A few weeks ago, after a damning e-mail leak showed rampant misogyny in the organization, the Miss America beauty pageant announced it was eliminating its swimsuit competition, making evening gowns optional in the evening gown competition, and no longer judging contestants on their appearance. This lead to everyone briefly having an opinion on the pageant for the first time in decades, though after three or four days everyone went back to not caring.
Well, almost everyone went back to not caring. It turns out that at least 22 state pageants care very much and have called for the resignation of the board of trustees, pageant head Gretchen Carlson and Miss America CEO Regina Hopper.
“The recent ouster of two duly elected Trustees, followed by the resignations of two elected Miss Americas from the nine-member Board, have underscored our grave concerns regarding the direction in which MAO is headed, its financial viability, and the expected exercise of all duties attendant to each Trustee as required by law,” the petition reads.
“We were promised transparency, competence, and adherence to best practices and good governance. The current Trustees and identified staff member have both individually and collectively failed to deliver on those promises and commitments. In our opinion their leadership has demonstrated that ‘Miss America 2.0’ is simply a new title for the same old tactics of obfuscation and fear-based governance.”
Another group of 30 former Miss America winners signed onto a press release standing by Carlson and the current trustees. My suggestion is a Jell-O wrestling battle royale to determine the winner; I can almost assure you more people would watch that than any Miss America pageant since the birth of the internet.
And I’d like to remind anyone disappointed by the loss of the swimsuit contest that there’s a world of porn on the internet for you. Pornhub just added subtitles, so there’s really nothing the Miss America pageant has to offer anymore. And if you were really into the parts of the pageant besides the swimsuit competition… try typing ‘nerd’ or ‘glasses’ when you’re looking for porn, that should get you where you want to go.