Miss America Ends Swimsuit Competition, Trying to Evolve in 'This Cultural Revolution'
Miss America Ends Swimsuit Competition, Trying to Evolve in ‘This Cultural Revolution’
For nearly a century, Miss America contestants have strutted onstage and struck poses in increasingly skimpy swimsuits, in a controversial pageant tradition that organizers long defended as a gauge of the women’s physical fitness.
But the bikini has been banished. The Miss America Organization, confronting a harassment scandal and trying to find its place in the #MeToo era, announced on Tuesday that it would scrap the swimsuit portion, starting with its next pageant in September.
“We are not going to judge you on your outward appearance,” Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox News anchor who is now the organization’s chairwoman, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “We want more women to know that they are welcome in this organization.”
Ms. Carlson, who assumed a prominent voice for women’s rights in the workplace after filing a harassment lawsuit in 2016 against the former Fox chairman Roger Ailes, said the competition would focus more on the contestants’ talents, intelligence and ideas.
“We are moving it forward and evolving it in this cultural revolution,” Ms. Carlson, who was Miss America in 1989, said.
It was not immediately clear on Tuesday whether the changes at Miss America, the top pageant after contestants compete in local and state events, would cause smaller pageants to follow its lead.
The Miss America Organization has undergone a rapid change in the past six months. Ms. Carlson was named chairwoman in January, and seven of its nine board members are now women, after several women were appointed to its highest ranks.
Those changes came after emails surfaced in December showing that Sam Haskell, the former chief executive, had made disrespectful and misogynistic comments about former pageant winners. Miss America is also confronting dwindling viewership as people turn away from live televised events.
[Read more: Miss America appoints women to top positions, months after scandal]
Miss America and swimsuits have been synonymous since 1921, when the first competition was held in Atlantic City in an effort to extend the summer vacation season with a beauty contest. At the first competition, contestants wore one-piece swimsuits. Miss America was crowned but a runner-up received the top swimsuit trophy.
Miss America is one of two major pageants in the United States. The other, Miss USA, was founded in the early 1950s by a swimsuit company after Miss America would not allow the company to use pictures of its contestants for advertising. Miss USA also operates Miss Teen USA and is part of Miss Universe, the international pageant that Donald J. Trump owned from 1996 to 2015.
Over the decades, the Miss America Organization struggled to reconcile its stated mission — empowering women and handing out millions of dollars in scholarships — while requiring contestants to wear revealing attire and high heels for a leering television audience. In the early 1990s, the organization acknowledged the controversy over the swimsuit portion and asked viewers to vote on whether to keep it.
“We are not stupid,” Leonard Horn, the organization’s chief executive, said in 1993. “We are very sensitive to the fact that the swimsuit competition has always been our Achilles’ heel. The swimsuit competition has been controversial since the early 1920s, but it’s been retained because the majority of the people like it.”
The Miss America winner in 1993, Leanza Cornett, said at the time that the swimsuits should be scrapped. But another unscientific poll by the organization in 1995 found that two-thirds of respondents wanted it to stay.
Last year, 5.6 million viewers watched “The Miss America Competition” on ABC, down 10 percent from 6.2 million in 2016 and seven million in 2015. But many live shows have experienced similar ratings declines, including “Sunday Night Football,” the Olympics, the Oscars and the Grammys.
Ms. Carlson said on Tuesday that viewers’ opinions had changed. The swimsuit portion of the competition was “not a highly rated part,” she said.
“People actually like the talent part of the competition,” she said.
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