THE
MISS AMERICA BROUHAHA'S JUST A TEMPEST IN A
B-CUP
Columnists,
like most other grazing animals, travel in
herds. One particular pack of ruminants seems
to have found a fresh patch of grass in the
annual Miss America Pageant, which, if memory
serves, takes place sometime within the next
twelve months. It seems that the honchos of
our country's most celebrated beauty pageant
have been tinkering with the rules again. In
one of their periodic spasms of making the
whole thing look as if it's in keeping with
contemporary mores, they are allowing bikinis
as an option in the swimsuit competition.
In response,
America yawned. But not so my fellow
ungulates of the chattering class. No fewer
than four nationally-syndicated or
major-market columnists immediately sounded
off on the rule change.
Three of them
aired their gripe with the seeming
endorsement of cheesecakery on the part of
the pageant nabobs, larding their columns
with words like "sexist" and
"objectifying" and
"anachronism". It was clear that
their gravamen went far beyond swimwear
options to the existence of the pageant
itself. The fourth, responding to what she
thought was a national outcry against the
rule change (an incestuous lot,
columnists)demurred by saying that she felt
the rule change was only making the unspoken
agenda of the Miss America Pageant--the
televised display of female pulchritude--more
obvious, and was thus a good thing because it
was more honest. To the aspiring beauty
queens, she said, caveat emptor.
All four
columnists were female. I mention this not
with the intent to stereotype--after all,
there were two different viewpoints offered
among the four--but to shed light on a few
matters larger than two square feet of
navel-hiding aquaspandex. Half-blinded by
testosterone, I am still able to make out
some dim truths in the shadows.
First, the
intent of the Miss America Pageant. All four
agreed that the subtext to the MAP (and to
pageants in general) is to parade pretty
women in front of male eyes and further
cement in the minds of one and all the
primacy of appearance as the measure of
womankind. Talent competitions, congeniality,
poise--these are merely coded methods of
submissive preening for the male audience in
Atlantic City and at home.
The prize
money, scholarships, and showbiz/modeling
career opportunities that go to the winner
are mere side carrots compared to the One Big
Carrot of being declared The Woman Most
Likely To Get Her Man.
Unfortunately
for this thesis, the vast majority of pageant
viewership--in fact, the vast majority of
people who care about the issue of beauty
pageants at all--is female. The only men who
watch the Miss America Pageant on TV are over
fifty, and they watch it because their wives
get to control the remote that night. It's no
coincidence that William Raspberry, Stephen
Chapman, George Will, etc. did not deign to
address the Great Bikini Crisis. They simply
didn't care. (The only reason I care is that
it's been too long since I got somebody to
swear while reading my column.) Maybe if Mike
Royko was alive he'd make a few of his
patented snide and unevolved comments about
ladies throwing hissy fits over swimwear, but
that's about it for male interest on this
subject.
Why? Because
the Miss America Pageant is the most chaste
bit of TV programming this side of Touched
By An Angel, and chastity bores Mr.
Nielsen. Think about it--if pixilated female
flesh is what you're seeking, there's a dozen
movies on cable or pay-per-view and a whole
Internet smut industry just waiting to pander
to your weakness, all of which make the Miss
America Pageant look like choir rehearsal.
The leer quotient is low-payoff; who would
want to wade through interminable segments of
baton-twirling to the strains of Mussorgsky's
Pictures at an Exhibition or earnest
Q-and-A's about the need for world peace and
an end to racism when what interests you is
T-and-A, not Q-and-A? That's another reason
why few people of either sex under the age of
forty watch the silly thing--it's too long,
too boring, and it's stultifyingly uplifting.
The only
reason why men might want to watch it is for
the competitive aspect--you know, invite over
a guy from Delaware and a guy from Oregon to
watch it with you, and lay down side bets on
which guy's home-state queen makes it into
the next round. But the rules are far too
weird and arcane for any guy to understand
(like synchronized swimming and soft-money
political campaign contributions), so it's
hard to get your bookie interested.
The other
reason why the pageant scene is
female-centered might be seen as a variation
on the old saw that women dress for each
other, not for men. It's the difference
between obsession and compulsion; perhaps men
are swayed by female beauty when it's in
visual range, but many (most, I'd argue)
women demarcate their journey through life by
both their attraction and their revulsion
towards the fashion and cosmetics industries.
It's a chicken-or-the-egg thing--male lust
may be the taproot of the way women look at
women, but at some point the blame has to
recede and the passion for grooming,
deportment, and style has to be viewed in a
female context. Particularly when hubby's
buried himself in a Tom Clancy potboiler
while you wonder whether or not the judges
noticed that Miss Alabama was too hippy for
that blue sequined gown.
Then there's
the problem of the carrots. Is parading
around onstage in high heels (another
made-optional accessory that had the pundits
clucking a few years ago) for the sake of
fabbo prizes and career advancement a form of
prostitution? Well, it's an admittedly odd
way to get ahead in life (as one of the last
few holdouts who believes in a meritocracy, I
feel obliged to at least call this
"odd"), but let's keep it in
perspective. Over on the other half of
American humanity, we reward
three-hundred-pound teenage boys with
scholarships, limitless glory, and career
connections for their ability to konk other
three-hundred-pound teenage boys on the head
and hit people running around a stadium with
an inflated ovoid ball. Each sex has its own
poison in the rewarding-bizarre-values
category. And, to those who would dismiss the
young women of the diagonal-banner-wearing
set as phonily cheerful airheads, many of
those strapping young men I just described
are far less deserving of such collegiate
perks, having the IQs of a jar of mustard.
The last
misunderstanding stems from the bikini
itself. Named for a Pacific atoll that was
the site of early postwar H-bomb tests, this
incendiary double strip of fabric has brought
down more of a ruckus upon American culture
than the Commies putting fluoride in the
drinking water. Again, the garment in
question is ultimately misleading; it is
what's inside (and what's done with what's
inside) the garment that's important, not the
garment's size. Lana Turner in a sweater was
a lot more exciting to WWII infantrymen than
anything in a bathing suit, and on Baywatch
(the ultimate arbiter of American prurience)
all the primo babes are the ones in the
lifeguard-issue red one-piecers. I can't
imagine that comfort is an issue re: bikinis,
given the horror stories we've all heard
about vaseline and tape with regard to the
traditional one-piecers. Although I confess
to the usual Y-chromosome incomprehension of
the judging standards in the Miss America
Pageant, I wonder if the fact that footwear
and swimwear are now open to the contestants'
preferences isn't just an attempt to make the
whole thing more competitive. In other words,
you can add "degree of difficulty"
to the contest in the same way that you do to
gymnastics and diving. Given the more
revealing nature of the bikini (and the way
high heels affect posture and walking), isn't
it possible that the Atlantic City
powers-that-be haven't merely created the
pageant equivalent to the double-somersault
tuck-and-twist with full extension?
Rest easy, my
fellow columnists. You needn't aim your field
artillery at the harmless bunnyrabbit that is
the Miss America Pageant. If exposing the
male oppression and dehumanization of women
is your crusade, you have bigger fish to fry
elsewhere than here. Or if unjust rewards and
bad examples for our young people really get
your goat, go after Billy Joe Behemoth from
Whupass, Nebraska and his microscopic test
scores, improbable body image, and displaced
anger towards Coloradans and Notre Damers.
Leave Miss Congeniality alone. The world
needs more congeniality and less aggression,
anyway--right?
Captain
Spaulding
Previous Mountaintop
Experiences with Captain
Spaulding:
Hooray
For Me #1-- One
Margarita Too Many?
Hooray
For Me #2-- Spitting at
the Generations
Hooray
For Me #3-- The
One-Eyed Spokesmodel
Hooray
For Me #4--
Semisardonic Over Semisonic
Hooray
For Me #5-- Bury My
Brain at Wounded Knee
