If I asked the next 500 (or 5,000) people I met the name of the current Miss America, I’d wager not one of them would know the answer.
That wasn’t the case in the Comfort TV era. According to Wikipedia, in the early 1960s the pageants were the highest-rated programs on American television. The day after the winner was crowned in Atlantic City, her name and photo appeared in newspapers across the country, often on the front page.
Many of them remained in the spotlight, starting with Bess Myerson, who in 1945 became the first (and still only) Jewish woman to wear the crown. She was a familiar face on TV throughout the 1950s, most notably as one of the panelists on I’ve Got a Secret.
Lee Meriwether, Miss America 1955, has been part of the TV landscape for more than 50 years, and earned an Emmy nomination for her recurring role on Barnaby Jones. Mary Ann Mobley, Miss America 1959, appeared in memorable episodes of Mission: Impossible and The Partridge Family, and introduced the character of April Dancer on The Man From UNCLE.
Even Miss Americas that did not go on to a show business career became familiar faces, especially in the weeks and months following the pageant.
Today? No one really cares.
I guess I don’t either, but I remember when I did. As I’ve reflected on often in this blog, it was one of those once-a-year moments when we watched a program that we knew most other folks were watching too, coast to coast, at the same time. It was a nationally televised event, like the Oscars and the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, which brought us together as a nation. Today, when we need more of those moments, we don’t have them anymore.
The next Miss America pageant will be held in September, and the ratings may tick up a bit because of some highly publicized changes to the format. This year, for the first time in forever, there will be no swimsuit competition. The evening gown competition remains, but contestants will now discuss social issues as they sashay across the stage. No, I’m not kidding.
I predict that, five years from now, Miss Georgia will earn the title because she had a better take on the virtues of supply-side economics vs. the Keynesian approach favored by Miss Delaware.
Such changes perfectly fit the times we live in now. The really stupid times we live in now.
Miss America is a beauty contest. That’s what it is and that is what it always has been, despite whatever euphemisms are now used by pageant organizers. They can call it something else, but that doesn’t change its essence. We can call the Super Bowl a soccer match but that won’t convince anyone they’re not watching football.
In its heyday, families would gather around the TV, and pick out their favorites from the opening parade of states, introduced by long-time host Bert Parks.
Usually our choices would be eliminated when the top 15 finalists were selected, so we picked new ones.
Then we had the swimsuit competition, and the evening gown competition, and the talent competition, where there would be a few capable singers and dancers, and a few others who relied on baton twirling and questionable ventriloquism skills. Even the bad moments were kind of sweet.
The field was then cut to the final five, who would be asked to offer an opinion on some current event or cultural phenomenon. This was always the most oft-parodied part of any pageant. One of the best takes was in the Charlie’s Angels episode “Pretty Angels All in a Row.” Kris Munroe, undercover in the “Miss Chrysanthemum” pageant, is asked her favorite color: “My favorite colors are red, white and blue, because they’re the colors of our flag of freedom.”
In the closing moments, the runner-ups would be revealed, along with the scholarships they have earned, we’d get to the final two, and Bert Parks would solemnly intone that if, for any reason, the winner is unable to fulfill her duties as Miss America, the first runner-up would assume the title. The winner would be announced, and tears would flow, and the new Miss America would receive her crown and sash and a bouquet of roses, and walk down that Atlantic City runway as Parks did his best to sing, “There she is, Miss America…”
Now what, I ask you, is so awful about that?
I guess there was a sense that parading across a stage in a bikini diminishes these women. But in the Comfort TV era, the title of Miss America was one that was accorded respect, and not just by lascivious males. There was a sense that she personified the best qualities of the American woman, and it was a title aspired to by many young girls. And when you realize how many physicians and lawyers and broadcast journalists and high-ranking company executives received a boost along their professional journey from the scholarships provided by the Miss America Foundation, it is clear that this was and always has been about more than pretty girls in bikinis.
When Miss America winners accompanied Bob Hope to Korea and Vietnam, and when other winners visited military bases overseas with the USO, the soldiers were happy to see a beautiful woman that reminded them of home, or perhaps of someone special in their lives.
There is nothing wrong with this. But if enough people now think there is, just ditch the whole idea and move along.