Miss America
The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus two territories of the United States of America. The first-prize winner of the national pageant is awarded the title of "Miss America" for one year.
The Pageant originated as a beauty contest in 1921, but now prefers to avoid this term since Swimsuit and Evening Wear only comprise 35 percent of the overall score used to judge contestants. The pageant originated in Atlantic City, New Jersey and was held there each year in September through 2004 (except for the year 2000, when it was held on October 14).
In January 2006 the pageant moved to its new home and time in Las Vegas, Nevada. The pageant presents itself as a "scholarship pageant," and the primary prizes for the winner and her runners-up are scholarships to the institution of her choice. The Miss America Scholarship program, along with its local and state affiliates claims to be the largest provider of scholarship money to young women in the world, and in 2006 made available more than $45 million in cash and scholarship assistance.[1] Since most of the contestants are college graduates already, or on the verge of graduating, most of their prize money is devoted to graduate school or professional school, or to pay off student loans for courses already taken.
Many people, in particular feminists, object against the Miss America pageant as "forcing monolithic, racist, often unattainable standard of beauty into the nations consciousness".[2]
Competition
Miss America is connected to various subsidiary programs throughout the U.S.A. Local contests select local representatives (e.g., "Miss Mobile, Alabama") who go on to participate in state pageants (e.g., for "Miss Alabama"). The founder, Megan O'Brien stated that, "Miss America pageants are not about popularity, looking sexy in a bikini, or anything like that. They are about strong, sophisticated women competing to represent the women of America." The winners of the various state pageants (plus pageants for "Miss District of Columbia" and "Miss Virgin Islands") go on to compete for the title of "Miss America" at an annual national competition. Miss Virgin Islands competed for the first time in the 2004 pageant. Thus far, there has not been a "Miss Puerto Rico" or a "Miss Guam" representing.
Contestants for Miss America and the various state and local pageants are selected by panels of judges based on a set of five competitions:
- 1) Private Interview In the Private Interview portion of the competition each contestant converses with the judges on a variety of topics, from frivolous trivia to serious political and social issues. The contestant is awarded points for being well spoken, polite, articulate, and confident. This competition is less known by the general public than other aspects of the pageant, since unlike the other three, it does not take place on a theater stage, nor is it usually televised. The Private Interview counts for 25 percent of the contestant's overall score.
- 2) Talent In the Talent portion of the competition the contestant performs on stage before the judges and an audience. The most common talents are singing or dancing, but a variety of other talents may be exhibited at the contestant's choosing; some have demonstrated juggling, playing musical instruments, ventriloquism, quick-draw painting; one even chose to demonstrate the proper way to pack a suitcase. The Talent portion of the competition counts for 35 percent of the contestant's overall score
- 3) Lifestyle & Fitness in Swimsuit In the Swimsuit portion of the competition contestants walk on the stage in swimsuits and high-heeled shoes. The Miss America pageant regulates certain minimum standards of modesty the swimsuit must comply with. Judging for this portion of the competition focuses on overall physical fitness, poise and posture. Until recently, the contestants were required to wear identical, somewhat dated, one-piece suits. Recently, the organization has allowed contestants to choose their own more revealing two-piece suits, bikinis, or more modern one-piece suits. In 1996 the pageant held a phone-in poll asking the public to weigh in on whether or not the Swimsuit competition should be continued. A staggering 87 percent voted to retain the swimsuit portion. The Swimsuit competition counts for 15 percent of the contestant's overall score.
- 4) Evening Wear In the Evening Wear portion of the competition, the contestants are judged on poise and bearing as they walk across the stage. The Evening Wear portion of the competition counts for 20 percent of the contestant's overall score.
- 5) Onstage Question During the Evening Wear competition the contestants are asked a random question from a pre-determined list that they must then answer onstage with no preparation. Questions are topical and usually involve current events. The questions require the contestant to have knowledge of the event and provide an opinion. The Onstage Question counts for five percent of the contestant's total score.
A casual wear section was added to the Miss America competition in 2003, and was filtering down to state and local competitions; however, the "casual wear" section was canceled in 2006 and is no longer in use at any level of the Miss America Program.
A community service platform became a requirement of Miss America contestants beginning with the 1989 pageant. Platforms promoted by previous Miss Americas have included AIDS awareness and prevention, diabetes awareness, outreach for homeless veterans, domestic violence awareness, encouraging volunteerism in teens, and support for terminal breast cancer patients.
Prizes are given at local, state, and national level, consisting most commonly of scholarships for use in higher education, sometimes supplemented with money and merchandise donated by sponsors. Many young women pay for their entire college education simply by competing several times in local and state pageants.
History
The Miss America competition originated on September 7, 1921, as a two-day beauty contest in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The event that year was still called the Atlantic City Pageant, and the winner of the grand prize, the 3-foot Golden Mermaid trophy, wasn't even called "Miss America" until 1922, when she re-entered the pageant. The pageant was initiated in an attempt to keep tourists in Atlantic City after the Labor Day weekend.
In 1935, Talent was added to the competition.
Starting in 1950, the winner's title reflected to the following year (Miss America 1951), so there was never a Miss America 1950.
In the early years of the pageant, a beauty competition of the women wearing bathing suits was the main event. When pageant officials decided to make this a less important part of the competition, swimsuit-making sponsors started their own separate pageant, Miss USA. Yolande Betbeze, Miss America 1951, refused to pose for publicity pictures while wearing a swimsuit, citing that she wanted to be recognized as a serious opera singer. Catalina swimwear, one of the Miss America sponsors, withdrew and created the Miss USA/Universe pageants.
In 1955, the awards were televised for the first time; that year's winner was Lee Meriwether. In 1959, Mary Ann Mobley of Brandon, Mississippi won the Miss Mississippi title and then went on to win the Miss America pageant. The next year, her successor as Miss Mississippi (Lynda Lee Mead of Natchez) also went on to win the Miss America title. The only states to have produced Miss Americas in consecutive years are Pennsylvania (1935 and 1936), Mississippi (1959 and 1960), and Oklahoma (2006 and 2007). Mary Katherine Campbell, Miss Columbus, Ohio, won in both 1922 and 1923 before the rules were changed to limit an entrant to participating in only one year.
The pageant has been nationally televised since 1954. It peaked in the early 1960s, when it was repeatedly the highest-rated program on American television. It was seen as a symbol of the United States, with Miss America often being referred to as the female equivalent of the President. The pageant stressed conservative values; contestants were not expected to have ambitions beyond being a good wife (there is also a Mrs. America pageant). For decades it was, practically speaking, a pageant for young white women, though by the 1980s black women were winning the crown; a parallel Miss Black America pageant was held for African-American contestants and to this day remains closed to other races.
In 1964, the Miss America pageant that year took place just weeks after Atlantic City hosted the Democratic National Convention.
With the rise of feminism and the civil rights movement the pageant became a focus of protests each year, and its audience began to fade. The 1968 protest, in which a group of feminists on the Atlantic City boardwalk crowned a live sheep Miss America and threw various beauty accouterments (including bras) into a trash can, shocked many people and was the source of the myth that feminists "burned bras." In the 1970s it began to change, admitting blacks and encouraging a new type of professional woman. This was symbolized by the 1974 victory of Rebecca Ann King, a law student who publicly supported legalization of abortion in the United States while Miss America.[3]
Still, ratings flagged. In an attempt to create a younger image, Bert Parks, the pageant's famous emcee from 1954 to 1979, was dismissed. Parks had virtually became an American icon, singing the show's signature song, "There She Is, Miss America" as the newly-crowned Miss America took her walk down the ramp at the end of each year's pageant. His dismissal prompted public criticism; in protest, Johnny Carson organized a letter-writing campaign to reinstate Parks, but it was unsuccessful.
In 1984, Vanessa Williams became the first African-American woman to be crowned Miss America, but resigned from her duties in scandal. The job was subsequently filled by runner-up Suzette Charles who carried out the remaining seven weeks as Miss America 1984. Both women are now included on the canonical list of Miss America laureates; Williams is officially designated Miss America 1984a and Charles is officially designated Miss America 1984b.
Many Miss America winners live on in relative anonymity, but Vanessa Williams has made a nationally prominent career as a singer selling millions of albums worldwide and achieving critical acclaim as an actress on stage, in film and on television. Others who have had prominent careers in such fields as show business include Bess Myerson, Mary Ann Mobley, Lee Meriwether, and Phyllis George. 1989 winner Gretchen Carlson went on to have a career in television journalism. Interestingly, Myerson was the first Jewish Miss America, and she was selected in 1945, the year that all the Nazi atrocities against the Jews had been revealed.
In the 1990s, the pageant was reformed into The Miss America Organization, a not-for-profit corporation with three divisions: the Miss America Pageant, a scholarship fund, and a Miss America foundation.
Since the pageant's peak in the early 1960s, its audience has eroded significantly. In 2004, when its audience fell to fewer than 10 million viewers, its broadcaster, ABC, decided to drop the pageant. "Broadcasters show data proving that the talent show and the interviews, the pageant's answers to feminist criticism, were the least popular portions of the pageant, while the swimsuit part still had the power to bring viewers back from the kitchen. So pageant officials - who still require chaperons for contestants when they are in Atlantic City - are thinking about showing a little more."[4]
In 2005 the pageant announced a new television agreement with cable network Country Music Television (CMT), a switch in the pageant's schedule from September to January 21, 2006, and a move away from Atlantic City and Boardwalk Hall after 85 years to another location that has casinos: the Las Vegas Strip and the Theatre for the Performing Arts at the Aladdin Hotel-Casino. The show was hosted by James Denton, a star of the television show Desperate Housewives. The pageant remained in Las Vegas for 2007 and was again broadcast on CMT. In March 2007, it was announced that CMT had chosen to no longer broadcast the pageant from 2008.[5]
Due to the altered schedule, Miss America 2005, Alabama's Deidre Downs, reigned for 16 months instead of the usual 12. She was only the second longest-reigning Miss America: in the early days of the pageant, Mary Katherine Campbell served two consecutive terms (which is no longer allowed.)
In the last 50 years of Miss America, 12 winners have been brunette, 26 were blond, 3 were red haired, and nine were black haired.
National Sweetheart
Though not officially connected with the Miss America pageant, since the 1940's, first runners-up from Miss America's state pageants have been invited to the National Sweetheart pageant in Hoopeston, Illinois.
Criticism
The Miss America pageant has long attracted criticism for much the same reasons as the criticism attracted by other beauty contests, mainly that it degrades and objectifies woman and implies beauty is a principal quality for females. The first protests against the Miss America pageant were held at Atlantic City in 1968, when the televised event was disrupted by a group of protesters (Many people, in particular feminists, still object against the Miss America pageant as "forcing monolithic, racist, often unattainable standard of beauty into the nation's consciousness."[2]) Those people are usually referred to as someone not educated in the fact that the Miss America Organization is the largest provider of scholarships for women in the world.
Miss America 2007
In 2006, it was announced by the Miss America Organization and CMT that the latter would air the reality television series Finding Miss America in the days leading up to the January 2007 pageant. The show will have an interactive feature, with viewers casting votes for their favorites by phone and at the CMT website.
Miss America 2007 was held at the Aladdin Resort and Casino on Monday, January 29, 2007. It marked the first time that the pageant was held outside the traditional Saturday night.
On March 30, 2007, CMT announced they would not be televising the pageant anymore. This means the pageant may continue but it is currently looking for a television outlet to broadcast it.
In April of 2007, Miss America Lauren Nelson teamed up with the hit Fox TV show America's Most Wanted to help lure in suspected child predators so Suffolk County, NY police could take them down.[6]
Winners
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See also
- List of Miss America winners by state
- Miss America's Outstanding Teen
- Miss Congeniality (2000), movie with a parody of the pageant as the background ("Miss United States")
References
- ^ "Participate and Earn Scholarships". www.MissAmerica.org. Retrieved 2007-05-27.
- ^ a b Stephanie Abrams (May 1993). "Images of Women". Miami University. Retrieved 2007-05-27.
- ^ "American Experience / Miss America / Transcript". PBS. Retrieved 2007-05-27.
- ^ "???". 2005-04-09. Retrieved 2007-05-27. Note: Site requires registration to view.
- ^ Hennessey, Kathleen (2007-03-29). "Miss America Loses TV Contract". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-03-29.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Online Predator Sting: The Facts". America's Most Wanted. 2007-05-01. Retrieved 2007-05-27.
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External links
- Miss America official site
- Photo Essay: America's Pageant A look back at more than 80 years of the Miss America competition on Time.com (a division of Time Magazine)