“That the title of ‘The Super Models’ is not ‘The Supermodels’ is no minor detail. The subjects of this four-part, eye-candy spectacular — Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington — are not mere supermodels; they are the super models, women who were, and are, close friends, a quartet of beauties who won the genetic lottery and remade the world they were born into,” John Anderson writes for The Wall Street Journal.
John Anderson for The Wall Street Journal:
A four-part review of four careers, the series—deeply dissatisfying given the territory it purports to occupy—is curious nonetheless… But “The Super Models” is happy to provide us with a rather surface view of the world or at least of modeling on an extraterrestrial level. The two directors supersaturate their series with images past and present—the women were, and are, staggeringly beautiful; they were fixtures in the fashion magazines of the ’80s and ’90s, ultimately eclipsing the products they were supposed to be selling and becoming one-woman brands before personal branding was really a thing. It is hardly an ordeal to watch their careers rewind. But this only punctuates the fact that so little of depth is being said. Ogling is great, but nutritionally insufficient.
The evolutionary trajectory of the Model—from anonymous mannequin to tabloid celebrity—is interesting, inasmuch as it plays into one of the themes of “The Super Models,” which is power: We are told repeatedly that the team of Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington seized control from the ruling elite. But where did it go? Much as Hollywood now systematically prevents filmmakers from achieving real decision-making clout (who are the new Scorseses now, or the Spielbergs?) there are very few women now who possess the kind of superpower held by these supermodels. Their personal careers have been very successful, but their legacy vis-à-vis their profession? It is a question. Just one that goes unexplored by this series.
MacDailyNews Take: To us, intentional or not, a skin-deep treatment of a skin-deep subject seems rather apropos.
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