The afterlife of America’s Next Top Model continues to be grueling as the show’s troubled legacy has led to one of it smost controversial episodes getting scrubbed from the internet.
According to Decider, Tyra Banks’ iconic yet controversial modeling competition series has gotten edited by Hulu. The streamer has taken the fifth episode of the fourth season (aka Cycle 4), “The Girl Who Is Contagious,” off its platform. The episode is one of several in which the contestants had to “switch” ethnicities using makeup for a Got Milk? campaign shoot. This includes some contestants being forced to don blackface.
The following race-switching challenge, occurring in 2009’s Cycle 13, also isn’t streaming on Hulu. In fact, that entire season isn’t on the streamer at all. However, Prime Video still has “The Girl Who Is Contagious” available for purchase.
The show’s legacy has become more tarnished as fans and former contestants look back on this and another episode involving race-switching. Even though several former contestants told Entertainment Weekly that the challenges, while problematic, came before people became hyper-aware of sensitivities around race, other contestants discussed how they felt the challenges was wrong, regardless of the time.
“I know Tyra got a lot of flak for all this, as she should, because it’s her name on it. She needs to take responsibility for certain things,” said Kathlen Rondot, who was made to look Hawaiian in the shoot. “I realize this was 20 years ago, but how did we think this was actually okay?”
Jennifer An, a Cycle 13 contestant who was transformed into a Botswanan woman in the second race-switching challenge, told Entertainment Weekly she called out the makeup artists for putting her in blackface, but her concerns weren’t aired on television.
Jay Manuel, who would introduce the challenges, including the race-switching ones, also said to Variety that he felt “so, so uncomfortable” with the race-switching challenges. He claimed these challenges weren’t his idea, but instead, they were “a layer added in.”
“It was supposed to be a different concept. I remember that very, very clearly,” he said. “I was basically told that I had to execute the creative, and it made me very uncomfortable.”
Hulu’s decision to not air certain episodes of America’s Next Top Model is just the latest chapter in fans reflecting on the series in the cold light of the 2020s, which includes more education and sensitivity towards racism and sexism. Banks has received criticism for her race-switching episodes, however she claimed nothing but good intentions. A spokesperson for Banks said told Entertainment Weekly that the shoot was “meant to be a moment celebrating and spotlighting underrepresented ideologies of beauty–textured hair and darker skin–on a global scale” and tackle “pervasive beauty standards” within the fashion industry. However, Banks has also been criticized for how she treated contestants on the series in a startling Business Insider article, in which former contestants claimed they were placed in real peril at Banks and the crew’s behest.
