Who'd Have Thought I'd Side With Australians?

I've been watching some of Australia's Next Top Model lately, okay I've been watching ALOT, and I have to say, I think it beats ANTM.

For one, there's actually a sense of girls being picked and eliminated based on talent, rather than tv-ratings appeal, whereas Tyra seems to basically encourage cat fights and never calls anyone out on their behavior, which is actually quite ironic considering the whole bubbly, friendly-but-not-too-smart image ANTM's obsessed with.

And then there's Tyra herself. Oh my god. Has anyone even seen an ego that big before? I mean, yeah it's entertaining for the first two-minuets but then it just gets downright ridiculous. And I must say that each cycle she only seems to get crazier and crazier trying to cling onto those ratings with a deathlike grip. The little acted out stunts that are becoming more frequent are basically a desperate attempt to steal the spotlight.... on her own show.

The most frustrating thing of all, though, has got to be the pursuit of the "role model" model. Case in point: Whitney Cycle 10. So many times did I see her on the chopping block and think "Well surely she's going home" and why wouldn't she have? I can't think of a single remarkable thing about her, except that she was constantly labeled as having a fake personality. Which Tyra seems to cling onto like the remnants of her youth. By the second half of the cycle you could just see the gears in her head ticking, "There's no way in hell I'm going to go 10 cycles without a plus-sized winner it's now or never!" And Tyra is Tyra and so that was just that, despite protests from the other judges. This isn't a Miss Universe pagent, they're supposedly supposed to be picking out the best models. You wonder why AusNTM winners get a shoot with Vouge, and the ANTM's just get Seventeen.

Not that this should really bother me that much, or that I should have spent that much time ranting about it....

-Viv