Comments on: Tyra Banks “Apologizes” About Bi-Racial Photo Shoot

By: Aarron

Aarron — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 07:56:30 +0000

Anyone who has a problem with this TOTALLY has a problem with interracial dating. There was NOTHING wrong with this photoshoot and there were some GREAT beautiful pictures to have been portrayed. I think it was great!! Not the slightest bit controversial if you ask me.

By: wildchild

wildchild — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:36:43 +0000

I posted a similar comment before and I’ll say it again. I am not offended by this photoshoot, what offended me was that they kept the darkest contestant her natural skin colour and felt changing the skin tones of all the other contenstants was a positive message. If Sundai’s ‘bi-racial’ character was half russian then why wasn’t she portrayed lighter?

By: PandaF

PandaF — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:42:52 +0000

I loved this episode and found it to be clever. When I started hearing about the controversy, I found it a bit peculiar. I thought the girls looked stunning! Claiming that it is ‘blackface’ is a bit rediculous. People claimed that Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Girls were a modern Minstrel show, so people are damned if they use the correct race, and damned if they don’t.

I am a caucasian actor, but I currently play Japanese, Chinese, and Indian characters at work. I do not think much of it, and neither does the audience. I think that if the pictures came out before the rest of the season, there wouldn’t be as much drama about the episode.

Just my two cents…

By: jason

jason — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:40:44 +0000

i dont find anything offensive about that shoot or the concept, i dont recalled ppl making a big deal when she did a similiar shoot, i think in cycle 4, i think the girls were extremely beautiful when portraying the mixes they were assihned, that was NOT BLACKFACE, for ppl to even want to critize this is complety ridiculous. critize the cover of a french vouge which had blackface + google hapa, tyra’s defination sounds right 2 me. no one can say that looking on those photos evoked disgust, if it di look again at jen’s and laura’s photo simple BEAUTIFUL

By: Jacinta

Jacinta — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:01:34 +0000

People are always being so judgemental ,Tyra is already giving young women from all around the country a chance to become a star , love her for what she is doing and stop findin ways and comments to put her down ,I love you Tyra

By: tito

tito — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:17:33 +0000

quite frankly the shoot was beautiful and if people can’t see that and want to find something offensive, wrong or degrading then thats they’re own problem there’s a difference between something being truly offensive and downright just looking for a reason to complain.

By: Dunk

Dunk — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

As a Taiwanese, rational issues is not really a big thing for me. Rational issues are only stirred up during election.

I like the biracial photos. I’m not offensed. Maybe it’s controversal for countries like America, nevertheless, it’s okay for Taiwanese. I’m sure most of the Taiwanese audience love the theme of the photos according to the response in my blog.

By: mach turtle

mach turtle — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:33:52 +0000

I don’t think it’s anything to be offended over necessarily; it’s not as though she took a while girl, colored her black, slapped on some red lipstick and put on a minstrel show. The goal was to highlight mixed-race people using elaborate costumes, and she succeeded. Let me ask you this, how would doing the same photoshoot without the extreme makeup make things any better?

That being said, she’d already done this before in Cycle 4, so I’m not sure why she felt the need to repeat it. It’s not offensive, but it is awkward, especially when someone like Erin (as someone previously said) wasn’t properly educated on the backgrounds she was portraying. It yielded great pictures, especially Nicole and Brittany, and if you found it offensive then you need to calm down. Take a break… eat a cookie! But Tyra probably shouldn’t do this again.

By: Codi

Codi — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:37:39 +0000

the thing is she painted the girl’s skin before and people cared less she didn’t think it was going to be a big deal. she shouldn’t apologize for the photoshoot she and her producers did nothing wrong by making the photoshoot as real as possible since she did apologize people are still talking about it and it could have been faded it was almost a month ago.

By: Erin Balser

Erin Balser — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 03:03:18 +0000

I saw that quote too. I’m just torn. Tyra didn’t apologize for the photo shoot, she apologized for offending people, that’s true. But if she had done a bit of research she could have created a much better, more artistic photo shoot that celebrated cultures and avoided potential controversy without painting the girls’ skin. Her intent was not racist or malicious, but she needs to be a bit more aware. Unless the controversy was intentional to draw attention to the show (which I doubt) which in case, she did her job.