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How Reality Television Will Get Even Cheaper
Television networks, still reeling from strike-related ratings slips, have gone and broken the glass on their last-resort failsafe. They're cutting costs on reality shows. Executives are looking to further streamline the already seductively cheap 'n easy (that's why there are so many of 'em!) younger siblings of scripted programming by cutting down on non-studio filming and long editing times. Expect more shows, like the odious hit game show Moment of Truth (where contestants reveal terrible secrets while drooling for cash), that really only amount to "two people sitting in chairs onstage." More expensive reality shows like Hell's Kitchen need to be overseas hits before American networks will consider producing their own versions, which doesn't happen every day. What could this mean for reality favorites like Top Chef, Project Runway, and America's Next Top Model? We have some grim forecasts after the jump. More »
reality tv
A Quick Guide to David Cook and This Season's Other Instant Stars
Well, in the end it goes to Cook in a landslide. I am surprised! I thought the squealing masses of girls and soft dulcet tones of Archie's "Imagine" repeat on Tuesday night would win over middle ground voters who might have found Cook to be too edgy. But no, in a 12 million vote landslide, our combovered pal from Kansas City tearily took the crown and Simon and company rejoiced. I guess 19 and the judges were behind Cook all along. Perhaps the over the top Archie plaudits were just a calculated bait and switch. Or maybe there's nothing so cynical about American Idol after all. Good for Cook. Instant fame! Who else has won grand television prizes this year, on shows like America's Next Top Model and Project Runway? After the jump, take a tour through this year in winning things, starting, of course, with Mr. Cook. More »
on beauty
Did America's Next Top Model's "Plus-Sized" Winner Lose Weight Right Away?
Last week we wondered loudly if this season of America's Next Top Model had been fixed. A plus-sized model won and all and yeah, yeah isn't that great. Some people, though, smelled a rat. Did she really deserve to win? Was this just producer plotting to make the show seem more fair? In much the same way that rumors have been circulating that, per producer decree, a woman has to win this (the fourth) season of Top Chef, critics have suggested that the show, after umpteen "cycles" featuring plus-sized girls, predetermined that a "larger" model would win this season. A token, if you will. Adding to the fervor is the Seventeen magazine cover shoot that the winner, Whitney Thompson, received as a prize. Does she really look like a size 14, as she claims she is? Did she just pack on pounds to be The Plus-Sized and then drop weight again after the victory, as some have suggested? Having little to no knowledge of sizes and whatnot (boys!), tell me: does she look like a size 14 in these photos? I'm sure some airbrushing occurred, but does she look anything close to her purported size? It would be something of a scandal if the whole thing was, you know, staged. Click to enlarge (heh) the photo. (More at Mollygood.)
conspiracies
On Wednesday night's finale on the CW, Whitney Thompson became the first plus-size model to win the ANTM competition, a result met with tepid politically correct applause. But not from Gawker's readers: "Are you seriously not gonna say anything about the fact that some fat girl won ANTM over the one who got an excision?" one asks. "It's sooo unfair I don't even now why to make myself puke anymore!" Well, the outcome may indeed have been unfair. Some mean-spirited critics have noted that show creator and host Tyra Banks, a former supermodel, is above her fighting weight. And a friend of a friend of blogger Rich Juzwiak says the show's makers may have—shockingly!—planned on a plus-size victory from this season's very start.
More »
Did Tyra Banks Fix America's Next Top Model?
On Wednesday night's finale on the CW, Whitney Thompson became the first plus-size model to win the ANTM competition, a result met with tepid politically correct applause. But not from Gawker's readers: "Are you seriously not gonna say anything about the fact that some fat girl won ANTM over the one who got an excision?" one asks. "It's sooo unfair I don't even now why to make myself puke anymore!" Well, the outcome may indeed have been unfair. Some mean-spirited critics have noted that show creator and host Tyra Banks, a former supermodel, is above her fighting weight. And a friend of a friend of blogger Rich Juzwiak says the show's makers may have—shockingly!—planned on a plus-size victory from this season's very start.
More »
disasters
Soul Killing Reality Show Now Rampages In Corporeal World
Having already reduced their audience's minds and spirits to sad, pulpy smithereens, the crew at America's Next Top Model has now turned its destructive gaze upon real estate. Michael Marvisi, the landlord who rented a beautiful TriBeCa loft to the show's producers, to house 14 crazed, near feral contestants, says that the place was so damaged after their stay that he lost a prospective tenant and has had to spend thousands of dollars on repairs. There was extensive water damage in the bathroom, $20,000 curtains ruined, holes in the walls from crew members drilling (and high heels and fire pokers and talon-like finger nails), there was evidence of food fighting, with ketchup and coffee splattered everywhere, and, perhaps the most haunting and poetic detail, lipstick smeared on the walls. The producers offered to settle for a reported $125,000 (after their initial offer of a Seventeen magazine photo shoot and a Cover Girl contract was deemed to be completely useless by pretty much everyone), but Marvisi has, of course, decided to pursue litigation. Tyra Banks could not be reached for comment and a a $1,500 electricity bill remains unpaid. Much like the women who have competed on the show in years past. [P6]
oh no you didn't
Tyra Banks Almost Kills A Model
Everything was going so well for Kimberly, 20, of Worcester, Massachusetts on America's Next Top Model. She had a "stunning" photo shoot, "one of the best so far." Then she had to go and tell host Tyra "Cross Me And I Will Claw Your Eyes Out" Banks that "fashion does not interest me at all... I don't find it interesting." Oh holy god. The judges' jaws dropped, the other models started to lose it, and Tyra yelled "WHY DID YOU COME HERE?!" Never mind that Tyra cut six other models to keep this girl in the running, which is bad enough.No: You do not badmouth fashion to this lioness of modeling. The girl of course barely made it out alive, mostly because she agreed to leave the show. Hopefully on Wednesday Tyra will have to snap someone's neck like a twig, because watching people (try to) cross Banks is awesome: More »
disasters
The Only Clip of America's Next Top Model You Will Ever Need to See
Did you watch the premiere, on Wednesday night, of the newest iteration of Tyra Banks' hop hop hopping mad clusterfuck America's Next Top Model? You didn't??? You mean you didn't see where the girl talks about drinking her own breast milk or when one lady asks another lady who was circumcised at the age of seven back in Somalia if she "feels like less of a woman"? Well, I'd like to say I didn't either, but sadly, I was coerced. It being the most hideous show ever created, Top Model does warrant some attention, but not too much. Like, don't actually watch it or anything. Instead watch the provided clip, after the jump. It's long, but it's the only nine minutes and twenty five seconds of this show you will ever need to subject yourself to. Oh, and there's a lap dance! More »
fighting off douchebags
"I Will Never Speak of This Again": What to Wear to Your Next Court Appearance
Elyse Sewell, the beat-up ex-girlfriend of the indie-band Shins keyboard player (and former America's Next Top Model contestant!), had to go to court today. "Soon I will find out whether I will be prosecuted or the District Attorney will drop the felony charges," she Livejournals. (She bit the keyboardist in self-defense). She posted a photo of herself standing outside a skeezy motel room, lookin' adorably waifish, yet appropriately demure, in a long black skirt, royal-blue mini-jacket, and T-strap shoes. Tyra would definitely approve! Her verdict, and her wide-eyed shock that her public Livejournal is "tabloid fodder," follows.More »
douchebags
Shins Rocker Beats Up Only Person He Can, His Skinny Girlfriend
Keyboardist Marty Crandall of the Shins (their latest album is titled Wincing the Night Away!) was arrested for allegedly pounding on his model girlfriend. The victim—Elyse Sewell, who was on the first season of America's Next Top Model, has a Livejournal, in which she explains that dude got drunk in a Sacramento hotel room and hit her. She quickly locked the entry, but she says she'll unlock it after court date. Pitchfork posted the entirety of the entry before lockdown: More »
Due to "scheduling conflicts" (riiiight), British supermodel Twiggy is being replaced as 'America's Next Top Model' judge by another ex-model, the noted author and Ric Ocasek-wife Paulina Porizkova. Oh no! How will we now know whether or not the camera loves someone? [Hollywood Reporter]
charts and graphs
'ANTM' Contestants Are Growing Steadily Fatter!
No, not you, Tyra Banks! You are looking positively svelte on this cycle of ANTM, even adroitly covering up your "vagina arms" most of the time. (Your stank attitude is another story—that moment on last night's episode when you corrected Twiggy's pronunciation of "Bianca" was salty. She has a British accent, okay?) Anyway, Intern Mary has compiled the body mass indexes of every contestant on every cycle since the dawn of America's Next Top Model. A BMI of below 18.5 is considered underweight, fyi. More »
america's next top blogger
So Rich from the blog Fourfour was forced to post a video recap of last week's episode of 'America's Next Top Model' because his computer crashed and, well! We so aren't just saying this because some of us want to have sex with Rich and others of us want to be his best friend-catsitter: the dude has mad skills and should be getting paid to be on television. Do they still pay people to be on television?
A Star Is Born
So Rich from the blog Fourfour was forced to post a video recap of last week's episode of 'America's Next Top Model' because his computer crashed and, well! We so aren't just saying this because some of us want to have sex with Rich and others of us want to be his best friend-catsitter: the dude has mad skills and should be getting paid to be on television. Do they still pay people to be on television?
the best night of tv ever
This Is The Best Cycle Of 'America's Next Top Model' Yet
On last night's season premiere of America's Next Top Model, a homeless girl named Maritza came out onto the stage before judges Miss Jay, Jay Alexander, and Tyra Banks. Her cheeks were already slick with tears. "Why are you crying?" Tyra asked, affecting her trademark icecold laser stare accompanied by taut smile. "I'm just overwhelmed, I never thought I'd be standing here," sniffled Maritza. Tyra quickly forced Maritza to reiterate some facts that had been established in a pre-interview: she'd been in foster care, she'd been treated badly. "I've been... beat down by a lot of people. Raped, molested," Maritza quavered. "Why don't you talk about that?" Tyra suggested. Later in the episode, Maritza earnestly told the camera, "This [show] is the only way out for me." She didn't make it to the final 13. Duh! More »
And it's 'Top Model' winner Jaslene's Seventeen cover, and it's so, so, so, so butt. [Fashionista]
gossip roundup
Last week, in a frenzy of streamlining, we killed the morning gossip roundup. Well, we were crazy! Now back by popular demand!As photos surface of Lindsay Lohan celebrating her DUI arrest by passing out in the front seat of Samantha Ronson's SUV yesterday, a "friend" tells In Touch that she's headed back to rehab—Malibu's Promises this time, a la Britney. [NYP]
Will Cameron Diaz and Jessica Biel have a hair-pulling slapfight over Justin Timberlake at the MTV Movie Awards? [Page Six]
America's Next Top Model Jaslene Gonzalez may never book a couture show, but she's got one model rite of passage down: beating off the advances of Jamie Kennedy. [Gatecrasher]
Pamela Anderson had to have the talk with her kids. You know, the "I made a sex tape with your dad that everyone in America has seen" talk. [The Scoop, 2nd item]
Lindsay Looks So Innocent Unconscious
Last week, in a frenzy of streamlining, we killed the morning gossip roundup. Well, we were crazy! Now back by popular demand!
defamer.com
Jeremy Piven Makes Out With America's Second To Top Model
Well, Caridee may have won the competition, but Melrose won the real prize. If that's a prize. Who wants to be the one to tell her that he's not really an agent? More »
vanity fair
'VF' Staffer No Longer In The Running Towards Becoming America's Next Top Factchecker
Nancy Jo Sales's article about "America's Next Top Mogul" in February's Vanity Fair (not online, god damn it) contains not one but two glaring inaccuracies."Although narrow-bodied and slim, she is, as she often reminds fans, 30 pounds heavier than the average model, with a perfect ice-cream scoop of a behind."and:
'Congratulations,' is one of her famous taglines, always delivered with an enigmatic smirk. 'You're still in the running to become America's Next Top Model.'The first one we can sort of get around — no one said it wasn't a Cold Stone Creamery "Gotta Have It"-sized ice cream scoop, after all — but even the most cursory watcher of ANTM knows that the correct wording is "towards becoming." Factchecker, you must immediately return to the house, pack your things, and leave. More »
