Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain (Discovering America) (29 page)

The biggest problem Miss America faces is not that the public is distracted by other TV shows, or even that they’ve moved on to seek other paradigms and goals for their daughters. It’s that the public is smart enough to see that MAO is not selling what it says it is. Every year the telecast offers platitudes attesting that the contestants are beautiful, talented, accomplished, and worthy of America’s undy
ing respect. And within minutes, sometimes even seconds, the hosts are gabbing outside the dressing room about how many girls are naked as they frantically change for the next competition. The telecast (for most of the country the dominant image of the organization each year) takes an experience that creates genuine camaraderie among the young women—truly, going through the Miss America crucible together bonds many of these women for life—and portrays it as a dog-eat-dog competition. Producers and hosts say that the swimsuit competition is about fitness and health, but they always, always, always ask the contestants how hungry they are. And then give them donuts onstage. And undermine the entire message they’ve just defined.

Technology has changed Miss America in many ways. Perhaps the pageant’s most relevant technological obstacle these days is the abundance of online communities where the hive mind (along with plenty of armchair cultural commentators) can dissect this sloppy game of “show” versus “tell.” And once the collective consciousness gets a whiff of hypocrisy, degradation, or condescension, it sure does get harder to reclaim credibility. Assuming, of course, that MAO even wants to do so. Evidence to the contrary suggests otherwise.

Friends on the inside have told me confidentially that it’s considered a big win if the ratings hold steady instead of dropping. Or if the pageant breaks even at the end of the year. Celebrating business practices that aim simply to stop the bleeding is a dreadful way to build—or even sustain—a company. And when you consider the reporting by reputable journalists from respected news organizations about contestants who are never able to collect their scholarships, scholarships that supposedly are the raison d’etre of the whole enterprise—well, good luck keeping those dollars coming in.

If Miss America is to survive, she will not survive be
cause the Almighty God of Television somehow brought her enough viewers and advertisers in one particular year, or even in a string of years. She will not survive because she successfully panders to the lowest common denominator; this approach is antithetical not only to building a brand, but to crafting Miss America’s brand in particular. Miss America will survive only if she decides exactly who she is, develops a lasting identity, and rejects the many temptations that run counter to that identity.

But before any of that can occur, the organization needs to get its act together. Stop rewarding mediocrity. Let go of staff members who have been promoted to their level of incompetence, or reassign them to jobs they can actually handle. Hire an outside firm to conduct an exhaustive institutional audit. Keep Children’s Miracle Network around; it’s a great group that does wonderful things. But stop balancing the books on the backs of kids with terminal illnesses. It’s not only ethically reprehensible, it’s borderline fraudulent. Most contestants would rather just pay an entry fee and be done with it. The Miss USA/Miss Universe entry-fee model actually means that the state directors who run the program make money (some of them a lot of money) and at the same time are held to a higher standard of professional accountability. Organize the former Miss Americas who want to be involved, and send them out as ambassadors with a specific marketing message. The pageant has spent almost a century creating strong, effective female leaders, but then it doesn’t really do much with them aside from inviting them to the show each year. It’s not only a waste of resources; it indicates that the people in charge don’t even understand what the program accomplishes in the lives of very real women. Even more insidious, though, is that those who
do
try to effect positive change are systematically marginalized; the leadership has adopted a my-way-or-the-highway approach to run
ning the pageant that hardly leaves any room for criticism. And as for transparency (chatty board members notwithstanding), it’s about as rare as a size 16 Miss Texas.

Once again, Miss America is at a crossroads. Dealing with traditional expectations, damaging stereotypes, and outdated, conflicting ideas of who Miss America is and what she represents is no small task. It becomes even more daunting without clear leadership, vision, and strategy. If Miss America is to survive another hundred years, her caretakers must recognize and embrace contemporary American womanhood and how it is manifested in successive generations of contestants and viewers. There are many, many smart people on the sidelines who would love to help the organization evolve. Miss America will never again be what she once was. But it is still possible that she can become something greater than ever.

NOTES

TWO

p. 14
.
It is a testament to her significance
. Hilary Levey Friedman, “There She Goes: A Trailblazing, Feminist Beauty Queen,”
Huffington Post
, March 15, 2011; Sadie Stein, “A Miss America Who Took a Stand,”
Jezebel
(blog), March 16, 2011.

p. 16
.
“a 30-25-32 figure that was close to the flapper era ideal.” New York Times
, October 5, 1995.

p. 17
.
an RKO screen test
. Miss America Organization website (
www.missamerica.org
).

p. 17
.
“the pageant was not on the up and up.” Atlantic City Press
, September 11, 1933.

p. 17
.
“entirely too much undue publicity.”
Marian Bergeron, interview for
Miss America
, PBS American Experience/Orchard Films, 2002.

p. 18
.
no money had been made by that year’s pageant
.
Atlantic City Press
, September 11, 1933.

p. 18
.
“Queen of American Beauty.”
Miss America Organization website.

p. 18
.
Fifty-two contestants
. Miss America Organization website.

p. 19
.
“iron fist in a velvet glove.”
Ric Ferentz, interview for
Miss America
, PBS American Experience/Orchard Films, 2002.

p. 19
.
she was always referred to as “Miss Slaughter.”
“Lenora Slaughter Frapart, the Doyenne of the American Beauty Pageant,”
New York Press
, January 31, 2001.

p. 19
.
“
‘First thing,’ she explained.”
“Lenora Slaughter Frapart,”
New York Press
.

p. 20
.
a high school dropout from Pittsburgh named Henrietta Leaver
. “Here’s a Beauty Queen with No Hollywood Ambitions,”
Pittsburgh Press
, August 14, 1935.

p. 20
.
to create a nude sculpture of her
. “When the Sculptor Left Off the Bathing Suit,”
Salt Lake City Tribune
, December 1, 1935.

p. 20
.
since she had married during her year
. “Miss Leaver Honey moons with Her Childhood Beau,”
Pittsburgh Press
, July 18, 1936.

p. 20
.
Bette still refuses to talk
. “1937: Bette Cooper,” Miss America Organization website.

p. 21
.
a $2,000 endorsement deal with a hat company
. “1930s—Decade in Review,” Miss America Organization website.

p. 22
.
“the Mayflower would have been seen as a plus.”
Lisa Ades, director,
Miss America
, PBS American Experience/Orchard Films, 2002.

p. 23
.
“Bess Myerson . . . or somebody else.”
Ades,
Miss America
.

p. 23
.
the Sholem Aleichem Cooperative Houses in the Bronx
. Wendy Wasserstein, “New York Stories: Hell’s Kitchen Killers . . . Gotti and the Mob . . . and the Bess Mess,”
New York Times
online, April 8, 1990.

p. 24
.
I owed it to those women to give them a present
. Ades,
Miss America
.

p. 24
.
“that I was first and foremost a Jew.”
Emily D. Soloff, “Bess Myerson Reflects on Fame, Miss America and Judaism,”
j: the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California
online, October 6, 1995. Originally published in
Chicago Jewish News
.

p. 24
.
she remembers encountering anti-Semitism
. Soloff, “Bess Myerson Reflects on Fame.”

p. 26
.
“They accused me of making communist speeches.”
Soloff, “Bess Myerson Reflects on Fame.”

pp. 26–27
.
to be crowned in a swimsuit
. “What’s in a Name,” the University of Memphis Centennial website (
http://www.memphis.edu/centennial/bygone.htm
).

p. 28
.
“There was nothing but trouble from the minute that crown touched my head.”
Owen Edwards, “American Idol,”
Smithsonian Magazine
online, January 2006.

p. 28
.
and crowned their winners in swimsuits
. Papers of Yolande
Betbeze, Miss America 1951: Overview of the Collection, Smithsonian Archives Center online (revised January 28, 2009).

p. 28
.
the objectification of women in pageants
. Papers of Yolande Betbeze, Miss America 1951: Series 1, Miss America Reign, 1950–1951, 1994, undated.

p. 31
.
“if it wasn’t for Lenora.”
Michael Yockel, “Lenora Slaughter Frapart, the Doyenne of the American Beauty Pageant,”
New York Press
, January 31, 2001.

p. 32
.
she legendarily “outtalked Billy Graham.”
Frank Deford,
There She Is: The Life and Times of Miss America
(New York: Viking, 1971), 208.

FOUR

p. 39
.
after their regularly scheduled programming but in time for the crowning
. A. R. Riverol,
Live from Atlantic City: A History of the Miss America Pageant
(Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992), 49–50.

p. 39
.
a 39 share of the viewing audience
. Riverol,
Live From Atlantic City
, 56.

p. 41
.
They become more beautiful with age
. Deford,
There She Is
, 187.

p. 41
.
“order orange juice in a loud voice.”
Deford,
There She Is
, 4.

SIX

p. 55
.
every man, woman, and child in the United States of America
. Deford,
There She Is
, 194–196.

p. 57
.
to permeate the perfect facades
. Deford,
There She Is
, 230.

p. 59
.
no one in the ballroom had any idea what would happen next
. Claire Suddath, “The Day the Music Died,”
Time
online, February 3, 2009.

pp. 60–61
.
an image that oppresses women
. Robin Morgan, “No More Miss America!” redstockings.org., August 22, 1968.

p. 62
.
had “nothing against homosexuals.”
Mary Vespa, “Miss America, Tawny Godin, Puts a Ring on Her Finger and Steps on Some Toes,”
People
online, March 22, 1976.

p. 62
.
talking about her pet crab
. Deford,
There She Is
, 219.

p. 62
.
the pageant was bumped from network television entirely
.
Bill Gorman, “Miss America Crowned: Whatever Happened to Beauty Pageants?”
http:tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com
.

EIGHT

p. 75
.
dancing in a production number titled “Call Me ‘Ms.’
”
Ades,
Miss America
.

p. 79
.
“the identity that TV stole from her in the first place.”
Deford,
There She Is
, 197–198.

p. 80
.
they had added a baby girl to their family
. Vanessa Williams biography, Biography.com.

p. 80
.
the pageant’s “There She Is” catchphrase
. Vanessa Williams, Helen Williams, and Irene Zutell,
You Have No Idea
(New York: Gotham Books, 2012), 75.

p. 80
.
Arkansas’s Lencola Sullivan became the first to finish in the top five
. Valerie Felita Kinloch, “The Rhetoric of Black Bodies,” in
There She Is, Miss America: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant
, ed. Elwood Watson and Darcy Martin (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 99.

pp. 80–81
.
the highly regarded musical theater program at Syracuse University
. Williams, Williams, and Zutell,
You Have No Idea
, 21.

p. 81
.
So she decided to give it a go
. Williams, Williams, and Zutell,
You Have No Idea
, 22–23.

p. 81
.
diversity was “alive and well.”
Sarah Banet-Weiser,
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), 129.

p. 84
.
NAACP executive director Benjamin Hooks likened her to Jackie Robinson
. Banet-Weiser,
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
, 123–124.

p. 84
.
“They chose me because they thought I could do the job.”
Banet-Weiser,
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
, 132.

p. 85
. “
I’d never take the stuff out—it was just too disgusting.”
Williams, Williams, and Zutell,
You Have No Idea
, 32–33.

p. 85
.
as she rode in her hometown parade
. Williams, 33.

p. 86
.
remind anyone of
that
hard reality
. Gerald Early, “Waiting for Miss America,” in
There She Is, Miss America
, 174–175.