Fake Boobs, Donald Trump and Miss USA: Why Do Trashy Beauty Pageants Still Exist?

By Lauren Bans, AlterNet. Posted May 22, 2009.

Pepsi, an 11-year sponsor of Miss America, pulled out at the end of the decade, stating that "Miss America as run today does not represent the changing values of our society."

But anachronistic as it was, the pageant still garnered some 80 million viewers in the 1960s, making it, if not quite the national representation of American womanhood it claimed it to be, at the very least, a cultural mainstay prominent enough to be protested.

Richard Nixon famously said it was the only program he let his daughters stay up to watch. Today, Miss America has fallen off network TV altogether -- it airs on TLC framed around a makeshift reality show called Miss America: Reality Check, intended to showcase the beauty queens' more-accessible sides through boot camp drills like carrying a full martini glass across a teeter-totter. (Finally, something we can relate to!)

Miss USA hasn't faired much better, despite what the current headlines about the first runner-up's breasts may imply. Last month, a Simpsons episode aired on the same evening beat the Miss USA pageant by 2 million viewers. Recently, a Miss California USA official, in pointing out what was wrong with Prejean's anti-gay marriage comments, explained to CNN that wearing the Miss USA crown means, "I represent everyone." It sounded like a bad joke. 

It's also a lofty sentiment for what, in 1921, began as a simple ploy to get Atlantic City vacationers to stay past Labor Day.

The first Miss America competition was so literally a beauty contest that each body part was afforded a certain score. A girl's legs, according to the PBS documentary, Miss America, could be worth one to five points.

Over the years, the pageant redefined itself as a larger representation of American womanhood, and a conflicted one at that. Lenora Slaughter, a Southern Baptist, was brought in as the pageant's executive secretary in 1935 to perpetuate a more conservative, respectful ideal of American femininity -- one that gave preference to girls who could trace their ancestry to the Mayflower, and required contestants to be "of white race" and possess a talent, be it baton twirling or ballet. 

The pageant was inventing and glorifying the concept of a wholesome, domestic American beauty at the same time it continued to profit off the baser entertainment value of girls with sex appeal lined up in scanty swimsuits. Philip Roth, in a 1957 New Republic piece, touched on the unique contradiction of the Miss America pageant, writing: "All those lovely legs are really girls, who, when asked what they admire most will talk to the flesh's distraction about their brothers and their daddies." 

(It should be noted that Miss America and Miss USA are two distinct pageants. Miss USA was launched in 1950 by Catalina swimwear, a former sponsor of Miss America, after a Miss America winner refused to appear in its swimsuit ads. The major difference between the two is that Miss USA doesn't require a talent nor does it give scholarships, making Miss USA the Jessica to Miss America's Type-A Elizabeth. In the swimwear and evening gown portions of the contest, they're still interchangeable twins at Sweet Valley High.)

But the universals that carried the Miss America legend for a good part of the century -- the national audience, the conservative ideal, not to mention the self-exalting "Here She Comes Miss America" theme song -- have little relevance in the modern world, where television has perfected sex-sells entertainment and there are a gajillion shows on countless channels that display scantily clad women. Why watch a formal pageant when there are girls in bikinis mud wrestling for the affection of Bret Michaels on Rock of Love?

The accolades and signifiers remain -- the sash, the teary winner's walk down the runway -- but the significance is void. In 1950, Miss America was a household name; today the waving winner of Miss USA goes to live in a New York Trump penthouse with Miss Teen USA and Miss Universe for a year.

See more stories tagged with: women, gay marriage, donald trump, tabloids, carrie prejean, beauty pageants, fake breasts, perez hilton, controversy

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