Tyra? No. No. I can totally tell what you're going to try to sell me next week and the answer is "Absolutely not." I can just imagine it right now: the final two boil down to Eugena and Melrose, and you know what I say to that?
Bull, Tyra.
The mixed messages were at DefCon 3 this week, as Tyra first praised CariDee for getting out of a pool full of cold water when her body started convulsing, then tried to make it a "teaching moment" by lecturing her on "listening to your body" and knowing when to quit, as if she should've gotten out of the pool sooner. This from a woman who applauded Season 1's Adrienne and Season 6's Danielle for checking themselves out of the hospital to go to a photo shoot.
But later, in panel, Tyra floated the theory that CariDee was too "high-maintenance" and told CariDee that she needed to find a way to make sure listening to her body doesn't cost the client money. ANTM seems to have its own special set of brainwashing tactics used on tall, willowy prisoners to undermine any sense of trust or security they might have -- and hence prepare them for the world of modeling.
I don't know why Tyra doesn't want CariDee to win. If anything, CariDee could become that rarest of things: an ANTM winner who goes on to be an actual top model. Looking back over her portfolio, I can't find a single bad photo, and that's something of a rarity on this show with its un-sane photo shoot themes. Last week's photo wasn't great, but it was better than Melrose's. (I'm ignoring that commercial; like I said last week, that was CariDum's doing.) But whenever a camera is around her, CariDee turns on her wattage.
See? Besides, I totally don't get the "high-maintenance" label compared to Melrose, who had a Lifetime-Movies-for-Ladies-worthy meltdown after not winning a flamenco competition. All she did was briefly zone out on one of the steps; it's not like Melrose pulled a Furonda -- or even a Tyra. Poor Amanda turned in a worse performance, but she still kept what the instructor called "a sweet face" throughout her dance.
(Bless her heart.) You know what wasn't so sweet, though? The horrifying sight of Amanda demonstrating her ability to rotate her legs 270 degrees. Seriously: she can have one foot facing forward, at 12 o'clock, and the other one facing, like, 8:30 or something and she got it there by turning it inward! I almost fainted upon seeing that. I'm sure Amanda and her sister are lovely girls, and I wish them only the best, but between my Thing About Twins and Amanda's creepy flexibility, I'd run screaming from the sight of them. (It was adorable that they called each other "Twin!" though, wasn't it? I'll kinda miss them, as long as they don't telepathically plot my death and Amanda never does that leg thing again.)
Moving on. This, I fear, is what Tyra envisions for our Final Two: an ebony and ivory of emptiness. I've noticed that Melrose tends to do the look-off-into-space-and-pretend-to-be-deep face a lot, while Eugena has gone back to giving the camera absolutely nothing. I mean, look at those faces. Melrose is thinking, "What new feat can I attempt to prove my specialness to all around me?" while Eugena is thinking, "My cat's name is Mittens!"
While off on the sidelines, Tyra is thinking, "There's my final two! The girl with nothing but potential and the girl with most if not all of her potential behind her." Sorry, but at 23, Melrose is old for this jacked-up industry. So I guess we can call next week "The Raw and the Overcooked." Dammit, Tyra...
With those horns, Tyra really looks like a character out of the Netherworld!
Hmmm...
Posted by: Cheesemeister | December 04, 2006 at 06:37 AM