YAY! EVA DIVA!!

Last night I watched along with the rest of the obsessed as Eva became America's Next Top Model. I admit that I was really pulling for Norelle - the 19 year old moppet from Newport Beach, CA who started the show with pigtails and braces. She got rid of the braces, but not the pigtails and by the time she got to Tokyo it was pretty clear that if she did win she was going to starve if she had to leave the United States to work. I loved her commentary on her way to Japan where she pondered whether people in Tokyo were called Tokinese. Heh.

But Norelle got booted after making it to the top five, leaving Ann, Amanda, Eva and Yaya. Since Ann hasn't been able to actually inhabit her body in a photograph giving credence to the belief some people hold that a camera will steal your soul, I knew it was going to come down to Amanda, Eva and Yaya. Of those three I have ever only like Eva - she's so sassy and she embraces her inner bitch in a way that is rare in a 19 year old. She alludes to having been hurt and I actually wanted to know her back story - what is up with her dad? And her brother? Where's her mom?

I felt bad for her when Ann was such a twat and it made me hate Yaya even more, something I didn't believe was possible when she said in last night's episode, "If there was something we could do to make Eva feel more wanted I don't think we'd do it." Well, Yaya since Eva is America's next top model I guess she was more wanted than you. Yaya brings out the mean girl in me, a vicious and not very nice girl who wants to hurt Yaya on purpose. Yaya was a walking oxymoron wearing her Respeito t-shirt. Bitch.

Amanda just bugged, when she broke out with her comment about how she was thinking about her love of fluffy bunnies and France so that she could serve up a big plate of smile, I almost threw up. And then I wondered, not for the first time, if Amanda might be kind of mentally ill. Her whole life seems to be this kind of fiction starring Amanda, and she had to be pretty deluded to think that she could START a modeling career at twenty five. I know it sounded harsh when the Japanese designer shook her head at Amanda's age and said, "too ord," but she wasn't lying.

The fact is that most of these girls are too old to be just starting. Tyra herself was in high school when she started her career and at 32 she's done. Giselle Bundchen, also known as the "bod," will be retiring next year. She will be twenty four. The reality about this reality show is that none of these girls really have what it takes, but they gave us great tv. And I know my butt was parked in front of the television set every Wednesday night.

I don't have Tivo.

Even so, since I got addicted to the show mid-season of the first cycle, America's Next Top Model is literally the only show that I never miss. Never. It's great freaking entertainment. This article on Salon.com kind of addresses why more and more of people like me, sane intelligent adults, who don't really like or watch reality television, are getting hooked on Top Model. It could be the whole mob mentality similar to that of those who clamor for Scott Peterson's execution. Perhaps we want to watch the pretty girls humiliated and destroyed? Perhaps we enjoy being a fly on the wall as they stab each other in the back?

I have no idea.

It's certainly not because I think or even care about seeing America's Next Top Model be crowned. The reality of this reality show is that Adrienne and Yoanna, the winners of season one and two have never been seen or heard from again. I doubt that Eva will fare any better, although I like her better than the first two, so I hope she finds some kind of success.

What I'm really waiting for is the "Whatever happened to..." show where we find out what Robin the bible thumping, plus size psycho and Elyce the beanpole med student who came in second in season one; and Mercedes, the beautiful, sweet girl with Lupus and Shandi the slutty beanpole with the criminal record who was ignored by her family in season two, are doing. Oh and Camille , from season two who seemingly had no sense of connection with reality and though her signature drum majorette walk was going to make her America's Next Top Model. I wonder what she's doing. She was crazy.

I don't care what happens to Yaya - she's going to continue to be an arrogant, humorless, pain in the ass - all her live long days.

Strangely I'm feeling the same kind of sad I feel when the Superbowl is over knowing there's going to a long wait until the next season of America's Next Top Model.