Should these pageants continue, if tweaked further? Do they bring anything useful to the table?
The last time I watched Miss America, Bert Parks was the emcee. Apparently the last time he did that was in 1979.
I remember watching Miss America into the 90s; it was still a fairly big deal and you’d root for your state.
I don’t remember ever watching Miss USA (or Teen USA). Is this like having a second pope in Constantinople?
I haven’t watched Miss USA since I was a kid. I remember all the commercials for Toni Perms. I also remember the uproar over Miss America Vanessa Williams being dethroned for nude photos from her past, and the pageant pretending that parading young women around in swimsuits and high heels wasn’t problematic.
Here’s an article discussing the pageant winners’ resignations more directly.
I’ve always found the pageant thing creepy and off-putting. And that comes from someone who could have been on the inside. When I was a teen and still in church, our youth leader’s wife was a major pageant mom (daughter maybe 4 years younger than me) and she was always trying to get us (male and female) members involved as contestants, workers, or at least attending. She even got a male cousin of mine (early 20s) to be a judge of one once. To this day I still get group invites to pageants, where she is still apparently a big behind-the-scenes worker. So I had the option of being one of the creepy adult men who judge teen beauty pageants, but I noped out.
Fans who were shocked by the unprecedented resignations noticed that the first letter in every sentence of Voigt’s online statement spelled out “I am silenced.”
I certainly admire the effort, even if I’m confused by the encoded message in a public statement. It has a little bit of a Goedel, Escher, Bach feel.
I don’t see the relevance any more. I guess back in the day they had their place in terms of having women getting some air time. But today, and for the past several decades, women are able to get more air time based on their talents and skills, not just on how they look. The long trend of not objectifying women is not complete yet, and I would be glad if these “contests” went extinct. I am failing to see how they benefit women’s equality and equity, if the contestants and winners themselves are being abused and are quitting it. I vote “nothing useful” in today’s world.
I remember John Oliver had a very good episode about the Miss America pageants.
Is that letter online anywhere? The article linked in the OP includes:
Two sentences that both start with ‘t’, and there’s no ‘t’ in “I am silenced”.
I’ve always found beauty contests ridiculous and disgusting. And FWIW (even if I somehow might contradict myself, being shallow), I regularly see ten random people on the street every day who look better than the winners of these contests (and I live in a small town).
It seems there may be multiple resignation statements. One being a letter (sent to the pageant company and media?) and this Instagram post for the public. The Instagram post has the hidden message.
Which seems to say, “iamsilencedip”.
It’s not obvious that the sentences spell something. They feel natural. I’d be curious whether someone actually noticed or if the encoded message was leaked.
I’d also be curious if it’s just a wildly unlikely coincidence. If not, it could imply that there’s even more to the story.
It seems to me that pageants are… complicated.
I know a number of women who participated in our state’s Miss America pageant, and who have remained involved and as boosters for the organization. For them it was and is an empowering process for young women.
I’m not in a position to disabuse them of that perspective, but the positioning of Miss America as an effective leadership, intellectual, and community service organization is hard to take seriously.
Miss Colorado has resigned in support.
I have no reasonable doubt the “I am silenced” was intentional.
I think non-disclosure agreements are wrong. They shouldn’t have been offered, and they shouldn’t have been signed. And, on first amendment grounds, no judge or jury should uphold them.
I think the chances the pageant can win a case against the women, for exercising freedom of speech, is low. While being careful to tell the truth, they should say what they think. Besides, I am Silenced probably is already a non-disclosure violation.
I haven’t talked to her since this announcement, but I’m friends with one of the Top 10 finishers from the 1997 Miss America pageant. I know that things have changed dramatically in the last 25+ years, but I wonder if she has any stories from her pageant days.
It comes after the resignations of both Miss USA Noelia Voigt and Miss Teen USA Umasofia Srivastava. both of the girls cited their decision to bulling and a toxic culture within the Miss Universe Organization.
Seriously, “girls”? (Not to mention “bulling”.)
I’d give anything to see this again:
My favorite part was the Talent segment, where one contestant played the lamps. 
Why? How is this fun to reminisce about?