Britain's Missing Top Model, which premiered in the UK in the summer of 2008, began airing on BBC America last night. All of the 8 contestants are white. All of the 8 contestants are thin. All of the 8 contestants are conventionally pretty. Each one of them says, at some point in the first episode, that they think they're attractive. These are not women with confidence issues. (Debbie, who lost most of her arm in a bus crash, has posed for Playboy.) The judges make some good points — one says, being disabled is part of the world, "Why shouldn't it be part of fashion?" But while watching these women — all pleasing to the human eye — I thought, well, it's not much of a stretch to find beautiful people beautiful. Wouldn't an eye-opening show feature women with cleft palates or port-wine stains — visible differences which tend to make people uncomfortable?

Then again, maybe the fact that they're all pretty is the point? These are not your "average" disabled people, just as models are not "average" people. The contestants want a shot in an industry in which aesthetics is everything, so, naturally, they're going to be aesthetically pleasing. Maybe the point is: "I'm pretty, I just happen to have one arm, but don't let that stop you from hiring me to model designer shoes." The problem is, that doesn't make for very dramatic television.

Take Debbie, for instance. when asked if she'd show off her disability, she was totally fine with it. So her photo shoot was pretty boring.

And Sophie, who survived a what she describes as a "violent" car accident and is paralyzed, also had a boring (gorgeous, but anti-climatic) photo shoot.

At the critique, the judges said one nice thing and one critical thing about every model's picture, which Jenny from Seattle found frustrating. "Don't patronize me," she spat.

The judges couldn't even agree on what the show is really about. Two deaf women are in the final 8, but the judges wondered: Shouldn't the winner be visibly disabled? Or isn't that part of the point: Not all disabilities are visible? In the argument, the disabled judged fought for a girl with a visible disability, but was outvoted by the other able-bodied judges, and the contestant the disabled judge liked was sent home, and the judges had to watch her limp out the door. Why not listen to the one disabled judge? Dumb.

Frankly, the show would be more successful, more interesting if it followed one disabled model and her trials and triumphs in trying to get work — as well as how she was encountered in the fashion industry. Because watching the judges niggle and nit-pick over eight beautiful women is tiresome.

In July 2008 a reader spotted a Nordstrom catalog featuring a model in a wheelchair. I'd much rather watch a series about how this came to be and follow as someone, Michael-Moore style, asks execs why we haven't seen other catalogs/ad campaigns do the same. Maybe the world is "missing" a "top" model to tell that story.

Earlier: On BBC Show, Disabled Models Learn Same Lessons As Any Other Models

The reality series originally aired last year summer in the UK (if you want to know who the winner was, click here). As Alessandra Stanley writes for The New York Times, though it supposedly is "designed to raise the profile and confidence of disabled women," it actually "makes a spectacle of their hunger for acceptance."

Though many of the contestants have visible physical disabilities — one is in a wheelchair, one is missing an arm — one young lady, Kellie, is deaf. Apparently that's a boon for a model. Stanley writes:

If anything, the absence of communication may even be an asset in the modeling world. Mr. Phang says to a photographer, "It's kind of nice working with deaf girls because there's not those sort of irritating questions."

But the Times makes it sound like Britian's Missing Top Model doesn't actually break down any barriers in modeling — it's really the same old, same old: Thin is in.

"Rebecca's disability didn't cause me any problems," a photographer says after shooting Rebecca, 27, a stunning brunette who was born with a deformed hip and wears a prosthetic leg. "It was just the fact she's not really in shape. Most models are pretty toned, slimmer, more agile."

Disabled, And Seeking Acceptance in Fashion [NY Times]

Earlier: You Wanna Be On Top
TV Show Searches For Disabled Model
Related: Britian's Missing Top Model [ONTD]