Sizing up hopefuls, body, sometimes, soul
MEET Pink. Head of the high-end women’s division at Wilhelmina Models International, he’s stern and tart and often complaining. Mostly, though, he’s just being honest.
Here’s how he works through an open call of would-be models, conducted in the office lobby, in the opening of the first episode of “The Agency” (VH1, 10 p.m. Tuesdays): “You’re too short.... You’re way too old.... What is going on with this hair here?.... You’re nowhere near tall enough.... You need to work on your skin a bit.... For me, you’re barking up the wrong tree.... You’re not going to be right for us.”
Finally, one girl speaks back: “What do you suggest?”
“Uh, do something else.”
On “The Agency,” modeling is math, not art -- a game of inches. If so-and-so could drop a couple of inches from her waist, and if such-and-such could bulk up and gain some muscle, then all would be right with the world.
Last year, MTV’s “8th & Ocean” failed for thinking that runway attitude could translate into televised swagger. “The Agency” presumes the behind-the-scenes dealings are more compelling, which they are not. The show gets interesting when it shifts attention from office kibitzing to scouting. Everyone firmly believes there are unpolished gems out there for the snatching -- on the street, on the beach, anywhere young people are fit.
One time, they scope out a water park (says an unselfconscious Becky, toeing the line between agent and pedophile, “There’s heaps and heaps of young kids, and they’re all wearing their swimsuits, so we get a chance to look at their bodies”). Later, they study Polaroids and e-mailed flicks like Talmudic texts, hoping to divine secrets from the shape of someone’s chin or the definition of their abs.
Judgments are merciless -- in last week’s episode, Pink described one girl as a “rhombus” (I think he meant “trapezoid,” but still) -- but conflicts are minor: Will the new kid from Toronto keep up his agent’s lie that he plays rugby, not volleyball? Will Tommy Hilfiger then book him for a campaign? (The answers: Yes, sorta. And no, it doesn’t seem so.)
The tension between steady, reasonable Pink and Becky, a miserable junior agent given to late-night drinking and, subsequently, oversleeping, is too lopsided to hold interest.
Besides, they’re all searching for the same thing: a well-proportioned vessel with high earning potential. “America’s Next Top Model,” now in its eighth season (the CW, 8 p.m. Wednesdays), would seem to have the same goal but actually offers a competing idea about beauty: that great models aren’t just born, they can be made.
“ANTM” is less a game of inches than of freeze frames -- and not just because this season features two plus-size models. Each week, aspirants are judged on their best photographs from highly contrived photo shoots. In the season premiere, the contestants had to enact a political viewpoint (pro-gun, pro-choice, anti-fur and the like); last week, they had to play high school cliches (the tramp, the nerd, the outsider, etc.). Often, the quality of the shot has no correlation to the model’s ability; it’s as if the picture exists in its own space, independent of its subject. “You’re not an actress in a movie that has 120 pages of lines to convey a message,” host/executive producer/life coach Tyra Banks tells one reluctant contestant on the judging runway. “It’s one photo, one moment.”
The show’s title is a misnomer -- none of the winners has truly become a top model on the scale of the show’s major-domo; most probably wouldn’t make it past the lobby cattle call on “The Agency.” Perhaps that’s because, unlike “The Agency,” Tyra casts for charisma and seems to believe it’s a commodity as valuable as good cheekbones. Which is to say, some of the pristinely pretty girls don’t make the cut.
On the premiere, Micheline looks like one of the works-in-progress, a classic “ANTM” mold-breaker: pale skin, jet-black hair and twentysomething tattoos. She seems a shoo-in to round out the show’s typically eccentric lineup, which routinely has its share of rhombi. (Think last season’s awkward twins, Michelle and Amanda.)
Except she doesn’t make it and in a moment flips from worthy underdog to entitled diva. “Personality means more than looks, apparently,” she seethes, utterly sour. Ah, how quickly sympathy can turn to schadenfreude.
But take heart, Micheline. Pink’s still on the hunt.
