ANTM blahblahblah

My wishful thinking was foiled and they got rid of KatarZYna. So I've replaced her with Whitney because I swear to god if Dominique makes it into the top 3, I'll do something drastic. Like complain a lot. I thought about boycotting the rest of the season, but who are we kidding? What else am I going to do on Wednesday night? I've fallen way back to 425th place, and with so few contestants left, it's hard to really get an advantage over other players. I don't really think you win anything anyway, but whatevs. It amuses me.

My Top 3 Picks

With five contestants left, you might think trying to predict the top three America's Next Top Model-ites would be easy. And it is. This is who I think should be in it anyway. Dominique is too old and crazy, and Whitney is you know, plus-size. They'd never let her win. Although Fatima's been shaky, so I'm mostly just throwing her in there because she's really skinny and that wins every time on this show. Remember Jaslene?

OMG Rich is a genius.

I know I am constantly touting Rich's recaps at fourfour. But SERIOUSLY. I practically just watch ANTM so I will have context for Rich's awesomeness. This diagram he made perfectly illustrates my feelings about the size of Saleisha's Cover Girl commercial hair:

Latest ANTM fantasy lineup

JUSTIFICATIONS: I got bored with Fatima, and Claire really let me down with her photo shoot last week. Although, she did not let me down with her bitchiness. I'm hoping Dominique will continue to be an asshole, though not get eliminated despite looking like a man. Crazy Anya won that challenge last week, and despite her unplaceable accent and albino-looks, she seems to be doing really well. Also, the judges really like Whitney, and this is probably the best chance a plus-size model has had to be in the top three, like, ever. She'll probably also yell at Dominique at least once this week, so I'm totally keeping her. I hope Tyra is at least half as crazy as she was last week. Rich of the fourfour made a fucking awesome video tribute this week: I fucking love this man and his love/hate for Tyra. And good god, if you're NOT reading Rich's recaps yet, your life is INCOMPLETE. In all seriousness.

ANTM fantasy league update

I've reconfigured my team: I feel that Fatima will continue to act like a bitch (either because she's mean or just plain dumb, it's hard to say), I saw in the previews that Whitney's going to get all up in somebody's business this week, and I just really like Claire and assume she'll be winning some challenges soon. I'm currently in 99th place, and I hope to stay in double digits with my new lineup. Looking forward to tonight's episode! Feel free to discuss.

Quote o' the Day and Such: Unattainable Beauty Standards Edition

Confession that's not really a confession if you know me: I love America's Next Top Model. Sometimes it's really painful and I am forced to turn the channel or leave the room or hide under a blanket while Tyra humiliates herself and/or these poor fame-(and probably food-)hungry girls. But so last season I found out about the magic that is the ANTM Fantasy League! I've picked my first week's team on the basis of possible challenge-winning (Katarzyna and Fatima) and on possible crying and/or verbal confrontation points (Fatima and Marvita). And if that doesn't give you enough of a fix, you should definitely be reading Rich's epic recaps every Monday. But anyway, it's always interesting to observe the clusterfuck of trashiness and prettiness and addictiveness that is ANTM. It represents everything that is wrong with America in so many ways, and yet, I cannot stop watching. Perhaps this is why I want to do American studies for grad school. I just can't look away, I'm fascinated by not only the interpersonal squabbles and the makeovers and the "What the hell will come out of Tyra's mouth next?" parts, but also the conflicting values on display. One example I think of right away is how Tyra complains about how the fashion industry requires models to be unnaturally thin in order to have any sort of successful career, but holds her models to those same unhealthy standards. "Yeah, it really sucks how you have to be super skinny to be a model, and we should change that, but you should probably lose some weight if you want to be a model, but do it the healthy way, okay?" But so today I was reading a post about, essentially, "womb envy" from Amanda Marcotte on Pandagon, where she went on to say, "The drooling fascination a lot of our culture has with female beauty is understandable insofar as women’s beauty truly is neat, but let’s face it—much of the fascination is hostile. Instead of being pleased with beauty, our culture objectifies, demeans, hurts and humiliates because there’s so much resentment about it." I think of how we manage to admire the models (whom most of us will never even come close to looking like) while still taking sick pleasure in their exploitation. Luckily, I'm able to not think about all that too much while the magic is happening and can still enjoy the show, but I think what Amanda's referring to here is really clearly played out on the screen every week.