Modelland by Tyra Banks
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Howdy,
In celebration of finishing half of this book, I posted ALL the reviews thus far in one long-ass mofo of a post. So if you want to get caught up and enjoy the fun, head on over: https://www.helpfulsnowman.com/?p=7203
01/18/2016 Update:
Love interest? Love interest.
Our love interest is a man named Bravo from Modelland’s male counterpart, Bestosterone. Let the brilliance of that one sink in. We changed a whole letter there.
The whole Bestosterone thing is confusing. It seems that this is where male models go, but it also seems that the Bestosteronies are mostly construction workers who rebuild crap in Modelland? While also being photographed? So perhaps while Modelland is a school of sorts, Bestosterone is more of a work study? If this is a scathing commentary on higher education, and if Modelland classes about keeping your eyes open in high winds is supposed to be Tyra’s editorial on classes like The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender, and Media (a real class which, if anyone had a brain, would just be a constant loop of “Party in the U.S.A.” and whippets), then congratulations are in order. But like many aspects of this book, the line between half-baked idea and genius is pretty thin.
Well, not really. Hmm.
It’s almost like, reading this book is like how I felt about Shakespeare in high school. If you read something ASSUMING that everything has double or even triple meaning, then it’s easy to find that double or triple meaning. If I watch Demolition Man with the assumption that this is not a straight-up, balls-out action extravaganza, but instead a commentary on the way modern action movies have made someone like Stallone feel as though he’s lost and confused in a future that doesn’t make sense, then I bet, voila, that’s the movie I’ll see.
Anyway, I think that this whole Bestosterone thing is just stupid because Bravo and Tookie are just a bit at odds. Why? Because at one point, Tookie had a whipped cream goober hanging from her nose, and Bravo pointed it out to her, not unpolitely.
It’s like pointing out something’s in your friend’s teeth. For some reason, we all get defensive, but you take a breath and say, “Okay, this person isn’t trying to hurt me. They’re telling me something was in my teeth because there was something in my teeth. The implication wasn’t that there’s something in my teeth and therefore I should kill myself.”
But, you know, if the romance was easy, it just wouldn’t be fun, right? There has to be a reason it doesn’t work right away. And sure, this is a book where we could decide it wouldn’t work because, I don’t know, Bravo has a robo penis, or Bestosterone men are like Ken dolls downstairs, but no, we should just come up with a silly, awkward thing that nobody would ever do.
If I was in my teens and an extremely attractive woman told me that I had something in my teeth, and then continually went out of her way to talk to me and hit on me, I think I’d get over it real quick. REAL quick. She could repeat it over and over, say it in our wedding vows, name our firstborn Crapstuckinteeth, but if the person was attractive and I liked her, I think I’d be able to get past it.
Anyway, we’ve doddled too long. It’s half past aqua and we have to get to W.O.W. class.
WOW takes place in a giant ball, which pulls the girls into it via magnetism.
Let’s just ignore the fact that a magnet doesn’t pick up human flesh. ALSO, let’s ignore the braces stuck to the magnet AND the fact that Tookie’s filling gets pulled out despite the fact that braces and fillings, though affecting the quality of an MRI image, won’t pose a health risk or get pulled off your face. Let’s ignore that. Let’s ignore everything and sate our curiosity with the ICP classic, “Fuckin’ magnets, how do they work?”
War of Words. Commonly called WOW, or even more commonly called Debate. But this is Modelland, remember? We can’t call things what they are. We have to come up with insane names for shit.
WOW is taught by a troll man named Mattjoe Von Megalo. That’s all that we really need to say about him, other than he asks the class for a first debate topic, and they decide on bra versus no bra.
Shall we just transcribe the point-counterpoint:
“To bra or not to bra. That is the question. The melon fruit is one to be supremely relished. A sweet treat one should enjoy in its pure rawness, without a fork to spear its tender flesh or a napkin to sop up the luscious juice that drips from our chins. Honeydews, cantaloupes, casabas, crenshaws, muskmelons, and watermelons. Best appreciated without the interference of objects created by man’s hands, mm, mm!”
I guess that’s the anti-bra statement. Because a watermelon shouldn’t be eaten with a fork, people shouldn’t wear bras. Sort of like arguing for wearing an athletic cup by saying that hot dogs shouldn’t be cut into little pieces and put into mac and cheese, I guess.
Sometimes it’s almost like Tyra doesn’t understand metaphor and simile. When you call breasts “melons” that doesn’t mean that they take on all the qualities of melons, and therefore anything that’s true about melons is true about breasts. There was an earlier metaphor about a fog lifting like a support bra, which is kinda the same thing here. A bra does not lift like a fog. A melon is not forked like a breast. Let’s leave it at that and check out the pro side of things.
“The boobies high and tight on me. My knobbies pert and firm, agree? But forever young they will not be. No bra, they’ll sag with grav-i-tee!”
Bra-vo. This second, rhyming argument carries the day. Much as we see in most debates. If you rhyme, then people listen to you. We all remember how that works. Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, “Four score and seven years before”, and MLK’s “I have a dream, that racism gets creamed” speeches are great examples of the power of silly rhyme and cleverness trumping content.
Stay tuned. In our next update, we have the return of Ci~L, and the ultimate debate of niche versus popular beauty! A debate this big can only be handled by Modelland.