by Ali Coyne

Created on: May 12, 2009

No. Miss America is not a role model. She would be if she weren't a Barbie doll.

Here's the thing with Miss America, Miss Universe, Miss Galaxy, and definitely all the little girl pageants which do not serve a purpose other than allowing pageant moms to live vicariously through their children who don't know any better at the age of two than to go along with it: they're hair and make up. The only time you get to see a real person is during the Q & A period, and even then they're told what is or isn't an appropriate answer.

Look at what just happened in the Miss USA pageant. Miss California voiced her true opinion on same-sex marriage, and it stirred up the entire country. It made CNN. Elizabeth Hasselbeck talked about it on Larry King Live. Why? If she had said that she believed that same-sex marriage is totally and completely acceptable in her opinion, no one would have said a word-or as many words-as they said when she gave her initial "controversial" response. I'm not saying at all that I agreed with her opinion, but who am I to say her opinion is wrong simply because it's not mine?

My point is that Miss America is supposed to be a role model for America's young girls. The hitch in that plan is that every little girl sitting at home on the living room floor watching anxiously to see if her favorite wins is being brainwashed into thinking that being 5' 9" and weighing 110 lbs. is what she's supposed to BE, not just look like. Not only that, but she also now thinks that world peace is all she could ever hope for.

Miss America contestants have evolved into Barbie dolls. Barbie dolls can pull off the pageant's duties of traveling the country and bringing good to all the nation, but I would like I sit down with some of them and see if they can really pull off a conversation that doesn't sound like a pageant coach's answer. I mean, what are my true chances of just getting a simple "I don't know," from one of them if I asked her about quantum physics or the theory of general relativity? I'm not saying that they're unintelligent, but I'd rather have an "I don't know" than a pageant stumble.

I don't know any Misses personally, so I may just be flat out wrong in saying this; but I think that after a point of being so saturated with hairspray, foundation, eyebrow pencil, body glitter, and your coach standing right behind you whispering in your ear what you should and should not say, reality becomes surreal. I think pageant life is their reality, and I also think that some, if not more, may be unhappy with life the way it is. They'll never tell you, though.

What I would really like to see is a beauty pageant where hairstyles and make up and bikinis and evening wear and coaches are prohibited. I would like to line up 50 WOMEN and ask them each the same question individually and see who comes up with the most stunning, intriguing answer ever to have been uttered from any beauty contestant's mouth. I would like the role model of America's youth to have at least a little bit of meat on her bones, and one hair out of place, and who walks like a normal person, so that if one day I have a daughter of my own, I'd want her to watch the Miss America pageant. When that happens, I'll know that all is not lost, and that I might not be afraid of who the President of the United States may be in 25 years. Maybe then I'll actually sit and watch Miss America, when Miss America is a woman.

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