REVIEW | ‘Reality Check’ fails to unpack Tyra Banks’ girlboss impact

Reality Check: America’s Next Top Model

Rating: 2.5/5

As #MeToo and cancel culture became commonplace in the mid-2010s, so did the concept of a girlboss. A woman in a leadership position with the ambition and talent to boot. But just as quickly as it came to prominence, so did its many faces, including on-and-off supermodel Tyra Banks.

Famed for her meteoric rise on the runways of Paris and Milan, Banks’ career is a colourful one defined by commendable acting chops and impeccable business acumen. This is something that is neglected in Netflix’s Reality Check: America’s Next Top Model documentary, a look back at the competition series that was a makeover show disguised as a modelling bootcamp.

The documentary attempts to break down what really went on behind the scenes of ANTM, as it is affectionately known. In her scenes on Reality Check, Banks tries to make it seem that the woke lens in which television is viewed today is to blame for the backlash; it’s actually a sentiment best applied to the plight of its contestants — particularly Shandi Sullivan. In Sullivan’s case, her sexual assault was finally given the care it deserved, rather than Banks and her production team’s approach to reframe her as an adulterer — even in follow-up photoshoots on the show.

This emotional peak should have led the direction of the doccie, which leaves several unanswered questions:

• What are the structures in Tyra’s Bankable Productions, and how were decisions made?
• How did UPN and eventually The CW approach legal ramifications with unsafe work environments for greenlit productions?
• What are the repercussions of a show like this harming its contestants, and just how concrete were their contracts?

These questions are left unanswered because the show does what Netflix does best in this genre: stir the pot.

In a series of YouTube interviews, musician Oliver Twixt delivers the most concise breakdown of ANTM experiences — in particular with Jeana Turner, who actually triggered the domino effect on Top Model with her exposé. When the show got cancelled, it came at a price and their NDAs expired, not Banks’ misrepresentation that it was young Gen Z audiences who misunderstood the show’s intentions due to it being set in the 2000s — an excuse that is as valid as viewing Diddy’s abuse of power as one big noughties oopsie.

This is also the issue to be considered with Banks. Platforming herself as an early-stage girlboss, she was able to use multiple levels of her platforms to display the control she had on every project she worked on. It’s a network that connects her all-girls camp to her motivational work on ANTM, which was heavily marketed on her eponymous talk show that canvassed her app, was succeeded by her fictional novel that marketed her makeup line that opened doors to her ice cream empire — all wrapped together with the promise of teaching you how to “smize”.

These career pivots are born from Banks’ foundation of being bullied not only as a youth but in her career as well. Teased for her lanky shape and green eyes as a child, she left her detractors in the dust by finding success in the modelling industry. She would also come to prominence due to a “beef” with Naomi Campbell, whom she interviewed about the industry-fuelled beef between them.

This has allowed Banks to build a brand of empowerment based on a foundation of eternal victimhood. As a result, Banks is not held accountable in the documentary. It’s not built for that to happen, and neither are her former panellists and production team, who answer questions gingerly, avoiding being cancelled. So rather than pivot and break down the systemic issues within fashion and, more so, reality TV, what we get is a misguided witch hunt hoping to burn Banks at the stake with empty cans of Deep Heat.

While it is important to hear the stories of these women and how they survived the irresponsible environment they were in, it’s also important to note the troubling trend of documentaries that are not concerned with uncovering anything new but catching the eyeballs of viewers who are not discerning. This truncated version of events scratches the itch to either vilify or vindicate Banks.

So in some twisted way, Reality Check seems to capture the spirit of ANTM in its three episodes. A glossy dive deep into the underbelly of a show obsessed with makeovers and beauty standards. While it does raise flags about the dangers of being a girlboss, it never really cares about what needs to be done to stop it. Much like Banks herself, Reality Check navel-gazes and pretends it is not part of the problem.