“America’s Next Top Model” (ANTM) was never a show I planned to watch. But in the days before streaming, it was easy to get sucked into a rerun. So, when friends invited me to watch the docuseries “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,” I said yes without hesitation.
What I didn’t expect was how unsettled it would leave me.
The series raises familiar questions: Why do we go along with the crowd when our instincts tell us something is wrong? How do we repent of our mistakes? And how do we do better? As participants reflect on moments of regret, blame often shifts elsewhere. Rarely does it settle.
Lent, reflection and communal sin
The release of this docuseries during Lent feels fitting. Reality television may offer a particularly visible example, but the human tendency toward communal and systemic sin extends far beyond the screen.
Lent invites us to ask hard questions: Why don’t we speak up when something is unethical, harmful or unjust? Why do we remain silent?
During Lent, we examine not only our relationship with God, but also our relationships with one another and with creation.
During Lent, we examine not only our relationship with God, but also our relationships with one another and with creation. We ask how we participate in harm — and how we might turn, repent and live differently.
Some of us take on practices like prayer, meditation or Scripture reading during this season. Others fast — perhaps from social media — or reflect on the ways we have participated in systems of harm, including White supremacy, Christian nationalism or misogyny.
These practices matter. But so does honest self-examination.
When harm becomes normalized
Because I didn’t watch ANTM from the beginning, I missed its original vision. In the docuseries, creator Tyra Banks describes her hope to empower young women, challenge the fashion industry and create space for women of color.
Yet as the series progressed, the outcomes often contradicted those goals.
The docuseries revisits some of the show’s most troubling moments — challenges that today would clearly be called racist, ableist or fat-shaming. In truth, many of these moments were harmful even then. So why did they make it to air?
“This is wrong.”
“Ratings” and “greed” offer easy answers. But the series points to something deeper: a collective willingness to ignore the inner voice that says, “This is wrong.”
Those interviewed often deflect responsibility. “It wasn’t my job to interfere,” some say. Yet reality television involves layers of production, editing and approval. Many people had opportunities to intervene. Few did.
Why?
“A product of the time”?
It is tempting to explain away harm as being “a product of the time.” The argument suggests that people simply didn’t know better — that “everyone” acted that way.
But that explanation falls apart under closer scrutiny.
As Maya Angelou reminds us, “When we know better, we do better.” And even in those earlier decades, some people did know better — and acted accordingly.
I think of a woman in her 90s from a congregation I once served. She lived through many of the eras people excuse in hindsight. Yet she spoke out against human trafficking long before it was widely discussed. She marched in the Civil Rights Movement. She advocated for women in the workplace.
She listened. She paid attention. And she acted.
Every generation includes voices calling for justice. The question is whether we will listen — and whether we will amplify those voices or ignore them.
The crowd and the cross
Scripture offers its own examples of communal failure.
As Holy Week approaches, we encounter the crowd that called for Jesus’ crucifixion. We are told that the leaders who examined him found no guilt, yet they still participated. Pilate famously washed his hands, claiming innocence while allowing injustice to proceed.
No one wanted responsibility. Yet all were complicit.
No one wanted responsibility. Yet all were complicit.
It is not hard to imagine that some in the crowd had doubts. Some may have sensed something was wrong. Still, they went along.
We like to believe we would have acted differently. But would we?
The temptation to be “right”
We do not have to look far to find the justice issues of our own time. War unfolds before us. The rights of trans people and people of color continue to be threatened.
Faced with these realities, many of us want to be on the “right side of history.” But even that desire deserves scrutiny.
If our primary goal is to be “right,” we risk centering ourselves rather than those who are harmed.
If our primary goal is to be “right,” we risk centering ourselves rather than those who are harmed. We may speak over marginalized voices rather than amplifying them. We may seek moral clarity more than justice.
The question is not simply whether we are correct. It is whether we are faithful.
Resisting the crowd
Following the crowd is often easier. In a culture shaped by urgency, productivity and survival, many of us feel we lack the time or energy to resist harmful systems.
But resistance begins with small, intentional practices.
Resistance begins with small, intentional practices.
It requires pausing. Listening. Building relationships with people whose experiences differ from our own. It requires communities that practice genuine discernment rather than performative agreement.
At church, we read Scripture and share sacraments together so that we might learn to hear one another more deeply. Yet community itself is not immune to failure.
What happens when the crowd demands Barabbas? When it chooses harm over justice?
In those moments, discipleship requires courage. We are called to community — and to resist the crowd, to interrupt harm and to repent when we have been complicit in larger systems and movements that cause damage.
Learning from our regrets
“ANTM” is not the only cultural force that has caused harm. But this docuseries offers a clear reminder: our words and actions carry weight, often beyond what we can see.
We will make mistakes. Regret is part of being human.
We are called to community — and to resist the crowd…
But repentance invites something more. It calls us to listen more closely, to act more courageously and to create space for all of God’s children to flourish.
If we take that call seriously, perhaps our regrets will not have the final word and we can experience true abundance.
