SALON

Monday, Sep 8, 2008 5:40 PM UTC

Wanna be on top?

"America's Next Top Model" introduces a preoperative transsexual. But is this a step toward enlightenment -- or just another excuse to throw stones?

By

Topics: Broadsheet, Love and Sex,

Wanna be on top?

The CW

Isis

“America’s Next Top Model,” now in its 11th “cycle,” jumped the shark so long ago that it is firmly lodged in the whale’s baleen. This season’s corny spaceship theme — Tyra Banks and her minion pretend to be robots — would probably have gotten a contestant rejected if she’d come up with it. But there’s one new twist among the overconfident undereaters, including a Harvard English grad unable to name any literary heroines, an Alaskan greenhorn eerily paralleling Sarah Palin and a bunch of other shrieky, gawky gamines. Her name’s Isis, and she’s a preop transsexual.

While several of the girls are open-minded and curious about their suite mate, there’s controversy among the models-to-be about whether Isis belongs in the competition at all. Frequently their argument combines bigotry and bitchiness: “I’m not discriminating against her, but sorry honey, no,” Kacey says. “‘America’s Next Top Model’ is not going to be a drag queen,” Sharaun snaps (miscategorizing her rival). South Carolina belle Clark goes further, suggesting that difference naturally invites violence: “You walk around in a small town like that, and you’ll get shot,” she drawls, careful to garnish her prejudice with a dollop of B.S. “It’s not so much a closed-minded view, it’s just more traditional.” On one level, the haters have a point. Now that someone born a man can become a wo-man, it seems to damage women’s rights for such a person to claim a spot presumably belonging to a biological female. But while technically a competition for women, “next top model” is not a gender-specific term, and the show has never required all contestants to become women in the same way. And since when has fashion had anything to do with women’s rights?

The inclusion of Isis also reminds us that the fashion industry, despite Tyra’s mission, isn’t about celebrating female identity, it’s about selling products with fantastic illusions. Ms. Banks et al. couldn’t care less about authenticity as long as appearance is exciting. A duckbill platypus could clean up on “Top Model” as long as it gave drama and did fierce runway. The irony, therefore, is that Isis is actually better prepared for the demands of the job than most of her competitors. Trans girls of color often live and breathe the performance of gender (see “Paris Is Burning”), and glamour is their stock in trade. After Isis’ interview with fashion photographer Nigel Barker, he remarked that Isis was “the only one that really knew her stuff.” The large-eyed preop nailed her first photo shoot despite the girls whispering nasty comments to her during the process and went on to humiliate Kacey and Sharaun by moving up when they did not. In a way, she’s the ideal “Top Model” contestant, a wannabe with a potentially interesting past who represents a chance for Oprah-in-training Tyra to teach the girls a lesson about tolerance, and a protégé for Miss Jay. She’s a glam but odd-looking “couture” kind of girl, who no doubt will soon unveil her sick runway skills and make the judges gag. And why shouldn’t she be allowed to compete? Her rivals learned to be women from society, whereas Isis learned to be a woman from the fashion industry.

James Hannaham is a staff writer at Salon. More James Hannaham.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 25 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations