America’s Next Top Model was a reality television show which pitted contestants against each other in a variety of competitions to determine who would win a modeling contract with makeup manufacturer Revlon. It is hosted and produced by Tyra Banks, herself a supermodel.

The debut season of the show premiered on the UPN network in 2003. On it, 10 female contestants were placed in a New York City apartment. Spanning a wide variety of women of various races, heights and body sizes, they had been whittled down from a pool of thousands to compete against one another in various contests designed to simulate the extreme demands placed on professional models. Each week one contestant was eliminated by a panel of judges: Banks herself, clothing designer Kimora Lee Simmons, Beau Quillian , and Janice Dickenson, who bills herself as the world's first supermodel.

The show takes on a reality show style of format in that we not only see these competitions but the effects they have on the participants, as well as the drama of their day to day lives while participating. This included several contestants who were devout Christians and disapproved of homosexuality, to the dismay of lesbian contestant Ebony Haith . The winner of the first season was Adrianne Curry, a Illinois woman with a thick accent who had been pursuing modeling since her early teens.

The second season of the show, in 2004, featured 12 contestants this time. Though the format was the same, the production took several different angles on how the show was presented. The judges were often much more harsh in their criticism of the contestants. In particular, one contestant, Catie Anderson , was repeatedly told that she looked or acted like a prostitute. The contests in this season were also more sexual: the first one required contestants to pose nude in body paint, something that plus-size contestant Anna Bradfield opted out of, causing her to be eliminated first. There was also a lesbi-erotic photo shoot towards the end of the show where the remaining four contestants posed nude in seductive positions in pairs of two.

The second season also spawned a clear-cut "hated" character in the form of African American Camille McDonald . Normally not of note, as a "bad-girl/bad-guy" character often pops up in reality T.V., Camille's race came into play when it was pointed out by critics and the NAACP that many reality shows airing at this time seemed to peg the black female character as the one to dislike. Camille did make it into the final four, however. The second season also featured Mercedes Scelba-Shorte , a young woman whose struggle with Lupus was detailed on the show. She fought against it to become one of the two finalists.

Another contestant of note was Shandi Sullivan , a lithe, blonde check-out girl from middle America. Shandi began the show as a very mousy and poorly dressed girl in glasses, but by the end she had transformed into an extremely skilled model. She made it into the top three, but after the end of her season, has returned to working in retail. In point of fact, Sullivan's sister was found to be auctioning off many of the designer clothes worn by Shandi on the show (and consequently given to her) in an attempt to help her pay her way to New York City and pursue modelling full time. (Perhaps this is a great testament to the longevity of the fame accorded to reality television stars.) The show has also produced a male model copy-cat show on the Bravo network, called Manhunt. It's hosted by Carmen Electra.

The third season of the show also occurred in 2004, but was less popular than the first two and retread much of previously covered ground. This time one of the finalists was Amanda, a woman who is legally blind. However, the final two were Yaya Da Costa Johnson and Eva Pigford, who went head-to-head in a very elegant Japanese fashion show. Both women were African-American, while no black contestant in either previous season had made it to the final two. Eva was declared the winner.

Contestants

Cycle 1 contestants (in order of elimination)

• Tessa Carlson
• Katie Cleary
• Nicole Panattoni
• Ebony Haith
• Giselle Samson
• Kesse Wallace
• Robin Manning
• Elyse Sewell
• Shannon Stewart
• Adrianne Curry

Cycle 2 contestants (in order of elimination)

• Anna Bradfield
• Bethany Harrison
• Heather Blumberg
• Jenascia Chakos
• Xiomara Frans
• Catie Anderson
• Sara Racey-Tabrizi
• Camille McDonald
• April Wilkner
• Shandi Sullivan
• Mercedes Scelba-Shorte (Mercedes Yvette)
• Yoanna House

Cycle 3 contestants (in order of elimination)

• Magdalena Rivas
• Leah Darrow
• Julie Titus
• Laura "Kristi" Gromment
• Jennipher Frost
• Kelle Jacob
• Cassie Grisham
• Toccara Jones
• Nicole Borud
• Norelle Van Herk
• Ann Markley
• Amanda Swafford
• Camara "Yaya" Da Costa Johnson
• Eva Pigford

External link

• IMDB entry