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Miss America 2019 Nia Imani Franklin jumps into the Atlantic City during a photo shoot the day after her coronation. (Carlo Allegri / Reuters)
I watched 51 women parade through the high-heeled train to Katy Perry's "Roar" sound, whispering words like "confident" and "loud" in troubling unison. I've confused all the blond, as usual. I sat through two hours of pampering in the vaseline tooth, in which sad participants were supposed to cheer, and we expected the happy candidate to cry, and they were all supposed to do it in high heels.
But not in swimsuits! For the first time in nearly a century, the Miss America Sunday competition did not ask its competitors to wear swimsuits. It's a progress, says Gretchen Carlson.
Instead of swimsuits, we had three separate interview segments in which young women answered questions so softball that they looked more like beach balls: What was your biggest challenge? How is Miss America relevant today? Quickly now, slip into your prom dress and tell us about a gadget you wish to have invented.
Here are the women, we are released.
How I wanted to love Miss America 2.0. Higher education is expensive – God, I wanted to encourage Something which offers a $ 50,000 scholarship to young savvy players from Wyoming or Louisiana. On this occasion, the competition made us aware of the majors and university diplomas of the candidates.
[Miss America 2019: The best, worst and weirdest moments from the swimsuit-free competition]
The elimination of swimsuits should have made the competition more feminist. Instead, without the annoying veneer of a beautiful sarong beach, the show felt older. Because his real problems have nothing to do with what people wear.
This year, the Miss America contest was held approximately 24 hours after Serena Williams was penalized for an entire match at the US Open. His alleged crimes consisted of breaking a racket and calling the referee a "thief" after deducting a point for the racket offense. Immediately, tennis fans protested that the arbitration was sexist, less about Williams' behavior and more about the ego of a referee hurt by a reprimand from a woman.
Some of the most powerful testimonials were from men – pros like Andy Roddick and James Blake, who confessed that they behaved much worse than Williams on the pitch and never received penalties.
At first glance, these two competitions have almost nothing in common: the United States Open is an amazing demonstration of physics and athletics. The Miss America contest featured 51 women circling while the whispering adjectives of the scene sounded as if they had been removed from a deodorant advertisement.
But it is hard not to think that the latter had an impact on the first. For decades, Miss America has been a model for femininity – not only looking good in a swimsuit, but also projecting the values of femininity at the heart of our society.
Competitors are expected to smile through exhausting talent routines and relentlessly project a good mood. They are ranked according to their balance, which represents Sunday the ability to answer inanimate questions in 20 seconds or less, without saying anything that offends anyone.
They must be erased. The winner should immediately shake her head in disbelief, as if she does not deserve it. Losers have to make sure that she Is – that they are happier for her than they would be for themselves.
[Stripped of bikinis, Miss America teeters on. For now, anyway.]
For everyone on how this year was going to be different, this year was no different. None of the three participants who dared to be topical ("Of the state with 84% of the fresh water in the United States, but not of its inhabitants to drink," said Emily Sioma, of Miss Michigan) won the final. Those who scored the last five would have been great in swimsuits.
About Serena Williams, cultural critic Rebecca Traister argued that the debacle had nothing to do with tennis, but rather that despite much work and progress, we remain collectively uncomfortable facing to incomparable behaviors.
"It's about how women – especially non-white women – clothes, body, behavior, expression and tone are always considered unruly if they do not conform to the vision. limited femininity, "writes Traister.
After decades of defining ideal femininity based on humility and positivity, it is not surprising that we are rejected by a person who stands up and says: I am angry, I have been wronged, and I deserve to be here.
On several occasions, Miss America 2.0 has tried to show us how much it has changed. How it became progressive. Words like "empowered" and "job interview" were generously spread. But in a real interview, the questions are difficult. Candidates recognize that they deserve. They defend themselves.
The true revolutionary act of Miss America would not be to get rid of swimsuit competition. It would be to get rid of obligatory smiles.
Monica Hesse is a columnist on gender and its impact on society. For more visit, visit wapo.st/hesse.
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