Top Model "Tragedy"; Won't Someone Please Think Of The Children?!

Alex ANTM.jpg This year's cycle of Australia's Next Top Model is proving to be worth its weight in gold when it comes to the sort of scandals that the tabloid press eat right up, and today's kerfuffle is the pick of the bunch.

News.com.au are tagging this lead/spoiler story about tonight's episode, focusing on pouty Alexandra, as a "Surgery 'Tragedy'". Now, what does that make you think of - a girl putting her hand through the window and slicing her tendons? Maybe one of the contestants having to be carted off for emergency hospital care, like Eboni with her pinched nerve? Maybe one of them, OMG, DIES?

Well, if you picked any of them, you'd be wrong. It seems Alexandra's "tragedy" was to have two collagen injections in her famously "tense" mouth. TRAGEDY!!

Professional photographer Juli Balla, who appears in the episode, was shocked someone so young and beautiful felt the pressure to resort to cosmetic surgery at such a young age.

"It's a tragedy what she has done," Balla said. "Obviously Alex is not confident in who she is, which is not a good sign at the start of your modelling career."

Evidently Priscilla Leighton Clarke was also unimpressed, which is a big umm-ahhh for Alex considering no matter who ends up in the final two, Priscilla's the one whose agency has to be prepared to represent for them.

I do feel sorry for Alex; she's certainly been the victim of the editing suite from episode one onwards, and I'm starting to think - along with much of the Vogue Forums - that she's actually quite smart and nice, and just doesn't want to play dumbarse like half the rest of the contestants.

But - unless something is revealed in Ep 6 (which I've not yet viewed) - why do they always see cosmetic surgery as being some sort of indicator of low self-esteem or self confidence in these instances? Yes, they can lead to excessive cosmetic tinkering, but did they consider the fact that maybe she just wanted to get collagen? You know, because she's an adult and can do what she wants with her life and body?

Comments

Ms C

Posted May 27, 2008 10:23 PM

I think it's disgusting that she injected collagen into her lips. Young beauties just don't need that sort of thing. Far better she spent the cash on a tummy tuck. What is she now? Like a Size 10? What a heifer.

SimianSays

Posted May 28, 2008 3:25 AM

I am always amazed at the irony of the incredibly stretched-looking Perry and Dawson lecturing on the evils of "cosmetic enhancements" such as collagen and Botox.