Sunday, September 21, 2008

YOUR WILDEST DREAMS HAVE COME TRUUUUE! AHHHHHH!!!

To return to a brief point in my last post: Tyra, your wildest dream will never come true. You will never be Oprah. And this pathetic attempt on your show to rival Oprah's generosity is just the most hilarious example of the failure of what I like to call Tyra's Oprah ASSpirations.

Okay, I know that Bedazzled VaselineGate is pretty old news by now, but let's re-examine this clip from Tyra's show again, because it's just fucking insane. Sorry that the sound is a little out of sync.



1. I haven't seen the rest of the episode, but I'm assuming there's a reason why Tyra looks like she just rolled out of bed. She's so REAL!

2. Those poor ladies in the audience know they're not getting car keys under their seats, but I think it's a safe bet to say that at the very least they were hoping that the gift of Tyra's "biggest beauty secret" was going to at least be something they normally couldn't afford, like $30 an ounce Clinique eye cream or something.

3. Instead, they're forced to go apeshit for fucking Vaseline. I don't care how long Tyra's minions spent hot gluing rhinestones on those containers, it's just fucking Vaseline. Like I said in an earlier post, I went to a taping of Tyra's show last year and the crew preps you to act excited and cheer, and I'm sure the ladies in this audience got a big lecture on going crazy for Tyra's big reveal. Ugh. Tyra, you could afford to give these women actual gift baskets. Stop trying to be "real". You're not real. (And rumor has it that her nose definitely isn't real, even though supposedly her boobs are). You're an ex-supermodel and you're loaded. Give the women some Estee Lauder products, for chrissakes. At the very least, some items from Cover Girl. God knows they've been up your ass long enough.

4. She's mimicking Oprah's "And you! And you! And you!" speech while rolling around on the floor like an epileptic. You will not be catching Ms. O with her ass in the grass any time soon.

5. I love how you can spot the people in the audience who know this is total bullshit, and are all like, Okay. I am done screaming for something I can get at CVS for like $3.99. Check out the awesome look on the face of the blonde girl in red around the 1:57 mark after Tyra screams "These Vaselines are worth ONE HUNDRED DOLLAAAAARS!!" The blonde's frozen smile is so "Are you kidding me? Bitch, please."
I love it. Also, Tyra is hilariously out of breath by that point.

6. Ummmm...maybe Tyra hasn't had this problem, but excessive use of Vaseline can actually really fuck with your skin. For a while in high school I was using Vaseline every day instead of Chapstick, and my lips got so addicted to it that when I finally stopped using it, my lips and the skin around my mouth dried up like a desert basin. I could barely speak, and I had to walk around for weeks looking like I had made out with the Cryptkeeper. All my wildest dreams had come true.

Therefore, if it's true that Tyra does use Vaseline as her only moisturizer (which I have a hard time believing) the chances are good that she would end up looking completely like the Cryptkeeper if she stopped using it.


cryptkeeper

You know this is what she looks like on the inside anyway. Look, he even has a scraggly weave and a five-head! It's like the Picture of Tyrian Gray.

A diamond is forever, and so are vagina armpits

The Weave has been uncharacteristically quiet for the last few days, but not to worry: ANTM's new levels of ridiculousness (as evidenced by this week's makeover episode) will be discussed soon. One thing I will say though is that it would have made a lot more sense for Miss Jay to be the fairy godmother and for Tyra to be the evil witch.

I kind of hate to admit it, but the new season really is entertaining me far more than the show has in a while. Dammit, Tyra! Your plan is working. (Just the one to try to spice up ANTM again--not the one to steal Oprah's throne. P.S. Give up). After being pretty bored during Cycles 9 and 10 (despite the excitement of living vicariously through my college pal Claire as she yelled at Dominique, pumped breast milk, and ultimately was kicked off way too early in Cycle 10) Tyra has apparently climbed down off of her soap box a teeny bit, just long enough to grab a plate of mashed potatoes and (in what is clearly an obvious attempt to keep the show "wild!" and "interesting"!) reduce herself again to insanely absurd gimmicks and outfits to grab our attention rather than supposed "causes". Ahhh, it's like Cycles 4-7 all over again. I miss that red weave, though. Her hair and makeup are actually looking pretty good this season. Where are my gypsy head wraps and 6-inch eyelashes??

I wasn't kidding about the mashed potatoes, by the way. It looks like Tyra's gained back a few pounds, eh? Know how I know? Not just by looking at her, but by the way her hemline has risen yet again (to distract us with those bizarre and disproportionately skinny ankles) and by the way she stands at an angle when she's handing out the photos, which is a way to distract from love handles, as she taught hot lesbian Kim. Oh, and last week's kimono. But seriously, check out her stance next time. I'm on to you, Banks.

(Really, her ankles do not look like they can support her. She really is a physical miracle of nature. They're like the anti-cankles. But that's not necessarily a good thing).

In tribute to Tyra's Big Fat Ass, I'd like to share this photo of her back in her true supermodel days. However, please note that despite her peak physical condition, the vagina armpits are still in full effect.



tyra vagina arms

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not see Ms. Tyra smiling with her eyes or fiercely connecting to the camera AT ALL in that picture. In fact, she looks a little spaced out. Mmm hmmm. Mmm hmmm. Hypocrisy, thy name is Tyra. But we knew that.

Also, exciting news: The Weave has received its first comment from someone we don't even know! Big Weave shoutout to beliefunwrought! Thanks so much! You're our first Weavologist.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

You WILL see me again!

Just to lighten up on all the politics I can't help dragging into the Weave, I'd like to introduce a segment I call You WILL See Me Again! Famous last words from axed ANTM contestants who, despite this declaration, do not become famous themselves. Though to be fair, we do see them again...on ANTM marathons. Hi girls!

Though a few contestants have made decent careers for themselves (Cycle 5's hot lesbian Kim on MTV, Cycle 1's Elyse in Japan, Cycle 2's Yoanna on various TV gigs) most of these girls fade into obscurity faster than you can say "I only have one photo in my hands."**

Or, like the star of today's You WILL See Me Again!, Cycle 6 runner up Joanie Dodds, you model wigs. For Midwestern church ladies, apparently. I really hope she got paid for this, however paltry a sum it might have been. Hey, at least she gave up cage dancing! Papa, don't preach.

joanie wig


**I mean, faster than it takes a normal person to say that. As opposed to: "I. Only...have...ONE. PHO-to. In...my...hands."

"Just two years ago I was a small town mayor of Alaska's crystal meth capital!"

Again, this is a bit of a digression for the Weave, but Tyra started it.

I wish Tina Fey and Jon Stewart would have babies.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

ACCESS DENIED

I just wanted to remind Wholahay that we've already seen a disturbing preview of what it would be like to have a weaveless Tyrabot stumbling toward us, growling with its eyes:

bald tyra

Friday, September 12, 2008

Do not vote for the Cover Girl of the Weak

Okay, I know the Weave is about Top Model which is the very definition of escapism, so I hate to drag in the insanely frustrating topic of the current election, but Tyra already took it there so here we go. Hey, remind me again what a bureaucracy is?

Just thought everyone would appreciate this pretty funny parody of Republican Vice-Presidential candidate nightmare Sarah Palin. If Hannah is any indication of her kind of leadership, we're in big fucking trouble. (Joking aside, Sarah Palin is a corrupt closed-minded anti-feminist evangelical who doesn't give a shit about the environment, women's rights, queer rights, or any of the the truths we hold to be self-evident. Do not let this woman be one heart attack away from the leadership of the "free" world).

Also, Gina Gershon is still hot. Doggy chow, anyone?

Barack the Vote!!

Girl, I didn't know you could get down like that

All credit for this post is due to my hilarious and fierce homeboy Thug Monkey. Witch Crew 4 Eva! He pointed out that the following video is what Tyrabot and the Jays attempted to achieve with the tMIT, yet they clearly fell incredibly short in doing so.

Sorry, this video's embedding was disabled. And Spontaniouse is technology differently-abled. Click! for genuine fierceness Tyra (and Benny Ninja) can only dream about. Though perhaps the alien/laser/gay twins of the future schtick might have been a little less lame had the show spent a little bit more on the special effects and not 95% of the budget on pimping out the Top Model house with pictures of Tyra. You know that's why those contestant interviews are always filmed in fluorescent lighting instead of something even slightly more flattering. Sorry girls!! No soft lighting for you! We had to have one more ginormous Tyra portrait superimposed on your shower curtain instead! And didn't you know that Tyra worked for 10 years before she was filmed in a soft glow? In Paris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuMmfDWMLgY

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

A handbag full of sparkling jewels and accessories!

As a nun about to peace out from a life of chastity to bang an Austrian duke or some shit once sang in a field, let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.


The new opening credits. I have to say, I really miss Tyra fiercely waving her gloved hand in front of her face from last season's credits, but I guess the ferocious sass finger is a decent substitute. Also, I love that quick shot of her leaning back oh-so-casually on a couch, talking to a "model". I guess we're supposed to believe that this is Tyra imparting advice on what it takes to be America's. Next. Top. MOD-el to a contestant via actual words and not random noises and facial expressions, but let's be real. In that shot she looks like...a talk show host! Wow, Tyra Banks! A talk show host! Why on earth would the credits be trying to create the impression that Tyra Banks is a...oh, never mind. Plug plug plug, Tyra Banks Show, Emmy Emmy blah.


(P.S. I went to a taping of the Tyra Banks show last year, and happened to be there for the Valentine's Day episode. Tyra rose from the floor through a trap door in the back of the audience, and walked down the stairs while people on the aisle threw red rose petals in her wake. I'm not kidding. She also has a little gay Latino man running after her whose only job is to comb the bangs on her weave in between every take. Also, the theme was surprise proposals, and there was not one single gay marriage or any women proposing to men. Instead, we watched two men propose to their girlfriends before shipping out to Iraq, as well as Tyra's interview with a young couple who had originally lost their virginity on her show. [I know, riiiiight? What??] They told her they were engaged and planning to adopt children. Tyra: "That's so wonderful that you're going to adopt! Are you going to have normal children too?")

The new Tyra Mail. I can understand Tyra as a postal worker because of the obvious connotations of batshit craziness, but the blowjob face flashing onscreen like 4 times an episode is just discomfiting. Whatever, as long as we don't have to listen to 14 quasi-illiterate people attempt to read words in unison off of that slow-ass digital ticker mail.

The continued presence of Benny Ninja. As amusing as it is to watch Benny cry "Click! Click! Click!" while hitting "fierce" poses, I just don't get why Tyra keeps bringing him back so often. They must have made some kind of deal on a lavender night at a gay crossroads or something, because the contortionist bullshit is just unrealistic. And I say that fully aware of the new definitions of "unrealistic" created by this show. But I'm serious. Flexibility can be useful to couture posing and all, but try telling Naomi Campbell that she has to wrap her leg around her head and cram herself into a box. Or Tyra herself, for that matter. Nobody could actually do that unless you are, like guest model Bree, a Model/Contortionist. (I want that business card. I also want one that says Math Enthusiast/Bad Ass MC, even though I hate math. What up, Kevin G!)

Also notice that Tyra never participates in these sessions because there's no way she could feign superiority to the girls who actually turn out to be flexible (props to Sheena on this episode, still shocked that Cycle 7's Anchal was good at something besides whining and eating 4 fried eggs at a time). Besides, any major campaign that really wanted some crazy contortion in an ad could afford to photo doctor the shoot. They do it for every major shoot anyway, despite how many times Tyra tells the contestants that they have to "earn" the kind of airbrushing that she gets now. Tell it to the cheese fries, Ty-Ty.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_collins

Also, Benny Ninja is amazingly flexible, but his discomfort always shows in his face when he's doing his "extreme" poses. Especially when he's split-legged across a chair wearing a mini-chapeau rejected from the Moulin Rouge! wardrobe department. Or perhaps it was simply the mental strain of knowing he was about to put 13 girls into what resembled those adult re-birthing canals used in that controversial "attachment" therapy, and the proximity to even a faux vagina was too much for him. You know that guy has not been near a birth canal since he came triple snapping out of his mama's womb.

Hey, is Hannah a racist? Idaho, Alaska! Calling yourself a "stereotypical white person" is definitely asking for trouble and is completely ignorant and stupid, especially when you're talking to an Asian girl and an African-American girl. She must have learned the phrase "dance up on me" from Britney Spears which must mean that one day she found a battery-operated radio out on the tundra somewhere (even though she's never had indoor plumbing or electricity or, clearly, a black best friend like Whitney's). I think she's mostly a naive, inexperienced and ignorant girl who isn't intentionally being a bigoted ho (unlike Cycle 10's asshole Allison and her stupid My Racist Barbie) but despite that, the shit in the pool was not cool. (It never is). Isis was simply backing up and obviously not intentionally violating Hannah's "boundaries" and Hannah's panicked shove clearly reveals her discomfort with Isis and therefore her transphobia. Girl needs to stop hating. Yet I notice she didn't jump out of the pool when Elina's repellent wish to kiss goatface Clark was granted. (Maybe now when Clark's TV bitch factor wears off halfway through the season and she "goes home a lesbian" to her "traditional" town, they'll shoot her!)

Also, I'm sorry Wholahay: I have to call my own "What's a Bureaucracy?" moment here:

Hannah: "If their whole prerogative was making me feel bad..."

Um, yes. I guess that was their prerogative, if not their intention. And it's my prerogative to tell you that you're an idiot who needs a vocabulary lesson. Also, everybody's talkin' all this stuff about me. Why don't they just let me live? (Tell me why!) I don't need permission. Make my own decisions. Oh...Britney could definitely teach her another thing or two.

Wow, I haven't even made it to the judging yet. But I must fiercely sign off for now. But not before pointing out that I really thought that Mr. Jay introduced tonight's photographer as "Microweave". Mike Ruiz should seriously consider that. Wow, Microweave...that could be the ultimate combination of quality beer and cheap hair.

Speaking of hair, Sutan looks HOTTT with his hair cut short. His beauty is aspirational and relatable. Nikeysha, take notes.

Wholahay's Take: "2008: A Tyra Odyssey"

Well children, here we are. After 10 cycles, countless moments of bitchery, Lupus and snaggle-tooth surgery, flesh-eating bacteria and little bits o' autism, we find ourselves embarking upon cycle 11, which we are promised will be the fiercest, most mind-boggling yet. Forget the promises of yesteryear, laddies. This time they *mean* it. They've spent those long, arduous months between cycles 10 and 11 doing mind-numbing fierce research, conducting exhaustive fierce studies, and crafting a fierce Tyrabot--a marvel of sciencyness that looks JUST like the real Tyra, but talks.all.robotic.like.this. I wonder if there's a room in the Top Model Institute of Technology (tMIT for short, delivering the modeltology of the future....TODAY!) where all the prototype Tyrabots are stored. I imagine something similar to the The Stepford Wives: you walk in and all the defective Tyrabot heads turn toward you. An eyeless Tyrabot lumbers in your direction, demanding your eyes. Or a weaveless Tyrabot demands your weave. Ack weaveless Tyrabot. This will keep me up at night. That horrible image in place, here are my thoughts on what may have been the best, but certainly the most teleportation-heavy top model premiere ever:

The Jays

Are there words? Are there really words to describe to describe my reaction upon being introduced to Alpha Jay and Beta Jay? I don’t think there are, really, but on the plus side, I may have discovered EXACTLY which Ken doll Mr. Jay looked like (was he alpha or beta? I can't remember). Some of you fellow children of the eighties might remember Barbie and the Rockers. I know I do. And apparently, so does the tMIT:


Photobucket Image Hosting




Just imagine that with silver hair, as I'm sure you already have.

The laser-beam-model-detectonator-machine-doohickey-or-some-such-bullshit-extraordinaire

I would just like to point out that this marks the second time an episode of Top Model features laser technology, lest we forget this awesomeness:





Clark and Hannah Not-From-Montana-But-Close-Enough

They grew up in towns where getting shot because you're different is....not wrong, just more "traditional"?? What??

Perhaps Clark's town also held the more "traditional" view that the definition of bureaucracy shouldn't be taught in schools, and instead, children should be taught differently. Perhaps that on the eighth day God created red tape, cubicles, and meaningless managerial positions.

Regardless, this blog shall henceforth feature a little segment I like to call the "What's a Bureaucracy?" Award for Dumbest Shit Ever. I decree it.

Today's "What's a Bureaucracy?" Award for Dumbest Shit Ever

Clark: "What's a Bureaucracy?"

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

DOMO ARIGATO TYRA ROBOTO

Oh. No. She. Didn't.

Every time a new cycle begins, I can't imagine how the new premiere could possibly be more ridiculous or inherently lame than the last one. And then Mr. and Miss Jay (come on, could we at least be Ms. Jay?) arrive looking like gay twins from the future spawned from a cross-DNA hybrid of Donatella Versace and Donna Summer mixed in a disco globe.

But before we get to the (true!) tranny fierceness of a brand new cycle, let us first say: Welcome to the Weave! We are Wholahay and Spontaniouse, fierce bitches who have wasted countless precious hours of our lives watching Tyra Banks use onomatopoeia to impart wisdom gleaned from modeling since the age of 17. (In Paris. Did you know?) We decided that instead of merely yelling at the TV every Wednesday night and hotly debating each episode over gchat for hours at a time, we would create this blog, mainly so we could quote the show even more often than we already do.

We also want to give big ups to Potes of televisionwithoutpity.com and to Rich from http://fourfour.typepad.com/ for doing it (like Kanye West) harder, better, faster, stronger. It's also possible that Rich might do anything for a Klondike and that Potes would do anything for a blonde dyke. They've gotten us through many long boring work days, and you should be all over their blogs like Prince was on Apollonia.

(I'm sorry. Goddamn you, So You Think You Can Dance, for making me obsessed with that song).

Welcome to the Weave. Full reports on the fierceness of Cycle 11 to follow soon.