Sam

I am enjoying the music, the runway backdrop, the models, the locale, and the 90's throwback judge, the modern model judge, and the eclectic panel of contestants. I almost want to buy the winning dress! If the dimensions of the dress were more suitable for shorter frames, I would be even more tempted. Tim Gunn and Hiedi are bringing me back to 2018 energy (pre-pandemic/before I lost my essence and resigned myself to simply existing, ha).

I loved watching this show, even though I am not black or African American. The self-reflexive dialogue is in no uncertain terms, therapeutic to the bruised psyche of American minorities of my background (which is to say, not quite Latina, not quite eastern, definitely critical of my mixed heritage, not yet quite assimilated, private school survivor, ghetto-raised, college-educated, and holder of a master's degree, underemployed, feminist, on the woke side of life, and the broke side, too). This show was soothing to me in a world where soothing is currency, of which I'm lacking. What would have made the show better to me if there were more than one reference that spoke directly to me ("chile con quiles", LOL...maybe it was funnier to me because I was at that point starved for a latino joke. BTW missed opportunity in the chilaquiles reference...the dish itself deserves a historical aside as it truly is a great example of gentrification in food...). I hesitate to let it off the hook, like "well it is not a show targeted to me as an audience member" (it is #blackAF after all) but that would ignore a group that is hugely underrepped...Black Latinos. Forget it, if this show reached me, a tough audience and not even a part of the target audience, it gets a 5. The acting is great, the kids are phenomenal (Drea's faces, Chloe...has cute hair?, Izzy/Stink's vocal tone, Pop's delivery, Kam's comedic timing, oh and I'd vote for Brooklyn's to get an Oscar), Kenya knows my soul, and Joya represents the no-win yet competitive position that I identify with as a mother, both comically and accurately. Not too familiar with Mr. Barris' other shows, but that might change. I learned some great facts, educational, eye-opening, inspiring, self-deprecating, thought-provoking, laugh-out-loud-by-myself funny!

Realistic. Disturbing. Frightful. Unpleasant. Revelatory. Mysterious, elegant, open-ended. Not didactic enough for the typical male-lensed viewer, I suspect. Could have been empowering except for the real estate showing bookending the season with a grin. I wish we had seen how the protagonist opened each gate, in the same world where her doppelganger died a slow death. If flattened affect were all it took, ha.