‘Top Model’: The Ann supremacy

“America’s Next Top Model” special report

By Nadria Tucker

My boyfriend thinks “America’s Next Top Model” is “setting Ann [Ward] up for a fall.” I certainly hope so.

After all, she’s won best photo for 4 weeks in a row, and this cycle badly needs a jumpstart. Sure, there’s the usual “Bish stole my hair extensions” drama, but where are the slap fights? The obligatory trip to the hospital? Host Tyra Banks’ signature meltdown? Nowhere to be found.

Maybe Northport’s Kendal Brown can inject some flair into the proceedings and break Ann’s winning streak. Find out, after the jump …

Will the do-your-own-makeup-and-write-your-own-script Cover Girl/Walmart/Duff Beer challenge stir up some trouble? Not likely.

Kendal leads the first and worst 🙁 group in a makeup demo for a group of comprised mostly of children and grown men. Weird, but not dramatic.

Poor, weird Ann gets the lowest score in the ColonBlow challenge, further supporting the boyfriend’s theory that Ann is ’bout to go down.

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“I was in heaven. Oh my gosh. You know, I watch TV about Rodeo Drive,” Kendal says. Ah yes, RO-deo Drive, home to cowboys, steers and tragedy.

For the photo challenge, the models walk along Rodeo Drive in pairs, joined by a male model. Kendal loves the attention, and creative director Jay Manuel says she “looks like Sarah Jessica Parker in ‘Sex and the City,’ just feeling it.”

Several models struggled with this Beverly Hills shoot, as you can see from the jank above, featuring Kacey Leggett. And this jank gets her sent home.

• • •

Buy this episode or the entire Season Pass
from iTunes. [aff. links]

• • •

The judges love Kendal in both of her photos …

… but Ann wins again, of course, for the 5th week in a row, breaking her own record from last week. “Beyond,” says Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley. Beyond, indeed.

So much for the boyfriend’s conspiracy theory. My conspiracy theory — the one that poor, weird Ann is an alien sent from the planet Amazonia to take over Earth, starting with an invasion of Tyraland — still stands. Yawn.

Birmingham writer Nadria Tucker (@NadriaTucker) dabbles in magical realism and the Southern gothic tradition, but always keeps an eye toward the future of Southern fiction. Her award-winning fiction is character driven and sometimes dark, but usually plays fair. Her work has been featured in publications such as The2ndHand, Lipstick and Birmingham Magazine.

“America’s Next Top Model” airs at 7 p.m. Wednesdays on CW 21.

Is Ann the one to beat this season? Tell us in the comments.

Previous: Episode 5 – Get me off this crazy thing
Next: A Grammy challenge, in which the girls dress each other, and maybe Ann doesn’t win? [Episode 7 – Being Vera Wang]

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On the runway: more on “America’s Next Top Model.”


Posted: Thursday, October 14, 2010, 3:16 am, in Bama, Culture.
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