It's not just about bikinis: Inside the battle for the future of Miss America
IN January, two dozen former Miss Americas were bunking in a grand rental home in Kissimmee, Florida, for a weekend of sisterhood. There was swimming and spa treatments and kitschy fun with an old Miss America board game. But Gretchen Carlson - the veteran TV news host and 1988’s first violin-playing Miss America - could stay only an hour or two. She was there on business.
Weeks earlier, she had been named the new chair of the Miss America Organization, taking over after a leak of nasty emails prompted a sweeping purge of old leadership. Now Carlson was here to tell her fellow Miss A’s - who had cheered and championed the shift - that their beloved pageant was in jeopardy amid the shifting sensibilities of the # MeToo era. The historic swimsuit competition was at the crux of the problem.
Miss America was founded as a contest for bathing beauties of the Roaring Twenties. But Carlson warned that in 2018, sponsors and broadcasters would shy away from a show that sent young scholarship seekers traipsing across a stage in bikinis. And could the pageant survive without TV?
Things can get a little loud when the Miss Americas get together. Forget the cliches about baton-twirling, big hair and world peace: This has always been a contest of charisma. “It’s hard to win an argument in a room like that,” said Caressa Cameron- Jackson, the 2010 titleholder, “when everyone is equally articulate and equally passionate.”
Still, even as they debated how to change the swimsuit contest or whether to ax it altogether, “we were all on board” with the pageant’s fresh start, said Leanza Cornett, Miss America 1993. “It was a lovefest.”
Six months later, the lovefest is over. Questions about Carlson’s leadership have sent rifts through the sisterhood, splintering through the network of volunteers who run the state and local contests that send contestants to the Atlantic City pageant.
The directors of 22 state pageants have called for the resignation of Carlson and new president Regina Hopper, a former Miss Arkansas and Beltway lobbyist. Four members who joined the board with Carlson in January have left, including two prominent Miss Americas who quit over a “toxic” climate. An effort at damage control - the release of a letter of support for Carlson’s team from 30 former Miss Americas - backfired: “This is the first time I have seen (the statement),” said 76-year Maria Fletcher, Miss America 1962, in a furious Facebook post. “I did NOT give you my approval to use my name!” (Carlson apologised.)
Many feel that Carlson’s team misled the pageant world about the reason for last month’s surprise announcement to drop the swimsuit competition and that this year’s contestants are left with a hazy sense of the rules for the Sept. 9 competition. Carlson responded in an interview: “Change is difficult.”
“I love that people think we can take an organisation that’s been struggling with relevancy for 15 years,” said Hopper, “and fix it in four months.”