Miss Teen USA
The beauty pageant and I are not friends. I don’t watch them. I have no interest in them. They do not intrigue me in the least. But as I was flipping through through the channels on August 24, I came across the Miss Teen USA pageant. I was curious. I wondered if, as the “decade of the woman” draws to a close, anything about the pageant has changed; if the focus has shifted away from physical appearance and more towards intelligence, personality, talent, and personal achievement.
At the official Miss Teen USA website, the Miss Universe Organization, which produces the Miss Teen USA, Miss USA, and Miss Universe competitions each year, claims that the pageants are being redefined for modern women. To this end, the organization is striving to make the pageants, which they call “productions,” more representative of the contestants, whom they call “delegates”.
“...women of the late 1990s are savvy, goal-oriented and aware. The Delegates who become part of the Miss Universe Organization display those characteristics in their everyday lives, both as individuals, who participate in pageants to advance their careers, personal and humanitarian goals, and seek to improve the lives of others. [sic] Productions will add topical and important segments that reflect the mission of the overall pageants and of the participants themselves.”
Topical and important segments. That’s what I was looking for. The traditional segments seen in the Miss USA and Universe competitions are presented in the teen competition: evening gown, talent, swimsuit, and personal interview. I caught the personal interview segment. Here are some actual questions the young women were asked:
When you go shopping, are you:
A) wild and crazy
B) Sunday driver
C) marathon runner
Would you rather go out with:
A) a guy with a great personality and bad breath
B) a geek with lots of money
C) a hunk with the intelligence of a carrot stick?
What would you rather do:
A) eat French fries
B) French kiss
C) make French toast
Is your style:
A) flava like Janet Jackson
B) in control like Hillary Clinton
C) jazzy like Sarah Vaughn
(I think Ms. Coleman herself received this question, what a surprise)
If you were abducted by aliens, would you teach them about:
A) dating rituals
B) military strategy
C) fashion
You have a beanie baby collection number over 150 babies. If you had to give one of them up would it be:
A) Hope
B) Charity
C) Temperance
(I made these last two up, I couldn’t remember the names of the beanie babies)
This is worse than a Cosmo quiz. Can someone tell me what these questions are supposed to demonstrate? What criteria did the judges use to evaluate the answers - who could respond with the least inane and offensive answer to an inane and offensive question?
The thing I found to be really strange is the way that these young women completely play into it. They laugh with delight, they smile into the camera as they explain their answer. You can tell they’ve been rehearsing for these stupid questions the way a law student studies for the bar. They’ve got coaches who teach them how to smile just right, how to hold their heads up and brim with confidence, how to choose carefully from the given responses. It’s a fucking multiple choice question! Were the probably male adults who came up with these asinine questions afraid that a topical and important, open-ended question would just be too difficult?
These are some very intelligent young women, 4.0 students, community leaders, activists, volunteers, role models. But the beauty pageant fosters an image of these women not as “savvy, goal-oriented and aware,” but rather as superficial smiling faces interested only in boys, clothes, shopping, their appearances, and beanie babies.
What does the pageant cultivate, what does it value? At the Miss Teen USA website, under "Success Stories of Past Titleholders," we are given the following information:
Former MISS TEEN USA® Titleholders:
Bridgette Wilson, MISS TEEN® USA 1990 (Oregon). Moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment. She landed a role on the popular daytime drama, "Santa Barbara," and was featured in "The Last Action Hero" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. She also starred as Adam Sandler's teacher in the movie "Billy Madison." She was most recently seen in the films "Nixon," "Mortal Kombat" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer."
Kelly Hu, MISS TEEN USA® 1985 (Hawaii). Currently has a role on "Martial Law" and has had featured roles in "Friday the 13th: Part VIII," "The Doors," "Surf Ninjas," "Growing Pains," "Night Court," "Tour of Duty," "21 Jump Street," "Nash Bridges," "Sunset Beach" and "Melrose Place."
Ruth Zakarian, MISS TEEN USA® 1983 (New York). Now known as Devon Pierce, she played "Diane Weston" on the popular daytime drama "The Young and the Restless."
See a pattern emerging here? What about former titleholders that are now successful educators, business owners, politicians, writers, doctors, artists? The Miss Universe Organization would have young women believe that success is defined by how many film and television appearances you have made, that it is directly proportional to the length of your list of acting credits. The path to this success is the pageant, and the path to the pageant is your physical beauty.
Perhaps it was silly of me to think beauty pageants and I could be friends. A beauty pageant is by definition a frivolous competition, based on something as flimsy and subjective as physical appearance. The Miss Universe Organization has not redefined the pageants, nor the role the delegates play in them, nor the world’s view of the women who participate.
You will probably never see a Mr. Teen USA, Mr. USA, or Mr. Universe beauty pageant. Because men are regarded more for their intellect, and are generally not regarded as objects, which is, let’s not kid ourselves, the effect these pageants have on women. It says to women that their worth is held primarily in their outward appearance, because as you can tell from the insipid questions, the personal interviews show nothing of intelligence or personality.
Copyright 8/99 Jennifer Chung.
All rights reserved.
Unpopular and ugly in high school
and bitter about it. Yup.