I know Tyra Banks wants to be the next Oprah Winfrey, but unless she stops pulling her ignorant on-air stunts, she’s never going to come close to having the credibility of Oprah*.

I’m talking about last night’s America’s Next Top Model, which goes with this season’s “conscious” theme:  The aspiring models did a photo shoot where they were supposed to be homeless.

One of the contestants, who used to be homeless herself, captured the irony pretty well—she stated that it was strange to be pretending to be homeless while wearing such nice, expensive clothes.

The whole thing was sick, and ignorant, and actually made a mockery of the plight of the 3.5 million people who experience homelessness in the U.S. in a given year.  Before the judging began, the required shot of Tyra imitating the photo shoot showed her on her back, legs splayed at awkward angles, with a cardboard sign that said “Will Pose for Change.”

I know Tyra Banks is trying to use her platform for "good," but I think Tyra is delusional about the very nature of her career.  She is firmly entrenched in an industry that is completely shallow, materialistic, sexist, fatphobic, capitalist--and moreover, depends on people to have shallow, materialistic, sexist, fatphobic, capitalist lifestyles to exist.  No matter how many women of color or plus-size models we get on the runway, even through Tyra’s help, the bottom line is the high fashion industry is accessible to .01% of the world’s population.  Trying to use a modeling competition to bring attention to social issues is fine, but for god’s sake do it with a little dignity and a little common sense—and more importantly, don’t try to pretend modeling is something that it isn’t.  It isn’t deep, it isn’t rocket science, and it isn’t a pathway to social justice.  The sooner she realizes this, the better.

Oh yeah, and Tyra, please quit dressing up as a fat person/ugly person/homeless person/insert other stereotype here on your talk show so you can show the world how you walked two moons in someone's moccassins.

(*Yes, I’m aware that Oprah has done ignorant things too, such as saying that she set up a school in South Africa because in U.S., all kids in the inner city care about are ipods and sneakers.)