That’s it. We’re done. We’re officially hanging up our judging ballots. They’ve ruined it.
They’ve ruined the
Miss America pageant.
If you’re like my brother, you’re wondering aloud if it’s possible to ‘ruin’ an already lame event.
But we’re diehards. We Hansen gals love our pageants and always have. We grew up on them – all the way back to the Bert Park days.
Now we’re done. This last go-round was such a disaster, we wore out the TiVo, trashed our vocal chords and have hereby resigned to only watch said pageant if the purpose is to rip on it; the “Treat and Trash Fest” we’ve named it.
We’ve commented for years how they’re ruining it in their efforts to ‘freshen’ things up a bit. I maintain anyone watching or participating in a pageant is interested in tradition. We don’t really need the hip-ness of MTV.
Our reigning Miss America, Miss Michigan, can’t ride a bike (which she seemed to think was charmingly cute), certainly can’t sing (painfully obvious during her horrid rendition of
“Somewhere over the Rainbow”), and can’t keep her lipstick straight on her face (check out her crowning moment). She’s a mess and she’s supposed to be “Our Ideal” as the song says? Come on! No one wants to be her.
But the fact that the lame-o judges overlooked our sharp, poised and stunning Miss Utah wasn’t the biggest problem of the Pageant.
First of all, they had an awful host. A no-name man, who seemed rough around the edges, stuttered, stammered and told stupid jokes. Where’s Donny Osmond or Ryan Seacrest?!
Secondly, they’ve broken the girls up into different groups for the beginning of the show. It has something to do with a reality TV show which followed the girls as they prepared for the pageant (another rant for another day). The groups were something like “States with the Most Wins” and “Runners Up.” Then there was the brilliant “Brown Eyed Girls” groups which I thought was the stupidest until they actually had a group of the oldest girls, they wittily called the “Grown Ups.” WHAT?!?!? Do we really need to point out who the ‘old’ gals are? And by old I mean 24. It was terrible.
Fast forward to the announcement of the 10 finalists (down from 16 finalists). This year instead of calling out the names of the winners, giving them their moment of celebration and giving us a chance to see who they are again, the Pageant folks thought it would be a good idea to announce the losers. Yes, that’s right. The No-name host said “This is the one time you DON’T want to hear your name.” And he proceeded to call out loser after loser beginning with our accomplished Miss Utah who, with much class, dropped and did some push-ups (she’s a military gal). How awkward. How awkward to hear your name and know you’re out of the competition. They had lost, they had to look gracious and then they had to go sit on the ‘grandstand’ – makeshift bleachers they’d set up on-stage for the losers to watch the rest of competition and “eat carbs.” Duh! Yes, they actually brought out trays of doughnuts.
I think the worst part though was the talent competition, which has long been my favorite. I used to eagerly wait as each girl stood at the mic, sat at the piano, or warmed up in their toe shoes (over the years we’ve even seen baton throwers, trampoline jumpers and one gal came out and displayed her seamstress work). This year the Pageant folks thought it would be a fun twist to have all 10 girls come out in their talent costumes but only let 8 perform. Isn’t that awful? So the girls sat there, all anxious to hear their name and wondered if they’d really get the chance to perform while the host would periodically come out and announce the name of another loser. As a performer I was outraged. How completely unfair. These girls need to 1) KNOW they’re performing and 2) Need time to mentally focus. It would be impossible to sit on stage, hear your name, feel thrilled you got to perform and then shove all that down so you can focus and do what you need to do.
Bleh!
So, officials of the Miss America Pageant, take note: You have now lost 6 devoted and loyal viewers who have watched your “scholarship pageant” faithfully, for the past several decades. And, for a show that used to have 31 million viewers and now only has 2 million, you can’t afford to lose any of us.
There she goes, Miss America…
Perhaps it’s time to put the crown in the Smithsonian and leave it as a piece of wonderful Americana.
They’ve ruined the
Miss America pageant.If you’re like my brother, you’re wondering aloud if it’s possible to ‘ruin’ an already lame event.
But we’re diehards. We Hansen gals love our pageants and always have. We grew up on them – all the way back to the Bert Park days.
Now we’re done. This last go-round was such a disaster, we wore out the TiVo, trashed our vocal chords and have hereby resigned to only watch said pageant if the purpose is to rip on it; the “Treat and Trash Fest” we’ve named it.
We’ve commented for years how they’re ruining it in their efforts to ‘freshen’ things up a bit. I maintain anyone watching or participating in a pageant is interested in tradition. We don’t really need the hip-ness of MTV.
Our reigning Miss America, Miss Michigan, can’t ride a bike (which she seemed to think was charmingly cute), certainly can’t sing (painfully obvious during her horrid rendition of
“Somewhere over the Rainbow”), and can’t keep her lipstick straight on her face (check out her crowning moment). She’s a mess and she’s supposed to be “Our Ideal” as the song says? Come on! No one wants to be her.But the fact that the lame-o judges overlooked our sharp, poised and stunning Miss Utah wasn’t the biggest problem of the Pageant.
First of all, they had an awful host. A no-name man, who seemed rough around the edges, stuttered, stammered and told stupid jokes. Where’s Donny Osmond or Ryan Seacrest?!
Secondly, they’ve broken the girls up into different groups for the beginning of the show. It has something to do with a reality TV show which followed the girls as they prepared for the pageant (another rant for another day). The groups were something like “States with the Most Wins” and “Runners Up.” Then there was the brilliant “Brown Eyed Girls” groups which I thought was the stupidest until they actually had a group of the oldest girls, they wittily called the “Grown Ups.” WHAT?!?!? Do we really need to point out who the ‘old’ gals are? And by old I mean 24. It was terrible.
Fast forward to the announcement of the 10 finalists (down from 16 finalists). This year instead of calling out the names of the winners, giving them their moment of celebration and giving us a chance to see who they are again, the Pageant folks thought it would be a good idea to announce the losers. Yes, that’s right. The No-name host said “This is the one time you DON’T want to hear your name.” And he proceeded to call out loser after loser beginning with our accomplished Miss Utah who, with much class, dropped and did some push-ups (she’s a military gal). How awkward. How awkward to hear your name and know you’re out of the competition. They had lost, they had to look gracious and then they had to go sit on the ‘grandstand’ – makeshift bleachers they’d set up on-stage for the losers to watch the rest of competition and “eat carbs.” Duh! Yes, they actually brought out trays of doughnuts.
I think the worst part though was the talent competition, which has long been my favorite. I used to eagerly wait as each girl stood at the mic, sat at the piano, or warmed up in their toe shoes (over the years we’ve even seen baton throwers, trampoline jumpers and one gal came out and displayed her seamstress work). This year the Pageant folks thought it would be a fun twist to have all 10 girls come out in their talent costumes but only let 8 perform. Isn’t that awful? So the girls sat there, all anxious to hear their name and wondered if they’d really get the chance to perform while the host would periodically come out and announce the name of another loser. As a performer I was outraged. How completely unfair. These girls need to 1) KNOW they’re performing and 2) Need time to mentally focus. It would be impossible to sit on stage, hear your name, feel thrilled you got to perform and then shove all that down so you can focus and do what you need to do.
Bleh!
So, officials of the Miss America Pageant, take note: You have now lost 6 devoted and loyal viewers who have watched your “scholarship pageant” faithfully, for the past several decades. And, for a show that used to have 31 million viewers and now only has 2 million, you can’t afford to lose any of us.
There she goes, Miss America…
Perhaps it’s time to put the crown in the Smithsonian and leave it as a piece of wonderful Americana.
4 comments:
I watched the Miss America pageant ever since I was five years old. I've been in three pageants all in the Miss American organization. I've coached pageants girls for the past four years and am on my way to being a judge. I loved the Miss Americas of the early and mid 90s. Unfortunately, the pageant hit its prime in 1996 during its 75th anniversary and has been plunging downhill ever since.
Shame...it was once the largest contributor to women's scholarships in the country. Now, all anyone can sell it as is.."the original reality competition."
If they are trying to get viewers back, Saturday's night pitiful display is not the way to do it.
Why is everyone so upset that Miss Utah didn't win? I'm sorry, but I didn't think she was the best choice, and I personally cannot believe she made the top 16 (which just goes to show, Utah can rally voters and vote for the worst choice on any show *cough-Dancing-with-the-Stars*). So she was in the military? Big deal - that doesn't automatically mean she should have been Miss America.
What ruined the show for me? Miss Utah doing push ups. She could have been classy and gotten off stage, but she didn't.
I think if Miss Utah had won the pagent, I wouldn't hae heard all of the complaints from other Utahns about how poor the show was. Hypocracy at its worst.
Carrie,
I don't know why you feel the need to be so ignorant and rude but if you would have actually read the post you could tell that a)Erica isn't upset that Miss Utah didn't win, b)no one said she should be Miss America because she's in the military, c)the point was how crappy the show had become and d) she had several cogent points to support that fact.
All that Erica did was throw a little respect the way of Miss Utah. No complaining, no griping, no "hypocracy" (try using spellcheck sometime - you'll find it'll make you at least seem smarter).
I didn't even watch the show. I don't care one whit about Miss America. But before you rip someone a new one, pay attention to what you are criticizing.
As a "Hansen girl" myself. We spent many years watching. We gave it up a long time ago. Kudos for you for keeping the dream alive :)
P.S. It appears they probably couldn't get Ryan OR Donny to host, not good for their image :)
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