Are People Finally Fed Up With Model Shows? MTV Pulls the Plug on "Model Makers"

MTV began casting for a new show called Model Makers, but it appears the show will never see the light of day. That's good news, because it looked all kinds of horrible. Contestants on the show would have been forced to "endure twelve weeks of intensive physical fitness training to help them get down to their ideal size...With weekly eliminations looming, models must put their best foot forward at all times while staying focused on losing weight."

In truth, the premise of Model Makers sounds a lot closer to reality than most other model "reality" TV shows. Yes, a segment of the population of today's working models is naturally and effortlessly skinny. The rest are perpetually and sometimes dangerously focused on losing weight (remember Ali Michael?). The show's teaser line sums up exactly what's wrong with the fashion industry: "Women come in all shapes and sizes, but models don't." Actually, you could modify that line to read "Women come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, but models don't" and you would have a pretty accurate picture of what the runways at Fashion Week look like these days.

So why did Model Makers get the ax? Darryl Roberts, director of the documentary America the Beautiful, credits a massive letter writing campaign. Roberts wrote an open letter to MTV on HuffPo earlier this month. He published the casting email address and encouraged outraged readers to protest the show. We love to think of that inbox being flooded. And if MTV really did come to its senses as a result of the groundswell, that is a huge victory for woman and girlkind.

But while we're on the topic of model reality shows, we'd like to pose a question. Will audiences ever grow weary? Of course America's Next Top Model keeps on trucking into it's 200th season or something. We've also seen Model.Live, Models NYC, The Agency, She's Got the Look, 8th & Ocean, The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, and our personal favorite, America's Most Smartest Model. Even Project Runway insists on incorporating a model elimination within a show that's supposed to be about the designers (insert Tim Gunn inflection here). We're not exactly crying a river, or a puddle, when Heidi aufs one of them each week. Is there anyone out there shedding a tear?

We suppose there is a core audience of the model-obsessed who will watch anything and everything related to those pretty moddles. As for the rest of us, it's fun to laugh along for a while, and sometimes those shows can even be edumacational! But when does it start to get old? Is there a saturation point for eye smiling and fierceness?

[Huffington Post via Ypulse]