MISS AMERICA represents the highest ideals. She is a real combination of beauty, grace, and intelligence, artistic and refined. She is a type which the American Girl might well emulate." These words, spoken by Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce President Frederick Hickman, commence the online introduction to the history of Miss America. The website, which goes on to give the biography of every single Miss America from 1921 to the present, is almost pathetic in its attempt to convince the viewer that this is truly a worthy endeavor. The pageant, which originally referred to itself as a beauty contest, but now calls itself an "achievement program," is nothing more than a joke.
The show, which once was held in great esteem, has lost its popularity over time, perhaps due to the gradual and building appreciation of women as more than just objects of beauty. While being dropped by ABC should have clearly pointed this out to the show's producers, it only served to drive them to a cable network: CMT or Country Music Television. Not everyone was happy with the move, for obvious reasons.
"Why is the Miss America Pageant being shown on CMT? That isn't country music! There are other channels for that stuff," wrote 31-year-old country-music fan Lee Walker on his Myspace.com blog entitled "CMT Needs Some Brains." CMT manager Brian Philips has a different perception of their recent acquisition. "Country-music fans don't live in isolation," he argued in a Multichannel.com interview.
And so, armed with a reality show, a ring tone, and armfuls of cash ($1 million to the person who successfully predicted the finalists and winner), the show moved to Las Vegas last year, hoping to reclaim some of its original popularity.In addition to this, the show was also moved off a date night, hoping that the Monday-night airing would attract a younger audience -- one who might otherwise not be home on a Saturday night.
The move (both of location and time slot), however, was still not enough to raise the show's dying ratings. While Miss Universe claims more than 600 million viewers, Miss America barely claimed 3.1 million viewers in 2006 -- a record low. This year, in an effort to 'bring sexy back' to the pageant and obtain more viewers, Miss America officials ditched last year's swimsuit sponsor, Speedo, for Venus, a line that produces skimpier bikinis in flirty fabrics with psychedelic or python prints.
The new bikinis would make more sense if the swimsuit aspect of the competition counted for more, but the pageant's Lifestyle & Fitness in Swimsuit category, only counts for 20 percent of the total score. The role of the less conservative pieces, then, is clear.
"Miss America is different than the other beauty pageants out there," said Miss America CEO Art Mc Master in the same interview. "We're about smart, beautiful, talented young women. But we knew we needed to change our focus and try to find new, modern, sexy types of outfits."
"Is it a smarter move in terms of getting a bigger audience? Probably," Eric Deggans, a television and media critic for the St. Petersburg Times, said in the same interview. "But does it hint at a certain weird kind of hypocrisy? I think so."
And that's not the only thing that has recently clashed with the words of Frederick Hickman, so prominently displayed on the pageant's webpage. Intelligence also seems to be lacking in some of the candidates.
"I can't believe Miss Oklahoma won," says an anonymous source (let's be honest, who would want to admit to watching the pageant?) "They asked her what she would wish for if she had one wish and she actually said 'Well, I'd like to be 3 inches taller. It'd be nice to have longer legs for the swimsuit competition.'"
Msnbc.com confirms this in their online article, "Once Again, Miss America is from Oklahoma," by describing Lauren Nelson as "a blonde who told judges she wishes she was taller." Miss America then, although still masquerading as a prominent and watch-worthy show, is nothing more than a beauty contest attempting to maintain the reputation it once held so dear.
Although the producers have worked hard to try and pass the pageant off as a scholarship competition, it is clear that Miss America is nothing more than a pageant looking to promote women as nothing more than parading beauty symbols. Even their images of beauty, however, are skewed, as their latest bathing suit acquisition blatantly exposes.
Like the Msnbc.com poll asks, "Is it time to scrap Miss America competitions?" The answer is easy and it's no surprise that it's the first option to pop up: "Yes! It's irrelevant and degrading."
Bye bye, Miss America...
Andrea Arango's column usually appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at aarango@cavalierdaily.com.
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