America’s Next Top Model’s Tyra Banks defends controversial ‘blackface’ photoshoot
One of the judges on the show asked to be edited out of the episode
America’s Next Top Model has become the latest 00s reality show to go under the spotlight after a brand-new documentary revealed some of the wild things that happened behind the scenes on the series.
Netflix’s newest doc Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is a three-part mini-series that dives into the show that discovered iconic models such as Winnie Harlow.
What is often not as well discussed however is the people the show harmed, with one model from cycle two speaking out about how she was filmed being sexually assaulted, with the editing of the show turning it into a storyline about her ‘cheating’.
Not everything controversial on America’s Next Top Model however was edited or unaired, as now-infamous scenes from the TV show saw photoshoots use blackface.
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This happened in cycle four and 13 of the series, with cycle four seeing them ‘swap races’ of contestants, whilst cycle 13 saw them try and make the models look ‘biracial’.
The show’s creator, executive producer, and host Tyra Banks was asked about this in the Netflix documentary, with her claiming that ‘hindsight is 20/20’ regarding the controversies on the show.
When asked directly about the blackface in the show, Banks defended the decision in the new Netflix doc.
She said: “I didn’t think it was controversial, I was in my own little bubble in my own little head.
“This was my little way of showing the world that brown and black is beautiful.
“But we put it out there and the world was like, ‘are you crazy, have you lost your mind?'”
She went on to acknowledge that ‘looking at the show now, through the 2020 lens, it's an issue, and I understand 100% why’.
Banks however reportedly dismissed concerns raised to her well before the controversial scenes aired.
Jay Manuel, creative director and judge on the show, stated in the documentary that he had personal objections to the photoshoot and even asked to be edited out of the episode.
He said: “The shoot that I had the most difficult time with was this race-swapping shoot.
“My parents are from South Africa. They grew up during apartheid.
“I am very aware of that history.”
Jay stated that he first asked to be ‘excused from the photoshoot’, with Banks reportedly telling him: “I will handle this on camera with the girls at judging, just go and do your job.”
He says he was then forced to act as the art director for the photoshoot, saying: “If you really look for it, you can see it on my face.
“Especially the setup for the day, where I tell the girls what we're doing. I could tell I was just, like, double swallowing.
"But I just had to do my job.”
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is available to stream on Netflix now.
Topics: Netflix, Documentaries, TV and Film, TV
Michael Slavin