Reality television shows are notorious for putting all sorts of filth on the air, but last week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) managed to sink to an unprecedented low. The theme of the photo shoot on ANTM’s March 21 episode was “Crime Scene.” It featured the show’s scantily clad contestants sprawled or crumpled on the floor in exceedingly provocative poses and made up to look like bruised and bloody corpses that had been brutally murdered in a variety of ways. One model appeared to have been pushed down a flight of stairs, another strangled in bed, another shot in the head in a dark alleyway. And those aren’t the worst of the set. The photos are revolting to say the least, and they are a striking indication of just how desensitized our culture has become to the plight of women living the nightmare of domestic violence and abuse. It is one thing to depict the violent death of a woman on a series like CSI or Law and Order. Such shows present the crime as something repulsive and tragic. Staging grisly crime scenes for amusement and evaluating the battered, bloody “corpses” on how “sexy” or “beautiful” they look – as the judges did on ANTM – is an entirely different matter. To call such an atrocious display “art” or “entertainment” is an assault on the dignity of women who have been made victims of abuse and violence. The statistics about violence against women in the United States are staggering. According to the Web site of the National Organization for Women, “Every day four women die in this country as a result of domestic violence. … That’s approximately 1,400 women a year.” That means the number of American women who have died because of domestic violence over the past four years would be about 5,600. That number far surpasses the number of U.S. military personnel killed in the war in Iraq – just over 3,200. The Family Violence Prevention Fund’s (FVPF) Web site cites a 1998 survey by the Commonwealth Fund, in which 31 percent – almost one-third – of women in the United States reported “being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives.” In the same survey, one-fifth of women said they had been raped or had experienced some kind of physical or sexual assault. FVPF’s site also references a 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief that reported, “Women are much more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for 33.5 percent of the murders of women and less than four percent of the murders of men.” Countless studies on violence against women agree that women experience most violent crimes and abuse at the hands of men they know, usually husbands or boyfriends. Still think those images of supermodel wannabes all bruised and bloody sprawled on the floor in their underwear are something to be taken lightly? In a 1996, the tracking survey for The Advertising Council and the FVPF, 30 percent of respondents – men and women – said they knew a woman who had been abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year. That hits much closer to home than many of us would like to think. As one might expect, ANTM producers have been quick to clarify that glorifying violence against women wasn’t their intention when they staged the crime scene-themed photo shoot. Oh, that’s right. The photos were titled as though the murders they depicted were committed against models by other models because as you know – the industry can be brutal. Amusing, right? I bet women who’ve experienced or witnessed abuse or violent crime wouldn’t think so. Please, let’s not just shrug and look the other way. This horrendous display of insensitivity and poor taste has people talking, and if we want to prevent more women from becoming victims of violence and abuse, we can take this opportunity to educate ourselves about this often disregarded issue. The message of advocacy groups for abuse victims like FVPF is generally twofold: education and action. Spread the word about what constitutes abuse, and encourage women to report abuse and domestic violence when such acts occur. If you think that you or someone you know might be in a violent or abusive relationship, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE. And let the producers of ANTM know they’ve crossed the line. E-mail them at: feedback@CWTV.com.
—–Contact Emily Byers at ebyers@lsureveille.com