I admit that I am a fan of America's Next Top Model. I am NOT, however, a fan of Tyra Banks. The onetime supermodel can put on a good show, but she in all truth is one fucked up bitch. It's downright deplorable when the foreign franchises of ANTM have more successes in creating legitimate top models for their respective markets than the original. A lot of that is due to Tyra; she says that she is looking to revive the supermodel in American culture, but in 11 cycles, she has yet to show us one person who has been able to become a legitimate force in the modeling industry. Elyse Sewell, 3rd in the inaugural cycle in summer 2003, has had the most success of all the ANTM veterans. But not in the USA; her success has been in the relatively small but growing Asian markets.

I don't like her talk show. It seems that Tyra is trying to be the next Oprah, and has gone to extraordinary lengths to model her show and philanthropic activities after her. I'm surprised that she hasn't created a school for disenfranchised girls in Angola or somewhere like that. How does one say "fierce" in Portuguese? Anyway, Tyra likes to talk about HER and what SHE HERSELF has gone through. Even when she was interviewing Janet Jackson, Tyra saw fit to turn the discussion around and focus on TY-TY.

One other thing that annoys me is her rather patronizing view of gays. I'm sure that she likes to fancy herself as an ally (and it was noble of her to foot the bill for Cycle 11 finalist Isis King's surgery to make her the woman she wanted to be), but in practice she doesn't seem to be that understanding. In her world, gays are fierce creatures who make her look good at the expense of themselves. When is Mr. Jay Manuel going to get his due? When is Miss J. Alexander going to get hers? Sutan? Christian Marc? Danilo? Anyone? She doesn't seem to understand that not all gays are snappy, feisty, fierce creatures.

She recently had a bunch of self-loathing gays on her show, some of whom were planning to go "hetero". Now, i admit that I am a self-loathing person, but my sexuality in and of itself has little to do with it. My self-loathing has more to do with the fact that sometimes I don't think I am good enough for anyone or anything. I was self-loathing before I had any sophisticated knowledge of sex and sexuality. And yes, there are days when I hate being gay. But would I go the hetero route? Absolutely not.

Is that all that Tyra thinks there is to gays? Either we're flaming queens or we're self-loathing faggots in her eyes. Tyra has never shown a positive portrayal of gay people who are none of those things. Has she ever interviewed hot gay guys who are not flaming queens? No. The closest that she ever did was a roundtable discussion with straight men who do gay porn, which was ridiculous in and of itself. She has never done anything with lipstick lesbians. Or even bisexuals. Tyra, for all her gay-friendliness, may possibly be one of the most gay-ignorant people on the face of the earth.