I’m Still Confused About ‘Miss America 2.0’
It wasn’t until about halfway through the competition that I realized how different things really were this time around. I can pinpoint the moment precisely because it was the one when a young woman, clad in a deep-blue evening gown with a high, jewel-necked collar and saucily cut-out sides, started to talk about garbage. Callie Walker, Miss Alabama, had been taking her turn on the Miss America stage’s “red carpet”—the new event the producers of the revamped telecast added to replace the show’s erstwhile swimsuit competition. Walker came to the end of the short carpet; she gave a practiced pivot; she strode to Ross Mathews, a co-host of the evening’s show. Mathews proceeded to ask her the same question he’d ask each of the 10 finalists who had made it to that portion in the competition: “What message do you have tonight?”
Miss Alabama did not miss a beat. “It’s estimated by 2050 that our oceans will be filled with just as much plastic as marine life,” she informed the host. She grinned. “We have got to do something.” She smiled even more brightly, selling it. “Let’s talk trash.”
Welcome to “Miss America 2.0,” the of the controversial pageant slash “scholarship competition” that aired, for the first time in its new incarnation, on Sunday evening. The two-hour-long telecast, true to its revamp, featured a lot (no, but really: a loooooot) of talk about grit and dreams and feminine perseverance. It featured exactly one (1) ballet dance set to “,” two (2) separate performances of Liszt,
