Tyra Banks puts America’s Next Top Model contestants Nicole Fox, Laura Kirkpatrick in blackface
From: NYDaileyNews.com
Just weeks after supermodel Lara Stone posed in blackface for French Vogue and an Australian sketch comedy group parodied the Jackson Five in blackface, models on the latest episode of Tyra Banks‘ America’s Next Top Model appeared in blackface for a photo shoot challenge.
On Wednesday’s episode of “ANTM” cycle 13, Banks asked the six remaining contestants to pose as “hapa” or women from mixed cultural backgrounds in a sugar cane field in Hawaii.
“What happens when men and women from different places come together? Babies! Lots of babies that are from different cultures. A mix. Hapa. Hapa means half in Hawaiian,” Banks explained.
The red-headed and fair skinned Nicole Fox was transformed into “Malagasy and Japanese,” and southern blond Laura Kirkpatrick, whose pale skin was sunburned from the Maui sun, was made to look “Mexican and Greek.” Offering inspiration, Tyra told bleached blond Erin Wagner, who was made up to look “Tibetan, like the Dali Lama, and Egyption” to, “Think about the people in Egypt and what they’ve been through!”
The shoot has the media calling foul.
“Tyra crossed the fine line from tasteless over to offensive when she put the remaining six contestants in ethnic garb and gave them biracial identities,” wrote Gazelle Emami at the Huffington Post. “Call it what you want, but that’s basically a euphemism for putting them in blackface.”
On Entertainment Weekly‘s PopWatch blog, Margaret Lyons wrote that the “real” challenge for the six models was “Acting like there’s nothing socially charged at all about race-as-costume!” and at AOL, a recap of the episode ran under the headline “Tyra Banks Puts ‘Top Models’ in Blackface. When Did This Become OK?”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/2009/10/30/2009-10-30_tyra_banks_puts_contestants_on_americas_next_top_model_in_blackface.html#ixzz0VSupFzS5
I don’t understand why this is suddenly an issue. She’s had her models done up as different ethnicities before… back in the 4th season they did a switched ethnicities shoot for “Got Milk”…
you can see it here at about 5:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a21BbWnA3cQ
she’s also had them portray the opposite sex, different ages, sideshow attractions, weather conditions, desserts, animals, abstractions and concepts, etc etc
I don’t find it the least bit offensive… it’s artistic.
And while I am not her biggest fan – I enjoy the show and I have to say she seems to really try to be responsible… more so than most other celebrities out there.
Just my two cents.
Celena | Oct 30, 2009 | Reply
I don’t see te problem with dressing up in traditional costumes from other nations, as long it’s done in that country and with good taste. For example, wearing a full set formal kimono to a traditional tea ceremony.
…BUT Tyra went over board with the whole ““Think about the people in Egypt and what they’ve been through!” As if any of the contestants knows or understands how/where/what other people had or have gone through. Hell! I bet half of them don’t even know the sh!t people have or had gone through in their own city or country much less really know what is happening or had happened in other countries. She crossed the line in that.
This is like asking a Cuban to act German or Irish. I don’t know what that even means! I do however know how to response to such a quest… “UP YOURS!” because I would find it offensive if someone asked me to “act” out. It’s asking for the stereotypical or stereotype of that nationality.
Also due to my schema or background knowledge, if I were to be asked to act as German or Irish the first thing to come into mind is beer (not that is the only thing they’re know for and such. I’m just using it as an example)so I’ll act… drunk? I mean really… most models aren’t really fully 100% aware of the world around them. No matter how much Tyra tries to be open minded and be culturally diverse and sh!t like that… she is still a typical dumb model who has yet to prove to any of us that she is really worth to remember. She hasn’t done anything that is really ground breaking or special that humanity can use.
She has contributed nothing more than having more stick figured b!tches on the covers of magazines. Woopie doo!!! If she done real charity and real actions against the modeling agency and start having really short and chubby contestants, then I change my mind about her, but as right now she is like all the other rich bastards out there…. creating illusions and cr@p humanity don’t need.
Juci | Nov 3, 2009 | Reply