's next top model in the first moments of the first season or cycle as any true. A NTM head would tell you, Tyra Banks tells us that she started this show to help people understand how to get into the field of modeling.

She and her production team launched a nationwide search and received thousands of audition tapes to take someone from obscurity to fame in just eight weeks. She says I'm looking for originality for creativity, for humor, all colors, all shapes and all sizes. Some of these curls you would not look twice at on the street, but all know when I can make them into something for all of Tyra's promises of a cast with all colors, shapes and sizes.

The final three women on cycle one of a NTM were strikingly but not shockingly similar. They were all very tall, very, very skinny white women whose primary difference was their religious affiliation. The show was canceled after 15 years in 2018, but its lexicon and its lessons are still very much alive to anyone who ever watched the show and believed that they too could be plucked from obscurity if only Tyra saw something special in them, if only they smith so fiercely that

their raw beauty was undeniable in its early days its heyday, the show set and reinforced beauty standard standards and created this kind of blueprint into how to become a model. And I don't have any research evidence or polling data or PEW research center studies to prove this. But I suspect that the show really affected the psyches of young people watching it as well as the way that those same people would eventually learn to represent themselves on social media.

That's just my hunch though, the truth is the winners of America's next top model were always the ones who made themselves in Tyra's image. The ones who didn't cry during their makeover, who accepted whatever horrifying challenges they were placed in, who took feedback, like your accent is horrible or you walk like a man and embraced Tyra's vision of what they had to endure in order to make it in the industry without question.

But Tyra, she wasn't the only one molding things into her image when America's next top model began in 2003 that year, there were monumental and important strides in science around cloning. Yeah, I did just make that leap. So cloning obviously didn't actually start in 2003, but it was a surprisingly big topic of discussion in scientific communities as well as in the US government and in the United Nations.

Let's backtrack a few years from our usual backtrack to 2003 and talk about the birth of Dolly. The sheep. Dolly was a sheep born in 1996 he was the first cloned mammal derived from an adult cell. So Dolly, she died at age six in, you'll never guess. 2003 left a scientific legacy that was hugely influential and impactful in part because her successful birth after over 500 failed attempts proved that you could take a cell from an adult mammal and essentially reprogram it using a

technology called nuclear transfer to create a clone. So, Dolly had been created using a cell from an adult. She utter throughout the rest of the nineties and early two thousands, there were other cloning experiments, but 2003 marks a standout year for the achievements and the discourse around the ethical ramifications of this kind of scientific endeavor.

Part of the discourse I think has to do with the fact that right around New Year's Eve 2002, as 2003 was approaching a company called Clonaid announced that they had produced the first human clone. Clonaid is a really interesting and bizarre company. It's owned by a religious sect whose theology is based on the idea that aliens created humans through cloning.

And now humanity's mission on earth is to continue cloning. Clonaid starts promoting their human clone in late December 2002. And by early January it's of course, huge news. It's all over the papers in part because of the company's suspicious pr tactics. But also the fact that Clonaid refused to allow any genetic testing on the baby to confirm that it was in fact a clone.

Then on January 4th, 2003 clone announced the birth of a second human cloned baby. Again, they had no evidence to back up this claim. So just four days later on January 8 bill was introduced into the House of Representatives called the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003. And shortly thereafter, a similar bill was introduced in the Senate which was never voted upon even though it had passed in the House in October of 2003.

The United Nations took up the issue of human cloning but essentially delayed any kind of resolution for another two years on it. Even with the panic around human cloning raging in early 2003, there were major and important developments in animal cloning that year. Dolly, the sheep's February 2003 death raised a lot of questions about the efficacy of the cloning science.

But on April 1st researchers cloned two Ban Tas which is a species of wild cattle from Asia using frozen cells from an animal that had died in 1980. Later, in 2003 scientists in Spain cloned a pyrenean Ibex, a kind of wild goat species that had gone extinct. In 2000. The cloned Ibex died shortly after its birth due to a lung defect, making it the first species to go extinct twice in June.

Scientists in Italy produced the first cloned horse named promote a few other clones. From 2003, Ralph, the first cloned rat and Idaho gem, the first cloned mule. I also have to mention that the Star Wars movie that came out in 2002 was Star Wars episode two attack of the clones. And in 2003, there was the cartoon Network show Star Wars, Clone Wars.

So there's just a lot of clone stuff in the popular imagination for one year. While the scientific and political establishments grappled with these developments in cloning, there were fewer overt discussions about the kind of conformity and standards promoted through America's next top model. Yes, we're circling back to America's next top model cycle.

One of the series premiered on May 20th, 2003 on UPN and aired through July. The first season is I think really a standout in America's next top model because it's so unlike any of the future seasons that you think of. When you think of America's next top model. It has a really low production budget, it's brand new, it has nothing to reference. So it felt raw. It felt more real, somehow, more like actually representative of what being a model could really be like.

This week, I talked with writer, producer and co-host of the Bad Boy podcast. Zoe Klar about Tyra, the women and the drama of Cycle one and how we remember the show from watching it 20 years ago. So this is episode four, America's next top model and don't forget to stay tuned after the discussion for our song of the week.

...

 

Zoe Klar

Ok. I'm Zoe Klar. And in 2003, I was 13.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

Do you have any prominent memories of 03 Mitzvah?

 

Zoe Klar

Uh-huh? You know it, I know it. September 21st, a huge day in history. that definitely stands out because look, I wasn't popular, but I unfortunately had my Bat Mitzvah on the same day as a kid who was, and everyone went to his bar Mitzvah and not mine and they all got really sick, airbrushed teas. but jokes on them because I had Sumo Wrestling.

 

Helen Grossman

Your theme was Sumo Wrestling.

 

Zoe Klar

No. But you remember those like big outfits.

 

Helen Grossman

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You had like the balloon, like you had like a classic bat Mitzvah party, did you? No. Well, yours was in 2000 and three was in September 8th, 2003. Yeah. Wow. Twins, twins, September. 03 Bat Mitzvah.

 

Zoe Klar

Wow. Ok. And you didn't have any?

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

Well, you had no games, no games.

 

Helen Grossman

No, I mean, we did a weird thing, you know, we did, we did the service in the morning and then instead of having a party, we rented a huge bus and we drove out to the city of industry to this diner where my uncle knew the owner of the diner. It was like a Greek diner with roller waitresses.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

This is, I've never heard the story of your Bat Mitzvah before I think because I honestly was like, I'm so embarrassed by it, but like, it's so weird.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah, my Bat Mitzvah is actually at a nightclub in the city, the city because my godfathers planned it and they, they were caterers and so they did the catering and they also chose the venue which was a nightclub and we had to leave by 11 because at 11 pm, the burlesque show started. So as we were, as like all of us were pouring out of the, as all of us were pouring out, the burlesque crowd was coming in and there was definitely a blow up doll. ready to take my spot as Bat Mitzvah girl.

 

Helen Grossman

I bet everyone who went to that other kid's bar. Mitzvah wished that they could have seen the burlesque crowd. You know that in and of itself was like enough to get people there. You're right to go to a night club in NYC. So sick.

 

Zoe Klar

Come on. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't cool to the people at that school though because they were like, let's go to the Rainbow Room. You know what I mean? They were such a rainbow room crowd.

 

Helen Grossman

What were the trends in the New York City private school when we were in 7th, 8th grade?

 

Zoe Klar

I mean, I get all of it so conflated with each other, but like, I guess a juicy jumpsuit. Right. Does that sound right for this huge, you know, some people definitely had cell phones. I don't know about the cell phones that came out in that time. I think I had a Motorola peanut phone.

 

Helen Grossman

Does that sound right? Yeah. Yeah, I had a similar one and it was like the one from Charlie's Angels.

 

Zoe Klar

Ok. I'll believe you. so definitely that definitely cell phone charms. Definitely, you know, latex belts that had huge holes in them. some of those in this, in this series, the series is really such a, into the fashion of that time, like a horrifying time. And I was also thinking about low rise jeans. as I do. Yeah.

 

Helen Grossman

And they're coming back to haunt us.

 

Zoe Klar

I know, but they couldn't have come at a worse time.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

But, yeah, no, 2003 low rise jeans, light wash boot cut, you know, that those jeans that just had like the tiniest little zipper that was maybe two inches of zipper maximum.

 

Zoe Klar

But also so many pockets, so many pockets, like how you like stuck between low rise, tight jeans and pocket filled cargo pants. Yeah. Such a weird time to be alive.

 

Helen Grossman

Such a weird time to be a teenager and to like have a body that's growing disgusting. ok. Well, let's talk about America's next top model.

 

Zoe Klar

I would love nothing more because we just spent four hours watching it. Does that, is that breaking the fourth wall? Too hard?

 

Helen Grossman

No. So do you remember when America's next top model premiered?

 

Zoe Klar

I don't remember like the day it premiered, but I definitely remember it being like appointment viewing for me and my mom and I know not to, you know, switch gears too hard. But I know Queer Eye also came out in 2003 and that was another show my mom and I watched together.

Wow. Yeah, I don't know what it was. And we also watched Animal Precinct, which was on Animal Planet. It was like about, the A S PC A going in and rescuing like pit bulls and stuff. That's cool, I guess. but yeah, anyway, I definitely watched the show with my mom.

 

Helen Grossman

What impression or impact did watching the show have on you?

 

Zoe Klar

I think, like, you don't realize how much you're internalizing. Yeah. And you know, we watched a couple episodes of season one, an episode from season three and it's like in the 1st, 1st of all in the first episode ever, they're doing a weigh in and they're showing everyone's height and weight on the sunscreen.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah.

 

Zoe Klar

And they're shamed if they're too skinny and then they're shamed if they're not skinny enough. And, you know, then there's everyone in the middle who are, like, sort of going at the two sides and it's like a weird, you know, in my mind what I remember is, like, constantly wanting to be thinner.

And that being my takeaway was like, well, I mean, I was fully convinced I could be a model after watching the show, my main takeaway was like, every time I'm going to the mall, I'm at risk of being scouted because I'm such a drop dead diva or whatever.

 

Helen Grossman

Like, I think that that was a big takeaway for a lot of people was like, anybody, if this could happen to Adrian or Shannon, two small town girlies, certainly it could happen to you and it never happened to me. Yeah.

 

Zoe Klar

Not yet. Not yet. I haven't aged out yet. Even though the 26 year old on season one is like, practically geriatric, they really treated her.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

So, yeah, I mean, it's also offensive that like the oldest person who was like the quote unquote mother of the group was also happened to be the quote unquote plus size model and like plus size on season one versus plus size on season three, vastly different, completely different.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah, I mean, I assume, and we barely watch season three and I don't really remem, I, I remember in later seasons, like, when girls would gain weight throughout the season or lose weight throughout the season, they'd be like, you come in a plus size girl, you have to stay a plus size girl or you'd come in a not plus size girl, you have to stay that way.

I feel like that was such like the you cannot change and maybe you're in a category. They put it all like in this industry, you're cast this way or that way. They always say shit about the industry like in this industry. If you're late, you're going to lose the client $17 million. It's like Tyra.

 

Helen Grossman

Absolutely. Everything is an overall lesson. Yeah, I feel like, you know, we are in an interesting moment for Tyra where we really watch her transform in this series and I in the episodes that we watch, you know, we see Tyra come in almost as like a peer even though she's kind of a role model.

And then by the end, she's like giving inspirational speeches. She's giving tough talks, tough talks, which become of course a staple of the show. I mean, the most iconic moment of the show is her yelling at that girl in season six. I believe we're rooting for.

 

Zoe Klar

We were all rooting for you. We were all rooting for you. That was iconic though when my mother yelled at this is because she loves me. I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you. How dare you learn something from this? She definitely, and we saw that change happen. You're right. It's like she has this like, peer.

Like the intro of the show is like, people come up to me all the time and say like, how do I become a model? I want to be a model. And she's like, well, this is how this is the show that's going to make you a model. And then halfway through, she was like, oh shit. But I'm a producer on this show.

 

Helen Grossman

I think that you could see it in her eyes in the middle, in the middle of the season when she starts getting tough on them and giving kind of lectures, she feels the surge of power.

 

Zoe Klar

I was a soapbox man. Yeah. And you know, like Janice Dickinson meanest person I've ever seen. Absolutely. Absolute freaking harsh, harsh. Yeah.

 

Helen Grossman

That's the kind of person who's like, oh, well, I had to be sexually assaulted. So you should too.

 

Zoe Klar

Totally. Totally. And Tyra is always like one of the world's first super models in her intro. And Jana Dickson is like the first like every episode, no one's keeping track, ok? No one cares.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

But Janice is incredibly consistent in her bitchiness and harshness, but also harsh about things that are unchangeable, you know, harsh about your skin, skin texture your body, you know, no one's going to want a plus size girl.

 

Helen Grossman

It's like, ok, well, she's been cast on this show. Right. You can't just eliminate her for being in that category when that's the reason she was cast. I mean, that's kind of mind boggling to me.

 

Zoe Klar

Right. You're right. It's like they were always casting for diversity purposes, but there was no way any of them would ever win.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because in this season, in season one, their diversity comes up and I think that in our modern 2023 lens, we're sort of trained to look for those intersectional moments. Like we have Ebony who's like this very powerful black lesbian woman who's very, like, open about that and she's very dark skinned and you have Robin who's, you know, who's black and evangelical and you have Mercedes who's Latina and then that's kind of

like all that, the only way that it's mentioned. Whereas, like, the diversity in the house ends up being like a militant atheists. It's true versus the evangelicals. Yeah.

 

Zoe Klar

There is a big divide between the Bibles and the Non Bibles. Yeah. Like, it's, I feel like the overall theme of that entire season, the overarching theme is about religion. Absolutely. And like, you know, the nudity, the nudity shoots which, like, throughout the entire show there's always a person who doesn't want to do the nudity shoots because of the Lord.

The Lord himself, the Lord himself. And you know, it's the same thing where it's like if you want to be a model, you're going to have to get naked and you should know this by now and God will still love you.

 

Helen Grossman

God loves models.

 

Zoe Klar

God loves models.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

Even if it's fake nudity, even if you're wearing a G string, it's a G string that they can edit out the double strap.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah, they really went in on the double strap.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

I mean, the Bible is kind of a character in this season of television and she pops up all the time in the limo with the French men.

 

Zoe Klar

It's just like any time Robin can pull out a Bible, she has it on her hip ready to go. I'm like, I wonder if the producers are, like, here, just read your Bible in this limo. I do feel, I think it was an interesting because you said American Idol came out in 2000 two.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. So the first season of American Idol comes out in 02. You know, the Bachelor comes out in 02 as well. The Bachelorette will come out in 03. So this is really like, it's called emergent.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah, I think what's so unique about America's next top model is, it's a competition show, like American Idol. But you have the home life aspect of it too. Like The Real World or like, I guess they have that on The Bachelor. That's a huge part of the Bachelor, but the Bachelor is not a competition in the same way.

It's like a talent competition where like this show is just as much about them at the house in the model loft with the photos of Tyra everywhere as it is about them doing these photo shoots on the roof.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. I think this is kind of one of the first shows that really in the reality format, like, takes this idea of you have to be talented. Sure. But personality and popularity feels like it's equally as much a part of it.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah, they do talk about personality a lot on this show and they really harp on, like, but they're also just as judgmental about it. Oh, totally. You know, it's like either you're too fat or too thin, you're too cheery, you're too upset. Like Adrian, I guess is a tomboy and they, like, always made fun of her voice and the way she walked and, like, how she carried herself. And it was always this, I don't know, it was a, a point of judgment for that.

 

Helen Grossman

She wasn't some, she didn't have the personality of a typical sort of feminine model. But at the same time, I feel like Adrian becomes the blueprint because she is the most improved and ultimately that kind of becomes what this competition is about. It's like, who can Tyra form to Tyra Force? And, yeah, and Adrian takes notes.

She does, she slicks her hair back, you know, whereas the other contestants exactly, she puts her hair in the clip. Whereas the other contestants don't take that feedback and they feel like in future seasons they're much more forceful about that. We're giving you this advice to further your, yeah.

 

Zoe Klar

And they're also way more judgy in future seasons about what they wear too. Judging. I remember that being such a huge part of it and being, like take off those earrings, they did it and I don't know, Robin wore that ridiculous hat and they made her take it off which like, thank God because if that was on my screen for one

more second. But they do get way more like specific about that type of thing and presenting like a model and acting like a model which of course is all fucking made up anyway.

 

Helen Grossman

Absolutely, Tyra, I think walked her last Victoria's Secret Angel Runway in like 2005.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

So she's still going, still going, she's still a model.

 

Helen Grossman

She's still a model, a working model and then this is kind of her pivot to TV.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah. And she pivoted, she pivoted. I mean, this show like, I feel like it had way more of an impact on reality television than it did on the modeling industry. Like I can looking at it now like I watch every single fucking version of Rupaul's drag race. And I can, I can see it, I can see how this influenced Rupaul's drag race. I could see how it influenced top chef. Absolutely.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

It's just the celebrity host that's like, sort of a expert, you know, like whatever judging, encouraging sometimes these, the younger generation that they're giving like, 10% mentor, 80% judge 10% dictator, dictator.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. Yeah, they really break them down. But, yeah, you can see it and you can see the pressure cooker, ness of the show change from season to season. Like in the first season, I was shocked at how often they, like, they got to leave the apartment. I was like, oh, they're letting them go out in the city, they're letting them go around Paris and go to Jim

Morrison's grave. Like, what a thrill. But I feel like in later seasons they realized the more they can control them and like, really fuck with them the better the show gets.

 

Helen Grossman

Absolutely. I mean, that's the reality television model.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

I will say, like other than Queer Eye, it was kind of my first exposure to gay men in a way, even the inclusion or the prominence of Jay Alexander completely.

 

Zoe Klar

Like the first season had an utter lack of Miss Jay.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah, Miss Jay. And I think a lot of like the queer sort of creatives who ultimately are the ones who really cultivate the talent or the art directors or the stylists are the ones who really, like prop up these women who are ultimately like being photographed for the male gays. Of course, naturally they take a lot more prominence in later seasons and that has to be a call by Tyra.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

I mean, Tara for all her shit, it does feel like she's sort of taken a back seat because of all the heat she got in the last several years race swapping photo shoot.

 

Zoe Klar

I mean, that was bad.

 

Helen Grossman

Listen, there were a lot of really cringe things that were done by her hand. You know, the decisions that she made ultimately, who again, I can't speak for tires. I don't know if she's like, I'm doing this because I believe that beauty comes in all colors. Like she says that in season in the very first episode, all shapes, all sizes, all colors like, but at the same time,

it's like you can't help but notice that the final three of season one or like three way fish, white women they are who are like just so traditionally beautiful, so skinny.

 

Zoe Klar

Well, Ali is a nerd.

 

Helen Grossman

Ali is a nerd. Adrian is a Tom boy and Shannon is a Christian.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

So everyone, everyone fits into a neat, you know, a neat little Ali is too smart for her own good and she's so condescending.

 

Helen Grossman

So, I mean, in an iconic 2003 crossover moment, she's wearing a Shin's t-shirt, she's wearing a shin's t-shirt. She is, of course, we know later she ends up dating the keyboardist from the Shins who assaults her and is arrested.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

I did not know that but I learned that today just a crazy crossover of convergence.

 

Helen Grossman

But it also tells us a lot about Elise and her alt identity.

 

Zoe Klar

So well, she was going to go to med school which isn't very alt of her.

 

Helen Grossman

No, and she never did.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah. No, she never did. Adrian feels like the real what you said earlier about like, it being like, she's the oddball and, like, it ends up, like, kind of working in her favor and it being, like, celebrated first of all. Not how I remember her at all. Like, how she actually is, is not how I remember her. I remember her being like, just this elegant, beautiful woman and it just goes to show that when I was 13 watching the show just because she's like a tomboy who dropped out of high school.

It didn't clock as something weird or different. Like, I thought Shannon, the Bible girl was weird. Yeah. I mean, and she was, she totally was not as weird as Robin, the Bible woman, the Bible woman.

 

Helen Grossman

Well, when I think of George W Bush and I think of the Bush era, I think of evangelicals.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

And you're right, Shannon would have loved Bush, of course.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah.

 

Zoe Klar

Shannon loved Bush. Shannon loved Bush. Speaking of Bush. Oh, God.

 

Helen Grossman

What episode one, these women getting their bikini waxes?

 

Zoe Klar

They did do that. They did do that. They really showed more than you would have thought. Yeah. I mean, Tyra is like a huge, was a huge name and a huge draw and, you know, to her credit, like, not every person, not every model can be a host and she embraced the role and she had a personality and like, it doesn't, I mean, a lot of it was probably fake.

 

Helen Grossman

Her personality, it reads fake, it, you know, it reads fake, but that was also part of the appeal of it. I think to get to the level of success that Tyra was trying to convince these women she had, she had to be fake. Like it's also selling the story that this whole industry is kind of fake, right?

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

I mean, they're telling Adrian like, don't talk like that, don't walk like that, like the blatant racism on the show is fucking wild.

 

Zoe Klar

And with the voice thing specifically, I don't remember what season it was. I think her name was Danielle and I believe she won, she had a gap in her tooth and I think they shaved it to make it bigger or they wanted to shave it to make it bigger.

 

Helen Grossman

There was something was shaving, they wanted it to be smaller.

 

Zoe Klar

Oh, they wanted to fill the gap.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

This was a big, this was part of the reason why Tyra was sort of reevaluated in the public discourse because they wanted to that clip resurfaced, but she had a southern accent and they didn't like it.

 

Zoe Klar

They did not like it. No, they did not like it at all. But they had no problem with Shannon's southern accent. I had a problem with it. I found it irritating.

 

Helen Grossman

But Shannon who was from California, was she Shannon? They kept calling her Miss California. But maybe that was just because her hair was blonde.

 

Zoe Klar

I think it was because her hair was blonde and she had a lot of teeth.

 

Helen Grossman

She had a lot of teeth, perfect teeth. She kept saying maybe Adrian said that. So Adrian to say that one of the most sort of chilling moments was in the makeover episode of season one and Ebony who already had sort of a close shave.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah, it was like a near buzz.

 

Helen Grossman

It had like a near buzz. She had a little tough.

 

Zoe Klar

She had a little bit. Yeah. She had a little tough though, which I guess it was like kind of mohawk but not even.

 

Helen Grossman

And they didn't have the right clippers to cut her hair. I thought it was really horrible that her complaint about how inappropriate it was that they didn't have the proper equipment or personnel to give her a proper haircut was grouped in with the same people who complained about having their hair straightened.

 

Zoe Klar

Agree. Yeah, it was like, you know, they would list the people who are crying. They'd be like, well, she cried because she had to take out her $1500 weave, she cried because, you know, she didn't want to go blonde and Ebony is over here crying because they gave her a horrible haircut because they didn't know what they were doing because they were in

like a very white salon and she is not a white person. Yeah, it was. And they were laughing at her when she was complaining about it and they were like, really disrespectful.

 

Helen Grossman

There's like probably a whole discourse around like Tyra and blackness that I feel and equipped to discuss. But she's constantly like, I don't go around saying I'm black, I'm black, you know. Yeah. But I also feel like in her role, she clearly cares about giving opportunity to women of color and mentoring them in specific ways. And so it did feel really it just felt really retrograde to have her to have this contestant treated this way for a complaint that was so legitimate.

 

Show Clip

So we leave a little tough. I didn't like the way the woman was cutting my hair and the way they were having a conversation in front of me.

Should we write her name in you that for me, it is uneven up shaving your head that fast.

And it's very upsetting to an African American woman to go into a salon and prac to do her hair incorrectly. It's very inappropriate. It doesn't make any sense to me.

Ebony. She just gets going and cannot stop and it's a little bit weird.

 

Helen Grossman

There were so there were some areas that it's like kind of shocking to see. For example, that they clearly film this in a hotel room. That's tiny, very small hotel. The product, the production budget is very small. It's depressingly small, almost depressingly small. It's so much so that Tyra's like, I put them in one room because that's what being a model is like.

 

Zoe Klar

No, it's not Tyra.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

Yeah, it's like we get it, your production budget was really low, you know, and by like season whatever, you know, by season seven, they're walking into this huge mansion and this, it's like they have a quote models loft and it's like four rooms with 12 beds in each room.

 

Zoe Klar

It's like wild, right?

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

Like two girls have to literally be sleep in trundle, they're trundle beds.

 

Zoe Klar

I forgot about the frontal bits. What an absurd twist.

 

Helen Grossman

Another thing that's, I think also, like, speaks to the sort of evolution of not just the show, but like the format of reality TV, in general is like in this season, it's really cut and dry. Like there does seem to be this sense of like if you're a model you're judged on your walk and you're judged on your photo. And yeah, like some of your photo shoots are going to be uncomfortable or like going to push you, they're going to push you into places that you're not used to going, right?

You might have to be naked, you might have a snake on you in future, in future seasons, we have like you have to walk across pebbles in a river wearing nine inch heels. Like there's this push to the extreme in future seasons. Whereas this actually feels like it's just sort of the purest of like these are kind of like this is if you were a model, you would be given these assignments in the most basic form, right?

 

Zoe Klar

It's like you're going to be naked selling jewelry. Fine. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, a beauty shot with a snake. Like I've seen wilder things. You're right in later seasons, they're like, ok, jump off this building and look pretty. You have one shot go like, oh, no problem.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

Yeah, like we're going to electrocute you and, and, and Tyra's like sometimes when you're a model you get electrocuted and you can't let it impact your face and I see the electrocution all over your face.

 

Helen Grossman

You don't have what it takes.

 

Zoe Klar

You don't have what it takes. Where's your neck? Where's longer neck, longer neck, your hands look like a claw. It's like, yeah, you were, you were stabbing me in the club foot. Well, I guess she has huge feet. So I mean, she does, she does at the end of the day she does, you can't deny it.

 

Helen Grossman

But that was also, you know, her feet only come up in that first episode.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

She really learned, she she, she, she hid those clamps for the rest of the season.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah. No, she did learn. She did learn.

 

Helen Grossman

I mean, I think that probably the strangest challenge was definitely the prove yourself as a lady to these French men. It was so weird. No way.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

That, that's actually relevant challenge has definitely changed.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah, because you're right. Yeah, they were in France. It was the final four. They had to, like, eat es cargo with these four schlubby fucking French dudes.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

And at the end, the men picked which one they thought was like the most ladylike, which I guess embodied the spirit of couture.

 

Zoe Klar

Oh yeah, it was about embodying the spirit of couture. Naturally anyway, Adrian won so clearly, it was not about like being a socialite. It was, it was a personality content. It was a personality and obviously she was going to win that.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

No question because she at least she was, she was, but like she ate the ES cargo.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. And she, she engaged them in conversation. Whereas Shannon 18 year old Shannon didn't know how to interact.

 

Zoe Klar

Robin was knee deep in her Bible. She couldn't both.

 

Helen Grossman

Robin not saying one word, reading her Bible in the limo. So good. Unbelievable. So iconic.

 

Zoe Klar

Honestly.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

Yeah, I feel like if I were the oldest person in the group and were being forced to charm a group of hideous, so ugly, you know, Skeezy, I've never seen greasy or bad guys in my life like they were so ugly.

 

Helen Grossman

You know, she said these guys aren't real socialites. I'm not even gonna participate in it.

 

Show Clip

It's like, let's go and talk to you a night longer. These cat daddy, lustful type of men were there and you could tell about their conversation. They weren't socializing. That's the reason why I tuned them out.

 

Show Clip, Helen Grossman

That's all she did for like four hours with these dudes would read the Bible,

 

Helen Grossman

you know, Robin for her getting the villain at it. You have to give her credit that she really did say these are my values and I'm sticking to them.

 

Zoe Klar

You're right, you're right. And she definitely got the villain at it.

 

Helen Grossman

She would have been kicked off a lot earlier in future seasons for being so unwilling to bend to Tyra's demands, right?

 

Zoe Klar

And I feel like they did, I don't know why they kept her around because it's not like her photo shoots were that incredible. But they kept reiterating like this is what women look like. Like we need to keep her on because like women look like Robin, like no one looks like a 58, stunning person.

 

Helen Grossman

5 10. There was like no one under 59 the whole season.

 

Zoe Klar

Remember the short girl season? Yeah, they're like, yeah, yeah, they really opened my eyes like I never saw short representation like that in the media.

 

Helen Grossman

I do feel like Tyra's influence and this idea of a personal brand she's planting that seed in 2003 more than any other, like, reality TV.

 

Zoe Klar

Definitely, you know, judge contestant because, like, American Idol, you win a record deal, which is big, I mean, for Kelly Clarkson and no one else, but it was big for Kelly Clarkson and Tyra's whole thing is really about, like, what is, what is your one thing, you know, she'd be like, you look like an alien. Use it. You have the worst nose I've ever seen. That's your superpower. Like, you know, she would put you down really bad.

But also try to like, say what is the thing that makes you, you and what makes you unique and like, what is the thing that is going to make you a superstar or whatever? and build that and it was usually the thing that she hated the most, she'd be like, Elise your thing is that you're so smart. And you need to use that to your benefit, but also you're so smart and you're so condescending and I hate you and you're out of the competition.

 

Show Clip

I admire your intelligence. I think you are so smart. But one thing with that intelligence is it can intimidate people and there's a way to use that intelligence in a way that doesn't feel like you're maybe putting down other people or sounding derogatory.

 

Helen Grossman

Her whole like last interrogation where, you know, they say to her, do you believe that modeling is more than just beauty and they sort of. But this is the reason why she's sent home is because she ultimately doesn't agree with. Tyra is because she doesn't take Tyra's.

Yeah, she doesn't take Tyra's lesson. Tyra wants her to say through this experience. I've learned that modeling is about the inside and the outside, which is ultimately the sort of message that Tyra's trying to instill in people in every season.

 

Zoe Klar

Also, she's constantly trying to prove that it's a skill, you know, like you can be pretty and be a horrible model in front of the camera. You can have like the best face in the world. And then the second you try to walk down the runway, you fall on it and you look like a big dumb, dumb. Like she's, it seems like her like goal is to prove that she is a skilled individual. I do want to talk about the product placement real fast. Yeah.

I mean, now when we watch reality TV, let's talk about top chef because I know we both watch it. It's like, and you're going to win $100,000 furnished by Saran wrap on this show. We were watching the first episode and you were like, why is everyone wearing baby fat? Like what is that zipper? Is that baby fat? Why is she wearing baby fat? Then Korie Simmons is one of the judges and the final runway is a baby fat runway.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

I loved the baby fat integration because it felt seamless, it felt seamless.

 

Zoe Klar

I was gas lit, whatever.

 

Helen Grossman

Well, I kept saying to you what's that cat logo? What's she? Why is she wearing a cat neck? You were like, I need that necklace.

 

Zoe Klar

I need a cat neck. It worked on you even after 20 years totally of having like Saran wrap shoved down our throats. You're still falling for it. I'm falling for it. Well, because it was such a perfect integration for the season.

 

Helen Grossman

Baby fat is also like such a distinct early two thousands brand totally.

 

Zoe Klar

And you know, like the Marie Claire fashion editor was also one of the judges that wasn't shoved down our kill kill. But I also didn't come away being like, oh, I need a subscription to Murray Claire.

 

Helen Grossman

I was like, no, but they are the only reading material we see in the series is the Bible or Claire, which, which is my Bible. So yeah, exactly. It's like you get, you know what the militant atheists are reading and know what the, what the Christians are reading.

 

Zoe Klar

And it also like for whatever reason I'm like, oh Willena models like the prestige because that was the prize. Like I would not know what the fuck Willena models was when I was 13. If it was not for her, her being Tyra. but I know what it is now and I, I even still, when I think about it, I'm like, oh damn. That's a good modeling agency. Like, I don't fucking know.

 

Helen Grossman

I have no idea. I couldn't tell you a good one doesn't last beyond season one. Interestingly, I moved to Ford.

 

Zoe Klar

Can we just talk real quickly about Amanda from season three saying that her son was conceived to the second on 9 11. Yeah. She was like, I'm a mother and I'm so proud of being a mother and my son was conceived to the second on September 11th.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

It must be weird for the kid to know that it must be weird for the kid to know that everyone knows that.

 

Zoe Klar

I mean, what a beautiful time to be conceived.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

I do think an interesting thing about 2003 though is its proximity to I totally, I mean, so we know that the girlies go shopping because they have extra time in New York and Adrian is wearing an NYPD shirt.

 

Helen Grossman

She is, and then at another time she's wearing an FDNY shirt.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

It's a tank top, it's a spaghetti strap, a spaghetti strap.

 

Helen Grossman

She is. And that like lit this little, you know, light bulb in my head of like, oh, we're in New York post 9 11 and this is how it's being represented right after 9 11.

 

Zoe Klar

And even like through 2002, we were in this like lovey dovey phase where we were all like American flags. Like, let's, you know, remember freedom for us like let's embrace each other and take advantage of our time that we have and then by 2003 it feels like that faded and like the jadedness of our generation.

And I guess, you know, I guess they're, they're elder millennials. We'll say geriatric millennials. Gemini, the geriatric millennials really. You know, you can see it, you can see it and then how, how, I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm just reading into it too much.

 

Helen Grossman

I don't think there's such a thing as reading into it too much. I think you're right. I mean, I think that like part of it is also represented through this Christian atheist thing.

 

Zoe Klar

Yeah, you're so right.

 

Helen Grossman

Let's talk about Adrian and Elise and there's a moment in season at the end when they're deciding who's the winner. And they say fashion is edgy now fashion is edgier when they call Adrian the future. And they say, oh, she's this punk rock girl, you know, she's constantly making the punk rock finger gesture.

That's her, that's her personal brand. It is personal brand and Elise who has this sort of like Pixie the Shins and then that versus like catalog Shannon, it does feel like there is this acknowledgement of a more like alternative, the incoming of something different.

 

Zoe Klar

Tyra loved to make broad proclaims about fashion and every season she'd be like, you're the future of fashion, you're the future of fashion. She said that every single time. So this was the first time she said it. So maybe she believed it actually. And I can see why she would say that because it is in direct opposition to like the Paris Hiltons that are being shoved down our throat.

 

Helen Grossman

Ok. So before we finish off our analysis of America's next summer at all in the spirit of 2003, what are, what are the aspects of America's next top model's premiere season that you love?

 

Zoe Klar

OK. I love the Competition Meets Home Meets Real World. I love that. I like, I feel like that's such a unique thing that America's next top model did. That is now so prevalent in every reality show. Not every but a lot. I loves Adrian. I loved that. They made Adrian lovable and like, interesting and like a full human being. Like, I think with a lot of reality shows now there's like a characterization where they're like, they do put people in buckets and even though they did it with her

where they're like, you're the punk rock girl, you're the Jesus freak, whatever, they still felt more well rounded because like Shannon was like, I love Jesus, but I can be goofy and wear weird glasses. You know, it wasn't like, as trying to shove people like the edits weren't as honed as they are now. Even Elise, like the judges are like, you're smart and that's your thing. But like, Elise was so much more than just the smart person.

And we saw that as viewers, even if the judges didn't. So, I, I do feel like the over editing of reality TV, hadn't taken over yet and there wasn't this, like, we need to build characters out of these people. It was like we can just let them be people. and maybe, you know, I, I do think that changed. You could even see that change by season three.

 

Helen Grossman

Absolutely. I love, I my loves it for American sex top model. Season one is seeing Tyra at a pure transitional moment. You know, before she sort of became a, before she created a character for herself to play as the host of the show when she saw herself as this very fluid entity in the show, kind of a mentor, kind of a teacher, kind of a judge, kind of a dictator,

kind of, you know, kind of a creative director. There's a brief purity and a brief moment where I feel like we get to see something very sort of real about Tyra and I love that.

 

Zoe Klar

My other loves Daniel Pizarro. Yeah. I'm just kidding.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

No, no, I love, we love Daniel Pizzaro even though he made them po in a freezing cold Daniel Pizarro and his assistant Elizabeth Moss, not Elizabeth Moss.

 

Zoe Klar

Different. Elizabeth Moss.

 

Helen Grossman

I, I love how well this is a double edged loves, you know, I love that. It made it feel accessible to people that you could watch that show and look in the mirror and see a model in yourself. And as a cultural forest, I just feel like there was nothing like that before.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

Maybe it's just the age we were and we were the perfect, the perfect slash worst age.

 

Helen Grossman

Exactly. And that's why it's a double edged sword. It's like the other side of that is that you simultaneously get the feeling that it could be you, that you have the potential in you.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

And then the other message that you're getting is you're not 100 and £14.05 10 like le also like if you're not getting discovered at the mall, it's because of something that's inherently wrong with you, right?

 

Zoe Klar

Which for me, it was just wrong place, wrong time. I'm really glad that we watched it because II I don't think it's given enough credit for what it did for reality TV. Loves it. It's my Bible.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

That's another thing I love is like, what a, what a time capsule it is to like Bush era cultural differences and in young women these nine, 1920 21 and if you're ancient, like Robin 26 year old women are like embodying that divide so, so drastically and it, you can see how so much of it is like self inflicted.

 

Zoe Klar

It's like they're forced, they're forcing themselves to choose between. OK? Either I'm in love with Jesus or I'm a degenerate and like there's no spot for in between America's next top model.

 

Helen Grossman

Change the game Nora Problematic Queen. But we appreciate her contributions.

 

Zoe Klar

No doubt. I appreciate her contributions to the world of reality TV. Modeling. Yeah. I honestly, I don't know. Yeah, but reality TV, I'm a, I, I watch a lot of it and I can for sure.

 

Zoe Klar, Helen Grossman

Like she, she did something, her and Ken mock her and Ken mock and actually a later producer of the show, Kenya Barris.

 

Zoe Klar

No. Yeah, I just got chills.

 

Helen Grossman

Yeah. Any other, any last comments on America S model?

 

Zoe Klar

I guess I would say I have two photos in my hand. Two beautiful women stand before me, but I only have one photo in my hand. This photo represents a girl who's still in the running to becoming an American stock model that it.

 

 Helen Grossman

So this week's 03 throwback song of the week was actually requested by multiple people when I first launched the podcast. And that's probably because it's one of the most enduring anthems of that year into club by 50 cent. The first single off of 2003's best selling album, Get Rich or Die Tryin. In Da Club hit number one on March 8th and stayed at the top of the charts for nine weeks.

 

Helen Grossman

Thank you. So much for listening to this episode of class of 03. We'll be back next week with another new episode that I'm really excited about. So please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, also rate and review us. If you want to nominate a song of the week or share a story about 2003. You can get in touch at class of 03 pod at gmail dot com. Call us at 724, class 03 or follow us and message us on Instagram at class of 03 pod. Thank you again to Zoe Klar for joining me today in

conversation about America's next top model. I loved it and I loved watching four hours of the show with you. You can follow Zoe on Twitter, Instagram or tiktok at Zoe Clare and listen to her podcast, Bad Boy Pod. Our show is written, produced and edited by me Helen Grossman and our theme song is by Luke Schwartz and Evan Joseph of Saw two. Our show art is designed by Maddie Herbert of Dame Studio. Class Dismissed.