The reality TV that made us

0:00Noel King:I think it came out when I was 12. America's Next Top Model. Every conscious thought I've had about my body and sexuality and being a girl and how to eat has been guided by this show. That was on until I was 28. You went from an impressionable age to like young adult to like fully an adult. And Tyra and the show were there every step of the way. Yeah, Tyra was with me through puberty and my divorce. And you can't say that about a lot of people. A new documentary tries to reckon with the show's toxic legacy. Do you think that Tyra Banks learned anything? Feels anything about all this? Who cares?

0:44She's like, I don't know, maybe.

0:46Noel King:Do I think the man on the moon considers his moral obligation to me? Not really. The reality TV that made us. Coming up on Today Explained.

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2:17Noel King:America's Next Top Model is... Today Explained!

2:31Noel King:I'm Noelle King with Saatchi Cole. She's a senior writer for Slate covering culture. Tell me why we're talking about America's Next Top Model again. Well, I mean, look, culture moves in like 20 to 30 year cycles. And so there's always nostalgia that comes up with these things. That is a show that premiered right after 9-11. It speaks to a very particular slice of kind of early to mid-aughts reality show culture. We are in a phase where we're rethinking all of those things. And I mean, Netflix is doing it in particular. They did a Jerry Springer documentary a little while ago. They just did one on The Biggest Loser.

3:03Noel King:I mean, it is an interesting time to reassess the culture that continues to dominate all of the things we watch, they are all guided by these reality shows from 2000 to, oh, 2010. What a rough decade, honestly. What a rough decade. They should give us the purple heart for surviving it because, like, it's crazy that we're alive. What was America's Next Top Model? America's Next Top Model is about dreams, plain and simple. And it's about accomplishing these dreams through hard work, talent, and passion. I want to take someone from obscurity to fame, And I want to chart the entire process and show America how it happens.

3:42Noel King:It was a reality competition show. They would bring on a bunch of very young, old teenagers and young women. Some girls were still, you know, like 18, 19 and then 23, 24. They would get these girls, they put them in a house together and they would have to do these modeling competitions every week. We are gonna give you girls three minutes to put together an outfit using your own clothes that best evokes

4:07Tyra Banks:one of these three walks that you are going to see on this screen right here to my left. So the shoot is you girls are all gonna be crime scene victims. Tiffany, you're gonna be Native American. Brittany, an African-American woman. Kenya, Korean. And Noelle, we're making you into a traditionally African woman with a head wrap and everything.

4:32Noel King:You know, the show created like a whole lexicon for us that we didn't have before. We know the word smize, which is the dumbest word. That's a verb meaning smiling with your eyes. But it was such a strange fever dream of a show. It is exactly like a lot of reality competition still. But it was so specific and weird and saliently helmed by a lunatic. Like, Tyra was cuckoo bananas, and that's why we loved her. She was amazing TV. She was always trying to trick the girls. There's one where she, like, pretends to faint in front of them. Hey, Rob, please, don't do it. Please, don't do it, y 'all. Oh, my God.

5:15Noel King:That's her phone. Pick her phone. And then she's like, I'm acting.

5:25Noel King:and then they put it in the show like it's not just that she was doing it I guess that's what's so remarkable about the the product and the documentary she was just doing it then they were like right let's put music over it and then we're gonna put a little code thing here this is Tyra Banks that we're going to put on TV and you're going to watch it. And boy, did I.

5:48Noel King:And boy, did we all. You use the word lunatic. I think it is fair. I think it is kind. I think it is appropriate. I say that with affection. Yes, yes, yes. It is right for Tyra. And so much of what the documentary has to grapple with ultimately is what was happening on that show that was sheer lunacy. And some of what went on on the show, if not much of what went on the show, is, in retrospect, rather appalling. So let's talk through some of the things that the documentary tries to address. And I want to start with a model named Shandi. Yeah, Shandi has one of the most devastating... I think she has maybe the most devastating story in the documentary.

6:26Noel King:She was someone that I still remembered. I mean, she was on the second season of the show. My name is Shandi. I work at a Walgreens. I'm a service clerk. She seemed primed to win, in fact. And so near the end of the show, they take all the models to Milan because there's always a travel portion where they, you know, have the finale there. And while she was there, she got really drunk and there were a bunch of male models. We were just like talking, drinking. It was wonderful to you.

6:52Tyra Banks:To life.

6:53Noel King:I don't think I'd eaten anything at all or had any sleep. And in the show's version, when you watch it in real time, it's like a drunken hookup. Like she cheats on her boyfriend in Milan. And that's how it's framed. And her shame is, I can't believe I did this to my boyfriend. Did your boyfriend cheat on you?

7:13Noel King:You cheated on him? Really? Everybody's messed up Shandy. When you watch the documentary, it is recast. Not, I wouldn't even just say like, oh, it's a 2026 lens. I don't necessarily think that it is. I think a lot of people still view sexual assault like this and still view drinking and women like this. But she's an adult. And so now, really in her adulthood, she's able to look at this and be like, yeah, that wasn't a place where I could consent. I think after getting out of the hot tub and like whatever happened after that, I think they should have fucking like been like, all right, this has gone too far.

7:49Noel King:Like, we got it. We got to pull her out of this. Does anyone in the documentary, is anyone held to account for the way Shandy was treated? It's interesting. A lot of people want more responsibility from Tyra. And I get that. Like, she's the face of it. And it's a good person to ask. But these shows are constellations of people. There's a lot of people who work on these shows. And there's a lot of people who have responsibility for it. And some of them are in the doc and maybe some of them aren't. But, like, what happened with her is, like, there's, like, five, six, ten people who have to say okay to that.

8:23Noel King:And you keep saying it and you keep saying it. That is what's interesting to me about how the machine lets that pass. One that I remember, I'm surprised it means so much to me, but there was a model, Dani, who had a beautiful, charming, delightful gap in her front teeth. And she was made to close it. Yeah, they made her fill it. Yeah. Look, it sounds minor. There might be people listening who'll be like, Noelle, that is so minor. I don't know. It was part of Dani's face. It was part of her charm. And she was told, no, we don't like this. Do you really think you can have a covergirl contract with a gap in your mouth?

9:00Noel King:Yeah, why not? This is all people say. Easy Reads Beautiful Covergirl. It's not marketable. Tell me about how the documentary deals with young women being told something distinct about you is not right. It's not good enough. It's a tough gig that Tyra gave herself because she's trying to tell these women, this is how the industry works and these are the things you need to do to be able to thrive in it. At the same time, she is propagating those same things. So I believed her, and I still believe her when she would say, you need to lose weight because you're not going to get a cover girl campaign if you're bigger, which was true at the time.

9:38Noel King:It's still true in a lot of campaigns. Her telling Dani, I think you should close your gap, at the time with the information she had, and Tyra says this, this is what I knew with the information that I had. I kind of believe her. There were agents that would tell me she will not work with those teeth. It's just not going to happen. That's what they told me. The show was still interested in moving that narrative forward and making sure that was the tension. There was all the point of the show was the tension between who you were and who you are supposed to become. Hey, so so you watch a documentary and what did you want to get out of it and what do you feel like you got out of it?

10:13Noel King:Did it feel like an honest reckoning, an attempt to do something real here? Or was it just more sort of patting Tyra on the back for her years of service? Intent and result is always different. And I don't know what the intent was. But I think with the result, she comes off looking kind of like what we knew her to be, which is like pretty craven. Pretty craven and like pretty aware of what she's done and not that sorry. And like, yeah, that's what we bought. That's what we paid for. That's what we bought. And the idea that she is going to be this font of accountability, I don't think that's likely.

10:51Noel King:And also it's sort of that question, you know, a lot of her answers are like, well, this was, you know, this, it was just, that was the time. That was always, that's always the argument people make. That was the time. None of us knew. Network executives didn't know. And I did the best that I could at that time. But she deserved more. I don't really I never really get that in hindsight because it's like but it's still the time. The president is posting gifts or video AI videos of the the one and only black president we've had as a monkey. So I don't actually know that it is that of a time. It's just of a different place.

11:27Noel King:That kind of stuff maybe doesn't live in reality TV like it used to or on primetime slot. It maybe doesn't do that anymore. but it is permeated everywhere else and it has always been there. So yeah, she was responding to what she had, but we are always responding to what we have. And we always have this. It actually has never really improved. One day we get to decide if we'd like to improve it. I think those retrospectives are worthwhile because they help us see how the Overton window has moved and where it's moved and how we can maybe shift it back.

12:02these shows um sometimes operate with success only if you as the viewer are making fun of those

12:09Noel King:girls and if you're snaring at them we were staring at them and we and we have to as viewers acknowledge that and be at peace with it we are still doing it these were really young people and they didn't really entirely understand what kind of machine they were getting into i think competition reality and what it rocked back then is very different than like the van Underpump Rules or The Real Housewives of Today. Those are adults, adults with money often and with family and connection kind of entering these spaces. These are really vulnerable girls. Some of them had nowhere to go after the end of the show, you know, didn't have family to go back to.

12:41Noel King:But those shows don't succeed. And Tyra doesn't put them in blackface. And she doesn't make them like walk along a tiny runway between gongs. She doesn't lecture them about how to eat or to take the bread off their burger if we don't watch it and then go to work the next day and be like, God, I know, like Kenya did look really big in that photo. That only works if we engage with it. And it's hard. It's hard to not engage with it because it's what, you know, the machine wants blood.

13:16Noel King:Sachi Cole, she writes about culture for Slate. Her book is called One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of this will matter. Her other book is called Sucker Punch. Coming up, should we have taken reality TV more seriously?

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16:32Noel King:tangible rewards, and clear financial progress. They say they can help you build up your credit history, plus you can earn up to 3 % APY on savings, which they claim is eight times higher than a traditional bank. Time is also rated five stars by USA Today for customer service, complete with real humans available and work in 24-7. Chime says it's not just smarter banking, it is the most rewarding way to bank. You can join the millions of people who are already banking fee-free today. Go to chime.com slash explained. That's chime.com slash explained. They say it only takes a few minutes to sign up.

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17:35beauty style today explained my name is dame brian moylan i am the president and founder of

17:48Tyra Banks:vultures real housewives institute uh and i have been writing about tv and reality television specifically for a very long time.

18:00Noel King:All right, so take me back in time. Where does reality TV start? And where does America's Next Top Model fall in that?

18:11Tyra Banks:There's kind of a couple starting points. One of the biggest was An American Family, which was a PBS show in the 70s.