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Contestant takes superstand against Supermodel

You have to admire the courage of one reality show contestant who refuses to play ball with tawdry tactics.

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A 17yo model has risked being kicked off Make Me A Supermodel for refusing to model semi-naked.

Sara Longman broke down and cried as she announced she would not model in just her underwear and bodypaint in Melbourne’s Federation Square.

Sara said she had to take a stand against modelling semi-naked and hoped Australians would support her by not voting her off the show.

Last week the show even made contestants burn their clothes, stripping down to their underwear in a ludicrous gesture of ‘burning their past.’ The show has also come under fire for raunchy photo shoots. All without setting the ratings on fire…

Last night a Channel Seven publicist said Sara didn’t feel comfortable going out on Federation Square with body paint.

In tonight’s show, feisty Sara also slams other contestants, saying they were “immature” before pointing at the camera and declaring the public would soon see why.

Sara said earlier this week that two of the finalists were particularly difficult to live with.

“Cassie and Hannah are causing a lot of problems,” she said. “There is a lot of confrontation in the house about their behaviour – people are offended.

“If you watch the show, you will see a few interesting things.

“I was sick of being talked down to and spoke my mind, in a responsible way.

“These girls need a bit of a wake up call.”

Source: Herald Sun

13 Responses

  1. Make me a supermodel is a joke. If you want a proper modelling show, Top Model is the good one. Modelling is not about getting naked. They make it seem so skanky.

  2. I believe she did the right thing for standing up for herself.
    In regarding this type of reality show, they should change the age group for entering this type show.
    Age group should be 18 and above because it allows them to make decision on there own and it wont affect the show to much.

  3. It’s the gratuitousness of the nudity that bothers me. Naturally occurring nudity I’m fine with. If they’re in bed or in the shower, etc (which America, at least, seems reluctant to show on network TV), I think keep it in as long as it’s where it would occur naturally in real life (Though really, how often is it crucial to show showering when it could just as easily be another domestic activity?).

    But when it’s there solely to boost ratings or to be titillating, or being broadcast when I’m trying to eat dinner, I’d rather not see it.

  5. Congratulations to Sara for standing up. If I was participating in the same contest and under age, I would have done the same thing. All this is is Seven’s desperate attempt to win ratings, and did that work?

    Nudity in a family-friendly timeslot? I am sure that ACMA will be happy about this.

  6. Oh damn, hit the submit button before I got to my last bit 😀

    GuanoLad, while the way the show seems to be using nudity in this case is completely gratuitous and exploitative (actually, will there actually BE any nudity in this timeslot? Oh yes, that’s right, paint=clothes 🙂 there is absolutely nothing wrong with nudity in general.

    Why nudity is even rated as an “adult” thing in TV and movies puzzles me, and has for decades.

    Or do you not look in the mirror?

  7. Good for you, Sara! That was a gutsy thing to do.

    Ben – perhaps Sara’s actions might be just the thing to help other models not be afraid to speak up, and rid themselves of their (reportedly) more submissive role in the industry?

  8. Thanks for the clarification, David. I completely agree with all of that; I probably should have angled more towards “press manipulation” rather than “press release”, though. This story, from the point of view of the network publicists (rather than the producers of the show, though there’s undoubtedly a connection) is pure publicity spin – the old “no publicity is bad publicity” thing.

    The point I was really trying to make was that Seven is a heavy News Ltd advertising client, and “news” stories that aren’t actually news keep turning up in News Ltd papers about Seven shows (and, to be fair, Nine’s and to a lesser extent Ten’s as well). It’s disguising advertising as news, something I, you and Media Watch have been against for quite a while 🙂

    However I wasn’t accusing TV Tonight of such tactic – just hoping the growing cancer of non-news wasn’t starting to attack my most-read TV news source. I’m very happy that it hasn’t 🙂

  9. I’m no prude (if you knew anything of my life that would be clear) but I don’t like nudity on TV. There are plenty of other places you can get nakedness if you want it, so leave it off TV. Even dramatic TV. I don’t even like it in movies.

    It’s not that I think it’s sleazy, it’s just that it’s aiming low and smacks of desperation and lack of imagination. Entertain us with your editing tricks to embellish and invent drama if you must, but don’t get the pretty people naked just for ratings.

  10. Good on her for taking a stand. It probably will harm her chances of getting paid work out side of the show, because models are just supposed to take what ever is aksed of them in a shoot (well according to all the modelling shows out there).

    The whole story does stink of desparation to get the ratings up though…

  11. I cant believe she’s just 17! Sara impressed me in last week’s episode when she diffused an altercation bw 2 contestants in a calming way…she showed maturity way beyond her years, and now this just confirms to me that she’s got a ‘good head’ on her shoulders. If only I had been so self assured at her age!

  12. Normally I would agree with comments like this – publicists and press play a particularly specious game of sending out press releases about controversies as a way of hyping a show. Australia’s Next Top Model was so guilty of this I stopped reporting the weekly events.

    In this case I do think it’s newsworthy because it’s about duty of care -always a problem with minors in reality television. In fact the Herald Sun did include the info about the publicist. It even named the publicist along with the fact they refused to answer whether it was appropriate behaviour. I deleted the name, because it reeked to me of a publicist getting caught between having to defend stupid producer tactics and the press. That’s part of their job I guess…

    If the story was triggered by a press release it wasn’t one I received (and as you know I always include them so you can see for yourself extra info).

    I did amplify the story to include previous context about the show’s shonky tactics. Ultimately the audience has already spoken on this show and given it’s verdict. It’s unfortunate the show continues to resort to such tactics.

    What is significant here is that a reality contestant (and Merlin was the champion of this) is actually wielding a little manipulation back. In reality the audience responds not only to who you are, but the way you handle situations. Good for her and good for media communicating that.

  13. Sigh.

    Advertorial alert.

    Which is just what we’ve come to expect from the Herald Sun, despite those Age-ad-mimicking pompous promos they’re running on TV (but hey, they DID manage to copy a story from a local paper yesterday about “60,000 people signing up to anti-2am-lockout groups on Facebook”, a mere three and a half *months* after those 60,000 joined those groups 😉

    This all came from a press release. Surely, *surely* that’s obvious. Just look at the ads Seven ran on Tuesday night – (assume sleazy strip-club-host voice here) “but when some of them refuse to pose completely naked, WHO will leave?” And the tag at the end? “Make Me A Supermodel… the NUUUUDE episode!!! Thursday at 8 on Seven!!”

    This is not news. It’s not even entertainment news. It’s a report of a report that was written from a press release at the behest of an advertiser.

    Absolutely no offence meant, David – and at least you were honest enough to include the fact that the info came from “a Channel Seven publicist” 🙂

    I’m just yearning for the days when there used to be actual reporter-generated news in our daily papers, instead of the papers firing the journos and OCR-ing press releases to fill that inconvenient editorial space in between all the ads.

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