Bridget Armstrong

Oftentimes, women of color's emotions or the way that we express ourselves can be misread as being aggressive, being withdrawn, or whatever it is.

And so when I rewatched it when we were producing the show, I got a little emotional, to be honest.

And that never happened.

I mean, as many times as I've watched that meme, I've never gotten emotional about it.

But I did when we were doing this show.

But it's such an iconic scene.

I think it's the thing that everybody knows.

But I think it is such a great metaphor for what the rest of A&TM is.

Here's this moment.

Here's what it looks like is happening on the surface.

Here's how we remember it today.

But it's so much deeper than what we saw.

Of course it makes Shandi feel like shit.

That was probably the most shocking part of the docuseries.

We got the confirmation from Shandi in the Netflix docuseries that she was indeed assaulted.

Like she was, you can't give consent when she was that drunk.

The way that A&TM handled that situation and the way that Tyra and Ken Mock talk about it today was really disturbing for me.

So we found out in the docuseries that

Yes, one, Shandi confirmed that she could not give consent in that moment and that the entire encounter was filmed.

But we also found out that they filmed her going to the doctor the next day to get tested.