Drop the swimsuits? No, drop the whole pageant
The next Miss America will not be judged on her looks.
It’s a weird idea: a beauty pageant that’s no longer about ... beauty?
It’s as if McDonald’s announced all future Big Macs would now be table lamps, or if Dr. Scholl’s ditched foot care to focus on the funny bone.
That’s not rebranding. That’s starting over. That’s taking an epic risk.
And that is exactly what the Miss America Organization is doing.
In an effort to get with the times and float atop the #MeToo watershed, it seems Miss America is having an identity crisis.
The net result is “groundbreaking” changes to an annu- al contest that has objectified women for nearly a century.
First up: no more objectifying women.
When the 2019 Miss America Competition is broadcast on Sept. 9, from Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, there will be no bikinis. The “swimsuit portion” will be replaced by a “live interactive session with the judges.”
Each contestant will “highlight her achievements and goals in life and how she will use her talents, passion, and ambition” — and sorry, I just dozed off.
So the fall telecast will be like watching 51 job interviews in two hours? Miss America is now some vague combo of Miss Congeniality, America’s Got Talent, LinkedIn and the Salvation Army? Instead of making skin-deep judgments, the focus now will be on the “souls” of contestants? And to stop spreading toxic beauty ideals, the system now will be open to women of all shapes, sizes and shades, who will “no longer be judged on outward physical appearance”?
I’m sorry, but wouldn’t it make more sense to just scrap Miss America entirely?
I don’t watch beauty pageants. I don’t get them or understand why anyone would want to be in one. But speaking existentially, a beauty pageant that is about neither beauty nor pageantry makes about as much sense as a car wash with mud hoses.
Miss America is trying to do the right thing. Great. But as these “groundbreaking changes” suggest, the right thing is to shutter all TV operations. By all means, keep handing out scholarships. Keep helping charities. But do this off the radar. If Miss America is no longer about looks, it is no longer a spectator sport.
You can’t still parade women around while probing their “souls” in prime time.
Nobody will tune in to such a treacly attempt at having it both ways.
If someone yearns to watch average-looking people yammer on about their dreams in off-the-rack clothing, he or she could just hang out in a food court. And I’m not sure the feminists cheering loudly this week are thinking clearly. Even without the bikinis or evening gowns — that portion of the show is also getting the kibosh — these contestants are still getting judged on television.
They are still getting pitted against one another. They are still competing for material goods within a patriarchal system. So now the sexism is internalized.
But it’s still sexism. Also, if this anti-beauty beauty contest trend catches on, women may not be thrilled with the longterm consequences. If a future Miss America can look like Susie from accounting, what’s to prevent a future Mr. Universe from scarring female retinas with his flabby gut and man boobs? What’s to prevent men from demanding equal rights and a chance to be Mister America while competing on Miss America in a battle of the so-so looking sexes?
Then there is the impact this “empowerment” will have on households.
Inspired by Miss America, I will now flat-out refuse when my wife encourages me to wear a different shirt as we’re headed off to dinner with her pals. No thank you. This agein appropriate rayon number is who I am on the inside.
And when I’m asked to perform a chore, I will look her dead in the eyes and say: “Stop judging me by these superficial tasks society expects me to fulfil. Stop objectifying me as a human Swiffer. Do I not have feelings? Do I not have a soul? Do I not dream of animal rights or income equality, one couch nap at a time?”
Miss America believes it is taking the high road. But under the guise of enlightenment, it’s really just on a slippery slope toward cultural oblivion.
We know race-car exhaust is bad for the environment. That doesn’t mean the Indy 500 should be a potato-sack race. And why can’t I enter my cat in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show? Why can’t I be a starting pitcher for the Jays?
Spoiler alert: It’s not just the bikinis and evening gowns that were problematic. If beauty pageants are as treacherous as Miss America now believes, the solution is not to change the rules. It is to stop and apologize for decades of treachery.
It is to realize the show can’t go on.