Bye Bye Miss America Pie

NBC, the previous producer of the Miss America pageant, became aware of the train wreck-cum-professional ice dancing dread with which Americans watched their beloved competition, and so gave up on it altogether. This year the pageant moved from NBC to Country Music Television on the dial, and the show itself moved from Atlantic City to Las Vegas.

Heroic measures for a competition already on death's door. Viewership of the yearly spectacle has declined sharply over the last decade, and because of this lack of public support the scholarship prize money awarded to these poor, undernourished ladies has been cut in half.

Why, America? Why do you discard Miss America like so many inches of used double-stick tape peeled off a 20-year-old buttock?

Americans give many reasons for falling out of love with Miss America. They say that swimsuit competitions are degrading to young women. They say that the pageant encourages a tarted-up and inelegant expression of what should be pure, youthful beauty. They say that every time a competitor opens her mouth, they have a clear image of their own mortality. These reasons are all logical and very popular. But these reasons are wrong.

Not only are they wrong, but like the neurotic rationalizations offered by an Evangelical Christian with a gay lover, they are the opposite of what is actually true. America loves to say all the right things and do all the naughty things. America wags its collective finger at The Miss America Pageant, and then America changes over to "Fear Factor."

Miss America never changed, but the world changed around her. Pageants used to be pageants, and for that matter, game shows used to be game shows. Now they are all reality TV, and reality TV needs to deliver a lot more than just a competition or a game. Actually, screw the premise altogether. America doesn't care whether it's on an island or in a mansion or on a stage, but the show had better offer up some goddamn demons.

The birth of reality TV happened at a very specific moment, and it wasn't in the first episode of MTV's The Real World. Reality TV was born when, in the second season, David pulls the covers off Tami, she accuses him of rape, and the house demands that he leave. Little did David know that under those covers was the future of American entertainment.

Under Tami's covers was the idea of the show-behind-the-show, the single most important ingredient of reality TV. Producers probably realized right then that the appeal of the show was neither the loft nor the city, but that uncontrolable element of human drama. That show-behind-the-show reveals the displays of weakness and cruelty that are exactly the opposite of the valor and compassion that our heros should present in response to adversity. That season on MTV revealed that reality TV stars are not our heros. They are more like gladiators, who producers are more than happy to throw to the lions if it means a cheering crowd.

Miss America degrading? Miss America is about as wholesome as reality TV can get. It is a competition between 52 adolescent women judged solely on the basis of beauty and poise, and somehow this behemoth is shot and edited in a way that makes every woman look like apple pie, every judge look like George Washington, and every moment read like a Hallmark card. While most reality shows use editing acrobatics to create tension where there is none, Miss America tries to retain a certain dignity even in the middle of what must be a five-alarm catfight.

Miss America impure? At 8:00 p.m. EST on January 21, America's other options on the tube were "Fear Factor" and "Desparate Housewives." The show's ratings aren't slumping because of its impurity. The problem here is that Miss America isn't impure enough. Britney Spears the schoolgirl isn't enough; Britney Spears the fallen schoolgirl with an albino Python around her neck is just right. Americans still idolize purity, but fixate on soiling purity with just as much zeal. Desparate. Housewives. Desparate housewives.

Miss America dumb as bricks? Though watching a stunned young contestant try to answer the question "What is your favorite smell" was truly heartbreaking, these ladies weren't nearly as aggressively stupid as the contestants who make it to the first episode of American Idol. Illinois contestant Crystal Parizanski was crucified by Simon for her fake tan, but still managed to capture America's cruel heart with her borderline retarded ramblings. A young 16-year-old girl who goes with her mother to Chicago to be a star, and is gored by a lion in the arena. It's a train wreck full of apple pie. And it is so, so tasty.

Miss America used to be the problem, but now she just looks like a painted up old dinosaur. Feminists and political activists who still vilify the pageant need to change the channel and watch a woman in a bikini skydive into a pool of maggots.

Miss America is like the sister who maintains a 4.0 in college and is prom queen and valedictorian, who then outrages her family by getting a belly button piercing. Miss America's sister is a meth-head who lives at home and cuts herself, and who amazes the family by finally finishing her GED. Miss America's sister is named "Skating with Celebrities".

America judges The Miss America pageant with outdated standards of dignity and grace because The Miss America pageant itself props up those outdated standards of dignity and grace. The pace of reality TV suddenly jumped out in front of Miss America, and she couldn't catch up. Maybe she refused to catch up because it would ruin her poise to move faster than a slow promenade. Or maybe she didn't catch up because she was worried she would trip in her heels.

The Miss America pageant is surely a strange sight, but while it is still on the air it will remain the last hold-out of dignified reality TV in America.

— Aemilia Scott (aemilia at flakmag dot com)