The Social Impact of America's Top Model Contest

America's Top Model Contest (hereinafter referred to as ANTM) This is a reality show, which is broadcast on the national CW TV station. The producer is American supermodel Tyra Banks. "ANTM" has received media attention from the first day of its broadcast, and its ratings in the United States are also very high.

In today's social occupation distribution, modeling is the overwhelming majority of female occupations. Many times, models are closely related to business. They can speak for the products of businessmen and create more value. More often, as an artistic image, models can guide fashion trends and influence people's aesthetic concepts. From this perspective, modeling is a profession that can have a strong impact on social consciousness. But in fact, most models can't do this, and only a few so-called "supermodels" have this opportunity.

This competition not only requires the comprehensive quality of the girls, but also requires the contestants to have a strong desire to fight. At the same time, they should also maintain good interpersonal relationships with their opponents and judges. As Taiya said, this competition chose American supermodel. The difference between a supermodel and a model is that she not only has a beautiful face and figure, but also has a changeable posture to endorse various brands. At the same time, she must have a perfect personality and strong personal charm, and be able to deal with fashion circles. From this point of view, in fact, Taiya wants to make this competition a "perfect star" selection, which is not essentially different from a talent show like American Idol. The only difference is that this program is only attended by girls, and it must be girls with very good physical conditions.

When I first saw this competition, I thought it was just a simple competition, a beauty contest, but I found that American media had their own way of making talent shows. This program will put many women's issues on the table. This program reflects the common problems of many women in society by introducing the background of these girls, the problems encountered in some competitions, and the conflicts between girls with different backgrounds who live together every day. At the same time, this program also expresses its own views on these problems.

Religious belief problem

Because the United States is a multi-ethnic country, this question often appears in the program.

In the second season of America's next top model contest, a girl introduced herself and said that my father was a Muslim and he never supported me. To him, models are no different from prostitutes. This should be the most extreme religious issue. In Islamic countries, discrimination and bondage against women are the most powerful among all religions. Women are only regarded as accessories. They can't have their own ideas and express their opinions in front of outsiders. Married women are the private property of men. Without men's consent, they must always wear veils. Under this extremism, the girl came to the competition. When the judges asked her how to persuade her family to participate in the competition, the girl said, I am in America, and I have the right to pursue my dreams. I didn't convince my family, but it doesn't matter, because I'm an adult. The girl's efforts have been recognized by the media. Even though she is not the last "American supermodel", this program has always shown her independence and diligence to the audience, and at the same time, it has been preaching that no matter where you come from, anyone has the right to break the unequal discrimination and do what they want.

The most prominent problem of other religions is the conflict between theists and atheists. In the first season, one girl is a Christian who reads the Bible every day, and the other girl is an atheist who is about to enter medical school. So this program spent a lot of space to describe the contradiction between two girls. Christian girls tried to make atheist girls read the Bible, and tried to persuade all the girls to stand hand in hand and pray in a circle before going to bed, but atheist girls resolutely fought back and repeatedly suggested that no one had the right to interfere with other people's beliefs. For this matter, the Christian girl thinks that she is saving all people, not interfering with them. When the game continues, there is a nude photo session. Christian girls had strong resistance and finally chose to abstain. The judges expressed great disappointment. Atheistic girls, on the other hand, completed the shooting task beautifully and eliminated Christian girls.

Obviously, this program does not encourage religious bondage. Although on the surface, the contestants are given the right to believe in their own religion, it is not good for people with religious beliefs, whether in the setting of the competition or in the judging stage of the judges. As can be seen from the first example, this program encourages breaking the religious bondage of women. But from the second example, we can find that this program is against women who voluntarily believe in religion. As the final judges said, as models, they are required to take all kinds of photos. It can be said that although this program advocates women's freedom, it only encourages those who break religion and does not give freedom to those who believe in religion.

domestic issue

This problem is often portrayed in this program.

In the first season, a girl was alienated from her boyfriend because she couldn't go home for a long time, which led to anxiety and even gave up the opportunity to meet celebrities in the reward competition and was eliminated by the judges. When she left, she said, I can finally go back to see him. This sentence made the judges scoff, and the judges said that as a supermodel, it is very common to work all over the world. If you can't even do this, you can't be a supermodel and should be driven back to your hometown. It can be said that women who are supermodels can't take care of their career and family, and so can models. They have to give up their family and even their right to fall in love to maintain their very important model image.

In the second season, a contestant already has his own family and children. But she was still chosen to take part in the competition. The judges are very concerned about her performance and think that she is mature in dealing with problems, much better than those girls who have never experienced the world. But when it comes to taking nude photos, the girl wavers. It is a shame for a woman to be naked in front of strangers, and the root of this shame is spiritual; Moreover, she was married at that time, and exposing herself in front of other men made her feel betrayed by her lover, so it was a mental torture for her at that time. Finally, she said hesitantly, "I'm ... married. I must be loyal to my husband. I can't be naked in public. " At that time, the photographer asked, have you decided not to shoot? She said, yes. The photographer told her on the spot, get out of here. There is no doubt that this player was eliminated that night. The judges expressed understanding for her departure. They said that as a model, there must be sacrifices. We are very supportive of this married woman to break through many obstacles and participate in the competition. In the end, it was her own choice. In the model and family, she finally chose the family, so she had to leave.

Modeling itself is a controversial profession, but modeling is a profession that allows women to make a difference. But they must devote themselves wholeheartedly in order to make a difference, which requires them to give up their families. So this is a dilemma for women, on the one hand, it is the embodiment of self-worth, on the other hand, it is the problem of personal destination. Many young single women may not have encountered this problem, but for women who already have families, becoming a model seems to mean giving up their families, so the chances of married women becoming models are very small. In the general concept of this society, women still have to pay for their families, even if they love their careers very much. As can be seen from the first example, this program has a very strong opposition to the distraction of unmarried girls, while it has an understanding attitude towards married women who give up for their families, which cannot but be said to be influenced by social concepts.

Educational background problem

The girls who come to participate in the competition have different backgrounds, some are highly educated, and some are people who have no higher education at all.

In the ninth season, a girl in the history department of Yale University often becomes the object of attention. She doesn't get along well with people, doesn't fully accept the opinions of the judges or artistic directors, and often interrupts the judges to express their opinions. The direct reason why she was eliminated was that the judges thought that her personality could not be a "supermodel" because she was too confident and had a sharp attitude towards others. And this girl also laughed in other TV programs. As a highly educated person, how can I offend others casually? It's just that the TV series wants to portray me in some way, so it's taken out of context from my words. For example, they intercepted my sentence, "Why are we playing with flowers and plants here in strange clothes? This fashion world is sometimes really dissolute. " If this sentence alone is enough to show that I am sharp, but in fact, this sentence was said when I was joking with others. They abandoned many previous sentences that can reflect the context and just edited this sentence. Of course, I became very keen.

It can be seen from these that after all, TV plays are TV plays, not documentaries. In order to express our views, TV programs are sometimes not objective. Take this example for example. At first, the image of this talented student of Yale University was defined as the stereotype of women in higher education. "Disharmonious group", "self-righteous", "sharp" and so on. This is to cater to the audience's mentality. In fact, most viewers have a psychological resistance to women with higher education than themselves. For the sake of ratings, TV plays strengthen this emotion and deliberately portray this image as an adult's thinking.

Appearance problem

This problem should be the top priority of the model league competition.

"ANTM" has its own views on the choice of car models. Taiya said she was looking for the beauty of different women. In other words, this program accepts all kinds of girls with personality beauty, at least what they think is personality beauty.

The weight of models has always been the focus of discussion, because not only models, but also women's cognition of their own weight is also a problem worth discussing. But this program often chooses some "plus-size" models to express their views on the weight problem: anyone can be the next top model in America, as long as you have your own unique place.

But the fact is not as advertised in this program. Although "plus size" models are selected every season, so far only the winner of the tenth season is "plus size" figure. The reason why the "plus-size" players were eliminated is also a bit strange. For example, Sarah, a girl in the ninth season, is fat, but she is good at taking pictures and has no shortcomings at all. It seems that she is sure that she won't be eliminated, but the fact is that she didn't even make the top eight! She was eliminated because you used to be a plus-size model, but you lost weight, but you can't lose weight to "normal size", which is between "plus size" and "normal", so there is no room for you. This reason is far-fetched, but we have to think about such a problem. What does "normal code" mean? Since there is a gap between "normal size" and "enlarged size", why not have this model? In fact, the so-called "normal size" is a thin type that we can generally see. Generally speaking, the height-to-weight ratio of this model is lower than the normal standard and belongs to the thin group. However, due to the social requirements for women's figure, this size has become "normal", and this "normal" is an international standard. No wonder women are most keen on losing weight now. Most people are actually "slimming" themselves, not "losing weight". In the fashion world, the most important thing for a model is to keep a slim figure, and there are a series of skills to make the model look "thinner" when taking pictures, which is another concept imposed on women by society. "Being thin is beautiful" has become the concept of all women. In fact, most women's bodies are between the so-called "normal size" and "enlarged size", but most fashions are just "normal size" and "enlarged size", which undoubtedly leads most women to "lose weight". Therefore, although this program wants to express its idea of accepting fatter women as models, the final practice is to follow the aesthetics of society, and the last person will definitely not be overweight.

In addition to figure, facial features and skin are also very strict with models. In the first season, a black girl was repeatedly criticized for having a good black complexion but not a good black skin. In the eyes of the judges, dark skin should be "shiny" and "like butter". If this black girl is not like this, then she will have to be eliminated. Other girls were also criticized by the judges for acne or thin lips. In addition, the judge encouraged girls to have plastic surgery. For example, in the third season, the girl Yaya's lips were too thin, which made her look "not sexy enough", so the judges suggested that she thicken her lips by injecting silicone and told her that if she didn't do this, she would never become a supermodel. It can be seen that the modeling industry has high requirements for women's mechanical appearance. They often judge people by their looks, talk about their looks in front of girls and complain a lot. In the eyes of these judges, it is natural for models to have plastic surgery for their careers, and these judges have never considered the psychological and physical pain that players may encounter in the process of plastic surgery. This is in line with today's media propaganda on plastic surgery: too much emphasis on the comparison before and after plastic surgery, especially the changes in girls' lives after plastic surgery, but never mention the risk and pain of plastic surgery. (Swan, another female reality show in America, is the most typical example. They choose their own "ugly women" and create their own "beautiful women" through plastic surgery. )

To sum up, this popular TV program wants to open the aesthetic world of models and let the audience accept "beauty" in a wider range, but the production of TV programs must take into account the issue of ratings, which objectively requires that this program must cater to the audience and cater to some common social concepts, even if these social concepts are unfair to women, such as body problems, plastic surgery problems and stereotypes of highly educated women. Women's obligation to sacrifice for their families and so on ... Therefore, this program, like other beauty contests and fashion programs, has no breakthrough in essence. Its values and views on women can only bring the rigid female image into a more stubborn social consciousness, which is not conducive to the change of women's own image.