Tyra's Keepin' it Real...Again

ABC News — Supermodel Tyra Banks has made a career out of turning heads with her voluptuous body, sexy strut and skimpy outfits. When she donned a "fat suit" that gave the appearance that the slender Banks weighed 350 pounds, heads turned, too. But this time, she faced laughter, stares and nasty comments.

"The people that were staring and laughing in my face — that shocked me the most," Banks said. "As soon as I entered the store — when I went shopping — I immediately heard snickers. Immediately! I just was appalled and, and and hurt!"

Banks wore the fat suit for an upcoming episode of her talk show, "The Tyra Banks Show." In addition to shopping and riding the bus wearing the suit, she went on three blind dates, which will also air on the show. "One of them was so outright rude and hurtful!" she said of her dates.

Banks asked her date what his parents would think if he brought her home. He responded: "They'll be like: 'What's wrong with you?' " When Banks revealed her real identity to a date, he went gaga. But, he still admitted that when he thought she was a 350-pound woman, he would not have gone out with her again.

At the end of her 15-hour fat suit stunt, Banks had the luxury of taking off her costume and returning to her supermodel figure. She said she hopes people will learn a lesson from the poor treatment she endured. "There's no excuse for rudeness. There's no excuse for ugliness. And there's no excuse for nastiness and that's what I experienced," Banks said."

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Wow. Tyra's really pushin' the envelope with her new talk show. What's next? Sending a homo undercover to a KKK rally to see how many friends he can make? Favorite parts of the episode include:

• The dramatic opening where Tyra talks directly to the camera and "shares" with us, the audience. on how this "experience" has "changed her life...(wait for it...wait for it...dramatic swell...) forever!" (The word of the day is SHARE...she says it like 10x. We get it. You're sharing.)

• The inevitable tear-shedding scene (sans actual tears), where Tyra makes it all about her. I almost bought it...until she snapped back with "We'll be right back!" There's a Lifetime movie with her name on it somewhere.

Actually, Tyra's alright. I enjoy her other show America's Next Top Model, but I just can't get into her "talk show." She's trying way too hard to show how "real" she is and it's achingly obvious. Sorry, but once the word "supermodel" is attached to your name, reality is out the window. You can toss in all the "gurl"/"child" and faux ghettoliciousness you want, I'm not buying it. Oprah does it too and we all got to witness firsthand what a spoiled bitch she turned out to be.

The fat suit concept was already getting old around the time Goldie Hawn did it back in 1992 during the filming of Death Becomes Her. Since then, everyone else on planet Hollywood has donned one at some point in time:

• Courteney Cox in Friends
• Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor
• Martin Lawrence in Big Momma's House
• Gwyneth Paltrow in Shallow Hal
Gwyneth says: ""I got a real sense of what it would be like to be that overweight, and every pretty girl should be forced to do that," Yeah, whatever Gwyneth. Nice to see you're still full of shit. Whatta trooper.
• Mike Myers in Austin Powers
• Julia Roberts in America's Sweethearts
• Martin Short in Primetime Glick
• And most recently, Ryan Reynolds in Just Friends.

And the list goes on. Okay, we get it already! Whatta transformation...blah blah blah. It wreaks of the whole Charlize Theron fad of beautiful women showing us that they can "transform" themselves into someone homely and unrecognizable, only to pull off the mask and "surprise" us all at just how beautiful they really are. Whatever. The thing I find most amusing is that Tyra seems to be genuinely surprised at the response she got when she was "fat." Um, DOI! What'd she expect? Puhlease. Beautiful people are completely clueless to how the real world actually operates. They've become so accustomed to people falling all over themselves to do things for them that they've forgotten what it's like to actually earn something, whether it be a job, customer service, etc., which reminds me of a story...

Years ago I had a friend named Patrick. At the time I was working at a video store and he was one of our regular customers. Patrick was a very attractive 12 year-old. Okaaaaay, maybe I'm exaggerating...a little. He wasn't that young, but that's how you feel when someone is 7 years your junior. To cut a long story short, against my better judgement, we got to be friends and started hanging out together. Which is weird, because as much as I contend that I don't make a conscious effort to befriend people considerably younger than me (simply because they're usually too insipid and I just don't have the energy to be a mentor), most of my friends have been younger than me. Go figure. Maybe it's because most people my age are too uptight and/or castrated coupled. But I digress:

One afternoon Patrick and I went to the "gay" area of Dallas, AKA the Oak Lawn/Cedar Springs area. We went to a video store that I'd been a member at for nearly 8 years. At the time, they were one of the best video stores in Dallas. They had everything a cinemaphile could ever want. Tons of out-of-print stuff, etc. Naturally, they also rented gay adult movies (i.e. porno). Patrick had some videos that were late and needed to return them. They were extremely late. We're talking weeks.

So, we go in and he goes to turn in his movies, telling them that they were late. The clerk was nauseatingly giddy, what with getting the opportunity to wait on Patrick. And, you guessed it; all late fees were voided. No explanation needed or wanted. In all the years I'd been renting there, on the rare occasion that I turned something in late, I couldn't have gotten past a late fee if my life depended on it. Then, to add insult to injury, I'd left my I.D. in the car, and even though I had other forms of I.D. with me, they would not rent to me until I walked the 2 blocks back to the car to get it! Meanwhile, Patrick's closest form of I.D. is his dental records and they rented to him while I was walking back to the car to retrieve my I.D.! THEN we went to the movies afterwards and after I get my drink and box of stale popcorn, Patrick orders the same thing and they insist in getting him some "fresh" popcorn, which they then proceed to make post-haste. Nice.

And that's just one of the reasons The Beautiful Ones (as Prince calls them) are on my shit list. They're a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live with them...or be friends with them...or date them...or talk to them... *File under: sour grapes.*