Television
On top down under
Thick accents and dubious IQs are cringe-making on reality shows.
Laura got her teeth fixed. Yay. Rebecca Rose got voted off the Island. Wah. In these complex times, life is very simple on New Zealand’s Next Top Model. You walk, you pose, you pout, you cry. It’s actually quite refreshing. That’s my excuse for sidling in when my 17-year-old is imbibing the latest life lessons from this group of alarming role models.
Rebecca Rose was expelled for having only “one look”. I don’t remember the supermodels who invented the concept of supermodels – Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton, etc – having more than one look. In fact, all models have the same look. The default setting is of one with something unfortunate lodged somewhere inconvenient. If they look uncomfortable, that’s the point. Laura described one of her designer outfits as “comfy”. There is no “comfy” in fashion, as Laura was informed in no uncertain terms. Wah.
The girls have much to learn about etiquette for models. Basically, you are not allowed to do anything you aren’t ordered to do. “You can offer generic opinions but you do not critique a designer’s design,” instructed judge Colin Mathura-Jeffree, when a model offered a non-generic assessment – “I hate my outfit” – of a designer’s design.
He also demonstrates quite regularly an essential principal of fashion philosophy: I’m a bitch, therefore I am. “Quite a wonderful-looking eggplant” was Colin’s verdict when Hosanna modelled the outfit a designer made for her from a pile of Dress-Smart tat. The aubergine-like Hosanna took the insult in her slightly bewildered stride. “When Colin made the eggplant comment I didn’t care,” she declared, “because I didn’t really know what an eggplant was.”
Much that is said on the show is obtuse yet somehow inarguable. “Four T-shirts sewn together,” complained the moody Teryl-Leigh of her outfit, in a Kiwi accent that could strip varnish. “I thought it looked like four T-shirts sewn together.”
Top model-judge speak certainly rivals sports speak when it comes to staggering pointlessness. Judge: “I think the girls that aren’t rising to the top are going to say goodbye.”
Indeed. And so it proved, when Lucy didn’t rise to the top and had to say goodbye. They flew the poor thing to Sydney in order to send her home, while the other girls jetted off to LA. Wah.
There were sheep. There were kiwifruit. There were gnomes. In other words, the New Zealand leg of The Amazing Race was another show that will do little for our reputation as a nation with an IQ larger than our jandal size. The contestants who dropped in on their chaotic and ultimately meaningless way around the globe were unlikely to notice. “I want to go to New Zealand so bad!” cried one. “I don’t know where New Zealand is!” enthused another. “I wonder if they like blondes in New Zealand,” mused Marissa (or was it Brooke?). “I’m sure they have blondes,” the other one reassured her. “We’re not, like, rare.”
Phil Keoghan maintained his slightly odd accent even back on home turf. When Kiwis put on an American accent, for some reason “Tina” becomes “Tee-ner”. Never mind. He was busy. Amazing Race participants are supposed to immerse themselves in the local culture. This meant, apparently, climbing Auckland’s Sky Tower, treading kiwifruit and playing a game of “match the moko” with a bunch of tirelessly warrior-like Maori warriors. There were some anxious moments for one mother-son team: “The only thing I was hoping was ‘Please do not eat my Mom’,” reported the son. Fortunately his mother had not encountered any Kiwi fashion designers and therefore did not look like an eggplant.
The concept of the hongi caused confusion – “Kiss him! Kiss him!” – as it did during Apec 1999, when then Australian PM John Howard puckered up and moved in for a smooch.
Squeezing kiwifruit with your feet didn’t really seem like much of a challenge but it turned out to be not only tedious – “keep smushin’!” – but also painful. A couple of the seemingly tough blokes gave up but it was a rare, glorious moment for the blondes, Marissa and Brooke. They were surprisingly good at it: “These kiwis are, like, exfoliating our legs!”
I’m not sure how much anyone learned about our nation. No one told one bickering couple that when you get a flat tyre in New Zealand you do not stand in the middle of the road and scream “Help!”. Somehow, that couple survived, bickering throughout. The blondes did not manage so well. Unable to build on their kiwi-smushin’ triumph, they were sent home after a leg of the competition that made New Zealand’s Next Top Model seem like intellectual fare. Still, the whole thing no doubt enhanced our reputation internationally as a slightly idiotic, sometimes painful destination. Yay.
