FIERCEFILE™: An Audience With Latifah

ANTM is trying my patience. There, I've said it. They've managed to suck the life out of this cycle so far, and I am not amused.

I was really looking forward to this week because it meant our first view of the new opening credits and theme remix...wow, what a letdown. I'm not sure if Tyra's voice has always been the one sampled for the "Wanna be on top?" line, but man it sounds awful this cycle, and just proves that this cycle's gonna be all about TYRA -- which I've known about since before the cycle started, but my attitude towards it has now veered closer to the negative end of the blessing/curse axis. The music itself is so lifeless and tepid it makes the theme from The West Wing sound like club music. And the graphics on the credits are astonishingly low rent. Whose idea was it to go with brown?? Maybe somebody was trying to subtley warn everyone that this cycle is going to be crap.


First up this week were the makeovers, another big disappointment. From the creepy graffitti-lite coloring book drawings of the models' new hairstyles (which looked more like the drawings you'd find on Barbie® packaging circa 1979, or something scrawled on the back of a 9th grader's pink Trapper Keeper) to the fact that they really only did one radical makeover (Jaeda), it was again just plain dull...until Jay Manuel went OFF on the models for crying and moaning about getting their hair cut by a professional. I don't know what crawled up Jay's highly toned keester and died this week, but let's have more of this please.

The Queen Latifah challenge was slightly entertaining. It was a nice attempt at turning ANTM into a video game (why hasn't that happened for real yet? I'd buy the hell out of an ANTM video game!), and it conveniently gave Monique something to be bitchy about again. But the artist formerly known as Dana Owens has so embarrassingly drunk the CoverGirl Corporate Kool-Aid that I was clutching my stomach every time she used the term "product." You've come a long, sad way, homegirl.


And now for the photoshoots. I'm getting really sick and tired of being told that Anchal is amazingly beautiful; yes, she has brief moments that might make you think she's all that and a bag of papadums, but look closely and you'll see her face is frighteningly similar in structure to that of a Peanuts® character: her head is a huge bubble and her tiny mouth is swimming in a sea of cheek. I'm sure that's why they didn't chop her hair off during the makeover, because then it wouldn't be there to distract you from her GIGANTIC HEAD.


Megg has no business being on this show. I know she's there because of her "spunky middle American rockstar personality," but please...her photoshoot this week made her look like a learning-disabled squirrel. Was she chewing tobacco while they were taking pictures? What is the deal with her mouth? That's not just an underbite, it's a bad case of Frankenstein Jaw.


And I have to admit I found myself saying "Who dat?" when they talked to CariDee at the end...I had completely forgotten she existed. Which means she's in line to be this cycle's Joanie.

It was somewhat of a relief to see Megan go (she was such a poor man's Mollie Sue), although it was really obvious that it was Monique's turn to go home and they kept her just because she's this cycle's resident bitch and it makes for better television to keep her.

Here's hoping next week gets better.