Beauty Pageants

I just watched the Miss America Pageant this weekend. It probably seems out of character, but I have always loved watching the pageant with my mom and sisters. Up until this year I just watched it, appreciated the entertainment value, and thought nothing of it the rest of the year. I have never actually seen a Miss America pageant winner make good on her promise of changing the world. I have never even seen a ribbon cutting.
But this year, I actually thought for a bit about the objective of the Miss America Pageant and how the producers have decided to achieve that objective.

I took this mission statement from the Miss America website:

"Rich in history and social significance, the Miss America Organization is a not-for-profit organization that has maintained a tradition for many decades of empowering young women to achieve their personal and professional goals, while providing a forum in which to express their opinions, talent and intelligence. "

And the way they have chosen to achieve their goal is through a pageant. I don't have anything against pageants, in fact, I participated in one a long time ago when I was going to Dixie College. It was the D-Queen pageant, and the categories included interview, community service, personality presentation, academic excellence, and evening wear. There was no bathing suit section. My personality presentation was comedic breadbaking (I had just finished a job working at Great Harvest). I actually got first runner up. My family was surprised. So surprised that they didn't even bring cameras to the pageant-- thus I have no pictures. But it happened!!

Anyway, the Miss America pageant show starts with 15 semi finalists, 11 of which are chosen based on their total scores from the previous days preliminary events and 4 are popular votes (based on America's choice and the other contestant's choice). However, once the show really gets going, girls are eliminated after each individual event. So you would think that they would start the show with the most important events so that the girls who got eliminated were least worthy of the award. But they don't. They start with the bathing suit competition! And I still have no idea what criteria they use to judge this particular event, but if you don't walk with enough swagger and sway, you get eliminated. It doesn't matter if you are the most eloquent, talented girl in the bunch. You fail at swimsuit, and you are OUT. So after the swimsuit competition is evening wear. Again, if you don't walk in your high heels with enough grace, you get eliminated. Finally, the third event is the talent portion. And this is when the absurdity of it all really reveals itself. There were a few really talented girls (the winner did an amazing piano piece that made me want to stand up and applaud, and the runner up was a ventriloquist...thats right a VENTRILOQUIST!!!), but some of the girls looked like they could have been performing in a high school assembly. One girl did a really unimpressive dance to Michael Jackson's "the way you make me feel" and she really didn't do the king of pop any justice.

So the girls don't even have to speak until the FOURTH category-- impromptu question. The judges apparently considered all the questions equally difficult, but one girl was asked if she considered herself first a citizen of her state, a citizen of her country, or a citizen of the world (an EASY question because all you have to say is that you consider yourself a citizen of the world and that we are all human beings and should love each other), while another girl got asked what her opinion was on Wikileaks and whether the government should be justified in keeping secrets.

Absurd. But fun. And fascinating.

I guess I got mad because the girl from Utah made it in the top 15, not as a popular choice, but based on her preliminary scores. Once she ascended the stage in her swimsuit, I knew she was not going to go further in the competition because she was a little stiff onstage in her swimsuit and didn't pander to the camera like some of the other contestants. So some of the sexier, popular choice contestants made it further while she got eliminated. I was left wondering what talent she might have been able to perform or how she would have answered the question at the end had she not been eliminated. Who knows-- maybe she would have done a puppet show as her talent, but maybe she might have performed an amazing violin solo or sung an opera aria.

But the pageant values a sexy body first, grace while walking second, talent third, and intelligence fourth.

So there you go. I was happy with the winner though. Miss Nebraska. An amazing piano player and she wants to be a Supreme Court justice when she grows up. However, its a good thing she was sexy enough in the first rounds to actually be able to show America that she has talent, grace, and intelligence.