Fatima simply will not be ANTM due to Ugleisha winning last season, I'd be shocked if a black girl won again.
I actually think Whitney will be the next to go, she might turn out like Cycle 8's plus-size Whitney and be in the bottom two three consecutive times.
i agree with you about fatima not winning - or at least being a long shot given cuntleisha's win last cycle.
i think dominique's fun to watch and her runway walk is really good (at least from the mattiolo "go-see"). but unlike c6 jade, she doesn't look like a model in person. and she's also just not as entertaining as jade was. jade was in a category all her own.
i'd defnitely love to see anna-nicole/whitney go and anya win - but the judging on the last episode points to whitney making it to at least top 3.
the proof is in nigel's comments
nigel is tyra's parrot. nigel's always voted for the girls who eventually win the show.
let's take cycle 9, jenah's elimination. i believe nigel was the one who called saleisha "exciting and endearing" and found jenah to be arrogant and rude. cut to jenah getting the axe and cuntleisha winning the show.
in this last episode, he said something about whitney being exciting and about anya being kind of blah - like, "sure anya takes great photos, but she's not a top model."
this show often follows the same patterns (i'm embarrassed to admit that i've followed it enough to notice those patterns), and nigel's negative comments - especially towards the end of the cycle - are usually the kiss of death for some girls.
and in this case, nigel's ambivalence towards anya at this point suggests that she won't end up winning.
nigel - for some inexplicable reason - seems to adore whitney or find something intriguing about her. (nigel thought the same of cuntleisha too).
that means that unless whitney fucks up the next photo shoot (which could be possible), she stands a very good chance of staying for at least one more episode. which puts her into the top 3.
like i said, i'd be very happy if i'm wrong about this and anna nicole gets the boot next week. that would give anya a really huge shot at the win.
ok, i gotta stop overanalyzing this crap.
but just some final food for thought:
here are - to my recollection - the plus sized models over the course of the entire show:
c1: robin (african american)
c2: i forgot her name, she was eliminated early (caucasian)
c3: tocarra (african american)
c4: none that i can recall
c5: diane (latina)
c6: none that i remember
c7: does anchal count? otherwise, none
c8: diana (caucasian) and whitney (african american)
c9: sarah (caucasian) - who did pretty well until she got the boot
the momentum seems to be towards a plussie win - two made it to cycle 8, and in cycle 9, sarah won a covergirl challenge and was featured on the covergirl site.
and if tyra crowns a plussie, it'll have to be someone caucasian. remember her little speech to tocarra about how black women had to struggle to make it in the modeling world - so a plus sized girl has the same struggles now, and it seems that a white plussie would have less of a struggle booking jobs than a black plussie.
i hate to play the race card again, but it makes some sense here.
so given that this year's plussie is white, the odds are definitely in her favor.
also, this is the FIRST TIME EVER that a plussie has gone overseas.
BUT NONE of the judges have made a big deal about it (not even Tyra-"KISS MY FAT ASS"-Banks has said anything about it) - probably because they don't want to spoil the fact that the plussie will end up winning...
oh, and my guess is covergirl wouldn't mind having a white plussie to go with queen latifah on their makeup ads.
so that's my case for the whitney/annanicole win.
still hoping i'm wrong though -
But really, I think ANTM has a stigma attached to it. I think the fashion world at large thinks the show is a joke (the American version). Really, it's so campy. I've seen the British version of the show, and the girls there aren't put through ridiculous, embarrassing tasks like the girls on the American show. Not to mention, Tyra and the judges usually tend to pick winners with maybe not the greatest model potenial (Naima, SCariDee, Saleisha, etc.). But I think going back to NYC is definitely a step up...
