The Miss America Organization describes Miss America as a “woman with the highest ideals. She is a real combination of beauty, grace, and intelligence, artistic and refined. She is a type which the American Girl might well emulate." Ever since the Miss America Pageant began in 1921, it has been shaping beauty ideals for women. But the transformation of the ideal Miss America from then, versus now, is outrageously concerning.
Not only is the body type that Miss America demands questionable, but the pageant is not as talent based as it once was either.
2014: Miss America’s talent, a Bollywood routine.
2015: Miss New York wins the crown after sitting on the ground shoe-less playing with a red Solo cup.
2016: Miss Colorado places second runner-up at Miss America after delivering a monologue about being a nurse.
Granted, I could never do what she does, but this is Miss America. She is grace, she is beauty, and she has talent.For these talents to win, or get close to winning, Miss America seems pretty un-American to me.
The pageant is transforming every aspect of competition into the 21st century mindset that we cannot offend anyone, and everyone is a winner, but if this is the case why do we have a Miss America at all?
The pageant directors and organization in whole are moving away from everything that the pageant once was founded upon and slowly losing the attention of every loyal fan they once had.
Fifteen years ago, I was that little girl that was wearing her favorite plastic tiara eagerly waiting to see princess gowns on TV and dreaming about the day I could be on that stage; but the difference is that women like Ericka Dunlap and Katie Stam were the Miss America’s I was striving to be like. I wanted to represent everything the Miss America system embodied, but now where has all of that gone? It's sad that the young girls sitting in front of their TVs today don’t get the privilege to see what Miss America’s once did for our nation.
Miss Florida 2015, MaryKatherine Fechtel, represented everything that Miss America should be and more, but she was not named Miss America because she is everything that is good, and faithful, and sophisticated. And in today's world that doesn’t sell. Because in today's world that isn’t average. But neither is weighing a mere 100 pounds at six-foot tall in my opinion -- but, hey that’s just me.
Fifteen years ago our Miss Florida, MaryKatherine Fechtel, would have won the Miss America crown because nobody was worried about public reviews and ratings back then. Just look at the judges panel this year: two African American entertainers, a country singer, a has-been celebrity and then Mr. Wonderful being the only logical one up there. You can’t tell me that the only thing the organization is focused on isn’t ratings.
Why is Mallory Hytes Hagan known as the most relatable Miss America, because she is average? But we shouldn’t want an average Miss America. We want a Miss America that has grace and beauty, just listen to the song for goodness sake. And by the way, thank you to whoever's idea it was to bring that back this year, at least one thing traditional. I love Mallory, but she does not deserve to be named the best Miss America in our past time, if anything, Teresa Scanlan was as close to being as “Miss America” like as we have seen for a while.
In the end, though, the Miss America Organization has transformed from a bathing beauty contest into one of the largest scholarship programs for young women in our country and nobody can take away from that. “The MAO has been a beacon of inspiration and poise for 95 years to women all around the world.” Sierra Joy Ciceri.
