Miscellaneous

Wait!  Don't take away my feminist credentials just yet!  So, yes, Matthew and I just watched the Miss America Pageant.  I've never watched it before, but after I got sucked into watching all four episodes of Miss America: Reality Check (seriously: I am a TLC junkie these days), I really wanted Utah, Washington, or Alaska to win.  (They didn't, although Washington made it to the final five.)  Yeah, I didn't need to TiVo it to find out who won, but morbid curiosity got the better of me. 

(As staunch of a women's advocate as Matthew is, I was surprised to find out that he'd watched it before -- with his mother.  She modeled in the 1940s and was always interested in the "beauty" culture.) 

It was as insipid as I'd imagined, although having watched the earlier show, I knew that some of the contestants were actually quite bright -- which made me embarrassed for them as they wound their way through the various "competitions."  (At least, until I reminded myself that no one forced them into this competition). 

The format, though, baffled me.  It starts with the field being narrowed to fifteen women, plus one "People's Choice" candidate (Utah).  There's no explanation of how the judges reached that conclusion, but wham!  It's down to fifteen.  While I understand that it would be a very long and boring show if we had to watch 52 evening gowns, swimsuit, talent, and Q&A sessions, it would have been nice to have the pretense that it's not just about appearance. 

Then the competitions started and the eliminations quickly followed.  If I were running the show, I would have done the competitions in reverse order.  The way they did it was 1) swimsuits, 2) evening gowns, 3) "talent," and 4) Q&A.   I would have ditched the Q&A (shades of Miss Teen USA there), then started with "talent."  This is the cringe-inducing bit, the part where candidates could really break out (for better or worse).  How much more entertaining would the show be if it took on an American Idol slant?  As it was, by the time we suffered through the swimsuits and evening gowns (truly horrible, all the way around), we were left with a couple of ballerinas and a lot of singers.  I was rooting for the lone violinist, but alas, she didn't make the final five.   My feeling is that if you want women to take Miss America seriously, show them as being talented first and pretty last. 

Also, it'd be nice to know what exactly the judges were voting on -- what the criteria were.  Clearly it'd never be scientific, but even dog shows have established standards.  (An apt comparison.)

Anyway, it was interesting, but I probably wouldn't watch it again.  There was a lot of talk about "updating" Miss America, but it didn't seem terribly relevant to me -- though admittedly, they hooked me with the four episodes of "Reality Check," which did make me care about a number of the contestants.