Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain (Discovering America) (26 page)

Miss America is not a reality show. And any attempts to make it one just feel wrong. Because when you get into reality-show territory, someone has to be the butt of the joke. It’s totally disingenuous to talk about celebrating young women, giving them scholarships and encouraging them to be leaders, while at the same time you’re looking for the ones whom America can laugh at. Even the more minor reality-show tweaks can be totally disheartening to the women, and it’s not because they refuse to play ball. They will ordinarily twist themselves into bedazzled pretzels to give the pageant what it’s asking for. So when even the contestants are checking out left and right, it’s hard to imagine how uncomfortable the TV viewers must feel
.

In all honesty, the reality-show stuff doesn’t start in the Vegas era. Nor does relegating the “fabulous, beautiful, intelligent” contestants to the bottom of the priority list. The pageant has sold out these women repeatedly over the years in the name of television. It’s just that the Vegas years lay it bare
.

What’s really happened is this: at a certain point, the Miss America Organization has decided that it’s an awful lot of work to sell the commercial time for the pageant telecast. It’s easier for the network to do it. On some level this makes sense
.

But it comes with a built-in problem. If you hand over the recruitment and securing of sponsors to the TV people, you no longer have the sponsors to act as a buffer between your organization and some producer who wants two talents on TV (2004). Or video clips before the swimsuit competition of the contestants
, Star Search
spokesmodel-style, lounging around candlelit hot tubs in bikinis, suggestively running a hand up their thigh (also 2004). Or a
Jeopardy
-style quiz
for the top five finalists, with questions that most eighth-graders could answer (2000, 2001, 2002). Or a “casual wear” competition, which communicates the message that external appearance is even more important than it has been in the past
.

If you have sponsors in your corner, you can say this to the network: “Wow, we would love to have those hot tub video clips! Such an amazing idea! Unfortunately, our corporate partners say that that’s not what they signed on for. What else would you like to try?” You can retain control of your own brand while someone else is the bad guy. If you don’t have the third-party bad guy, and you don’t have the money to produce the show yourself, you effectively hand over control of the whole shebang to the network executives. And they don’t have the history, or the understanding, that you do. And they don’t really care about building your brand, or reinforcing your interesting and complicated identity. They just want eyeballs on the screen
.

Problematic, huh?

TLC dumps the pageant after the crowning of Miss America 2010. The show has put up good ratings, particularly in key demographics. But MAO wants a three-year contract, so they say, and TLC wants to pay less to televise the show
.

As usual, the pageant is caught out by the news. There’s never been a television breakup—not a single, solitary one—that the MAO has been out in front of. The headline always includes some word like “dump” or “drop.” Judging simply by the punctuation and spelling errors in MAO’s typical press releases, it seems that functional competence in PR savvy and spin is way beyond the abilities of the marketing director. Who, by the way, makes about $125,000 in 2011
.

The crazy thing is that so many people stay involved, despite all this chaos. Everyone thinks the magic bullet is right around the corner. They have seen what Miss America can do for a contestant. When you volunteer your time, you can literally watch a girl turn into a woman. She figures out who
she is, how to express herself, what she thinks of what’s going on in the world, how to occupy space onstage, what impact she plans to have on her community. She grows out of being her parents’ daughter and evolves into her own autonomous human being. And you get to be a part of that. It’s a tremendous honor, and the experience is worth every second of time you can possibly volunteer
.

And then you watch her go to Miss America, the biggest moment of her life. And if she doesn’t make the top fifteen, she is sent to sit with the other non-finalists in what the fans call the “Losers’ Lounge,” and stagehands offer her donuts on a silver platter. Literally
, donuts.
On, literally
, a silver platter.
That single visual catapults the pageant backwards. Because MAO contradicts its own message that it’s “Lifestyle and Fitness” competition, not the “Swimsuit” competition, by implying (and sometimes outright saying) that the contestants have all been starving themselves
.

Each year, the contestants have to fill out a questionnaire for use by the production company. Favorite movie, your secret wish, what you like to do in your spare time. And each year, producers cherry-pick these factoids for various uses. Some girls don’t put much time into it, choosing to bang out some quick answers so they can get through their paperwork—there’s a lot of paperwork—and move on to other areas of their preparation. I’m more inclined to believe that when you’re applying for a six-figure job, you’d better make sure that every bit of background you provide about yourself is informative, interesting, and helps to effectively brand you for the people (a.k.a. the judges) who decide whether or not you get that job. Most of the time, for instance, they ask “what is the one thing you can’t live without?” If I had ten bucks for every first draft that contains a response like “OMG, my BlackBerry!” I could probably buy enough Black-Berry stock to run the company. When I help contestants
develop their paperwork, that question is my favorite target. Anyone who literally can’t live without their cell phone is not someone I want to hire, unless perhaps I’m hiring people to work at Verizon. I place a lot of emphasis on these little throwaways, because you never know when and where the information is going to surface
.

But even if you spend hours putting together a smart, strategic questionnaire, you just can’t control everything. You have to anticipate how the information could be used to embarrass you, either accidentally or intentionally. My friend Leigh-Taylor Smith is third runner-up to Miss America 2009. She’s from a relatively well-off family, so we make sure to highlight the (many) things about her that indicate that she’s real, grounded, compassionate, and curious about people from all walks of life. Like the fact that she’s visited a correctional facility and spent time talking with a group of inmates about what might have helped them make different choices. During this visit, she, her chaperone, and some of the inmates are actually in tears as they recount the loss of years of their lives. And then, there it is, as soon as she starts singing a romantic ballad on national television: a pop-up on the screen reading “She has performed in a prison!” Chelsea Handler, on her popular late-night E! show, has a field day with this little gem
.

The problem isn’t just poor judgment about how the contestants are portrayed. Sure, that factoid is comically incompatible with the visual metaphor of Leigh-Taylor’s talent performance, which has been crafted very carefully. Ultimately, though, it’s just another example of valuable information presented poorly
.

But many times the cognitive dissonance can be stultifying. To put it mildly, MAO simply doesn’t do well with managing its message. The leadership is continually frustrated by the fact that Those Cynical Media People focus on pageant stereotypes, rather than the real opportunities Miss America provides for young women. And yet the organiza
tion fails, time and time again, to synthesize these objectives with the information it’s putting out into the world
.

Leigh-Taylor’s successor, Alyse, once asks my advice about a question she’s been wrestling with; the year she competes (2010), they ask every contestant to submit a favorite recipe. My response: “While you’re at it, make sure to tell them about your ideal first date, and the secret to getting really, really streak-free windows!” The media will always latch on to stuff like this, because it’s more buzzy—and easier to mock—than statistics about scholarship dollars and how many miles per month Miss America travels. They “tell” those things, but they simultaneously “show” stereotypes being reinforced left and right
.

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen pageant-related specials on any number of channels, but I do know this: if you set an egg timer, the people on your TV screen will be talking about those stultifying pageant beauty secrets before it goes off. Butt glue, duct tape, Preparation H. It’s one thing when it’s a third party; it’s nearly impossible to control how that plays out. But the 2013 telecast is immediately preceded by a one-hour
20/20
special about what goes on behind the scenes when you’re competing for Miss America. In my opinion, these forty-odd minutes of TV time single-handedly set the pageant back twenty years. There is teasing of hair; there’s almost-but-not-quite-bitchy conversation among the contestants. And, nestled on its typically hallowed and much-discussed perch, there is butt glue. For some reason, people never fail to be fascinated that these women spray on sports adhesive so that their swimsuits will stay put, instead of riding up in the back while they walk across the stage. The
20/20
special, titled “Pageant: Confidential,” ups the ante; presumably because the mere discussion of this phenomenon is way too dignified, they actually show a backstage volunteer attending to one young lady after another, assembly-line style. Having watched MAO struggle to reinvent the pageant’s image over and over again, I cringe. It’s so embar
rassing, and so damaging, and so, so typical. And the truly unfortunate part of all this? Because the show’s been done with the pageant’s cooperation, MAO has actually had a say in what’s made the final cut. The
Huffington Post
headline, for example, doesn’t say “Miss America Is Really All About the Scholarships” or “Wow, Miss America Ain’t Kidding About All That Community Service!” Nope, it reads “Miss America Beauty Secrets: Butt Glue and Lots of Tape.” It goes on to show Miss West Virginia discussing how to actually lift one’s posterior by tucking it properly into one’s swimsuit, noting that applying the glue itself is “an art.” Brilliant
.

Messaging has always been a problem, and will continue to be one until there’s a major change of personnel. Another example: in 2008, I have a bit of a falling-out with the national office. I’m doing the Broadway show
Legally Blonde,
and MAO’s marketing director, Sharon Pearce, asks me to be one of the three Miss Americas to appear on a karaoke show called
Don’t Forget the Lyrics.
Sounds fun, and whatever we win will go to the scholarship fund. I agree to use my days off to fly to L.A. for the filming. But just in case something goes wrong and the schedule changes, I ask if I can wear a
Legally Blonde
shirt on the show. So that if my return trip gets delayed (not unheard of in the TV world) and they have to put my understudy on for the matinee, at least our producers will feel like they’ve gotten something out of it
.

It is then that I find out that we’re expected to wear evening gowns
.

Evening gowns. On a karaoke game show.

I try to compromise. Cocktail dress? Nope. The producers say they want the visual of three beautiful “queens” (which apparently MAO is no longer trying to correct), and—I will never forget these words—“Kirsten [the current Miss America], of course, will be wearing her crown.” Oh, okay, so it’s gowns
and
a crown. On a karaoke game show. Spectacular
.

I keep trying to negotiate this. I tell them that if it’s a deal
breaker for the game-show people, I’m happy to step aside and let someone else do it. There are Miss Americas who would wear a chicken suit in exchange for some face time on national television
.

Eventually, I find myself sitting in Sharon Pearce’s office with her, and with Art McMaster. And it really does look like the gown thing is mandatory, which means I’m just not going to do this. As politely as I can, I tell them that I’m not going to do them a two-day favor and fly across the country to, in essence, reinforce the number-one stereotype people have about Miss America: that regardless of the appropriateness for any particular occasion, she shows up in a gown and crown. I know this, of course, because I’ve done Q&As in countless high school assemblies, and more often than not, a kid raises his or her hand and expresses surprise that I haven’t walked in wearing a gown. In the school gym. So, no, I’m not going to show up on a game show in one. Dressy, fine. Sparkly, fine. No gown. And I tell them that frankly, I’m kind of surprised to be the first one who’s thought of this. I do not tell them what I really think, which is that they’re so desperate for exposure that they’ll ask their Miss Americas and their contestants to do anything, and expect to be thanked for the opportunity. And that they have no message. And that this is why they can’t build a brand that sponsors and TV networks will get behind
.

I do not say these things. Art and Sharon still look at me like I have two heads. They seriously don’t understand why I have an objection to this
.

A note: In 2011, these two people make about $400,000 in combined salary. The pageant as a whole reports total revenue of
−
$165,927. Failing upward, indeed
.

In fact, Miss America’s 2011 tax returns indicate that Art McMaster makes $252,136 per year. Of course, the same return indicates that more than $720,000 (with no corresponding revenue listed) has been expended to “provide support and related expenses for Miss America to promote
awareness of her annual charitable cause.” It’s a remarkable sum, given that the winner herself (who is classified as an independent contractor, despite a job description specifying that she is expected to be “on-call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the duration of her time as Miss America”) makes about $10,000 per month, receives no benefits, and has her travel expenses and those of her tour manager paid by the sponsors that invite her to their events. It doesn’t do much good to question these numbers, though; true to his background as comptroller, McMaster himself signs off on the tax returns
.