Vietnam's Next Top Model 2013 is facing public criticism because of the organiser's use of certain promotional ploys considered vulgar in Vietnamese society.
Four judges of Vietnam’s Next Top Model 2013
Recently, director Nguyen Quang Dung, admitted at a launching ceremony of a new TV reality programme that anyone who's selling anything from peanuts to nuclear weapons has to attract the attention of potential buyers by any means necessary.
This statement has been understood as a common answer to the way TV reality programmes in Vietnam are attracting audiences, including creating tear-jerking stories, using vulgar language and indecent images. Vietnam’s Next Top Model is not an exception.
In the previous episode, the programme’s male judge, Adam Williams, shocked the audience by wearing a dress, and this year he has tended to mince around more than before. It’s normal to see such a fashion expert dressing and behaving as if he was a female model on the catwalk, however, such a phenomenon is said to be abnormal and irrational in a Vietnamese TV programme.
Adam and Thanh Hang
Many members of the public have characterised this as a blunder by the organiser, Multimedia, for failing to understand the psychology of the majority of Vietnamese audiences. It’s not really true that strange and strong characters would be accepted by audiences even though they're not suitable for Vietnamese traditional culture and that judges can do anything they want.
Adam’s behaviour is not morally wrong, but it's considered ridiculous when done in public in Vietnam.
Many others claimed that all Adam is trying to do with Vietnam’s Next Top Model 2013 is copy from Alexander Jenkins, nicknamed Miss J, who is a famous catwalk trainer and has trained several of the world’s top models like Naomi Campbell and Kimora Lee Simmons.
Actually Miss J is a an odd man who often wears colourful dresses, figure-hugging T-shirts and female high-heeled shoes but what Adam is doing with Vietnam’s Next Top Model 2013 is even more anomalous.
