Tyra Banks has officially announced her plans to find the next best teenage plus-sized model. The search, which is the first of its kind, will be for girls aged 13-19 and sizes 12-10. Tyra, who says I’ve always felt it was my mission to expand the narrow perceptions of beauty, has always been an advocate of beauty in all shapes and sizes, especially through her talk show, ˜The Tyra Show.’ The actual competition will take place on her talk show on March 2nd, when the contestants will be announced. A winner will be announced the next day.
I’m always a little skeptical of Tyra’s attempts at showing the beauty in all types of women. While it is something that should be done much more often in mainstream media, I find Tyra to be a bit of a hypocrite. While she promotes beauty of all kinds on her talk show, she doesn’t seem to have the same mentality on her show ˜America’s Next Top Model.’ Instead of setting these girls apart as plus-sized’ models, why can’t they simply just be models in the same way that the winners of ˜America’s Next Top Model’ are? I would be much more impressed with Ms. Banks if she didn’t also have a television show that tells these same plus-sized teens that they aren’t good enough. Don’t get me wrong, I think what Tyra is promoting on her talk show is amazing, however, I think she has the power to go that extra mile and really prove to young girls and women that beauty does come in all forms.
