It was cold and wet on Saturday night, and as I was staying home to nurse a bottle of Nyquil, I found myself curled up in front of the television. Flipping through the channels, I decided that for the first time in my life, I was going to watch the Miss America Pageant from beginning to end.
Bad idea.
What started out as a beauty pageant has turned into... well, a beauty pageant. That might have been all right in 1921 when the Miss America pageant was founded as a "gimmick" by Atlantic City businessmen in order to extend the summer tourist season. But 85 years later, shouldn't we be choosing the most beautiful woman in America because of who she is or what she has done, rather than what she looks like?
Of course, the Miss America Organization, a not-for-profit organization, is a wonderfully philanthropic institution which just last year granted over 45 million dollars in cash and scholarship assistance. The Organization touts itself as being the "world's largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women." However, if scholarship eligibility were actually the basis for choosing the highest honor which the Organization can bestow, it certainly would be a different pageant!
The Miss America Organization makes it very clear that there is no monetary fee required to enter its pageants. There is no need to pay a penny -- unless you count clothing, transportation and hotel costs for state and local-level pageants, not to mention the half-ton of makeup, hair products and tan-in-a-can sprays. According to the Organization, "it does not cost a cent to compete in the Miss America program -- all you need is commitment, perseverance, talent and ambition." That, and enough spare change to make it through a couple years of pageantry. Even the most inexperienced of the elite, Katie Harman, spent two years in the pageant system before she was crowned Miss America in 2002.
In order to become Miss America, a woman between the ages of 17 and 24 must compete in a number of different areas: talent (40 percent of the total score), an interview (30 percent), evening wear (15 percent), and lifestyle and fitness in swimsuit (10 percent), as well as answering an on-stage question (5 percent). If we're looking at the breakdown generously, then at least 25 percent is purely physical. If talent is included, 65 percent of the scoring is based on physical appearance and ability; three of the final five contestants this year chose dance as their talent. Of the 52 original contestants, I didn't see a single one that was even remotely close to plump.
What was even more distressing was the moment during the informal "getting to know you" session with the last three girls, when host James Denton (of "Desperate Housewives" fame) jokingly asked the girls what food they would reach for after the pageant was over. Miss Virginia, in a charmingly disturbing display of true pageant style, said that she would reach for anything edible. Apparently the judges' horror matched my own, considering that they awarded her with the lowest of the three places still remaining.
In a last-ditch attempt to make the pageant seem quasi-legitimate, 30 percent of each girls' score is devoted to a personal interview, which could have been the saving grace of the competition -- if the sessions hadn't been so painfully scripted and rehearsed. The interview essentially consisted of a regurgitation of the contestants' platforms, with almost exactly the same wording as that of their short, biographical videos. Hardly the genuine, deep women of which the pageant seems to boast.
In the end, Miss Oklahoma, Jennifer Berry, was chosen as Miss America 2006, and accepted her crown with the requisite tears and modest disbelief. As she took her first turn around the stage as the new, emaciated Miss America, her blindingly white teeth flashing in a half-smile, half-yawn, the other girls forced smiles, clapped and welcomed her back into their circle.
Jennifer will spend the next year in a dizzying whirlwind of public appearances and community service, although she won't be in one place long enough to do much of anything of substance. Miss America will get to see all of her new kingdom, but will not experience anything more than what is on the surface of each locale. Then again, she's probably used to it.
