Oh ANTM, Where Do I Even Start?: Mariah Watchman And The Pocahontas Controversy
All images courtesy The CW and Pottle Productions Inc.
By Guest Contributor Adrienne Keene, cross-posted from Native Appropriations
This is not a post hating on Mariah Watchman, America’s Next Top Model‘s very first Native contestant. At all. I’m so excited she’s on the show, and proud that she’s representing for all of Indian Country. Mariah is from the Umatilla rez in Oregon, but is also Ojibwe, Modoc, and Mandan, and seems pretty down-to-earth and awesome. This is much more about the show itself, and the messages it sends us about society at large.
The premise of this season of ANTM is a competition between British models and American models (they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel after 18 seasons to keep it interesting, I guess), and on the first episode, the models were paired in what was termed a “Culture Clash”–one model from the US and one from the UK, each representing an “iconic figure from [their] individual country.” Ok, fair enough.
So here were the pairings:
- George Washington vs. Queen Elizabeth
- Janet Jackson vs. Scary Spice
- Madonna vs. Elton John
- Michelle Obama vs. Margaret Thatcher
- Andy Warhol vs. Amy Winehouse
- Jackie O vs. Princess Diana
And, finally…
- Pocahontas vs. John Lennon
Any guesses as to who they made portray Pocahontas? Yeah. Mariah. Her response (on the show) to the choice:
“Me representing Native Americans, I mean who else better for me to get than Pocahontas? But I’m also nervous, because she’s Pocahontas, and that’s a lot to live up to.”
She went on the record with an interview with her hometown newspaper discussing the choice as well (which was a choice of the producers, not her own), saying:
“As soon as I heard what the competition was, I knew that’s who I would be. I was completely fine with it. There’s no one else I’d want more to portray. It’s someone everybody knows.”
I think this is completely a reflection of the sad, sad state of our society if a proud Native woman feels the only “iconic figure” that “everyone knows” of her race is a 12 year old who was famous for “saving” and marrying an old white dude and then becoming a Disney character. Awesome.
The choice of the producers to have her portray “Pocahontas” is straight up offensive, too. Let’s pigeonhole the only Native contestant by forcing her to don an extremely stereotypical outfit and be an Indian. The thing that stood out to me was that Mariah was cast into a race-based role, while the other pairings had plenty of (relatively progressive) race-bending. George Washington, Elton John, Jackie O, and John Lennon (all white) were portrayed by models of color, which I thought was kinda cool. But, because Mariah’s heritage is her “exotic” selling point for the show, the producers felt the need to exploit it.
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