The other night on TV they had an interview with Miss Utah and it got me thinking about beauty pageants. As you may have figured out, I am not very girly, but there are some girly things that I do enjoy.I like wearing perfume (though I can't wear it now because my work forbids it), my favorite color is pink and I absolutely love watching the Miss America pageant.
I know, here I hate wearing make-up and I never even brush my hair and I like beauty pageants? Hey, I'm not talking about that slutty Miss USA contest, this is Miss America. It's a SCHOLARSHIP pageant, people!
Maybe it stems from my youth when I used to watch the pageant with my mother, Dot, who would sit there earnestly taking notes and keeping score (I don't know why she bothered, it seemed like Miss Texas always won).
Or maybe it's because when I was young my sister, Myrna, took me to the Miss Clover City Pageant to see her friend compete. It was there that I had my first Shirley Temple and realized that when you're competing on the city level, it's best to have a sponsor with a short name (Myrna's friend didn't win, but she should've gotten a special award for having the longest sash -- since she was Miss Ed Little's Auto Service).
This year the Miss America pageant was awesome because a few days before the pageant they were on a reality show where they had to do various challenges and get makeovers ("Survivor" meets "What Not To Wear").
It was there that we got to see the leadership abilities of Miss Utah, everyone's favorite soldier. Of course, she was so un-girly that it was even driving me crazy. Those are high heels on your feet, Miss Utah, not bear traps! My five-year-old can walk in a pair of stilettos better than you!
It was also where I got to see Miss Florida freak out because she lost a contest and had to jump in a pool and she was petrified of her make-up coming off. This induced massive eye-rolling on my part. Then later on in the show you found out that Miss Florida had been in an explosion as a child and her face had blown off and she had to wear heavy make-up to cover the scars. All of a sudden she went from prissy scaredy-cat to courageous champion.
My favorite was Miss Alaska. She was brash, loud, always said the wrong thing, alienated others, ethnically insensitive, and probably a little bit mentally ill. In my mind, she was the one that perfectly personified the United States of America.
The actual pageant was kind of boring and I don't even remember who won. I just know that it wasn't Miss Utah, Miss Florida or Miss Alaska.
5 comments:
i watched this show too b/c i was intrigued that miss utah was in the guard like my husband!
SHILLIG4FAM -- Yeah, he should've won!
i was never much for beauty pageants until my own daughter won one of them by doing a ringy dingy telephone snarfing humor skit that won over the judges and din't just pick the one who looked sexy best...in fact none wore a swimming suit....she was miss ephraim one year and got a scholarship although she had some academic things also
When I read your posts, I soak in every word - cause there's always a surprise coming. This time, however was different. I stopped hearing anything after the word "Dot". See, I was horrified that I used your mother's precious name when I was illustrating a point! Dot wasn't very nice in my point.
I'm gonna go change it.
PUTZ -- oh my goodness, that is hilarious! She is awesome. Let's hear it for Miss Ephraim! I wish I could've seen her talent routine.
RABIDRUNNER -- oh, Dot is such a popular name, how could you not use it in your post?
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