That title always had grandeur to it. "Miss America." Ah, the simple, arrogant brilliance! It suggests a prom queen who wants to become the Statue of Liberty. Now she's 75, and darned if she isn't as fresh as a Hard Copy headline.
When the Atlantic City pageant, with hosts Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford, airs this Saturday on NBC, some ambitious young woman--one of the 50,000 who try out each year--will realize the gossamer dream that last year enveloped Heather Whitestone, the first deaf Miss America. But in the months leading to that night, the pageant has been slapped with unseemly controversy. A Miss Maryland runner-up charges she was denied her state title because of vote rigging--and attorney Alan Dershowitz is helping press her case. Other state runners-up are vexed because a woman who had lost the Miss New Jersey competition four times decamped to Delaware and won the title there. The Virginia delegate was stripped of her title after claims that she inflated her credentials. And throughout America the anguished debate roils on: Should the swimsuit competition be dropped?
Scandal is the coin of contemporary celebrity; it keeps the public interested. It makes Miss America a current affair. Funny how people have really cared about the pageant's politics: in 1945 the naming of the first Jewish Miss America, Bess Myerson; in 1979 the dumping of Bert Parks, the show's emcee for 25 years; in 1984 the dethroning of Vanessa Williams, the first winner of color, after sexually provocative photos surfaced. Race, creed, age, all have clouded the show. But like the winner at the moment of coronation--brandishing a mile-wide smile as she sobs on the edge of both the runway and hysteria--the pageant proves that pretty can be messy. It serves as a kitsch microcosm of a conflicted country. Miss America is America.
This year we can be a part of the pageant. And not just by guessing the winner and dissing the losers. In a plebiscite, the I-can't-believe-it's-a-beauty-pageant pageant is letting viewers decide whether the swimsuit competition will be retained. Before every commercial during the first half of the three-hour show, two 900 numbers will appear--one for yes votes, one for no. The tally will be updated throughout the program. Normally the swimsuit competition is the first event of the evening; this year it will be the last--unless it is eliminated. Which it won't be. Straw polls indicate wide support. And 42 of the contestants are for it. Says Emily Orton, Miss Oregon: "The media can make you feel a lot more naked than a swimsuit. So if you can't be comfortable competing in this, you won't feel comfortable being Miss America."