ANTM: We'd Listen to Dottie Read the Phone Book

As usual, I’d much rather listen to Dottie Narcotic talk about her root canal than watch an entire episode of this show.  And so would you!

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So who else was totally geeked at the JabbawockeeZ appearance on this week’s show? Man, I love them. You could say they’re performing at the Cane Everybody Who Shows Up Festival and I’d still be excited.

On the other hand, I wasn’t as excited about Lil Mama. I feel bad for dumping on her because she’s still so young. I definitely remember being a complete embarrassment at 20 and was fortunate enough to not have cameras around. But after blurting out all that transmisogynist garbage this season on Dance Crew and then bumrushing Jay-Z‘s VMA performance (hope she sent Kanye a muffin basket for that one), I think I’ve pretty much had my fill of Ms. Mama. Calgon, take her away. She needs to lay low and work out the rest of those kinks of young adulthood offscreen.

But I guess it is kinda weird I’m saying that while she’s guesting on a show that features girls her age who are just as embarrassing on film. I don’t feel like examining that double standard, so let’s just focus on our weekly lessons.

Lesson One: Don’t Be a Stealth Ninja

If I’m not mistaken, Benny Ninja has been a cycle staple since C7. So why am I always surprised to see him? Or maybe it’s less of a surprise and more of “Oh, wow; time to go to the dentist again already?” But I bet everybody would prefer to see Benny twice a year instead of the dentist.

Like, here’s a dentist horror story. About seven years ago, I went to the dentist and she filled a cavity for me while she and her hygienist talked about their stupid suburban lives. And the hygienist wouldn’t shut up about how she just got this new trampoline in the backyard and it was so funny that time she jumped on it while wearing clog mules and her shoe flew off! Ha ha ha, you guys! Anyway, the dentist finished up, told me she was done and that it’d be a little bothersome for a couple of days and sent me on my way. It was bothersome for a couple of days, and then after a few weeks, I started experiencing excruciating pain. I finally scheduled an emergency visit and it turned out that the tooth she’d worked on had developed a full-blown abscess and I needed a root canal! And it was her fault because she wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing! And I had to pay $200 for the root canal that was her fault!

I bet you nobody has a Benny Ninja horror story like that. Maybe an ex or former roommate or something, but that’s it.

ANTM: Villany!

Our Pal Dot is back in action and letting off some steam about manufactured drama.

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Sorry I’m late, y’all. A lot of ridiculousness happened to me in the past couple days and I’ve had to manage my feng shui. But now I’m pretty sure things are back under control, and I can address the real pressing issues of today: With Bianca gone, who will become this season’s bitch?

Don’t worry, my tongue’s firmly in my cheek. But the question is legitimate on a couple of levels. First, this show is so formulaic and predictable that each cycle has a designated villain built around unfortunate editing. Sometimes the truth comes out in post-show interviews and the cutting room floor tells a more complicated story. Sometimes the contestant in question really is that bad. But either way, there’s always a girl to root against because she’s not on the show to make friends. I’ve already discussed my dislike of manipulative editing of that sort, so you can pretty much guess how I feel about that. People are multifaceted. You know, tons of folks hate Santino Rice from the second season of Project Runway.

When that season was airing, I was keeping a little stupid photoblog that nobody was reading and would occasionally talk about the shows I was watching, and after the lederhosen lingerie fiasco, I felt compelled to write a piece defending Santino.

I basically said that nothing he did warranted the outraged response he got, and that if I were on the show, I would have been received similarly. And a few weeks later, Santino himself commented on that entry and told me I was “the shit”, I was hilarious, and that he loved me. He must’ve Googled his name or something. The point is, though, that he confirmed what I suspected: bitch is in the eye of the beholder.

The other important part of this is the choice of language: bitch. Everyone talks about “the cycle bitch” every season, being very careful to use that particular and inherently misogynist term. And some people want to take it even further and notice how the cycle bitch is usually black. The only non-black universal villains I can think of are C8 Renee and C7 Melrose. So you have to wonder what Tyra is trying to do, as both a producer and talent scout. I understand that the show itself is a commercial venture and drama means higher ratings, but since she’s always spinning yarns about occupational integrity, where does her allegiance lie? I mean, this is an industry already fielding charges of racism. Why would you perpetuate stereotypes if you could avoid it?

Well, anyway, this is pertinent because… well, let’s just hit this week’s lesson plan, shall we?

ANTM: Blah Blah Blah

Ms. Narcotic found this week’s episode had about the same effect on its viewing audience as her last name does on pretty much everyone.  Luckily that left her plenty of time for hilarious sidebars about apocryphal slang and the Skeezy Hot Chili Peppers.

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This week’s episode was pretty boring.

Fun fact: this week’s guest judge Jaime Rishar was dating Anthony Kiedis while she was still underage. He used to have a picture of them at her high school graduation on his fridge, and he was like 30 at the time. Isn’t that nasty? Like he’s one of my favorite people on the planet but it would not be okay for my teenage daughter to date him. But now that I’m thinking about it, it wouldn’t be okay for my mother to date him, either. In fact, I don’t want anyone I’m related to or even know tangentially to date Anthony Kiedis. Read his book. You’ll see why.

Anyway, the girls had a runway lesson with Ms. J (wearing horrible flats) and some little girl who’s been modeling since she was two or something. Then they had to compete on a real runway against tall models. Brittany won but still ended up in the bottom two, and even though I know the challenges have nothing to do with the eliminations, I’m always shocked when that happens.

Oh, and Ann Shoket showed up and said a bunch of awful “You go, girl!”-esque type stuff and it reminded me of how awful all the teen magazines were when I was growing up. You know, ’cause they always used slang nobody ever used in real life to look cool and trendy, like “My ‘rents left me and my sister home alone for the weekend and we ended up throwing this radtastic party with all of the foshest guys at schoolio. But then they came home early and totally nuked our festivus! Then we got grounded! I was sooo Macarena-ed!” And you know they’re all high-fiving in the office because they got to unleash their inner Diablo Cody for the day. I’m sorry to tell them it doesn’t work, or at least didn’t in my junior high. But then again, they were competing with this fresh new rapper guy named Snoop Doggy Dogg at the time. In retrospect, they didn’t really stand a chance.

ANTM: Try This On For Smize

Dottie Narcotic is back with more lessons from the Tyrasphere.

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Before I begin, I’d just like to say that there are Top Model moments that I adore as a viewer and abhor as a recapper. When the show gets campy and self-referential, it becomes extremely difficult for me to shame it as it deserves– and as I so often enjoy doing. So when Tyra revealed her new cape-clad alter ego SuperSmize and generally forced everyone on set to repeat the awful neologism/contraction “smize” (short for “smile with your eyes”) over and over, like they really enjoyed doing it, I knew my job this week would be tough. I always feel really defeated when this show realizes its own absurdity, like the joke is actually on me for thinking that it takes itself seriously. It makes me paranoid that Tyra’s actually a creative genius and I haven’t given her her just due because I’m too stupid to have figured it out beforehand. And you thought the Cold War was scary!

*shudder*

Okay, so back to SuperSmize. Everybody knows that the key to modeling is that one must remember to smile with one’s eyes. And as TyraSmize would have you know, it is not just squinting! Smiling with your eyes is somehow pushing out of the pupils the emotion and radiance that would come from one’s mouth in a smile, or frown, or smirk or whatever. You exude when you smize, you must realize. Jazzercise, burger and fries. Speaking of greasy food, today we revel in stereotypes!

Lesson one: Models are hungry!

While SuperSmize is instructing our girls in the mirror before their smize-off in purple ninja outfits (no, really), she asks the girls to put their hands on their stomachs and to think of something “delicious”, like a “hot fudge sundae”. They squint– I mean, smize in the mirror as they think of sheet cake, beef noodles, and pepperoni pizza. No! Stop it, SuperSmize! You know they have to go back to a house with Wheat Thins, dry-ass Special K and Diet Coke! It’s just cruel. And then they secretly indulge, and boom! You have a C12 London or C4 Keenyah on your hands, and a girl goes home because she’s packing on pounds. Tyra’s response to all that?

ANTM: Short Course

The “petite” cycle has a few lessons for Miss Dottie…

I grew up during the Supermodel boom. I watched Naomi Campbell toothpaste her zits on House of Style before I got my first set of breakouts and I had a subscription to YM– which I maintain was the most high-fashion of the teen mags. And I remember proudly thinking I was going to be working the runways when I grew to be 5’11”, a near-guarantee with parents both taller than average.

And then the pediatrician dropped the bomb of bombs on my mother during a checkup one day: “She’s not going to get much taller than this.”

I was like LADY YOU NEED TO STFU because I was already one of the tallest girls in my grade. I didn’t realize it was because I’d basically already gotten my growth spurts and everyone else was going to shoot past me by a mile. But I found that out when I only gained a measly two inches in the coming years, stopping at 5’1″ by age 12. I’d already perfected my model walk. I knew my angles and the most high-fashion poses. And I had TALL PARENTS WHAT THE HELL. But no.

104 of 250

Hunch those shoulders, girl!  This ain’t Maxim!

104 of 250

• Black silk cap-sleeve top (purchased on clearance this Pretty Year) from Banana Republic— $11.89
• AG Adriano Goldschmeid “The Club” Jeans via Filene’s Basement– $32 on sale with a coupon
• Red bangle from Annie Creamcheese
• Aerosoles red “Horoscope” wedges– $19.99 on clearance

America’s Next Top Model Ep. “Do you light the way I look?”

Our episode opens with Aminat mad that Isabella was sent home. She was confrontational with Sandra, but let’s just be honest here.. Aminat was speaking more truth than Sister Johnson at the church fashion show. Everybody in the house was saying a secret Amen.

You can watch that episode including that little exchange here.

Yes, it’s the makeover episode. Let’s see some crying, dying, and testifying.

The ladies are so excited about the makeover.. Stop growing on me, Celia! There’s nothing more endearing than someone who knows about the career that they’re trying to enter. Even when they’re literally going to be modeling high fashion for 40-year-olds, cause they’d be at the end of their careers if they’d started earlier. Sorry, CeCe!

Jessica is ridiculous. What is there to say here? Perhaps another diatribe about how no matter what they put her in, she’s going to look hot?

Sandra… I don’t even know what I feel about this. Tyra dyed her hair blonde and gave her an Alek Wek cut. Why do you hate the ones you go out of your way to pretend you love?

America’s Next Top Model– Cycle ZZZZZZZZZ

Once again, our intrepid Pop-spondent, Dottie Narcotic, weighs in on things of import and substance.

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So the twelfth cycle of America’s Next Top Model started on Wednesday night, and since then I have been agonizing over how to effectively explain Top Model as a viewing experience. First, if you don’t already, you have to start reading Rich’s recaps over at his blog, FourFour (he also blogs for VH1’s Celebreality, if you’re into that sort of thing). A former roommate of mine has never seen an episode and asked me what it was all about, and I didn’t know what to tell her. How can you describe a show with a host who’ll put on a gold toga and proclaim herself the Goddess of Fierce and it’s neither entertaining nor surprising? How can you describe a modeling competition that would put epileptic Isabella on a strobe-lit runway? You know if anything happened that Tyra would tell her to maintain fierceness and model through her seizure.