MattBrady
07-01-2003, 06:50 AM
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<center>A THOUSAND FLOWERS</center><center>Comics, Pop Culture, and the World Outside</center><center>Installment 21</center><center>by Stuart Moore</center>
<b>Girls, Girls, Girls!</b>
This column doesn’t usually deal in current comics events -- there are plenty of other venues for that. But there’s just too much going on this week for me to resist the temptation. And there’s one particular controversy going on that I just can’t ignore.
Who will be <b>America’s Next Top Model</b>?
I’ve never seen anything like this on the message boards. So many people had such strong opinions; they crashed the entire Newsarama server. Joe Quesada and Micah Wright can’t stop talking about it. Even Rich Johnston’s secret source “Felicia” has an opinion, if you can penetrate his -- oh, sorry, I mean <b>her</b> wall of secrecy.
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/Tyrawiz.jpg" width="250" height="345" align="right">I admit to a preference for Elyse. She’s the nerd wet-dream, of course -- the “smart one.” Everybody on these shows has to have a pigeonhole, what a book editor friend of mine once described as a “character trait that substitutes for real characterization.” Elyse is also the one with the alleged eating disorder (unlike, uh, all the other ones). So she’s kind of dark and brooding, as well as smart, self-possessed, and really really skinny.
But then, Adrianne is pretty damn funny, and she’s not too tough to look at either. I like the way she’s always making fun of the other girls or backstabbing them, but she goes completely to pieces whenever she’s alone. Did you see that nervous breakdown she almost had on the streets of Paris?
Let’s back up and see if we can put this in perspective. The whole internet riot started last week, when “Felicia” leaked the news that Kesse was going to be voted off the show. Fan reaction was immediate and vociferous. Here’s what one poster had to say on the Comicon Pulse boards:
“Ya know, it's boneheaded moves like this that are just confirming my desire to drop <b>America’s Next Top Model</b> and wait for the DVDs. That way I can have nice little runs of good work and not have to concern myself with the politics of <b>America’s Next Top Model</b>. I think three DVDs from Kesse would look perfect on my shelves. Same goes for the CSI shows, and various mini-series which seem to be released as DVDs weeks after each arc is completed.”
I’m not surprised Kesse got dropped. She was kind of a Christian, but not a crazy Christian like Robin. She was kind of cool, but not funny like Adrianne. She just didn’t have enough of her own character trait. And she really <b>did</b> look too much like Tyra, didn’t she?
Still, we all have our fans. Dick Giordano once told me DC had never cancelled a book -- no matter how low-selling, no matter how creatively bankrupt -- without getting letters protesting that it was the reader’s favorite title, and how could they possibly kill it? Same with Kesse, I guess.
Over on the venerable Usenet, the fans had wildly divergent opinions:
“I'm pleased to see Kesse gone from <b>America’s Next Top Model</b>. Her run has so far been an incredibly simplistic, juvenile take on <b>America’s Next Top Model</b>, redolent of a children's TV cartoon.”
On the other hand:
“That's crap. <B>America’s Next Top Model’s</B> been better under Kesse than it has been in years. It's actually been intelligent and aimed at people who love lipstick and makeup rather than the slam-bam binge-and-puke for the 300th time crap that <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> usually puts out.”
It’s pretty funny -- and, I’m sure, not at all staged -- the way Elyse and Adrianne keep baiting the Christians. I laughed like hell when they were looking up dirty phrases out loud in the French dictionary. At the same time, it was pretty mean. You kind of understood what Robin meant when she drawled, “I don’t speak like that.”
Over at the Joe Quesada site, one commentator said this:
“I think Robin is more concerned about the reputation of <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> than her own reputation. Bash Robin personally and she generally doesn't care. But Adrianne was bashing everything from editors to the decor of the offices. Worse, she was claiming that <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> was a big sham. There are lots of people working very hard to make <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> a reality, both aspiring creators and people working at <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>, and Adrianne’s insinuations were discouraging and insulting.”
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/elyse.jpg" width="250" height="182" align="left">Shannon’s kind of a mystery to me. I understand that she’s the token blonde, but when she opens her mouth -- man! Here’s her life motto, from the <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> website:
“Live every day to its fullest, because no one is guaranteed tomorrow.”
Is she really that stupid? <b>Rich Johnston</b> (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=13 ) thinks the problem goes deeper that that:
“One model was heard to comment that she remembers all the things that happened at <b> I’m A Celebrity -- Get Me Out Of Here!</b> before bankruptcy, and she knows exactly how far <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> are along the same path. And the phones have been ringing across the city. Most <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> models are believed to have been in touch with <b>Fear Factor</b> of late, looking for job opportunities. One who hasn't, is Elyse, although <b>Fear Factor</b> have been headhunting her back.”
<B>America’s Next Top Model</B>’s ratings have been decent, but as the past few years have shown, the show just loves to rile up its fans. Hence the week’s other, very controversial news: that a resurrected Princess Diana would join the contestants for an upcoming storyline. From the Pulse boards:
“Vulgar and tacky, and certainly not all that funny. And I'm someone who was ready to chuck his TV after the week of death/funeral coverage. I daresay that <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> is having a typically pointless week, ain't it?”
Another poster added:
“I'm not responding to the story itself. I'm responding to <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>'s announcement of this ‘juicy’ project and the sensationalist forum it used to do so, where the notion of using a dead woman to garner publicity without any knowledge of the story or its tone was greeted with yelps of ‘Wow’ and ‘Awesome’ and laughs; none of which <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> took issue with or sought to change the tenor of the announcement.”
Which led to the witty comeback:
“I take it you are retarded and have limited reading skills?”
The Diana-themed show was denounced in the House of Commons, a long-standing tradition that, contrary to “NuMODEL’s” detractors, does not bode ill for an entertainment property’s future salability. (It didn’t hurt Garth Ennis’s <b>Hellblazer</b> any.) But the flap reached such a threshold this week that <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> talent coordinator Pete Milligan himself stepped in, writing in an article for the UK newspaper <I>The Guardian</I> (http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,984675,00.html )
“I thought it was time we had a real dead girl in the team, and, clearly, Diana was made for <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>: someone famous for being famous. In the world of <b> Survivor Australian Outback</b>, women are feared and hated. In <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>, they have turned this around and made themselves stars - glamorous, rich and powerful. That seems, to me, to be pretty much what Diana did inside the royal family.”
The pressure is heating up on <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>. Tonight, they’ll have to vote off either vacant blonde Shannon; full-figured Christian nut Robin; snarky Adrianne; or smart, skinny Elyse (no chance!). It takes a strong, self-assured model to keep a cool head under those circumstances, particularly while under assault from crazed fans -- and trying to figure out the Metro system with just that little bitty map.
I believe the people behind <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> are up to the challenge -- but the next few weeks will tell the tale. And there will be doubters, including Rich Johnston’s impeccable source “Felicia.” He -- I mean she -- had {URL=http://www.dynamicforces.com/htmlfiles/tommy43b.html] <b>these words</b> to say last week, which may sum up the whole, tempestuous affair:
“As far as damage to <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>, well...they lost Kesse. I think that's pretty damaging, but the most damage they are doing right now is happening within. The way they treat their employees and the disrespect that they have for a lot of good models. That is what will do them in if they continue. Most likely they won't admit to it until it's too late, and by then many of the fans will be voting with their wallets after there are no more good models to stop bad decisions.”
Now, it could be that “Felicia” is just being catty -- I have a hunch that he (SHE!) wouldn’t stack up too well against world-caliber beauties like Elyse and Adrianne. But here’s my advice, ladies: Keep watching the internet for cracks in the makeup and brand-new wrinkle lines. Except on Tuesday from 9 to 10 PM, of course.
**
Stuart Moore has been a writer, a comics editor for Vertigo and Marvel Knights, a kitchen worker, a book editor, and the nighttime manager of the Lawrenceville, NJ Woolworth's curtain department. He has won the Will Eisner award for Best Editor 1996 and the Don Thompson Award for Favorite Editor 1999.
My current comics work: JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #22, coming in August, features a nice stand-alone story spotlighting Green Lantern and Hawkgirl; details and a great cover image <b>here</b> (http://www.dccomics.com/comics/dc_display.html?cm_dc_itemCode=jladv22&month=August) . Next up is LONE, a new future-western series from Dark Horse/Rocket Comics in September, likewise previewed at <b>Rocket Comics.net</b> (http://www.rocketcomics.net/profile.html?SKU=12196). More details on these and other new projects, including GIANT ROBOT WARRIORS, VAMPIRELLA, and PARA, <b>here</b> (http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=00026 1) and <b>here</b> (http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/pulse.cgi?http%3A//www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi%3Fubb%3Dget_topic%26f%3D3 6%26t%3D001073).
I have no idea if <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> airs abroad -- if not, my apologies to all my international readers for a senseless column. When the show is finally exported, you’ll laugh like hell, I promise …
<center>A THOUSAND FLOWERS</center><center>Comics, Pop Culture, and the World Outside</center><center>Installment 21</center><center>by Stuart Moore</center>
<b>Girls, Girls, Girls!</b>
This column doesn’t usually deal in current comics events -- there are plenty of other venues for that. But there’s just too much going on this week for me to resist the temptation. And there’s one particular controversy going on that I just can’t ignore.
Who will be <b>America’s Next Top Model</b>?
I’ve never seen anything like this on the message boards. So many people had such strong opinions; they crashed the entire Newsarama server. Joe Quesada and Micah Wright can’t stop talking about it. Even Rich Johnston’s secret source “Felicia” has an opinion, if you can penetrate his -- oh, sorry, I mean <b>her</b> wall of secrecy.
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/Tyrawiz.jpg" width="250" height="345" align="right">I admit to a preference for Elyse. She’s the nerd wet-dream, of course -- the “smart one.” Everybody on these shows has to have a pigeonhole, what a book editor friend of mine once described as a “character trait that substitutes for real characterization.” Elyse is also the one with the alleged eating disorder (unlike, uh, all the other ones). So she’s kind of dark and brooding, as well as smart, self-possessed, and really really skinny.
But then, Adrianne is pretty damn funny, and she’s not too tough to look at either. I like the way she’s always making fun of the other girls or backstabbing them, but she goes completely to pieces whenever she’s alone. Did you see that nervous breakdown she almost had on the streets of Paris?
Let’s back up and see if we can put this in perspective. The whole internet riot started last week, when “Felicia” leaked the news that Kesse was going to be voted off the show. Fan reaction was immediate and vociferous. Here’s what one poster had to say on the Comicon Pulse boards:
“Ya know, it's boneheaded moves like this that are just confirming my desire to drop <b>America’s Next Top Model</b> and wait for the DVDs. That way I can have nice little runs of good work and not have to concern myself with the politics of <b>America’s Next Top Model</b>. I think three DVDs from Kesse would look perfect on my shelves. Same goes for the CSI shows, and various mini-series which seem to be released as DVDs weeks after each arc is completed.”
I’m not surprised Kesse got dropped. She was kind of a Christian, but not a crazy Christian like Robin. She was kind of cool, but not funny like Adrianne. She just didn’t have enough of her own character trait. And she really <b>did</b> look too much like Tyra, didn’t she?
Still, we all have our fans. Dick Giordano once told me DC had never cancelled a book -- no matter how low-selling, no matter how creatively bankrupt -- without getting letters protesting that it was the reader’s favorite title, and how could they possibly kill it? Same with Kesse, I guess.
Over on the venerable Usenet, the fans had wildly divergent opinions:
“I'm pleased to see Kesse gone from <b>America’s Next Top Model</b>. Her run has so far been an incredibly simplistic, juvenile take on <b>America’s Next Top Model</b>, redolent of a children's TV cartoon.”
On the other hand:
“That's crap. <B>America’s Next Top Model’s</B> been better under Kesse than it has been in years. It's actually been intelligent and aimed at people who love lipstick and makeup rather than the slam-bam binge-and-puke for the 300th time crap that <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> usually puts out.”
It’s pretty funny -- and, I’m sure, not at all staged -- the way Elyse and Adrianne keep baiting the Christians. I laughed like hell when they were looking up dirty phrases out loud in the French dictionary. At the same time, it was pretty mean. You kind of understood what Robin meant when she drawled, “I don’t speak like that.”
Over at the Joe Quesada site, one commentator said this:
“I think Robin is more concerned about the reputation of <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> than her own reputation. Bash Robin personally and she generally doesn't care. But Adrianne was bashing everything from editors to the decor of the offices. Worse, she was claiming that <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> was a big sham. There are lots of people working very hard to make <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> a reality, both aspiring creators and people working at <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>, and Adrianne’s insinuations were discouraging and insulting.”
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/elyse.jpg" width="250" height="182" align="left">Shannon’s kind of a mystery to me. I understand that she’s the token blonde, but when she opens her mouth -- man! Here’s her life motto, from the <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> website:
“Live every day to its fullest, because no one is guaranteed tomorrow.”
Is she really that stupid? <b>Rich Johnston</b> (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=13 ) thinks the problem goes deeper that that:
“One model was heard to comment that she remembers all the things that happened at <b> I’m A Celebrity -- Get Me Out Of Here!</b> before bankruptcy, and she knows exactly how far <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> are along the same path. And the phones have been ringing across the city. Most <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> models are believed to have been in touch with <b>Fear Factor</b> of late, looking for job opportunities. One who hasn't, is Elyse, although <b>Fear Factor</b> have been headhunting her back.”
<B>America’s Next Top Model</B>’s ratings have been decent, but as the past few years have shown, the show just loves to rile up its fans. Hence the week’s other, very controversial news: that a resurrected Princess Diana would join the contestants for an upcoming storyline. From the Pulse boards:
“Vulgar and tacky, and certainly not all that funny. And I'm someone who was ready to chuck his TV after the week of death/funeral coverage. I daresay that <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> is having a typically pointless week, ain't it?”
Another poster added:
“I'm not responding to the story itself. I'm responding to <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>'s announcement of this ‘juicy’ project and the sensationalist forum it used to do so, where the notion of using a dead woman to garner publicity without any knowledge of the story or its tone was greeted with yelps of ‘Wow’ and ‘Awesome’ and laughs; none of which <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> took issue with or sought to change the tenor of the announcement.”
Which led to the witty comeback:
“I take it you are retarded and have limited reading skills?”
The Diana-themed show was denounced in the House of Commons, a long-standing tradition that, contrary to “NuMODEL’s” detractors, does not bode ill for an entertainment property’s future salability. (It didn’t hurt Garth Ennis’s <b>Hellblazer</b> any.) But the flap reached such a threshold this week that <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> talent coordinator Pete Milligan himself stepped in, writing in an article for the UK newspaper <I>The Guardian</I> (http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,984675,00.html )
“I thought it was time we had a real dead girl in the team, and, clearly, Diana was made for <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>: someone famous for being famous. In the world of <b> Survivor Australian Outback</b>, women are feared and hated. In <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>, they have turned this around and made themselves stars - glamorous, rich and powerful. That seems, to me, to be pretty much what Diana did inside the royal family.”
The pressure is heating up on <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>. Tonight, they’ll have to vote off either vacant blonde Shannon; full-figured Christian nut Robin; snarky Adrianne; or smart, skinny Elyse (no chance!). It takes a strong, self-assured model to keep a cool head under those circumstances, particularly while under assault from crazed fans -- and trying to figure out the Metro system with just that little bitty map.
I believe the people behind <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> are up to the challenge -- but the next few weeks will tell the tale. And there will be doubters, including Rich Johnston’s impeccable source “Felicia.” He -- I mean she -- had {URL=http://www.dynamicforces.com/htmlfiles/tommy43b.html] <b>these words</b> to say last week, which may sum up the whole, tempestuous affair:
“As far as damage to <B>America’s Next Top Model</B>, well...they lost Kesse. I think that's pretty damaging, but the most damage they are doing right now is happening within. The way they treat their employees and the disrespect that they have for a lot of good models. That is what will do them in if they continue. Most likely they won't admit to it until it's too late, and by then many of the fans will be voting with their wallets after there are no more good models to stop bad decisions.”
Now, it could be that “Felicia” is just being catty -- I have a hunch that he (SHE!) wouldn’t stack up too well against world-caliber beauties like Elyse and Adrianne. But here’s my advice, ladies: Keep watching the internet for cracks in the makeup and brand-new wrinkle lines. Except on Tuesday from 9 to 10 PM, of course.
**
Stuart Moore has been a writer, a comics editor for Vertigo and Marvel Knights, a kitchen worker, a book editor, and the nighttime manager of the Lawrenceville, NJ Woolworth's curtain department. He has won the Will Eisner award for Best Editor 1996 and the Don Thompson Award for Favorite Editor 1999.
My current comics work: JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #22, coming in August, features a nice stand-alone story spotlighting Green Lantern and Hawkgirl; details and a great cover image <b>here</b> (http://www.dccomics.com/comics/dc_display.html?cm_dc_itemCode=jladv22&month=August) . Next up is LONE, a new future-western series from Dark Horse/Rocket Comics in September, likewise previewed at <b>Rocket Comics.net</b> (http://www.rocketcomics.net/profile.html?SKU=12196). More details on these and other new projects, including GIANT ROBOT WARRIORS, VAMPIRELLA, and PARA, <b>here</b> (http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=00026 1) and <b>here</b> (http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/pulse.cgi?http%3A//www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi%3Fubb%3Dget_topic%26f%3D3 6%26t%3D001073).
I have no idea if <B>America’s Next Top Model</B> airs abroad -- if not, my apologies to all my international readers for a senseless column. When the show is finally exported, you’ll laugh like hell, I promise …