So I guess Drew and I could be watching any one of the movies we’ve got waiting for us (Winter’s Bone, Rabbit Hole, The Fighter, or even Going the Distance) but instead we find ourselves making a big pot of coffee and channel surfing, and landing on the Miss America pageant.
Miss America should not be confused with Miss USA. Miss USA is the Donald Trump organization which came under fire last year for using photos of the competitors wearing nothing but paint. Miss America is the scholarship program, which includes a talent portion. (Thanks, Google.)
The talent portion tonight included such gems as a ballet dance to Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” which appeared to be cribbed from the movie Centerstage, Irish dancing to the Riverdance finale, and a bunch of girls singing medium-well. But the best talent, hands down, belonged to Miss Arkansas, who did a ventriloquism act with two dummies, singing “I Want To Be A Cowboy Sweetheart.” Gold. She yodeled while throwing her voice! Or threw her voice while yodeling. You know what I mean! It was actually pretty impressive.
Later they moved on to showing and naming all the previous Miss Americas they could find, from the 1940s on. All the women stood on the stage and one cameraman ran around filming all of them in order. The women kind of all looked like substitute teachers, at least until we got into the ’90s.
Here are some interesting facts about Miss America:
– The first Miss America pageant was on Sept 7, 1921, at Atlantic City. At this point it was just a 2-day beauty competition.
– In 1935, Talent was added to the competition. At the time, non-white women were barred from competing, a restriction that was codified in the pageant’s “Rule number seven,” which stated that “contestants must be of good health and of the white race.”
– No African American women participated until 1970, and until at least 1940, contestants were required to complete a biological questionnaire tracing their ancestry. Vanessa Williams was the first African-American Miss America (1984).
– For some reason, contestants in Miss America pick really fugly evening gowns. I can’t figure out why.
Other highlights of the evening’s program: seeing Miss New York hike her evening gown up around her hips and sprint across the stage to change for Talent; watching the chick who was hosting chase down contestants and shove her microphone into their faces, only to have them answer, “Sorry, I didn’t hear the question!” and bolt into the trailer to change; getting a sly wink from the 1952 Miss America.
A good solid two hours of entertainment, although I think Miss USA is a better production, and I wish that Miss New York had at least made it into the Talent portion, because I’m 80% sure her talent was going to be stripping, based on the costume she was wearing.
The Cameraphone Diaries 