Michael Korb, Contributor
Banks
IT'S 6:30 A.M., and Tyra Banks is already hard at work. OK, maybe not hard at work; she's on the phone doing an interview this interview. But still, when you are one of the world's top supermodels, late nights in glamorous surroundings seem much more fitting than bleary-eyed mornings talking to strangers.
But in the hectic world of modeling, things are rarely as you'd expect. Sitting in a chair for hair and makeup well before the sun even rises and being back in bed before 10 p.m. is more par for the course than sipping Cristal with Diddy at 2:00 a.m. And even though Banks is technically retired from modeling, it's that career as Sports Illustrated cover girl and Victoria's Secret spokesmodel that helped make the 32-year-old one of the busiest women in entertainment today.
That's the road 13 hopefuls with clear skin and symmetrical features would like to follow as the sixth cycle of UPN's hit dramality series America's Next Top Model begins with a two-hour premiere Wednesday, March 8. It's all in the hopes that someday they can be as busy as Banks, the show's creator and one of its executive producers.
For the uninitiated, the show follows a group of aspiring models as they compete for a major modeling contract while living together and facing weekly challenges professional models deal with regularly photo shoots, runway work, commercials, publicity. All the while, they know a poor showing or an improperly plucked eyebrow could get them a one-way ticket back to Beaver Falls by a very picky panel of judges that includes Banks, Twiggy and other industry experts.
And did we mention this takes place under 24-hour-a-day surveillance?
"It is difficult for the girls," says Banks when asked if the show seems like a boot camp for the beautiful, "but I think it's important for it to be difficult because the winner is going to be put on a pedestal. It is important for her to know a heck of a lot because you have a lot of models who didn't go through a reality television show and might not like the fact that this girl won a show. So at least they get to see what this girl went through."
If Banks sounds a little mother hen-ish, it's only because she is. Trust us, the girl's a nurturer.
"I hear from so many girls who say, 'Oh my God, Tyra, I was doing this interview and the interviewer was asking me all these terrible questions and I knew how to answer them because of Top Model,' or 'This photographer was barking at me and he was so mean and I kept smiling and knew how to smile and not cry because of the show.' It's a training ground."
But Banks also realises her ability to help shift the public's view of what is 'model beauty'.
"No matter how successful you are one of the top 10 models in the world or a new model you're constantly being told you're not good enough or you're not right for this job," Banks says. "You are constantly hearing 'no.' For some girls it really is hard and I think that is where a lot of eating disorders come about because they're like, 'I'm too heavy, and even though I'm only 120, maybe I need to be 110.'
"With Top Model, my girls are 10 to 15 pounds heavier than the average model," she says. "If you see them on TV you'd say, 'Gosh, she's so skinny,' but if you compare them to the top five girls working now she'd be considered voluptuous or thicker. And though I don't have the power to change the industry and make everyone a size 12, the power that I do have is to stretch those boundaries just a little bit."
Banks' own battles with weight and the expectations of the fashion industry have helped polish the compassion she exudes daily, if not on Top Model she still needs to think like a judge, after all certainly on her talk show, The Tyra Banks Show. But don't think that Top Model is all warm and fuzzy television because nothing could be further from the truth.
"The show really becomes a real-life soap opera," co-executive producer Ken Mok says. "It is no different from any dramatic series that you watch as far as the dynamic among the girls or the character arc of the girls from episode to episode.
"I think what makes this series so watchable and emotionally engaging," Mok adds, "is that these girls are competing for something very real. And when you have something very real at stake a real dream and that one of these girls can achieve it it gives you incredible tension right away. And for the girls who are appearing on the show, these are girls who have tried previously to strike out on their own and hadn't been able to make it so this is really their last shot. That
really stokes the fire of competitiveness and tension."
Hey, nobody said modeling would be easy. We only implied it.
