Tyra Banks: Top Model or Top Waddle?

Between New York fashion week, the Britney Spears meltdown, the deaths of two runway models in Latin America, and award show season, the month of February was chock full of celebrity gossip and controversy over the portrayal of women in the media. When the eighth season of former super model Tyra Banks’s America’s Next Top Model premiered last week, it became clear that this month would be equally as scandalous. The cast of America's Next Top Model (pictured on the right) was predictable; thirty gorgeous women with skeleton-like figures. But, there was a surprise twist; Miss Banks selected not just one, but two “plus size” girls to move into the Los Angeles mansion to duke it out for the coveted prize of becoming America’s Next Top Model! Viewers were probably supposed to be impressed by the show’s effort to convey a diverse spectrum of beauty, but considering Banks's recent crusade against the media for their scrutiny about her own weight gain, and her talk show which regularly encourages audience members to love their bodies at any size, Tyra Banks just ends up looking like an enormous hypocrite.

As a former Victoria's Secret model who has graced the covers of countless magazines, Tyra Banks is one of the most well known names in the fashion industry. In recent months The Tyra Banks Show host has taken heavy criticism for her recent weight gain. When tabloids published a picture of Tyra Banks in a bikini (pictured here), captioned “America’s Next Top Waddle,” she angrily spoke out. The January cover story of People Magazine, titled "Tyra Banks Fights Back: You Call This Fat?” featured the 5’10,” 160 pound former model in the same bikini she was ridiculed for. She was quoted as saying, “I get so much mail from young girls who say, ‘I look up to you, you’re not as skinny as everyone else, I think you’re beautiful'. So when they say that my body is ‘ugly’ and ‘disgusting,’ what does that make those girls feel like?" Tyra even joked in the interview that she is having too much fun eating pancakes at IHOP to worry about her cellulite. On her talk show, too, she is taking a stand against the media, even dressing up in a fat suit to show how overweight people are mistreated and harassed on a daily basis.

After almost two decades of weight watching and calorie counting, Tyra Banks has certainly earned the right to enjoy a carbohydrate or two every now and then. But, while she preaches about acceptance and inner beauty to her talk show audience, America’s Next Top Model seems to counteract any forward progress Banks might be making. How can women feel beautiful when they turn on the television and see their supposed role model manufacturing size zero Barbie Doll wannabes? In response to accusations of such hypocrisy, on The Tyra Banks Show she said, “Even though I try to have different body types on Top Model, let’s face it, a lot of the girls are skinny. So what I’ve done for season eight, which is right here, right now is I’m having two full-figured models. I have been trying so hard to have two and I finally got my way. So you’ll be seeing that this season. That’s my part.” While I congratulate her for having two “plus-size” contestants on the show, it hardly excuses the fact that she is making millions of dollars off of a television concept that degrades women. It is as if she is patting herself on the back for attempting to solve a problem that she has significantly helped to create.

As they say, actions speak louder than words, and it is only a matter of time before her talk show audience catches on to her very apparent and offensive inconsistencies. While she assures her audience that she is content in her new body and that they should be too, having a show about the glamorous life of modeling completely devalues and discredits anything she might preach to the “average woman" about loving oneself despite how the media says we should look and feel. I am not quite sure how the television host and former Victoria's Secret angel has balanced these multiple personalities for this long, but pretty soon she will realize that you can't have your cake and eat it too!