Tyra Banks Was Always the Villain

A tell-all documentary on the nightmare that was America’s Next Top Model was a long time coming. Netflix’s Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model dropped on the platform yesterday to much hype, and reality TV fans the world over tuned in with hopes of some kind of meal culpa from the creators and hosts. It didn’t happen, not really. While many of the judges, like J. Alexander and Jay Manuel, expressed some kind of remorse for the hellish cycle of misogyny, racism, and body-shaming they amplified to hit ratings, many viewers felt their words rang hollow. Former contestants spoke candidly about the mistreatment they experienced, and feeling like pawns in a game that had no interest in their careers or wellbeing.

And overseeing it all was Tyra Banks, the one-time supermodel and hot ice-cream saleswoman who turned ANTM into her palace of hyper-vanity. While Tyra admits that she went ‘too far’ in many moments, including the infamous rant she directed at one contestant that is now the stuff of memes, it was tough to accept her hesitant remorse as authentic. Banks claimed she wanted to foster a safe and diverse space for women in the modelling industry, inspired by her own experiences as a Black woman in fashion, but the chase for ratings, watercooler moments, and the securing of Banks’s own status killed that dream before it could truly be born. Yes, times change and it must be surreal to have part of your legacy be reassessed as a net negative, but revisiting ANTM and the discourse surrounding it only confirmed an oft-repeated claim about the show: Tyra Banks was always the villain.

In the ’90s, Tyra was a supermodel, one of the faces of that concept at a time when catwalk queens were becoming major stars in their own right. Banks was the first African American woman to be featured on the covers of GQ and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, and she modelled for the likes of Chanel, Givenchy, and Valentino. Like many other models of that time, she dabbled in acting, TV hosting, and music, but while her contemporaries remained in the frontlines of high fashion or retired, Tyra went more mainstream. 2003 saw the premiere of America’s Next Top Model, and with it came a new era of Tyra the star.

Specifically, this was Tyra the personality, no longer just a vessel for beautiful clothes but someone who cracked jokes, had opinions, and loved drama. At that time, reality TV was not the consciously constructed performance of truth and fiction we all understand it to be today. ANTM eventually became parodic in its dystopian recreation of a fashion fever dream, but that didn’t make its blunt misogyny or body-shaming any easier to swallow. There was no care behind Tyra, Janice Dickinson, and their judges panel calling objectively thin women ‘fat’. It was all part of the entertainment process, and Tyra was leading the charge. When she yelled at Tiffany in the now-notorious rant, it was simultaneously ridiculous and cruel. That might be the best way to describe Banks’ persona in this post-catwalk era. ANTM was her playground and, as the seasons passed, it evolved to being exclusively about her ego.

The documentary doesn’t come close to capturing the eye-widening bafflement elicited from watching Tyra’s most maniacal displays of ego and self-promotion on ANTM. Whether it was her habit of making up words and trying to turn them into brands (smizing, anyone?) or the time she faked illness to make the contestants cry, everything was a stage for her hammy showboating. Challenges were made around promoting Tyra’s many products and projects, like her still-inexplicable YA novel. As these vulnerable young people, usually women, were forced to undergo hideous make-overs and spew their emotions on the screen for content purposes, the idea that any of them would become successful models because of this show seemed laughable. They were humiliation rituals, and Tyra was cracking the whip. Everyone else seemed to understand that the show existed to make Tyra a brand, a figure somewhere between a CEO, cult leader, and second-tier Oprah rip-off (and wow, we could also be here all day talking about Tyra’s talk show.)

The show got meaner, as most reality TV competitions of this time did, and so did Tyra. She seemed more unhinged, dropping even the pretence of empathy towards the contestants. Banks was never a great actress and her performance of grandeur and leadership always felt like a gauzy veil that barely concealed her ego. If she hoped that her trite pseudo-apologies in the documentary would help then she was sorely wrong, because Reality Check makes her look even worse. Many contestants came from underprivileged backgrounds and felt used by Tyra and the production team. One contestant tearfully details a horrifying incident where she blacked out and was sexually assaulted, which the show kept on air but framed as her being promiscuous. A scene was then shot of Tyra lecturing the women on controlling their ‘primal desires.’

More insultingly, Tyra tries to blame you, the audience, for her exploitation and showboating. You see, it was us who wanted more and more extreme content, not poor little Tyra who has always had other people’s best interests at heart. She even has the nerve to make an ominous comment about how we should all be as gracious as she’s been when ‘that day will come’ when we’re cancelled. Just in case you thought she was being contrite. As far as she’s concerned, the show did what it was designed to do: make her the queen.

Banks now has a few failed businesses behind her, including an MLM-esque make-up brand, and is selling weird ice creams in Australia. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s a joke but we mercifully live in a time where nobody takes her seriously and she’s not held up as an arbiter of taste or entertainment anymore. One wonders if she hoped that Reality Check would allow her to clear the air and lay the groundwork for a potential comeback. If she even tries after this, it won’t be surprising given her enduring lack of self-awareness, but she’ll find that a make-over won’t be enough to rewrite the past.