I always thought I’d never be caught dead watching Germany’s Next Topmodel but such is life that I’ve gone the whole 9 yards and followed this season from the start. Of course it wasn’t actually my idea to watch such a show but once in a blue moon I actually pay attention to what my girlfriend wants and this is what she requested…that we watch Germany’s Next Topmodel.

I have tried to give the tv show the benefit of the doubt and even though I only understand roughly 10% of what is said, I know enough to know it’s all absolutely dreadful. I don’t want to beat around the bush (and there are no bushes in sight, gentlemen) so I’ll get straight into why it’s so mind-numbingly awful.

First of all we have the presenters who, whilst I’d hate to judge a book by its cover, think that they are the best thing since sliced bread. I mean I’d offer Heidi Klum a penny for her thoughts but it’d be a waste of a penny and the other guy, who my partner reliably tells me is Wolfgang Joop, looks like a piece of clay that’s been punched vaguely into shape. He looks so much like Mickey Rourke that I’m not convinced it actually isn’t Mickey Rourke. There is also one other guy but I don’t know his name and he seems about as interesting as watching paint dry so we’ll pretend he doesn’t exist.

So is there a method to this madness? Well, Mickey, Heidi, and miscellaneous man all live and travel around Germany on an inexplicably large tour bus. Why is it so big, there are only three of them?! Either they’re picking up random strangers along the way so that miscellaneous man can bore them to death or this was the only solution to fitting Heidi’s ego into a moving vehicle. Perhaps Joop needs a lot of room to store his other 6 faces? I can’t say for sure either way but it’s driving me up the wall thinking about it.

When the magic bus of fuckwits rolls into town, they set up a stage and invite model wannabes to walk the runway to be judged like cattle at a farmer’s auction. If that wasn’t humiliating enough the tv show has gone for broke and added a spinning section at the end of the catwalk, because isn’t it hilarious when women walking on long heeled shoes stumble around like Bambi on ice? I’ll let the cat out of the bag here and confirm that yes, it’s hilarious.

Idioms aside, it’s hard to understand why this tv show even exists. Well, it’s not hard to grasp in today’s world but from my own personal perspective I find it difficult. If we reduce it to its simplest level, all we are left with are pretty women walking in a straight line. Have you ever tried walking in a straight line? I have and it’s remarkably easy. In fact I think my parents even congratulated me on it when I was 12 months old. So it can’t be the ability to walk in a straight line, as most of us can manage it.

The only theory I’m left with is that we still only really care about who won the genetic lottery, because there is no other discernable talent here. Their parents just managed to create a fuck trophy pretty enough that happened to be tall enough and skinny enough, to wear some weird clothes that most people either won’t fit into, or won’t want to wear anyway.

At the end of the day, if I approached you and said,

“Listen, I want to make a show with utterly average people walking in a straight line and when they finish this walk there will be 3 people at the end who will judge them for it.”

Hopefully your response would be…”I don’t understand. Why?”

“Well, there’d be a Mickey Rourke lookalike judging them. What about now, eh? How’s that?”

When I ask my girlfriend why she thinks people like watching this, her response was “well, it’s an easy way to turn your brain off”. Turn your brain off?! Turn it off from what! You weren’t out picking vegetables in the searing heat for 5 cent a week; you aren’t stuck in a sweat shop factory trying to assemble smartphones correctly without getting whipped. I understand the joy in getting lost in fiction or interesting stories, feeling empathy with characters that don’t exist, willing the underdog to win, but this? I’ll never understand, and I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit sometimes I think there’s a hammer in the cupboard that can turn the brain off much quicker.

Want to read more by Fragarach?

https://stripped-magazine.com/category/columns/drinking-the-milk-of-paradise/