Models
Models (2020)
Created, starring, written, and produced by: Wanjiku Kairu
Models starts with the idea that two people want to be models though they’re not typically the model type. But it evolves to ask a broader question: how do we find our place in the world?
That isn’t to say the show is serious in a way because it decidedly is not.
Creator Wanjiku Kairu, playing a character of the same time, is thirsty for model fame but is constantly diverted by other adventures and obligations, like cleaning her apartment to help find her cat, and then turning on the news to hear about killer otters. When they finally make it to the model agency, which appears to be in some kind of industrial basement, she discovers her cats are more attractive than she is, and the agent is completely uninterested in who she is.
“You just said names are important!,” Wanjiku tells the agent after introducing herself.
“Not when they’re that hard to say!”
The next episode switches gears where our protagonists try to find community in unlikely places. Theodore joins a pair of beet sellers (played by OTV staple Darling Shear and actor Charlie Baker) while Wanjiku joins a Jane Austen cosplay group.
Models revels in the unusual, surprising, and completely ridiculous, characteristic of Chicago’s improv legacy, of which Wanjiku is a part (she performs with the famous Second City). But the underlying narrative of young people struggling for belonging and purpose holds it all together.
In an interview, Wanjiku ascribes the series’ frenetic pace and constantly self-questioning central character as inspired by her very real anxiety.
“The story of Models … has become a story about presenting anxiety. It’s really centered around mental health and what that looks like for some people. I have anxiety, and a lot of people don't know that I have that struggle.”
Watching Models it’s hard not to have love for these characters who so passionately pursue what they want in any moment even if it is distracting them from their original goals. The series shows how beautiful a busy mind can be, even if it may not lead to the most normatively productive life.