Reality TV framed sexual assault as “drama” — and viewers were taught to blame survivors.

Netflix’s Reality Check brings America’s Next Top Model back — and reopens ANTM’s rape culture legacy

Netflix’s Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model revisits America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) like it’s a cultural time capsule — messy, iconic, complicated. But what it’s really revisiting is something darker: the way reality TV edited sexual violence and sexual harassment into entertainment, then taught viewers to treat it as normal.

Because ANTM didn’t just “age badly.” It showed us rape culture in real time: harm turned into storylines, safety treated like a production inconvenience, and survivors framed as the problem. When a show can package sexual violence as “drama,” it trains audiences — especially girls — to minimize what happened, doubt what they saw, and blame the person harmed for not handling it perfectly.

And the Netflix documentary had a clean chance to fix that framing. If you can re-air it, you can reframe it. But too often, the doc slides back into excuse language — different time, different standards, that’s how TV was — like naming violence clearly would be “too intense.” Refusing to call it what it was doesn’t stay neutral. It keeps the same framework alive: protect the show, not the girl.

This is why this conversation still matters in 2026. Consent education isn’t just about definitions — it’s about undoing the cultural training we got from media. If a documentary is going to bring ANTM back into the algorithm, it should not also bring back the victim-blaming edit that shaped a generation’s relationship to consent, power, and sexual violence.

Shandi Sullivan on ANTM: “The Girl Who Cheated” 

And one of the most disturbing threads is what happened to Shandi Sullivan in Milan on Cycle 2.

In the COVID-era rewatch, a younger wave of viewers started pulling ANTM clips and asking the obvious: “Why was this treated as normal?” That backlash is a big reason Netflix made Reality Check — to revisit America’s Next Top Model with today’s lens. And what we physically watch is this: Shandi says she was drinking, became incoherent, and blacked out — saying she “just knew sex was happening” and then “passed out.” The cameras kept rolling anyway, then kept rolling after — capturing her waking up confused, crying, and unraveling in real time.

Instead of treating that moment like a safety emergency, production turned it into a morality storyline. The show framed her as unfaithful, titled the episode “The Girl Who Cheated,” and filmed the on-camera phone call where she’s pushed to “confess” to her boyfriend. A person who’s blacked out can’t consent — so when the edit centers “cheating” instead of calling it what it was, quite literally rape, it isn’t just mislabeling what happened. It’s training viewers to blame the survivor.

Keenyah Hill: sexual harassment on set, treated like a “how you handle men” lesson

Keenyah’s story shows blatant workplace sexual harassment in real time — on camera, on a set where the power was lopsided and her safety was treated like a production problem, not the priority.

In Cycle 4, the show brings male models into a South Africa shoot to dance around the contestants, and Keenyah says one of them, Bertini, was aggressively coming onto her before cameras even mattered — pushing past her “no,” making it sexual, and escalating once they were filming.

What’s hard to watch is the moment she tries to do the “right” thing: she speaks up, she asks for help, she tries to stop it — and instead of treating it like a safety issue, the energy she describes is basically: don’t disrupt production. Like her discomfort is the inconvenience, not his behavior.

And then judging doubles down. Instead of treating sexual harassment like a safety emergency, the show turns it into a how-you-handle-men lesson — telling her to shut him down “in a fun way,” like harassment is something you’re supposed to smooth over so the set can keep moving.

The message is crystal clear: protect the production, not the girl. If you’re uncomfortable, you’re “difficult.” If you tolerate it with a smile, you’re “professional.”

“It was the times” isn’t a neutral explanation — it’s how rape culture keeps replicating

What’s honestly sickening is that the Netflix doc had a clean chance to correct the story — and still didn’t. It revisits Shandi’s Cycle 2 Milan incident and Keenyah’s on-set harassment, then lets the people in power explain why no one stepped in and why it aired the way it did. And instead of naming what these women describe — incapacitation + exploitation, sexual harassment + power imbalance — the framing keeps sliding back into vague excuses: different time, that’s how TV was, we didn’t have the language, it was complicated.

But this documentary was made now. If you can re-air it, you can reframe it.

Because refusing to call it what it was doesn’t stay neutral — it keeps the original edit intact. It lets everyone treat sexual violence like an awkward footnote instead of a violent failure. It protects the brand and the nostalgia at the expense of the people harmed.

And that’s how an entire generation gets shaped.

We grew up watching reality TV teach us what was “normal.” Not just the beauty standards — the consent standards. The storylines trained girls to shrink themselves, to laugh things off, to be “cool,” to manage men’s behavior, to assume discomfort is the price of being chosen. And when something crossed the line, the edit taught us the script: doubt yourself first, blame the girl, protect the production.

So no — we shouldn’t be confused about why rape culture has perpetuated. We were trained inside it. We watched it get explained away in high definition. We watched women be treated like storylines instead of people. And now Netflix is giving that same framework a second life — unless we interrupt it with what actually changes things: consent education, media literacy, and adults being willing to name harm without flinching.

Real prevention starts here — with these conversations

This is exactly why SafeBAE exists: to give teens the language, tools, and confidence to name harm early — and to build a culture where consent is normal, survivor-blaming isn’t, and adults are held accountable for the environments they create.

Start a SafeBAE Chapter at Your School. We provide exactly what you need—step-by-step guides, training materials, and ongoing mentorship—so you can launch peer-led consent workshops, bystander intervention trainings, and survivor support groups on campus.

Access Our Survivor-Created Toolkits. From lesson plans on healthy relationships to protocols for trauma-informed reporting, our free digital resources equip educators, parents, and students with the tools to believe survivors first and act safely.

Host a SafeBAE Speaker. Bring a SafeBAE expert into your classroom, community meeting, or parent night to share research-backed strategies and spark the conversations that protect young people.

Donate to Sustain Youth-Led Prevention. Your support ensures that Free programming, scholarships, and aftercare partnerships continue—so no survivor ever faces abuse alone, and every student has the chance to learn what consent really means.