Miss America’s Enhancements
They tap dance, sing and glide around the stage. They don glitzy costumes, bathing suits and bright smiles in a quest for big money and a chance to see their names in lights. Just don’t call them showgirls.
Last Saturday, 52 driven young beauties – including Miss Idaho, Tracey Renee Brown of Post Falls – arrived in Las Vegas to begin the weeklong, whirlwind Miss America pageant.
The televised finale airs Saturday night, the first time in the annual pageant’s 85-year history that the winner will be crowned outside Atlantic City, N.J. It’s a move designed to use Sin City sexiness to stop the show’s slipping TV ratings and declining popularity.
It’s also the first time the show will air on MTV Network’s Country Music Television, a cable channel with red-state roots and a Kenny Chesney-loving following.
And instead of the usual talk-show type host, the pageant this year will be fronted by flat-out TV hunk James Denton of “Desperate Housewives.”
The many changes raise one big question, a sad one for longtime viewers to even contemplate: What happens if the pageant’s latest incarnation doesn’t revive the venerated, but creaky, Mom-and-apple pie institution? Is the very survival of “Miss America” on the line?
“I don’t even want to go there,” says Art McMaster, chief executive officer of the Atlantic City-based Miss America Organization, a not-for-profit group that, along with affiliates, makes $45 million in scholarships available to women each year – including $50,000 to the winner.
McMaster notes the organization has entered into a multiyear contract with CMT. He said he hopes the move to a cable network draws new viewers and sets up new, lower expectations for the show’s television ratings.
“Will we ever get 20 million viewers again? You know and I know that’s never going to happen,” he says. “But as long as we get the longtime pageant fans watching, we’ll be around another 85 years.”
A record low 9.8 million viewers watched the show on ABC in 2004, a 20 percent drop since 2000 and about half the viewership that watched in 1984.
In an attempt to cater to its die-hard followers, producers say they plan to restore the show to its earlier glory by ditching a quiz show and a casual-wear competition – elements recently borrowed from reality television and game shows to try to give the pageant a more updated feel.
But McMaster also acknowledges traditional values and scholarship contests don’t always make for great television. That’s where Las Vegas comes in.
“We’ve got to show we can put on a very entertaining show,” he says. “Quite honestly, no other city has the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas.”
The contrast with Miss America’s past is eye-opening.
While conceived in 1921 as a way to keep tourists on Atlantic City’s boardwalk after Labor Day, the pageant quickly evolved into a symbol of modesty.
“It never has been about glamour or spectacle, all those things that represent Vegas,” says Sarah Banet-Weiser, professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and author of “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity” (University of California Press, 1999).
“It’s much more about respectability and typicality than it is about showcasing a kind of glamorous model-type woman.”
Paul Villadolid, vice president of programming for CMT, says the network picked Las Vegas over Orlando, Fla., and Nashville because the city knows how to put on a show.
“We were interested in doing a big production, we wanted to have access to the top talent. We just knew that was the perfect location,” he says.
While Denton will be handling the hosting from the Aladdin Resort & Casino, producers are keeping mum on a special guest who will, a la longtime host Bert Parks, croon the crowning rendition of “There She Is, Miss America.”
Villadolid says that CMT executives are hoping the show lures an audience comparable in size to its 2005 Country Music Awards, which had 9.9 million viewers.
“If it’s anywhere close to that it’s a success,” he says.
Toward that end, CMT has been airing short segments on the contestants to help viewers get to know them better; the top 10 contestants’ profiles will air during the show. Some of the video clips will show Denton interacting backstage with the women so viewers can see them in a less-scripted setting.
Miss Congeniality, a title awarded to a competitor by her peers, will make a comeback after being pulled from the show in 1974.
Each segment of the pageant, such as the evening-gown competition, will be introduced by clips of historical highlights. The final selection process goes from 10 to five and then to three finalists to help build suspense.
The talent competition counts for 35 percent of the overall score, the swimsuit competition is 15 percent, evening wear is 20 percent and a one-on-one interview with the judges counts for 25 percent. An on-stage interview accounts for the remaining 5 percent.
There are no plans yet about whether the pageant will make Las Vegas its permanent home or move on next year. That decision likely depends on how it is received by Las Vegas and how the Miss America faithful react to the switch.
Looking back, Las Vegas and Nevada don’t have much of a pageant tradition. Indeed, only 13 women competed for the title of Miss Nevada last year.
The winner, 23-year-old Crystal Wosik of Las Vegas got involved largely to earn money for college. She says she’s never even seen a Miss America pageant on TV.