America's Next Top Casualty

It is in the spirit of The Year Of The Nerd that Shandi lost, and I'm not just coming up with this pronouncement to cover my ass. Well, maybe I am coming up with this pronouncement to cover my ass a little, but that, too, is in the spirit of The Year Of The Nerd: to conjure up with a losing prediction, and then to go down with it. But really- and here I turn to my new friend John McNally- what I forgot to take into account was that Yoanna is a nerd of sorts too. In his new novel The Book Of Ralph, John details the hierarchy of nerddom:

"I knew the pecking order well- the slow-in-the-head kids and the fatsos at the very bottom, the physically weak and nonathletes one tier up, the too-smart-for-their-own-good slightly above them, and so on...Over summer, though, the pecking order's shifts would cause occasional rumbling...that knowledge didn't stop me from worrying that I had somehow dropped down, pushed from my slot by a fat kid who'd lost weight."

How could I forget that Yoanna had pulled one of these shifts pre-season's beginning? In losing so much weight, Yoanna, judging by pictures, had gone from black rim glasses/choker/XL concert t-shirt nerd to under-the-radar nerd. In other words, Yoanna had become a nerd sellout with her brand new tailored threads and faux mohawk, pushing her dangerously over that thin, shaky line into fashionably nerdy hipsterdom. But since it is The Year Of The Nerd, Shandi had to be eliminated- because in order to be an authentic representative of the nerd culture, she could not become America's Next Top Model. I think I was thrown by the overwhelming victory of The Lord Of The Rings at the Oscars, believing that it was the nerd thing to be the underdog winner. But I forgot to take into account that the LOTR cast must still tote Elijah Wood around with them everywhere they go, and in this way they still remain nerd true blue. Shandi, unfortunately, had to leave her boyfriend behind in the United States. If we take into account his Elijah-esque bug-eyed photo and screechy voice, we must concede that had Shandi been able to bring him abroad, she might have been able to take this thing respectably.

The reason I dislike Yoanna as America's Next Top Model is not because she's very skinny, but because I can't look at her without seeing the fat girl within her about to burst from her stomach like the dinnertime visitor in Alien. It is not pleasurable to look at a body type that is trying to exist in a state that's obviously incredibly difficult for it to maintain. Ex-boyfriend Brett pointed out, when the cameras got a profile shot of Yoanna at last night's final elimination, that she's covered with the creepy baby fuzz that anorexics get because their bodies are nutritionally shivering. And while I don't think Yoanna is anorexic (I've seen her eat some vegetables on the show) and while I'm not one to talk about malnutrition (my system gently weeps), I do know that Tyra just made a girl into a professional model who will, as long as she's working, be a physical and emotional mess. I mean, moreso that most professional models.

I once went off carbohydrates for a week, and I have first-hand testimonials about how amazingly miserable I was to be around. Yoanna is an Atkins dieter times ten million. Have you seen the disconnect in action? The way that her eyes and smile are in this perpetual state of suspended excitement because she no longer has the stability to just sort of chill out in the middle? Whether finding out about taking pictures, meeting a designer, getting "Tyra mail," going to the gym, walking down the street, getting in the van, saying goodbye to an eliminated sister, setting the alarm clock, making a bowl of soup, relaxing back at the "Italian" apartment, it's all one-note from Yoanna. She looks like a defreckled Howdy Doody doll: wooden orbs painfully wide, trapped in a Clockwork Orange experiment minus the clamps; "thrilled" smile pulled so taught that her cheekbones seem on the verge of snapping and boomeranging across the room, knocking a tired-from-Lupus Mercedes off of her feet.

And why does Yoanna look and act so perpectually cracked out? I hate to go with the obvious because I genuinely hate the obvious, but it's unavoidable here. The girl's hungry. It's clear from her bone structure that she is not meant to be size 2, and the act of maintaining this size is taking its toll. Had she won, Shandi, obviously naturally a size 0, would have maybe eventually fallen into the model habit of skipping a meal for a pack of cigarettes on the days she was feeling a bit "tubby." But when Tyra and Co. chose Yoanna, they resigned her to a decade of Parliments for breakfast, dinner, lunch. And last night, when they announced her as the victor, I saw this clearly written across Yoanna's face, freakishly and statically suspended in hunger strike shock.

A lot of people have commented on Yoanna's habit of over-enunciation. It is my belief that she's fighting a number of voices ("Bread! Powerbar! Anything!") from within, so that she becomes distracted mid-syllable. This slows her down. Have you ever tried to sing a song while another's on the radio? Hard. But in order that her external voice might triumph over the ones within, Yoanna places intricate emphasis on each word that surfaces in an attempt to show her body who's boss. The struggle takes so many manifest forms, I could go through episode by episode and detail the war. But, put most simply, it's literally often painful to look at Yoanna. Can this be what America wants? Was I on the completely wrong track and it's really The Year Of The Masochist? I think we all under-estimated the box-office power of The Passion Of Christ. And maybe even the staying power of Fear Factor: Family Edition.

Comments

[Yannah]

I am proud of Yoanna and her accomplishments. It is not our bodies' natural longing to be "thicker/bigger/fatter" but our society's rather. I honestly think that you envy her because you were unsuccessful in reaching the goals you set for yourself through dieting which, as you said, failed. I'm not for eating disorders and I know first-hand what they can do to people. There is a fine line. But to critize someone for trying to find happines in victory over the world, which the pressure of this world really represents, when it comes to eating habbits, especially in North America is foolish.