Miz Shoes Reviews: Cycle 9 ANTM, Episode 5

This week’s episode of ANTM came with a side of girlfriend on the couch. She doesn’t watch, so I had to do narrative throughout the show, and consequently, missed out on taking notes or paying focused attention. The girlfriend in question is the female half of the PDBs (Persons Dressed in Black), she who was once a Conde Nastie, and has hired more models than anyone I know, and who pegged CariDeeMented as season 7’s winner based on one glance at the website portfolios half way through the season. I respect her opinion, so what I can fuzzily remember her saying, I will repeat.

We begin with tangerine martinis. This puts us in the right frame of mind to ridicule the hamsters. The show begins with someone or another whining about something or another. I’m giving the PDB the rundown on this year’s crop: the Autistic girl who doesn’t look like much until the cameras are on her and then she turns it out, the drop-dead gorgeous girl who had such a stank attitude that Tyra and the 2 Jays beat it out of her before she even got to the house, and now she can’t take a decent photo to save her life, and it’s a shame, because she really is amazingly pretty. There is a stripper and a bikini waxer, and a dumb blonde with a horribly asymmetric face (who was born to win this, made inside and out to win this, whose dream it is to win this and who has wanted this since she was in kindergarten), and a maybe plus-sized girl and a couple of bitches and another couple with terrible weaves.

Finally we get some action: the girls are going to go to posing class with BennyNinja of the House of Ninja. On trampolines, because that’s the way to learn how to pose with movement. This causes a lot of problems for most of the girls, since they seem to have problems with the whole posing thing anyway. Posing and walking? Posing in mid-air? Heather, predictably, falls. Lisa, predictably, complains. Ebony, the girl who has had her spirit broken almost gets her ankle broken. Ambreal, who keeps letting us know that she goes to Howard University and majors in Musical Theater, is amazingly adept at jumping on trampolines and posing at the top of the parabola. The PDB is stunned at this action. “That isn’t the way it is in real life!” she exclaims. “In real life, you just hire an athletic girl if you need one. You know, like that volley ball playing amazon I used.” In translation, that’s “I hired Gabrielle Reese when I needed to shoot an athlete.”  The PDB goes on “You don’t try to make a girl everything to everyone. You either are something or you aren’t.” And then she shrieks a little and asks who the monster is. Oh. That’s just Heather. Wait until you see her film.

Putting movement during modeling into practice takes the girls to an ice skating rink, where they are going to do doubles work with someone (Lloyd Eisler) who is allegedly an Olympic pairs ice skater/dancer, but who could be an Olympic skeet shooter for all I recognize the name or face. They show us some grainy footage that could be anybody from any year. He’s going to teach the girls how to flip over his shoulder. And good luck with that, buddy. The judges will watch as the girls attempt to portray one of three randomly chosen emotions BennyNinja yells at them as they flip. The judges are someone or another from 17 Magazine, BennyNinja and season six winner, Dani(I’m a Cover Girl, Mommy)elle. Dani(elle) is still looking good, and apparently has a job coming up, because the winner of the challenge will get to shoot the ad campaign with her. Or at least the part of the campaign that will run in 17 magazine. The three emotions are “joy”, “sorrow” and “anger”. They are either indistinguishable from one another or lamer in execution than CarideeMented’s silent film. I’ve seen more believable expressions of joy, sorrow and fear on blow-up dolls. Heather manages to fall about two dozen times trying to get to the spot on the ice where they will do the flip. I expect her to now be able to nail the anger face, but she does not. Nevertheless, someone has to win, and since Ambreal has been confessionalizing that this is her time to shine, and she knows in her bones how good she’s doing, it is not Ambreal, but Lisa the Lap Dancer. Lisa explains how happy she is to win, and the PDB asks me “what language is that girl speaking?.” She then (the PDB, not Lisa) allows as how Lisa must be the right face/body for the shoot, because there is no advertiser in the known universe who would just give carte blanc to a reality show to pick a winner. Lisa the Lap Dancer gets to pick two friends, and she chooses Ebony and Janet.

They go off and shoot for Akademiks, a brand of hip-hop clothing, and if you check out their ad campaigns on their site, you will see that Dani is a regular face for them, and I wouldn’t have recognized her at all except they use her name. I’d also like to point out that if you go to their web site and look at all of the ads in the ad campaign, for both fall and holiday, you will see what Dani was shooting that day, but you will no way, no how, see Janet and Lisa the Lap Dancer. The girls get back to the house, full of joy and excitement. This has a very bad effect on the girls who didn’t win or get picked to share. It seems that nobody in the house likes Lisa the Lap Dancer very much, but they do like Ambreal a lot, and they are all quite pissy that Ambreal didn’t win the challenge when the universal appraisal of LTLD’s performance was “SUCKED!”.

Bianca, who has been very quiet up till now deflates Lisa’s happiness bubble with the following one liner, delivered with perfect timing and scalpel-like precision:“Is that make up making your face break out?” It’s awesome in its perfect cuntiness. I was amazed that Lisa didn’t just blow around the room backwards as the air rushed out of her.

At some point there is a My Life As a Cover

Girl commercial by Jaslene. As usual, nobody in the room with me can understand a word she garbles.

Finally, we get to the photo shoot of the week. The theme is High-Fashion Gargoyles. After the girls are educated on what, precisely, a gargoyle is, they head off to makeup and wardrobe. The PDB and the RLA are confused by Sutan, whom they both think is a girl. But I digress. In practice, it appears that a High-Fashion Gargoyle has Madonna’s 1990s hair, Michael Jackson’s Beat It-era Members Only jacket, and Cyndi Lauper’s skirts. And of course, horrible make up. Because this is a challenge shoot, the challenge is that the shoot takes place on the roof of a sky scraper, on a narrow, high platform, and the girls are all in sky scraper heels on that platform. The PDB is about to piss herself she is laughing so hard. And then Heather comes out, barely able to teeter around in her heels, crawls awkwardly onto the platform and then just turns it on. As she always does. The PDB stops laughing. Day-um, says the PDB. I told you so, says Miz Shoes. There is no place in this review to put this, so I’ll just stick it here: Heather gets lots and lots of confessional and interview time this week, and she is completely hysterical. She is totally dead-pan and cranky and funny. I’m loving Heather more and more, but I somehow doubt that despite her charm and amazing photos, she will be our winner.

Janet has a hard time posing in her mini skirt, Sarah can’t wrap her head around the concept of a gargoyle. Ebony finally shines. Binaca does too, but what can you do? Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Jenah and Chantallobotomy are completely unmemorable. (Maybe it was the third round of martinis) and Ambreal freaks out about heights. Someone always freaks out about something. Maybe it’s heights, maybe it’s the giant hissing cockroaches, maybe it’s birds, but it is always, as Rosanne Rosanadana would have said, something.

At judging, we find out why Ebony always does that stank thing with her face: she’s ashamed of how much gum she has when she smiles. But she manages to smile anyway after the judges tell her she had better start, or she had better start packing. Blah blah blah, neck, blah blah blah, not getting the concept can cost a client money, Super-sized Sarah, blah blah blah critique critique critique. And the bottom two are Ambreal (my time to shine, huh?) and Janet (she’s like a discount version of Liza Minnelli, who was herself an unattractive, discount version of her mother). Who goes home? The girl who cleans up the house after the other pigs (Janet) or the girl who ... who what? Can pose while jumping on a trampoline and who hates Lisa the Lap Dancer as much as Binaca the Beeeyotch does? Well, who do you think? Buh-bye Janet the Bikini Waxer, the girls will just have to be hairy and piggy without you.

Next week, we take up the drinking game of “I was born to win this” despite the risk of alcohol poisoning.