missed USA
last night i had one of my more surreal experiences in recent memory: watching the miss USA pageant. it's simultaneously amusing and disturbing to know that little cultural anachronisms like this are still with us. but boy does it make for entertaining television.
i don't know where to start...the wooden hosts (the male half of whom was about half the height of his female counterpart...girl power!), the random and deer-in-the-headlights "celebrity" judges (um, donald trump jr?....oh, your dad runs the show), the over-the-top stereotypical gay male color commentator (along with his partner, last year's miss USA, presumably there to offer her fascinating "insider" insights).
yes, i realize something like the miss USA pageant is an easy target for ridicule. it's also possible that this event represents something that truly needs to pass from our culture, and soon. one can laugh it off as something that only appeals to a small slice of our society anyway. but i don't see why any slice of our society should be receiving these kinds of messages, that the greatest thing women can aspire to is to parade around on a stage in a bikini to be judged by C-list celebrities, competing for the right to spend a year making public appearances where they'll undoubtedly be asked to speak as little as possible. yes, i know the miss USA organization, and the pageant participants, are involved in many charitable endeavors, which received lip service during several segments of the show. it just seems like that sort of thing could happen without the added artifice of the parade of grossness.
the thing that kills me is thinking about how much time and effort goes into these things on the part of the contestants. i envision it being the female equivalent of a young male athlete who's recognized early as having special "potential", so he's shuttled from sports camp to sports camp, gets bombarded with phone calls from creepy recruiters, and is generally turned into a little cottage industry designed to receive the frustrated ambitions of everyone around him. i mean, i'm sure there are people out there who make their living selling themselves as "coaches" to these women who have aspirations of winning this thing. they probably spend hours practicing walking, talking, makeup, hair styling, whatever. we as humans laugh sometimes as the silly things animals do; i'd say evolution hasn't exactly brought us all that far either, when entire industries spring up around the simple act of looking at the more attractive examples of our species.
by far the most compelling and "oh my god did that just happen" moment of the night came during the big FINAL QUESTION. this is where each contestent has to answer a deep and meaningful query posed by one of the judges. i forget which woman it was, but she got a gem from donald trump jr that went something along the lines of, "do you think there's too much political correctness these days?" oooooh, controversey!
what made it so fascinating was not her train wreck of an answer, which she stumbled through with something that bore only a passing resemblance to grammar, struggling mightily to please everyone and offend no one, and which my writing skills are far too inadequate to capture or suitably explain here. no, what was really compelling was seeing the panic in her eyes and realizing that this was it. this was the moment she had been waiting for, praying for, training for her whole life, and in 30 seconds it was going down in flames, and she knew it. and when it was over, she had to walk back to her place in line and smile that beautiful broad smile.
i don't mean to sound belittling or mean-spirited towards the women who participate in this thing. but if i had a daughter, i think i would have a hard time sitting her down in front of this show and finding anything in it to point to as something worthy of emulation. maybe there really are girls out there who see this and receive some sort of positive inspiration. and i certainly don't want to discount that. but i have to believe that we as a culture - regardless of what walk of life you come from - are capable of representing ourselves better than this.
posted by Eric at 9:13 AM
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