Model, Schmodel

My fascination with Tyra Banks is based on how no matter what she happens to be doing, no matter what heart-warming story she is creating on her various shows, she always manages to relate it all back to herself. In the Tyraverse Planet T is the centre and source of all that’s good. Possession of a strong sense of self is de rigeur if one is going to appear alongside her. as the Jays demonstrate on America’s Next Top Model, an awareness of how special, how brave and how unique one is, is essential; but pity the fool who thinks he or she is all of those and also the equal of Ms T. Hence among the ANTM judges Nigel Barker is a ‘noted’ fashion photographer, as opposed to a famous one and Paulina Porizkova was billed as a supermodel but also ended up being fired for having too big an ego – code surely for an ego approaching the orbit of Tyra’s.

When the series was franchised out to other countries, I immediately took a shine to the New Zealand version. The fabled kiwi understatement was fully to the fore and the lack of pretension was charming: “How was your week?” to a shuffling, shyly grinning aspirant. “It was pretty shit, actually” was the forthright reply. Even Colin Mothura-Jafee’s antics looked like Miss Jay on a lithium day.

Then of course came The Moment of series three. On their way to the airport the seven hopefuls were full of excitement for their first overseas trip to the Middle-East. Only the journey was full of incident and none of it accidental. Plants were put in their way in the taxi, at the airport, on the concourse – note that the budget only extended to three actors. One of these was playing a lone photographer, a ‘papparazzo’ if you please. So distant is the freelance tabloid photographer culture from these shores that the girls probably had to take the hints of the film crew swinging their own cameras in the hapless actor’s direction before the import of the situation dawned. We viewers got the benefit of seeing the papp’s-eye-view (a knicker shot, though not within coo-ee of the Peaches equivalent) and then when the photographer, seemingly targeting one contestant got very close and was pushed away, the fatal blow was struck. Sara Tetro asked for the return of the boarding passes clutched tightly in the contestants’ hands and announced that the whole morning had been a set-up (which hadn’t been obvious to all – they really are not the sharpest knives in the drawer) and that one was about to be sent home on the strength of their behaviour during this gotcha moment.

Aroha, the ‘plus size’ girl, the rousie from Gizzy, and really a politer version of last year’s winner, Tokoroa’s own Danielle Hayes, was told she didn’t come up to snuff and was sent away.

I got angry at this point and leapt straight online to write my disapproval and missed the rest of the episode. Seems I wasn’t alone. The programme’s website was filled with disgusted letters, along the following lines:

Boo: “TV3 went too far with Aroha being sent home like that...It doesnt matter who it was, the whole thing was unfair to cancel a girl's trip once she had already checked in! TV3 has lost a lot of fans with this one. Big dislike. Who cares who wins NZNTM, its not a fair competition now. Also, if some weird guy was taking photo's of the girls, how were they to know it was paparazzi...come on, we dont have a huge paparazzi culture in NZ, so she was probably just trying to keep the girls safe. Not happy.”

Lizzy: “You should all be utterly ashamed of yourselves. I think it is the most despicable thing any human can do to another. Needless to say I won't be watching your programme ever again. Shameful treatment of a beautiful Maori girl who's MANA you have stepped on.”

L. Mackay: “Aroha earned her trip overseas. That was a lie. You then set her up. You then bullied her. You then went back on your undertaking to take her overseas and on to the next round. And you now have a PR problem because you were mean and not just a little bit cruel.”

Etc.

It struck a nerve with me because I was involved in a similar sting and it stunk.

I was a second year drama student at New Zealand Drama School (now known as Toi Whakaari). Ginette McDonald asked the class to be actors on a practical course for floor managers. However, there was an extra element: we had to behave as badly as possible and to make the trainee floor managers' experience as bad as possible.

 To sum up we met our brief very well and the floor managers were miserable. Although forbidden to do so, we 'fessed up as soon as the last group went into the studio. It did nothing to change their very low opinion of us, but for me there was worse to come.

 One trainee failed her practical and years later when she had become a casting agent we met at a casting. She recognised me immediately and told me in no uncertain terms how deep her sense of humiliation and failure was on that day, and how she hadn't got over that. I hated being involved in that gross deception. It was the single nastiest episode in my two years of professional training.

I’m aware worse has been perpetrated in the name of entertainment and that the looking at a maggoty dead rat has a certain fascination – the motivation surely, a a lot of reality genre – but it’s the very ordinariness of New Zealand’s Next Top Model, the bit-of-a-worry, wasn’t-the-best, sweet-as character of most New Zealanders that was affronted. We can look at American dirty tricks and over the top hysteria as part of their decadent grandiosity and be fascinated by it. We can sneer at Australian attempts to be like America and secretly believe they were always Yankee lapdogs, but importing it to Godzone? Yeah, nah, mate. That’s a bit suss, eh?