America’s Next Top Model was a reality television competition that defined the genre. This series contains many iconic moments including memes, gifs, and quotes. Even some of the earlier seasons still have an impact on pop culture. While the show might have been popular and entertaining, it also had a lot of problematic elements. There are many things that happened that wouldn’t really fly on reality television in 2020.
Here are the ten things from America’s Next Top Model that are already outdated.
The Tyra Banks fake fainting moment
Tyra Banks definitely had a lot of moments during the show that were overdramatic and ridiculous. One of the most notable and memorable was when she pretended to faint in front of the contestants and freaked them out.
While this isn’t the worst thing that happened in the series, the bad acting and weird antics definitely wouldn’t fit well on television today. There’s definitely something a little cheesy about this series.
There was a ton of pressure to make the women model nude
While the series proclaimed itself it be all about women’s empowerment and giving women opportunities, this wasn’t always the case. There were multiple times where the contestants were supposed to model fully nude.
It was made very clear that if they didn’t do so they were at major risk of being eliminated. While it was a competition, there was something uncomfortable about how insistent they were that these women reveal their bodies, whether they wanted to or not.
They put the contestants through some pretty cruel challenges for entertainment value
One of the most uncomfortable and problematic things about the series overall is how many of the challenges were quite cruel. These photoshoots often were over the top and pushed these contestants to their limit.
There were many photoshoots that most accomplished models would struggle to pull off, and these people were mostly amateurs. One of the worst examples of this is when Caridee got hypothermia after having to pose in a freezing pool. It makes no sense why they didn’t heat the pool up.
There was a lot of fat-shaming and body shaming in general
Another one of the most frustrating things that happened on America’s Next Top Model was all of the body shaming. This was especially prevalent in earlier seasons, and it reflected many horrible attitudes of the time period.
While the show got a little better at this, there was still a lot of pressure for the models to maintain a certain weight, and the plus-sized models were often treated differently.
Ignoring things like harassment and homophobia
Given that contestants on the series came from all over the country and had a variety of life experiences and backgrounds, it’s not surprising they didn’t always get along.
However, there were many moments of the series where there was harassment including racist or homophobic comments. This also happened with other models. Jaeda from Cycle 7 had to do a film with a model who told her that he “didn’t like black women.” This was horrible, and he should have been kicked out. Gay contestants like Kayla Ferrel were also basically told that gay people didn't face any discrimination anymore.
Even when contestants got sick or went to the hospital, they were given little compassion
Watching the series got to the point at times where it felt like viewers were participating in subtle abuse. There were so many instances were little compassion was shown to the contestants.
It seemed like the entire point was to push these people to their limit and be rather mean about it. Multiple contestants either got sick or injured, but even when they were pushing themselves to their limit to compete, they were shown no exceptions or compassion.
There were two incidents were contestants learned of a death of someone close to them...and then had to model that they were dead
This is another example of the ways that photoshoots and challenges were designed rather cruelly. There were multiple examples of how photoshoots would prey upon a particular fear or real-life issue a constant was going through.
Both Kahlen and Jael had to participate in photoshoots about death right after learning of the death of a friend. It was clear the producers did this for drama, and it felt exploitative and manipulative.
The producers came up with challenges that would be particularly hard for contestants who had different physical abilities
There were so many examples of photoshoots being set-up to make certain contestants uncomfortable or scared, but there are two that especially cross the line. Instead of trying to accommodate contestants who had different physical realities, they tailored challenges for entertainment.
This happened to Nile DiMarco on season 22 who was made to model in the dark even though he’s deaf and used an interpreter. This also happened to Amanda from season 3 who had to walk on a poorly lit runway even though she was legally blind.
Multiple seasons featured blackface, brown face, etc.
One thing that definitely stands out as being outdated is the fact that racebending happened more than once. There were a couple of notable photoshoots that had contestants in blackface and brown face.
This wasn’t really appropriate or acceptable at the time either, but there was less overall cultural awareness of this issue. Watching these photoshoots now is definitely uncomfortable.
When they took away Angelea’s title because she used to be a sex worker
During cycle 17, Angelea was one of the top three finalists. In a strange moment, the filming from the final episode only featured the other two finalists, and there was no explanation given to why Angelea wasn’t there.
It turned out that Angelea was kicked off the show when it was discovered she used to be a sex worker. This was a really unfortunate choice to make and definitely a controversial one.