‘You Wanna Be On Top?' Lifting The Veil On ‘America's Next Top Model'

There were outlandish challenges that required models to dodge swinging pendulums on a catwalk or pose inside a giant Greek salad. Other scenes, now infamous, had models appear in blackface and endure extreme temperatures or dangerous conditions that even caused them to faint. They were also subjected to “Ty-rades.”

For 15 years, “America's Next Top Model” pushed contestants to the edge of what it took to win a reality television show. The audience, primarily young women, gobbled it up without hesitation, learning how to “smize” from the host and model Tyra Banks, but “make it fashion.”

In the years since it went off the air in 2018, the show has become equal parts meme candy and ripe for criticism as fans have re-examined the scenes on social media with a fresh perspective: Did the show reflect the harsh realities of the modeling industry, or make the experience worse? “ Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model ,” a new documentary from Netflix, may finally lift the curtain on the show's legacy.

Banks has largely avoided addressing pointed criticism of the show, but she told the “Today” show in 2020 that she had apologized for some of her decisions . In the trailer for the documentary, she admits that the show was “very, very intense,” adding: “But you guys were demanding it. And so we kept pushing more, and more, and more.”