Sachi Cole

And the idea that she is going to be this font of accountability, I don't think that's likely.

And also it's sort of that question, you know, a lot of her answers are like, well, this was, you know, this, it was just, that was the time.

That was always, that's always the argument people make.

That was the time.

I never really get that in hindsight because it's like, but it's still the time.

The president is posting GIFs or AI videos of the one and only Black president we've had as a monkey.

So I don't actually know that it is that of a time.

It's just of a different place.

That kind of stuff maybe doesn't live in reality TV like it used to or on primetime TV.

slot it maybe doesn't do that anymore but it is permeated everywhere else and it has always been there so yeah she was responding to what she had but we are always responding to what we have and we always have this it actually has never really improved one day we get to decide if we'd like to improve it i think those retrospectives are worthwhile because they help us see how the overton window has moved and where it's moved and how we can maybe shift it back

These shows sometimes operate with success only if you as the viewer are making fun of those girls and if you're sneering at them.

We were sneering at them.

And we have to, as viewers, acknowledge that and be at peace with it.

We are still doing it.

These were really young people and they didn't really entirely understand what kind of machine they were getting into.

I think competition reality and what it rocked back then is very different than like the Vanderpump Rules or the Real Housewives of today.

Those are adults, adults with money often and with family and connection kind of entering these spaces.

These were really vulnerable girls.

Some of them had nowhere to go after the end of the show, you know, didn't have family to go back to.

But those shows don't succeed and Tyra doesn't put them in blackface and she doesn't make them like walk along a tiny runway between gongs.