Brought back to national television for the second year in a row, Miss America smashed last year’s TV ratings by 13 percent and helped ABC achieve its best non-sports rating since December 2010. Despite its five year hiatus from national TV, the Miss America Pageant stole viewers from an NFL competition on Jan. 14 and proved that, at least for one night, the crown wins millions of viewers.
Because Miss America has made a comeback in terms of TV ratings, does that mean that Miss America sold out its moral values to sex appeal? Absolutely not. Instead, The Miss America Pageant kept it classy and created a trendier image for Miss America.
During the pageant, video montages of the girls living it up while spending the week in Las Vegas, were broadcasted. As a side note, Miss USA decided to host its national pageant in Las Vegas from 2008 to 2011, after Miss America had already moved its pageant from Atlantic City to Las Vegas in 2005. Who’s the trendsetter now?
The judges of this year’s competition were well-known in the entertainment industry. They included Mark Ballas from “of ABC’s Dancing With The Stars,”; Raúl de Molina of from Univision’s “El Gordo y La Flaca,” Mike Fleiss, Executive Producer of ABC’s “The Bachelor”, and Kris Jenner from of “E!’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians.,” Additional judges included Teri Polo of from ABC’s “Man Up,” Chris Powell of ABC’s from “Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition,” and Lara Spencer of ABC’s from “Good Morning America.”As for the onstage competition, lifestyle and fitness in swimsuit, talent, evening wear, and onstage question remained an integral part of the competition as it has for years. They may be the oldies, but they’re the goodies that keep Miss America alive in its class and element of tradition.
The fact of the matter is that for years, Miss America has gained the reputation of being the old-fashioned, stereotypical beauty queen who wants nothing but world peace. With the Miss Universe organization gaining more and more attention due to its appearance-oriented competition, Miss America seemed to have fallen flat and become out of touch when compared with Miss USA or Miss Universe.
An even more interesting question is why would viewers rather watch un-relatable women with unrealistic features walk across the screen than young women with a realistic dream of attaining scholarship money for college? Sex appeal appears to be the answer, unfortunately.
Miss America has been nationally televised since 1954, although its origins trace back as far as 1921. Established as a scholarship pageant in 1945, Miss America offers scholarships to its contestants on the local, state, and national levels. Last year, the organization awarded more than $45 million in scholarships to contestants, becoming the largest provider of scholarship for young women.
With such an opportunity at the hands of young women ages 17 to 24, why wouldn’t they take advantage of it and make their dreams come true with the scholarship money? Better yet, why wouldn’t Americans want to help young women by doing something as simple as watching the national pageant on TV?
Two hours, four competitions, and 53 contestants later, Miss Wisconsin, Laura Kaeppeler, won the title of Miss America 2012. A dark-haired, blue-eyed beauty of 23, Kaeppeler accepted the crown with genuine tears of gratefulness.
Not only is Kaeppeler a dead-ringer for Kate Middleton, she is a talented opera singer who wishes to obtain her Master’s degree in Speech and Language Pathology. She will receive an incredible $50,000 in scholarship money for winning the title, as well as $2,000 for a preliminary talent award.
The Miss America Organization is definitely taking a step in the right direction when it comes to attracting viewers back to its one night in the spotlight. Now that the pageant is emphasizing the need to make the image of Miss America fun and trendy, yet relatable, it’s attracting teenage girls to compete and perpetuate Miss America’s slogan of Style, Service, Scholarship, and Success.
If viewers continue to watch, and young women continue to dream and achieve, the Miss America crown can continue to be successfully passed on for years to come.
Stephanie Meadowcroft is a Lifestyle Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com