America’s Next Top Model cycle 11 contestant Isis King was never the strongest competitor, but she was invited to compete for the title again in ANTM’s “All Stars” series this fall. I think this is largely due to the fact that she is transgendered. Her appearance on the reality show garnered significant media attention, and she was popular enough to be dubbed a “fan-favorite” and be included in the latest season. While there is no doubt that Isis is an extremely beautiful woman, she only made it into the top ten finalists in cycle 11 and she has already been eliminated from the current season, so it seems that she was simply being used as a spectacle to achieve higher viewership for the show.
In fact, Tyra Banks took such a liking to Isis’s story that she invited her on the Tyra Banks Show after Isis’s first appearance on ANTM and introduced her to a plastic surgeon who would perform her sex reassignment surgery pro bono. She made a second appearance after on the Tyra Banks Show after her surgery was completed to show her new success as a model and, indeed, as a woman: the big finale of the episode was that Isis’s boyfriend proposed to her in front of the live studio audience. The proposal and the sex change were given higher emphasis in this People magazine article than her modeling achievements. This representation enforces a myriad of American cultural values, such as the importance of marriage for women and plastic surgery as charity. While I think it’s important to integrate members of LGBTQ community into all aspects of the media, including television, I think America’s Next Top Model and the Tyra Banks Show’s representation of Isis was wholly exploitative, making her into a media spectacle for their own popularity.
I agree that that the Tyra Show and America's Next Top Model's inclusion of Isis was all about publicity (it's Tyra Banks, after all), but I do think that the fact that she was included at all is very progressive. One thing that made me particularly happy was not only the fact that she had a boyfriend (and thereby seen as sexually desirable), but that her boyfriend proposed to her on air. This sort of proposal is common in reality television shows, and while it is made a spectacle, it is also seen as a beautiful enactment of two people's commitment to one another. The fact that this sort of idealized ritual was performed-but with a transgender woman and her boyfriend-marks a significant change in the way transgender people are typically made into a spectacle on reality television shows. Where they are generally featured on such shows for their shock value, Isis' story is one of overcoming society's negative views of her. And (according to the Tyra Show) overcome it she has; the audience really sees the proposal as a beautiful, touching moment. So while I think that the REASONS that Tyra featured Isis on her shows were purely selfish, I don't think that negates the highly progressive message that her appearance sent out.
ReplyDeleteI think that idea of Isis was a media spectacle. However, It takes some serious guts to be comfortable enough in your skin to tell others your story. I don't if I would be able to do that!. This was indeed very progressive!
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