Modelland by Tyra Banks
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Update:
A couple more chapters? Why not?
Let’s get the plot out of the way first. Because this won’t take long.
In this section, our heroes have entered Modelland.
This is it! What we’ve been waiting for. What the whole world has been waiting for. This is the moment where we enter the world of pure imagination. Where all the hard work pays off.
Aaaand we see a couple weird buildings, a bush seems to be a portal to other spots, and that’s about the extent of it.
Okay, the buildings are kinda strange. A cube building that stands on one of its corners. A building that’s actually a boat. Which I’m pretty sure we have a name for already, and it’s called a “boat”. Or “building”. Either, really. It doesn’t seem to be at all significant that one is a boat and one is a cube. Just know that they aren’t like those shitty, portable buildings you had in elementary school.
There’s this weird thing going on where Tookie is starting to wonder if Modelland isn’t what it seems. Tookie wonders this after seeing an obstacle course where girls on their final year of Modelland training compete within rings of fire or some such shit. And it’s like we, as readers, are supposed to be suspicious that Modelland is doing something shady, but this is after the guide openly admits that the rings of fire place is where models compete in their final year.
It’s like Tookie thinks there’s more going on than meets the eye, except also maybe it’s exactly what meets the eye? I dunno. I can’t even tell. The way this is written is just so godawful that I can’t tell whether Tyra is laying in a secret or telling the readers to keep their eyes open or if we’re seeing the truth or what. This is impossible to parse.
There is a brief moment where we’re trapped in a room that’s made of zippers. I wish I could tell you more, but that’s the extent of the description.
I’ll say this. Tyra respects her audience in their intelligence. She isn’t handfeeding me shit. I don’t even know what this fucking place looks like. MODELLAND. THE PLACE THAT THE BOOK IS NAMED FOR. There’s some weird buildings, a bush teleporter, and a zipper land. From there, go nuts.
And this thing just gets lazier as the chapter wears on.
Page 168, description of the young men. Who are sort of models, but not the stars. Oh, and they come from a place called Bestosterone:
“A group of young men marched in, doing a highly powerful staccato dance. Each was more handsome than the next.”
And page 169, one page later, describing board members. Sorry, Bored members. That’s intentional. A character reminds us just how intentional that is. Anyway:
“Tookie counted six members of the Bored, one stranger than the next.”
Oh, rad. So the description is “Here’s a pretty poorly defined quality, and each subsequent person exhibits that quality more than the last. This is all relative bullshit, but who cares? Modelland!” And if that’s not lazy enough, then we get that same thing on the facing page.
And what the fuck is a powerful staccato dance? Tap dancing? Some shit from Stomp? You made me wait forever for this shit, and now it’s just blowing by! I had to read all about a land where they make candles and have a candle-based economy, and now we finally get to Modelland and you’re like “I don’t know, who’s got the time? They danced, there was fire, the end.”
Ah, there was, however, an interesting little tidbit about the Bored, provided by your friend and mine, Tyra.
Here are the Bored members:
Guru Applaussez: Man with a hand for a head.
An old man with moving tattoos all over his body that change shape and content.
A lizard with yellow eye and a forked tongue who can change colors.
And a “stunning figure that looked like it was three-quarters man, one-quarter woman…He-or she-was muscular, yet thin, with blond hair slicked back in a tight ballerina bun.”
I’ll just point out that THIS character elicits a stronger negative reaction from the crowd of girls than a lizard person, an old man who must be mostly naked if we can see he’s covered with tattoos, and a man who has a hand for a face. I’m not going to get all social justice here. There’s no need because I can talk about this from a storytelling angle.
I just have a hard time believing that this parade of weirdos being ended by someone who’s gender ambiguous is a big fucking deal. Seems like kind of a letdown, to be honest. That’s like having a sideshow with The World’s Fattest Man, The World’s Tiniest Woman, The World’s Ugliest Baby, and then A Guy Who Has Pretty Long Eyebrow Hairs Here And There. Because I’ve seen some people who are gender ambiguous, but I have never, in my life, seen someone with a hand for a fucking head. Or a lizard man. Or a man with living tattoos who mounts a stage mostly naked, slaps at one of his tattoos and the words within the tattoo are altered.
Oh, but this person might have an abnormally large clitoris. Wow. Call the papers.
And seriously, what kind of description is that? One-quarter woman? Believe me, with my thighs, I’m a Schick disposable and a couple bottles of shave gel away from being one-quarter woman. Nay, one-quarter babe.
There is one other thing here. At the top of page 168 we get a little piece that felt, to me, like stream of consciousness. What Tyra was fucking thinking when she wrote this.
Tookie’s new Modelland classmates have just expressed friendship:
“A rush of warmth settled over Tookie. They cared about her well-being. Maybe they were even her new…friends. She let this moment sink in for a second. For the first time in her life, she actually used the word friend in the plural. She made a mental note to herself to start spelling friends with four S’s, friendssss, in her T-Mail Jail. One s for each of the four friends she now had: Dylan, Shiraz, Piper…and, of course, Lizzie.”
If you’re confused about T-Mail Jail, that’s what Tookie calls her diary. I understand the desire to find a word other than diary. But c’mon. I don’t call my fucking diary LL P-Money-Papers or some shit. I call it a diary and I move on.
That section, though, that just felt like the running thing in Tyra’s head. Okay, I’ll call them friends, but I’ll do it like friendssss because there’s four, and each one gets an S. Why the S? Doesn’t matter. Or I could dot the I with four vertical dots maybe. Let me call Microsoft and see if that’s possible.
Friendssss? Jesus, let’s hope she doesn’t make any more friends. Maybe that’s why this book is so goddamn long. Maybe she gets up to a couple hundred friends, and we just have to gut it out every time that word shows up.
Fuck, I’m not even popular, and if I did that based on Facebook, I would have to write friendssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. Every time.
Hey, LL P-Money-Papers,
Well, I made one new friend on FB today. That means I’ve got 207 friendssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. Sometimes I wonder if I should pare down my friendssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss list, but it’s not like you have a limit to how many friendssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss you can have online, and besides, the more, the merrier. It’s like that one episode of Friendssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss where Chandler…
Hell. This book has taken me to hell.
~
OLDER POST:
Alright. I’m back to reading this muhfucker.
That’s right. After a long hiatus, it’s on again. Chapters 11, 12, and 13.
You may not remember where we left off. And that’s okay because, and I promise this is true, it does not matter. At all.
Here’s what you need to know:
Tookie de la Creme is our hero. She’s been selected to go to Modelland, where the most beautiful-est girls go to become models.
When we left off, the loose threads were that Tookie was feeling inadequate, and she’d entered a Scout’s gossamer ballsack to be whisked off to Modelland. But first, we have to pick up a few friends.
Such as Dylan. Dylan has big thighs, a big butt, and the attitude to match. Uh, big attitude. I guess people with big butts don’t always have attitude? See, THIS is the kind of shit I want science doing. Studies on how butt size and behavior correlate. I think we’d see an interesting, butt-shaped bell curve.
Anyway, Dylan is probably most known for her verbal tic. Her catchphrase is “cuh-ray-ze”, but that doesn’t stop her from saying, “Ex-cuh-yuse me” and others.
At the beginning of this section, we’ve got Dylan in the ballsack, and I was SO glad to get back to this because, well, I’ll let Tyra take the wheel here.
“The pouch swept through the green portal again. After a few minutes, a vanilla-scented breeze tickled Tooki’s nose. In seconds, the pouch began to fill with white goo.”
And there you have it. Definitely a ballsack. Do I think Tyra was representing a sexual thing here, that the ascendancy to Modelland involves the loss of virginity, a baptism in semen? No. I WISH that was what happened, but it turns out that the ballsack isn’t filling with cum, it’s filling with candle wax. See this ballsack teleports and ends up in weird spots, like inside a streetlight or coming out of an old man’s ear or some shit. And in this case, we are inside a candle. Why? Because we’re in the land of Canne Del Abra. That name immediately made me regret restarting this book, by the way. Fuckin A’. Canne Del Abra.
Canne Del Abra is a land where all of the economy, nay, all life revolves around candle production. I can’t help but wonder if the dystopia in this book couldn’t have been avoided by a little bit of diversification. I mean, a whole country devoted to making candles? We don’t even need our disparate weird aunts doing this in their garages, let alone an entire country of it. But, whatever. We pick up Shiraz, who thinks she’s perfect, but she’s 4’7″. I don’t know conversions, but she’s like, 10 vertical furstones or something in metric.
Then we roll over to the land of Sanscolor where everyone is albino.
Tookie does say that she knows the people have albinism, but isn’t sure whether it’s proper to call someone an albino.
Turns out, this is a hotly debated topic amongst albinos.
Some hate the word because, basically, it’s been used as an insult. Others feel like it’s the term. To paraphrase one albino forum poster: “If you have diabetes, you’re diabetic. If you have dyslexia, you’re diabetic. If you have albinism, you’re albino.”
Frankly, it doesn’t matter. Because Tyra is making up all this bullshit anyway, so she could make up a different form of albinism or a completely different thing or whatever because all the rest of this shit is insane anyway. And if you choose to call your land SansColor, give me a break.
Let’s get back to the story. And for the record, you can call me an asshole OR person with assholism. But other assholes might feel differently, so be aware. And hey, you could call me an asshole or someone with assholism, but I prefer “Pete” #NotAllAssholes
Okay, then we arrive at the gates of Modelland. Yes, fucking finally.
We meet a tailor who has a hand for a face. This isn’t explained much beyond Dylan’s amazing one-liner “This thang gives new meaning to the phrase ‘Talk to the hand'”. Ah, yes. One of the finer wits of our time. Jesus Christ. I’m not sure whether the character was created specifically FOR this joke or if the joke was applied to the character. Because that’s how this book is insane. You can’t tell. Why are they meeting a tailor outside Modelland? Who the fuck knows? Why does he have a handface? Why does he choose to clap by headhandbutting his regular hands instead of clapping normal style?
In short: The. Fuck?
Okay, then we find out that the scout is none other than Ci~L.
Yes, that’s a tilde.
And yes, we’re told how to pronounce this name, and the tilde has NO effect. “See-ell.” Good. Good thing that happened. I guess that shit’s not getting much use on the keyboard. Frankly, it beats that Beyonce accent bullshit. That’s hard as hell to type. I’ve got the tilde. It’s right here. ~~~~~~~~ I’ve got tildes all day long, so why not?
Do I think Tyra just looks at a keyboard and says, “Hey, THIS thing!”? Yes. Yes I do.
Ci~L is all of the following: A scout, an Intoxibella, a “7seven-7” and a slam poet.
I.
Okay, I don’t know which of these things I hate more. On the one hand, the 7seven-7 means she’s one of the 7 selected models, and a rare one who exhibits all 7 potential model powers at once. I wanted to list these, but they’re very stupid and unimportant. Nothing cool like opening a door to a pocket dimension of all lasers with your eyelids so it appears that lasers shoot out of your eyes. Nothing cool like that.
But the slam poet thing, that’s just albino as hell. Aw, shit. Busted. Busted using albino as a slur, as we do.
The slam poet thing is so dumb. Why in the fuck does she need to be a slam poet? Why does that matter at all? Reading about Ci~L, it’s like old Superman comics where he exhibits a new power every issue because it’s like “Well, he’s super at EVERYTHING, right?” Which is how Superman once re-assembled a broken machine he saw briefly because of his Super Photographic Memory. Or when Superman used his Super Broadcasting to turn his voice into radio waves. Super Kissing. And, regrettably, the power to create Super Midgets. Tiny Superman that shot out of his hands. Because you know what would be a lot more useful than Superman? TINY Supermen! With the same powers!
Okay, two last important things.
1. We are about to enter Modelland. Now, there’s some kind of statue face thing that verifies you’re supposed to enter Modelland, and there’s speculation in the book that Ci~L is somehow sneaking her ballsack full of freaks and geeks past the face. This is not hinted at lightly, but bashed over the head of anyone dumb enough to read this, so be aware that something shady is happening.
2. Zarpressa shows up! Tookie’s nemesis! Who is also broke and dug in the garbage and Tookie saw it one time.
I just want to reiterate, one more time, that we’re on page 149. And we are, just now, entering Modelland.
Up to this point, it’s been this huge question. “Will Tookie MAKE IT?” Ah, the tension. You could cut it with a knife.
Look, can I put on my editor hat for a second? Say what I would have said to Tyra here?
Tyra,
First off, this shit is bananas. But I think it’s the on purpose kind of bananas, so keep going.
One thing. Can we get to fucking Modelland already? Kurt Vonnegut once said that the way to write a story is to start as close to the end as possible. And many a good story has been written by breaking that rule, but I feel like you’ve broken that rule, exhumed Vonnegut’s corpse and crammed it up his skeleton urethra. Because goddamn, there is a whole lot of nothing that happens before we get to Modelland, which is where we want to go.
It’s like this.
Pretend this book is a road trip we’re taking together. I’m driving, you’re the passenger.
And it’s like two years later, and you’re telling someone about this road trip.
You don’t need to start with “I woke up before Pete picked me up. I took a shit, and I wiped 17 times. I call that a smearster. Then, I got in the car, and three hours later, and this is where things get interesting.”
Okay, no. Just start when the first thing happens. I don’t need to know about the shit you took and what kind it was unless that has some bearing on the story later.
In this first 150 pages, you’re taking shits left and right and telling me about each one. And you’re not wiping, Tyra! You’re not wiping! You’re making a mess and dragging these poo threads along behind you, unresolved.
This metaphor is getting all out of hand, so let me put it like this: You can probably cut the first 150 and be better off.