Modelland by Tyra Banks
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
01/27/2016 Update:
Modelland.
Modelland.
Modelland.
I was singing this song in my head today, and I realized it was the background vocals to the Simpsons’ monorail song, but I replaced “monorail” with “Modelland”, and the upbeat tone of hopefulness with a tone that’s…more like something from a Silent Hill game.
Last Time On Pete’s Exhaustive Review Of Modelland:
Oldy McOld got turned old when she jumped over the wall, and the Unicas needed to make a new escape plan.
By the way, the wall Oldy went over, the one that was struck by lightning until it turned transparent? And then struck again to be a 2-way mirror? And then struck again to go back to normal? Well, now it’s “reconfigured itself to create a collage of [Oldy] before jumping and after.”
Okay. The wall can just reconfigure itself, but before it had to be struck by lightning.
How many powers does this wall have and how can we deploy them in the worst possible ways?
And why is a wall the most interesting character at the moment?
I don’t have the answers to these questions, but the bad news is that we now must leave this fascinating wall to go into the M building, where the models are all being called for some reason.
Yes, the same M building Tookie freaked out about being in, and the M building that we’re all NEVER supposed to enter. For those keeping score, we’re now entering the forbidden building twice within the same 10% of this book. For being a forbidden building, we seem to end up there a lot lately.
I’m fucking DYING to see if Tyra breaks the 4th wall. I can smell it. I feel like it’s going to happen. This would have been the perfect time. “Because in Modelland, the rules get broken out of narrative necessity, dahlink.”
We go back in the building, and Tookie notices a lot of security guards and how difficult it must be to get in or out of the M, and she wonders how she could have escaped before. But thank goodness, she comes up with a solid reasoning of how it worked: “The whole ordeal was just a blur now.”
Perfect.
You know what? I’m tired of being polite. I think Tyra Banks is stupid. I really do. Because the only explanation for having Tookie escape the M, which she never went into willingly, THEN go back in, THEN notice a bunch of security and how locked down the place is, THEN wonder how she escaped a day ago, and THEN decide she must have forgotten something from like a day ago, the only explanation for this is that Tyra is stupid.
The Belladonna shows up, and she leads the models in a song about the girl who went over the wall. There’s nothing like a Modelland song. Shall we?
Modelland was once her home … home … home,
But foolish lust we don’t condone … done … done.
Now a cursed and cracked gemstone … stone … stone,
Modelland is not her home.
Where to begin.
Let’s try and figure out how this is, in any way, a song.
Syllabically, we’re looking at
7
8
7
7
So that doesn’t really make sense.
The third line doesn’t really seem to have a subject.
“Done” is not pronounced as “doan.” It’s done. Like finished. This chanty thing doesn’t really work.
I don’t know why we have a space, ellipsis, and then a space.
And look at the first and last line. Modelland was once her home. Modelland is not her home. These pretty much say the same thing, and they’re two lines of a four-line song. 50% of this crappy song is the same thing.
How is she a gemstone?
How did we not use the rhyme “crone”?
How did we not- GAH! You know what? I’ll just redo it.
Oh Modelland, this was her home, home home,
she jumped the wall to jump a bone, bone, bone
and now she’s just a dusty crone, crone, crone
there you have it. Now let’s go home.
But the models didn’t have my version, they had the Belladonna’s stupid version, and she made everyone sing it 6 times. Why? Because fuck you, it’s Modelland.
That should be the motto of this book. The flap should say:
What’s the mystery?
Fuck you, it’s Modelland.
What will happen to these girls?
Fuck you, it’s Modelland.
Why are you holding this?
Fuck you. It’s Modelland.
The Belladonna gives a speech about how she’s pissed because Oldy left FOR A MAN, and we get-
WOOPWOOPWOOP! CLUMSY TYRA FEMINISM ALERT! CLUMSY TYRA FEMINISM ALERT!
Zarpessa: But Madame Belladonna, I don’t think it’s wrong to live for a man. Their intelligence is far greater than ours, and it is our duty to submit and love and-
Belladonna:…Where on earth did you manage to come up with that rubbish? So you would derail your life to be with a man, you would risk your FACE, your Modelland Intoxibella future, for that nonsense you call…love?
Yes, it seems that for the last few chapters, Zarpessa has existed to spout the dumbest, anti-woman stuff, which works perfectly because we all want to see her go down a peg. Two birds with one stone, we have her say something anti-woman, and then slap her down. We deliver a message FOR THE KIDS, and we get to see Zarpessa flattened. Win-win.
Kids, I just want to say, do not read this book if you want to learn anything about equality, beauty, songs, architecture, love, family relationships, plotting, storytelling, makeup, dorm life, butts, people with hands for faces…the only thing that one walks away from this book with is a peek inside Tyra’s head, which is what I can only assume is what’s in that puzzle box from Hellraiser, and complete bafflement when it comes to the state of American book publishing.
Also, hold the phone. The Belladonna says that dating a man means you risk your face? What does that mean? Is there something I’m missing out on when it comes to dating? Is there some kind of power I possess to sap the youth from a woman’s face and draw it into my own body? Because if there is, tell me now, or so help me I’ll find out for myself and we will ALL feel the wrath of my new abilities to mummify a face. Women I date, the before and after will look like the before and after of the President, where he goes in looking young and ready and comes out of office looking like his last act was to sacrifice a turtle and a hippo who became unlikely friends, but he had to kill them by tossing them into separate volcanoes where they burned alone and sad.
Alright, so love is not cool in Modelland.
Oh, also, the scene with the Belladonna takes place in pitch dark because apparently no one actually knows what she looks like. Which I would have thought would have been more important up to now, that she’s an unknown, but I’m fucking stupid and fuck you, it’s Modelland.
I mean, fuck me, it’s Modelland, but this book is so bad that I don’t even know that the Belladonna hasn’t been SEEN yet. That seems like a big deal, and it’s a big deal in this scene, 70% of the way through the book. But up til now, I just assumed that, like everything, the Belladonna just wasn’t described because Tyra doesn’t describe things until she has a wacky idea for them. Really looking forward to this one…
Interlude. The Diabolical Divide.
The travelers are miserable. Creamy takes the fuck over. She apparently knows some kind of swamp monster whose body is made out of musical instruments.
Mmmmmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmmmmm!
“Sideways-turned cymbals for teeth.”
The monster eats someone because Creamy is crazy as hell, and it’s pretty clear at this point that Creamy knows an awful lot about the Diabolical Divide, but we aren’t being told what why or how. This whole business with Creamy and the Diabolical Divide has all the trademarks of any good Modelland mystery. It’s confusing, I’m not sure what we’re supposed to think, and fuck you, it’s Modelland.