Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain (Discovering America) (17 page)

As the platform issue became more dominant, some of the pageant faithful began to express displeasure with what they saw as a new breed of winner: savvy and well-spoken above all, worldly, and less calculatedly glamorous than she had been in the past. Miss America was being redefined; she may have still been “the girl next door,” but she was leaning away from head-cheerleader status and more toward that of a thoughtful valedictorian. Of course, sell
ing this evolving image to the public required a complicated equation. Plenty of the pageant’s previously tolerable quirks suddenly appeared to be completely anachronistic—not the least of which was the continuation of the much-maligned swimsuit competition. For better or for worse, whether explained in terms of tradition, health and wellbeing, or fitness, the concept of young women parading in swimsuits in order to win college scholarships remained a thorn in the pageant’s side. Numerous Miss Americas expressed discomfort with that part of the competition; Cornett, Heather Whitestone (1995), and Heather French (2000) have strongly implied that it should be eliminated from the judging criteria. Even CEO Leonard Horn consistently regarded it with trepidation . . . although he liked to ride the fence when it came to actual action: “I would eliminate it tomorrow if it wouldn’t jeopardize the television audience,” Horn is reported to have said. “But I’ve been warned not to get rid of it by the so-called experts.”

Indeed, the most relentlessly pursued target during the Horn/Margolis years was the swimsuit competition. Seeking once and for all to bang the cultural gavel on the issue, the 1995 pageant incorporated a viewer call-in vote to decide whether this portion of the show would even happen. The well-spun effort—in which the powers that be claimed to be interested in letting the public make the determination about swimsuits—was actually a ringer; the cost of each phone vote virtually guaranteed that the pageant’s fans would dial in greater numbers than its detractors. And they did. About a million viewers spent fifty cents for each vote. Seventy-nine percent of them gave the thumbs-up to the swimsuit competition; since that decisive moment, it has continued without many mea culpas.

For three years, citing the more “natural” look that Miss America was striving for, pageant officials banned high heels with the swimsuits, creating an even stranger procession of women who gently tiptoed in an arched-foot
Barbie-esque manner, lest flatly clomping around cause any unsightly jiggling. In 1997, contestants were instructed to buy swimsuits off the rack, allegedly to encourage individuality and phase out the era of the heavy-duty, one-piece, girdle-esque “supersuit.” That same year, for the first time in five decades, the two-piece swimsuit was permitted back on the Miss America stage . . . a mere thirty-seven years after a memorably itsy-bitsy yellow version made its way into mainstream consciousness courtesy of Brian Hyland. And in a moment that must have broken records for cultural tone deafness, the 1998 contestants paraded up a short flight of stairs and stood on a platform that slowly spun them around to be viewed from all angles. Presumably, the intent was not to portray them like the desserts one sees in those rotating glass cases in diners across America. Nevertheless, the similarity was certainly observed and dissected in many quarters.

Swimsuits notwithstanding, the pageant seemed to be gaining a new foothold by the end of the decade, occupying sturdier ground than it had in many years. Miss America was routinely recognized for her work with her platform issue; to a great extent, her focus as an activist permitted each winner to be more clearly and specifically defined than she would have been in earlier years. The inclusion of the platform issue meant that the pageant could become less dependent on the personality traits and individual charisma of the annual winner. From day one, there was automatically a press hook (and usually an accompanying personal story) for each new Miss America, and it went far beyond whether she’d brought her pet crab to the press conference.

Over time, the trickle-down effect catalyzed noticeable change in the type of young woman who decided to compete for titles at every level. Horn seemed to understand that a community service initiative wouldn’t change the image of Miss America all by itself; it had to be accompa
nied by the evolution of policy, visual imagery, and vocabulary. So he made across-the-board tweaks to long-standing practices, as is apparent in one volunteer’s 1998 summary of the period: “Today’s contestants are more mature, goal-oriented, independent young women than those I worked with in the ’70s. Banners and rosettes were discontinued, the image of the crown was played down, and words such as ‘crowning,’ ‘reign’ and ‘girls’ were no longer used in publications. The contestants now arrive in Atlantic City wearing business attire instead of cocktail attire, the cover photo of the Pageant program book features Miss America in business or casual attire and since 1997, contestants over 21 are even permitted to visit casinos.”

Additionally, the majority of Miss Americas—who, after all, were constantly on the road, absorbing both praise and criticism that was often beyond their control—seemed to welcome this emphasis on brains over physical beauty. Many, if not most, outgoing winners wore their activism as a more significant badge of honor than their actual pageant victory, and almost all remained substantially involved with their chosen causes well past the end of their terms. The cumulative effect of the platform era has been repeatedly cited by contestants at all levels as an enabler of access and respectability that had eluded their predecessors, as Tara Dawn Holland (1997) articulated after passing on her crown. “It changed literally every aspect of my life,” she recalled a few years later. “Before I was Miss America I wrote to officials about literacy, but never got any interest. But when I won, everyone wanted to talk to me. They listened because of that fake crown.”

In addition to the value the platform issue added for the individual Miss Americas, the pageant as a whole could begin to dig itself out from decades of skepticism. Miss America was no longer celebrated merely for winning a contest. She had a body of work that could be marketed, and it went far further than a stereotypical call for world peace. Al
though sponsors still came and went, the Miss America Organization began to build a new brand. As Horn put it, the very essence of the program had undergone a critical shift. At the end of his CEO term, he contended that the pageant was “no longer about a silly beauty contest. Now, she’s a relevant, socially responsible activist. . . . When I took over, the pageant was practically broke, irrelevant and unimportant, and Miss America was dismissed as no more than just another wholesome American woman from Podunk, who would open for politicians, sell sponsors’ products or cut the ribbons at shopping malls. That we’ve survived the most difficult years in the pageant’s history is no accident. So don’t talk to me about two-piece swimsuits.”

Finally, and critically, when Horn retired in 1998, he left the Miss America Organization in fairly sound financial shape. Having built up a rainy-day fund of nearly $10 million (from basically no cash reserve at the beginning of his term) and what seemed like a promising relationship with ABC (after longtime network NBC dropped the telecast in 1997), it seemed that for the first time in a long time, Miss America was on the precipice of calling her own shots.

But that’s the thing about the precipice: it’s tough to tell, before you take that next step, whether you’re going to soar or come crashing back down to earth.

A magical evening on the beach with Nancy Chapman, Miss Oklahoma 1982. If Miss America ambition is contagious, this was definitely the moment I caught it. Author’s collection
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I dare you to spot the future Miss America in this eighth-grade class picture. Author’s collection
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After winning a small local pageant to become Miss Lake-Cook 1997, I had my state headshot done at the Glamour Shots in a nearby suburban mall. Author’s collection
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