America’s Next Top Model held a casting call today in Boston for “ingenues who believe they’re uber-model material”. With the glowing remnant of a Floridian tan, freshly-tweezed eyebrows, and a scant two weeks of root growth on my head, well, let’s just say the planets are aligned. Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed about being a model. I can’t sit another day in my cubicle, writing software documentation, knowing that I haven’t given the high-stress, high-stakes world of top modeling my best shot.
But when I downloaded the eligibility requirements and 15-paged application, I discovered that only women ages 18 to 27 years are allowed to be America’s Top Model. How utterly unfair. I’m sure the casting call will be filled with women who may be chronologically younger than me, but much, much uglier.
I am duly crestfallen, but at least I didn’t start filling out the 15-paged application, which asks an encyclopedic range of personal questions like “How often do you get drunk?” “When was the last time you hit, punched, kicked, or threw something in anger?” “Have you ever been to a nude beach?” “If you could hold any political office, what would it be and why?”
(Can you imagine the political ambitions of America’s Next Top Model candidates? I bet 70% of them say “President,” simply because that’s the only political office they are sure about. 15% will offer a hodgepodge of legitimate positions like “mayor” and “school board member,” while the remaining 15% will write inappropriate things like “television reporter,” “personal shopper,” “school principal,” and “princess.”)
