America’s Next Top Miss America

I love Olympic figure skating and “America’s Next Top Model” more than almost anything, chiefly because watching each of them helps to satisfy two of my most basic impulses: the desire to look at pretty things and the desire to judge other people.

But since the women’s short programs won’t air on NBC until Feb. 23 and the 14th (!) season of Tyra Banks’s masterpiece doesn’t premiere until March 10, skinny ladies prancing around in silly costumes have been regretfully absent from my TV screen lately. (I suspect that this might not be so if I could bring myself to watch “The Bachelor.” Fortunately, I do have some standards.)

I tried to fill the void this weekend with another, more overtly shallow competition: the 2010 Miss America pageant. The contest actually aired on Jan. 30, but thanks to the magic of the Internet, I had no trouble tracking it down a week later—and thanks to the pageant’s near-total irrelevance, I had no idea going in which contestant would eventually be awarded the iconic crown and sash.

Though 85 million people saw Nancy Fleming of Michigan win Miss America in 1961, only 4.5 million watched former Miss Virginia Caressa Cameron snag the same title 50 years later. By comparison, “The O’Reilly Factor” attracted 4.8 million viewers on Jan. 28. The one-two punch of feminism and a more diverse entertainment landscape have conspired to make the modern-day Miss America pageant nothing but a sparkly shadow of its former self.

The show’s producers are aware that their once mighty franchise is rapidly becoming as obsolete as bloomers and bathing costumes. So they’ve done their best to inject some life into the pageant, chiefly by trying to make it less like an old-fashioned beauty contest and more like an example of the most popular genre on television: a reality show.

While Miss America once aired on network TV, its current home is TLC, the cable channel best known for unscripted, rhyming fare like “Say Yes to the Dress” and “Jon & Kate Plus 8.” In 2008, the first year TLC broadcast the pageant, the channel premiered a new series called “Miss America: Reality Check,” in which the 51 contestants lived together in a mansion and competed in challenges for fabulous prizes. Sound familiar?

That program wasn’t renewed, but this year’s “Miss America” broadcast was still rife with connections to reality shows. Mario Lopez took a break from overseeing the antics on “America’s Best Dance Crew” to host the pageant for the third time. In a shameless bit of cross-promotion, Clinton Kelly, co-host of TLC’s “What Not to Wear,” made appearances as a “special correspondent.”

Two of the pageant’s seven judges had ties to reality TV as well: Shawn Johnson, Olympic gold medalist and “Dancing with the Stars” champion, and Brooke White, a finalist on season seven of “American Idol.” Rush Limbaugh was also a judge. I’m not sure what this might prove, except that whoever staffed the show should be fired immediately.

Those judges selected 11 semifinalists at the very beginning of the telecast, right after each state pageant-winner introduced herself with a quirky quip. (Said Miss Alaska: “Born and raised in America’s snow globe—and no, I can’t see Russia from my house!”) TLC invited viewers to choose three more semifinalists by voting online for their favorites. The show’s producers further complicated the selection process when Lopez announced that the contestants would pick the 15th contender by voting amongst themselves, live, onstage. Cue commercial break. The girls acted shocked when they heard about this twist, but anyone who follows “Project Runway” or “Survivor” could have seen it coming from miles away.

By the end of the first act, though, Miss America’s resemblance to unscripted series faded—and only then did the pageant actually get interesting. As I watched the contestants unironically parade in their swimwear and perform their meager talents with gusto—two sang Puccini, one danced to a song from the musical “Legally Blonde”—I found myself grinning. They were so utterly earnest, like every wannabe Miss America who had come before them, and unlike their cynical counterparts competing on reality shows.

In the end, the most appealing thing about Miss America is its timelessness: The evening gowns will always be gaudy, the girls’ interview answers will always be corny, and the moment when Miss America is finally crowned will always be surprisingly affecting. Messing with that formula may not ruin the integrity of the pageant, but it does make the competition much more generic.

If they want to attract more viewers, the pageant’s overseers should consider embracing the retro nature of their product instead of trying to make it resemble “Rock of Love Bus.” The innocence at Miss America’s core is what truly makes it appealing to viewers like me. At least, unless it airs opposite a “Top Model” marathon.

Hillary Busis is a Columbia College senior majoring in English and history. She is the former managing arts editor of The Eye. And Another Thing runs alternate Thursdays. opinion@columbiaspectator.com