We are down to “six beautiful girls.” However, “only one can continue on to become America’s Next Top Model!” This cycle has been an interesting one, both contestant wise and style wise. It’s the first season the ANTM crew have produced the show without a writing team, and the encapsulation of a cycling trend of low-budget shoots and having and over-the-top cheese factor. However, these two problems do not make it bad television. Oh no ma’am! (I’m not only trying to be gender-sensitive here, but also acknowledging that there exists a strong possibility that Matt and Luke are the only two guys alive who watch this show). Below is a summary of what’s gone down so far, the highs and lows, the insanity that is Tyra, and my predictions for the second half of the season.

What has happened so far

The two biggest story-lines have been Natasha and having two plus-sized models. Natasha- mail-order bride? Yes or no? My take is yes, she is, but it’s working out well for her because her husband seems supportive, her baby seems happy and healthy and Natasha seems to like who she is and where she is in life. So even if she was bought and brought over to America to be paraded around, let’s cut her some slack. She’s becoming one of the better models on the show!

I want to give props to Tyra for putting two plus sized girls on the show. I really do. However, I can’t. Her timing of this perfectly coincided with the gossip surrounding her personal weight gain and I can’t help but feel that putting Whitney and Diana on the show was an attempt at self-validation and a little bit of I-told-you-so. Additionally, Tyra’s desire to see a fat girl (disclaimer: fat is so much easier to write that plus-sized. They are not fat. I know they are not fat. I’m sorry if this offends people. Actually, I’m not. I take it all back) do well blinded her to the obvious inability of Whitney and Diana to model and both stuck around far too long. However, they both are gone now – yay! – so maybe Natasha’s giant head can replace Whitney’s fat ass as the site of Tyra’s fetish.

This season, the photo shoots have been down right cheesy: four faces, gender-swapping, “political statements”, high school stereotypes…..can anyone tell me how these relate to fashion? I suppose they could, but they weren’t at all here! I liked the candy shoot, but am still uncertain if it can be considered fashion, and the death shoot was cool, and could easily be high concept couture—but it isn’t! Oh an remember how Tyra used to make Jenascisa in cycle two say couture over and over and over and over. Well, I think it’s been mentioned this cycle, uh, NEVER. They aren’t the high quality, high fashion—COUTURE — photo shoots models would want to put in their portfolios. I miss the days of high concept fashion – underwater, in the country, on elephants—and product pushing – Secret photo shoots, hand lotion photo shoots, Doritos commercials – that mimic what real models do. Even the pre-panel Tyra-ops are getting cheesier and cheesier, as if they shot them right before panel because Tyra didn’t have a real photo to prop it up.

Another big issue so far has been the lack of a writing team. Because of this, the elimination edits have been amazingly obvious, we get flashbacks to five seconds ago and the story-lines have been really repetitive (Natasha’s Russian! Renee’s a bitch! Whitney and Diana are fat!) as opposed to exploring these girls’ personalities and interaction. I don’t know who is friends with who. That’s never happened before. The recent recall of “infamous scenes from past ANTM cycles” only proves how forettable this cycle has been so far. Conclusion: they should have kept Kathleen.

While the first couple eliminations were disappointing (Kathleen!) and possibly premature (Samantha and Cassandra), especially considering how weak some of the girls who are still here WERE then, it’s shaped up so that the six left — Brittany, Renee, Dionne, Natasha, Jael and Jaslene — are the six who deserve to be here. Hooray for that!

The girls that are left

Renee
The BITCH! She’s a decent model, but not a great one. She’s a pretty girl, but not a beautiful one. She takes good photos, but not great ones. She wears a silly head wrap that makes me think of inappropriate jokes. Her hair is turning into something akin to a rat tail. I do think, however, that as much as the judges like her, the next few photo shoots are key for Renee. There is nothing memorable about her look — tall, blonde girls are everywhere – and the judges know she’s the bitch in the house.

Dionne
This girl is hilarious. She tells it like it is with her commentary, and is wonderfully self-aware. She has been producing solid photos, but nothing unbelievably fantastic. The judges’ problem with her wardrobe will hurt her, as will her accent for the commercial shoot. My biggest fear is that she is too much reminiscent of Danielle, who won Cycle Seven. But then, I though Eva and Niamh were really similar, and they won back-to-back. Look for Dionne to make it to the final three, but then not sparkle when she needs to.

Jael
Jael is different. Sometimes this different is good – daring photos, standing up to Renee and this never-ending positive attitude —, but sometimes it is bad — bothering 50 Cent, incoherent blabbering, and not taking things seriously when needed. However, she keeps things entertaining! Until the editors let her gets a little grating. Jael’s not diverse enough to model, not soft enough to model and I honestly think she won’t be able to cohere to industry practices and standards and work well with people. I want her to stay around, mostly to say hilarious things and scare the shit out of Renee when needed, but she shouldn’t win. However, Jael fulfills Tyra’s love of diversity — nothing is more diverse than “blewish”.

Natasha
Natasha is getting better, and her inability to understand “basic words” is hilarious. Sometimes my heart breaks for her – like when she was missing her baby – and sometimes she leaves me thinking “What the fuck just happened” – uh, most days at panel and when she jumped in the pool – but overall, she’s becoming a better model and she is quality television entertainment. If she keeps getting better, she’ll go far, but her in-person presence is a little awkward and cartoonish and she could never be a commercial model or spokesperson after watching the acting challenge. Plus, her head is gigantic.

Brittany
Brittany is a model, especially now that her weave is gone! Tyra’s critique this week was spot-on, Brittany needs to bring it in person. But she has the right body, and the right awkward-goofy look about her that high fashion loves. However, she is getting a really weird edit that is reminiscent of Cycle 5 winner Nicole – as in she’s never on camera, never gets a confessional, always has amazing pictures, and none of the girls ever say anything nice about her. This is giving me the following theory: she’s annoying as hell and she’s going to win.

Jaslene
I started off hating Jaslene, but hating Tyra even more because she kept pushing the Cha Cha stereotype on her. When she wasn’t’ bringing the Cha Cha, Tyra criticized her for not being herself. Has Tyra ever thought for a moment that maybe not everyone conforms to stereotypes? But then, what do I know, Jaslene isn’t getting any non-photo shoot related storylines. Overall, Jaslene has tons of potential, she just needs to learn to tone down the drag queenness. She started off amazing, but its as if Jay doesn’t like her, or doesn’t to do well, because no one seems to be working with her or giving her model-oriented criticisms to make her a stronger contender. She’s growing on me as a person—the acting challenge and the four-face shoot, while terrible, were amazingly self-aware—but not as a model.

The Prediction

This is surprisingly tough. However, based on my hours and hours and hours of research (and by research I mean watching endless Friends re-runs and not writing my papers), I predict the following cuts:

#6: Jael
She’s not a diverse model, she has bad skin and she’s getting on the judges nerves. Unless the photo shoot is tailored to her strengths, she is out of here.

#5: Jaslene
Tyra wants to hang on to Jaslene, probably even more so now that she let Whitney go. But Jaslene has been lack-luster recently, personally and professionally. While Tyra looooves the vanilla/chocolate/caramel final three, I really think Jaslene’s fading, along with (SPOILER) even the THOUGHT of Jaslene doing a commercial with an Australian accent (I’m expecting Renee and Brittany to rock that) and lack of judge-love will send Jaslene packing. Unless this is a fake-out edit. I wouldn’t bet on it though, with the editing team they have this year.
#4: Natasha
The pressure of the competition will get to Natasha, as will being so far away from her family. The fourth model sent home is always a good one, and there’s nothing wrong with fourth. I just can’t see Natasha making it through. I am excited, however, for her send off. If she cries for getting called third imagine what she will do when she is eliminated!

#3: Dionne
Dionne doesn’t bring anything original to the table and she doesn’t look like a top model. The judges hate how she dresses. She takes fabulous pictures, but doing a commercial against Renee and Brittany will be the end for Wholahay.

#2: Renee
The bitch never wins. Again, the lack of originality and the recent blonde/blonde final of Cycle Seven will hurt her. I doubt Renee will be as striking and memorable on the runway as Brittany will be. Remember the catwalk challenge? And how Renee thought she rocked it and Brittany actually rocked it? And how Renee learned nothing from that experience? Yeah.
Winner: Brittany!
Reason One: her pose in the fade out picture is FIERCE. Reason two: Tyra needs a red-head to win. She had two last season – the twins – but they couldn’t cut it (You KNOW Tyra didn’t want a CariDee win, it just happened that way!). Reason Three: She has the best model-body left. Reason Four: She is getting no screen-time. Reason Five: She’s not really pretty, but not unattractive. Reason Six: Her photos are sick. Even when she had the world’s worst hair weave.

Agree? Disagree? Who do want to win? Who do you think will win? Let us know!

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