Americas Next Top Model Show in Light of Power Dynamics Essay

Americas Next Top Model Show in Light of Power Dynamics - Essay Example Center of discussion in this paper is America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) as a big brother show in which successful women applicants come together to compete for America’s Next Top Model title. This show is meant to give the women a chance to start a modeling career. The show is hosted by a female professional and model by the name Tyra Banks. It is rated as one of the biggest television shows in the world. The show is professionally constructed with episodes ranging from nine to eighteen. In all the seasons, there are about ten to twenty five female participants who vie for the adorable title. Each episode is structured in a way that one of the participants considered weak is eliminated by a panel of judges, Tyra Banks being part. The shows also provides a makeover in the earlier part of the show where the participants who are considered weak is put on probation and the audience is allowed to vote to save their preferred contestant. During the show, contestants undergo vig orous training in line with the theme of the particular week. This is meant to coach the girls and teach them various aspects related to the modeling career including press interviewing skills, sales skills, and cat walking. This is followed by photo shooting of the contestants who are given dresses that barely cover the bodies; the girls are actually semi-nude as they pose. From the photos shot, the judges make a decision and the female contestants with the lowest marks are eliminated or put on probation for a makeover. Other events featured in the show include in-depth assessment of personality traits and general knowledge. Each of the episodes ends with the ruling by a panel of judges who are experts in the fashion industry, regular judges of the show. A special guest judge is also usually called upon to assist in making a judgment. This involves posing challenging questions on modeling and fashion to the contestants, and their video photos are displayed and analyzed by the panel ists. The contestants are often asked to leave the room to give the panelists a chance to deliberate on their decisions and make the rulings. The female contestants are then called upon to the show room and face their fate; the successful ones remain in the show while those who score low are put on probation or sent packing (Kowalski 47). In view of the above, it is beyond doubt that the show is, therefore, professionally structured in a way that real women contestants are put into unreal events in order to create a story. Criticism of the Reality Shows Most of the reality shows run for a bout thirty to sixty minutes, a constant duration. If the show could be real then the events would run for an unidentified period. This shows that there are some incidences behind the scene that the audience is not able to know. It also brings out an element of editing of the events behind the scene to enable the program run within the stipulated period. It also shows that the story being told is n ot real but is subject to a lot of editing and manipulation of the contestants or participants. The editors, therefore, become the storytellers and take the positions of the contestants by altering the sequence of events that actually happened behind the scenes. Meanwhile, the audience