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29: She's Back! + Why No One Gets a Pedestal
18 Plays17 days ago
Geneva Says is back — and stepping into a new chapter!
In this relaunch episode, I share what’s ahead for the show, unpack the cultural legacy and contradictions behind the America’s Next Top Model Netflix documentary, and recommend a few must-watch projects if the ANTM conversation pulled you in.
Time to say the quiet parts out loud! Let’s get into it.
Connect with me @brittany_geneva
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Transcript
Podcast Relaunch Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
Today on Geneva Says, back!
Improvements and Gratitude
00:00:19
Speaker
Hey everyone. oh my God. the time is finally here. I am Brittany Geneva and this is the official relaunch episode of Geneva says.
00:00:36
Speaker
it up.
00:00:38
Speaker
Look at me. I'm working my soundboard now. It's a new attitude out here. Okay. Oh my goodness. I'm so excited to be back. This is, it's actually been such a long time coming. i literally I have not done an episode since ah June 2023.
00:01:00
Speaker
So it's been a while.
Life Updates and Career Shift
00:01:02
Speaker
And last year, toward the end of last year, I was just really inspired to bring back the podcast. New, improved, more professional, more pulled together, more snatched. I have the equipment. I have the things. I'm ready now. I have the people helping me. I'm ready now. So I really appreciate everybody who has been encouraging me.
00:01:26
Speaker
People from the beginning who have been like, Brittany, where is the podcast? Where are the new episodes? So thank you all so much. i i almost abandoned I almost abandoned ship, but I held on and I decided to go ahead and bring it back.
00:01:43
Speaker
And I'm really excited because this is just something that, you know, I just feel really led to do. I'm really passionate about it. I feel like I have a voice to lend um to the conversation. I think I have some smart stuff to say.
00:01:56
Speaker
a lot of very unqualified people say a lot of very dumb things on Facebook. podcast. So I'm like, let me try to see if I can balance that out a little bit.
Adjusting to New Job
00:02:06
Speaker
Um, so we back, we're back.
00:02:08
Speaker
We got we got segments, we got lights, we got signs. I mean, we're ready to go. So speaking of segments, my first segment, every episode is going to be called the catch up. And that is where I'm just going to give you a little bit of life updates, nothing too deep. Um,
00:02:26
Speaker
As some of you may know, i have recently started a new job in January after three years of entrepreneurship, full-time entrepreneurship. A lot of things changed with my life. a lot of things changed with my business because I live in D.C. and I work with nonprofits and everything I do, everything I do screams D.E.I.
00:02:48
Speaker
I think it goes without saying that work was greatly impacted once old boy down the street got back into office. And I'll never forgive everybody who voted for him anyway. So I needed to make a change, mix things up a little bit, decided to go back to work.
00:03:08
Speaker
I'm about a month and a half into that. Yeah.
00:03:15
Speaker
After you've been full-time entrepreneur for three years, who? who Going back to work, baby.
Expanding The Nod
00:03:27
Speaker
Stay tuned. i That's the update on that. Just in case anybody was wondering. People be asking me, how's it going? I'm honest. I'm still adjusting. It's been a time.
00:03:38
Speaker
I'm not going to lie. I'm never going to lie. Ask me how I'm doing. I'm never going to say good if it's not good. Okay. How am I doing? Hmm. Anyways, outside of that, other thing I want to make sure to tell you guys about ah The Nod, which is the brand that I started with a couple of my great friends here in D.C. We have another game night coming up on March 27th.
00:04:03
Speaker
Please go to the game night page at The Nod Presents to get all of the details, get your tickets. It's going to be a great time. The Nod, the pod, everything else I'm doing in my life is what is keeping me happy and sane and excited and having things to look forward to. So I really can't wait to keep growing the game night and keep growing the Nod beyond game night to other types of events.
00:04:29
Speaker
Gonna, of course, keep growing the podcast and just really diving into all the things that really excite me. so stay tuned for more of that.
Exploring Black Excellence and Critique
00:04:38
Speaker
And now on to our main segment of the day.
00:04:42
Speaker
Geneva says you can never put anybody on a pedestal. So what do I mean by that? Well, I am inspired by, of course, something that at this point, I'm pretty sure most, if not all of you have seen, which is the Reality Check, America's Next Top Model documentary on Netflix, of course, featuring Tyra Banks and all of the many people who are involved with the show and really revealing a lot of the like terrible, dirty, shh,
00:05:15
Speaker
stuff. why Why am I censoring myself? Terrible, dirty shit that was going on on that show, ah which confession, I never watched. Like, not one episode.
00:05:28
Speaker
I already had one friend said if she if she had known that about me, she might have never become my friend. I said, oh, I didn't know Top Model was on the list of like Black stuff you have to watch. Like, dang, I don't, I didn't, at that time in my life, I was a tomboy. I was watching sports. I didn't care about modeling. Like, anyways, so I never watched the episodes, y'all, but I had seen the viral clips with absolutely no context. And so A lot of what was in the documentary was new to me.
00:05:57
Speaker
I really didn't know, like even the we were rooting for you i never actually like knew the whole clip, knew the whole story, anything about that. So this was I watched this like as a very much like uninformed person in the world. The real thing that I want to talk about when it comes to this, like I said, is that.
00:06:19
Speaker
She was on a pedestal. I mean, at that time, everybody was looking at Tyra Banks like, oh, my God, the first black supermodel. Not the first, because obviously, you know, there were other like black models, but like she was getting into places that black models had not been before. And she was just like so idolized. Even i hate the idea that we have to be twice as good to go half as far.
00:06:44
Speaker
i hate I mean, this is this stuff is still true, but I hate the fact that it's like. We have to be perfect and excellent in all ways and we can never make a mistake and we can never be human and we can never have an error. we have to be so, we have this all this pressure on us. So I hate the idea that if Black people mess up, then the entire race is going to collapse or somehow there'll never be another Black person let back into modeling or music or photography or whatever the case may be.
Idolization and Its Consequences
00:07:17
Speaker
There's so much pressure on Black people to be perfect in order to just be at parity with everyone else. And because of that, that drives us to be so super solidarity, super, support. Oh, we'll never violate. We'll always be there to support and uplift our artists and our musicians and others. And I love that. I love that about us.
00:07:43
Speaker
I love our loyalty. I love the fact that we care so much about making sure that our Black leading artists and and not just artists, but that's what that's just what I'm thinking about now, but it could be in any industry. We want them so much to like keep being able to pave the way for everyone else.
00:08:05
Speaker
But at the same time, when we do that, we take away their humanity. We take away the humanity of black people. We take away the humanity of the fact that everybody's going fuck up at some point.
00:08:17
Speaker
And so we have to actually, I actually can't wait to get to a point where black people can just easily fuck up and then keep it pushing. Where we can say, oh, that person fucked up.
00:08:28
Speaker
Anyways, that doesn't mean all Black people are now shut out from that industry or whatever the case may be. So I would love for us to get to a place where Black people fucking up is just every other, just another Tuesday afternoon.
00:08:42
Speaker
But unfortunately, we're still at a place where that kind of matters. And that's why we're so loyal. But in doing so, we are absolving people from the critique that they need.
00:08:53
Speaker
I know that there are people who watched Top Model and who were just so proud of seeing Tyra. And like even the girls who came on the show, they were what they showed ah in the documentary like their old like um audition videos. And the way they were talking about Tyra, you can tell they just worshipped her. And that's, you know, understandable because of what Tyra has accomplished.
00:09:16
Speaker
But she still could make so make mistakes. And she made a lot of them. She was abusive. That show was abusive. Harmful. Awful.
00:09:27
Speaker
Girls being sexually assaulted. One girl being great on the show. Like, literally on the show. Like, you could see it. I'm just like, what the heck? Her making these women...
00:09:38
Speaker
change their faces and putting them under so much pressure and talking to them. Absolutely crazy. I'm like, yeah. Oh, but also they were 19 and 20 years old. So they weren't going to have the same voice as me sitting here, 36 year old woman to be like, girl, I know you're not talking to me like that. And actually, I feel like the one girl, the, um,
00:09:59
Speaker
we believed in you. We always believed in you, girl. I feel like she kind of did clap back. And I said, okay, as you should. But at the end of the day, like, I just want to see us be able to take black, well accomplished people off of a pedestal and be able to say, yes, I respect your accomplishments. Yes. Yes.
00:10:18
Speaker
I love what you're doing. Yes, you're paving the way for others. Yes, you can make mistakes. Yes, I can still criticize you. Yes, you can still be doing something that is so bad that we might actually have to boycott you or we might have to actually like really hold your feet to the fire. And I know that, you know, we we do this in some ways. There are people who we we have no problem criticizing. We all got no problem criticizing Tyler Perry and his lackluster productions, while also respecting the fact that he has built an amazing empire.
00:10:53
Speaker
All of the things can be true at once. But I just want to see us be more consistent about it. And I definitely want to see us be able to look back with honesty on a situation, not defending Tyra, not defending the shit because the show was terrible. Like the way that the girls were treated, terrible.
00:11:10
Speaker
Really, really, really terrible. And that just reminds me too that such a big part of what Tyra was saying when she launched the show was like, or what she said she was saying when she launched the show was like, this is about giving girls a
Systemic Challenges for Black Professionals
00:11:23
Speaker
chance, aspiring models who look like me, who don't quite fit the mold, giving black girls a chance, black, you know, sisters supporting each other. And it's so easy for grifters and for people who mean harm to the community to lean into that black language, lifting up my sisters and brothers. Yeah, solidarity. And all of a sudden they have an entree right in to fucking with us.
00:11:51
Speaker
Because we we want to support so badly and we want to uplift excellence so badly that we are not being honest with ourselves. And that is a perfect recipe for someone to come in and say, m let me take advantage of this little situation. ahll Let me just say my my few little key words and see if I can get in good. You saw even Candace Owens, after everything that she did, she tried to go on Breakfast Club and clean it up a little bit. And some people were buying it, I said, oh, we we've lost the plot because we cannot just allow any old body, even among Black people, into the damn cookout. Like, no, uh-uh, no.
00:12:29
Speaker
we We can't do it. We gotta be a little bit more discerning, a little bit more careful, a little bit more thoughtful, and a little bit more critical. And even if that means criticizing our faves.
00:12:41
Speaker
Because, look, too many of our faves have let us down. Nicki Minaj, Kanye West, Ice Cube, if you remember him going MAGA. Nelly, my fave, I was obsessed with him. Him kind of going MAGA. Like, we need to recalibrate and not necessarily lift everybody up the way that we've been lifting them up. And I know how that sounds.
00:13:05
Speaker
I'm pro-Black. Like, I love Black people. I love us. And I want to lift us up all the time. I also think we deserve... to be treated with the respect of criticism, with the respect of looking at something honestly and saying, this ain't it.
00:13:24
Speaker
And I'm pro-Black, but I'm also pro not being blinded by pro-Blackness. And so I definitely don't want to just love for the sake of loving. I have to actually be able to critically look at something and see, is this actually making sense?
00:13:41
Speaker
I believe that there were people who could clock what was happening even in the early 2000s when we didn't have the same view that we have now. of top model.
00:13:52
Speaker
And I think they just didn't say anything because they said, oh, if if I tear down Tyra, what about the next black model in the industry? They'll close the door and shut it forever. And I don't want us to have that kind of pressure on us to not be able to say, well, this is wrong, though, like and and not be thinking about a hundred potential steps down the road of what it means for the whole community. Like we got to just be able to call a spade a spade. Like ah anyways, and you know, going beyond top model, it also makes me think about some of the times when
00:14:28
Speaker
You know, there's like, oh, we've seen so much violence in communities by police against Black people. So we say we need more Black police. We've seen so much mistreatment in hospitals against Black women.
00:14:40
Speaker
So we need more Black doctors. And guess what? Unfortunately, I have seen plenty of stories of both not actually helping Unfortunately, what ends up being true is that systems are so big that they completely swallow up everybody in them. So black police officers can still kill black people.
00:15:01
Speaker
Black doctors can still disregard black women's needs when giving birth. Why? Because they were brought up in systems that taught them to do that. So at the end of the day, we still can never sort of just make a b blanket statement about like, if a black person does it, then it has to be OK.
00:15:18
Speaker
Obviously, I know there's more nuance than that. That's not what I'm saying people are doing. But just the idea that we need to like take a step back and really be able to review and like think more deeply about what we're seeing from our leaders.
Critique of Reality TV
00:15:36
Speaker
And with that, I'm going to get into my third and final segment, which is currently obsessed. Every episode, I am going to share some things that I'm watching, reading, listening to that I highly recommend.
00:15:48
Speaker
And on the note of what we've been talking about, I'm actually currently obsessed with all of the different documentaries that are revisiting shows from the late 90s and early two thousand This is actually one of many On Netflix alone, they did a whole other series about Jerry Springer and how crazy that show was and how it actually started out kind of decent and devolved into let's have a fight every day.
00:16:13
Speaker
They did a great, a great one about um the biggest loser and how the the beginning was like people who look like me like, oh, oh, you know, you could stand to lose a few pounds and maybe, you know, they might lose 30 to 40 pounds by the end of the season. And like, it's a very good, like nice weight loss. But by the end, they was like, oh, we need 600 pound life, putting them through hell so that they could be 150 at the end. And then like their health was fucked up. They were like gaining all their weight back. Like it got so abusive. That one was jaw dropping to me because I never watched that show either.
00:16:45
Speaker
And then Hulu did a documentary about um daytime talk. So Jerry Springer plus like Jenny Jones and Ricky Lake and Maury and all of that and how crazy it was and competitive and people was going on the show and then killing each other after they was on the show. i was like, what?
00:17:04
Speaker
E is about to do one, another top model one. Like the series is going to have an episode about top model. And then they're also going to do Dr. Phil. And The Price is Right. I said, oh y'all really want to ruin my childhood because what The Price is Right was like the love of my life. And apparently it was like terrible there.
00:17:22
Speaker
Um, Bice has a whole series, uh, called the dark side of reality TV. And they have an episode about, I think they also have a top model episode. Like everybody is talking about that show. Um, and then they also have one about like toddlers and tiaras and like, um, extreme home makeover. Apparently that had controversy. I'm like, damn, they just putting new paint and floors. What's what's going on?
00:17:48
Speaker
So all of these, just this reckoning around like these shows and how abusive they are, how much they exploited the people who went on them, how much they, you know, really kind of set the tone for like more reality TV that followed just all very interesting stuff. So if you enjoyed the top model documentary, I think all of these other different series that I mentioned would be interesting to you as well.
00:18:13
Speaker
um And with that, I am. Happy to say that episode one slash episode 29, if you, depending on how you think about it is done.
Conclusion and Future Plans
00:18:26
Speaker
Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for sticking with me until the end. You know, I want to make sure that my episodes are not too long. I know it's just me. I'm not about to be sitting, talking by myself for an hour, but I will be having guests eventually and switching up, you know, different formats. So I'm excited about that, but yeah,
00:18:45
Speaker
I just really appreciate you. I appreciate everyone who is tuning back in. I appreciate everyone who is watching for the first time. i hope you enjoyed it. I hope it was insightful. And I just really hope that you connect with me online, follow the channel on YouTube, ah follow me on all of the social medias. my My handles will show up somewhere on the screen. Yes, I'm still on Twitter. I know I need to get off, but I've been on there since 2009. And it's A girl is stuck. OK, and I don't know if I'm ready to try threads. We'll see. ah But definitely look me up. I'm Brittany Geneva on all of the things. um And you can also listen to the podcast wherever podcasts are found, except for Spotify. That is coming soon. ah But in the meantime, you guys, just thank you so, so much. I will be back with another episode very soon. Thank you so much.
00:19:36
Speaker
Bye.