antm11

From NY Times Article:

“This one was really hard to map out,” Mok told me earlier. “We always decide the grid of the show in advance of picking the girls, and it used to be easy. But it’s harder and harder to come up with fresh challenges.”

…

“We try to bring in a cast that will keep the show interesting,” Mok said, “but there is sometimes a disconnect between Tyra’s message of female empowerment and the goals of the contestants, who, all too often, just want to be famous.”

…

The theme forthe “Top Model” opener of Cycle 11 was “futuristic,” and the producers decided to tape the segment in a former furniture showroom full of globes in Day-Glo colors. The floors and walls of the cavernous space were painted in white lacquer, and the camera crew wore hospital booties over their shoes to avoid marks. Banks, who had changed into a vaguely militaristic black dress with peaked shoulders, was positioned behind a long narrow table at one end of the room. Sitting on either side of her were Jay Manuel and J. Alexander, two of the longtime judges on “Top Model.” For the purposes of the space-age tone of the show, they were introduced on camera as Beta J and Alpha J., respectively. Banks said, “It’s time to see who’s technologically bankable,” sounding as if she were leading the charge from the prow of a starship.

…

“Nearly all the girls made it to the next round, but it was frustrating. I think, at Bankable, we’re cooling on reality shows. In the beginning, the girls were spontaneous. But now everyone looks at ‘Top Model’ as a way to become a star.” She paused and then said: “For the next cycle, they’re going to have to do homework about the fashion business. I want girls I can help become professional models. I don’t want to help girls just become known — there’s no point to that.”

Fame for fame’s sake does not fit with the Tyra Banks brand. To see yourself as a brand is to have a kind of guarantee with the public: when you think of Oprah Winfrey or Martha Stewart, you immediately conjure a particular world. Banks’s goal is to create that sort of instant identification in everything she does. Over and over, she told me that she defines the Tyra brand as “attainable fantasy,” but that description seems a bit narrow. Banks, like Winfrey and Stewart, is dedicated to dreams coming true through work and determination; empowerment, especially for young women, is Banks’s actual “attainable fantasy.” And while the 11th cycle of “Top Model” will probably be entertaining, it felt like the winning formula of the show had eclipsed Banks’s message.

Sounds to me like Mok is pushing the reality show personalities, while Tyra’s wanting to bring it back to girls who are really in it for the fashion industry. Does that mean no Kimberly/Amis/Lauren-types in c11?