Jacqueline Smith: All you need is inner love

What do Tyra Banks and Tiger Woods have in common - other than hunting beautiful women?

Oh and practically having the same first name - give or take an "r" and a "g".

They have given the gift-wrappers something to talk to customers about between ribbons.

And they have stirred those questions about our expectations of television models/idols/heroes.

America's Next Top Model photographer Nigel Barker made me think about this further when he told me about his humanitarian projects. When not turning waifs into contortionists, he is traipsing through Africa to capture images of people who have never seen a fashion spread in their life.

And it is this work that makes the hairs stand up on the back of his neck - not because the subjects would make fantastic contestants on his show, but because he has been able to find beauty in their unimaginably rough world.

He does it so that when he tells the ANTM contestants that they need to be role models as well as real models, he can do so with conviction.

At a luncheon in Auckland yesterday, his model sidekick Tyra put her role-model face on and spoke about the importance of loving one's self on the inside. (I would have no problem loving myself inside and out if I was able to eat at SPQR every night too.) Perhaps she decided the manic stalking of the model crew was reason alone to give New Zealand viewers a little pep talk. Stop idolising others and idolise yourselves (on the inside), people.

Top Model or Idol contestants must love themselves inside and out - any lack of respect produces wonderful train-wreck television but ruins their reputation. Forever.

Susan Boyle's appearance looked like it was going to be disastrous until we realised she was there because she loved herself on the inside.

But the real reason for this love is so they can dust themselves off when they are dumped after that one album, or fashion spread that they were promised.

They need it to be able to move on to other Barker-like projects. And, ideally, to offset any damage they had caused the planet's children by, for example, believing they could make a living out of their bone(y) structure - a project with a humanitarian bent.

CariDee English, the winner of the seventh series of ANTM is on the right track. She is now hosting a her own show Pretty Wicked, which premieres on C4 on December 29. It's like Top Model but is about inner beauty, not outer (though it seems contestants needed fairly reasonable looks). While it appears to kind of defeat the purpose of ever entering that beauty contest, at least she is trying to make a difference.

Meanwhile Tiger Woods probably didn't think he needed to love himself on the inside, because he made it without the help of a reality show.

The irony is that a reality competition is probably his only chance of reclaiming idol status, now that everything's turned to custard.

But which one? Nobody would want to stand against him on Top Golf. All that humiliation for a guaranteed loss. Top Model? I think the point is that contestants are undiscovered.

Maybe, instead of lumping old Tiger with notions of idolatry, we should just accept him for his adultery (and his lies on Murray Deaker's show).

Let the models model, let the cooks swear, the golfers golf, and idols sit idle if they want to. They can leave the role-modelling up to the rest of us.