Miss America: More Then Just A Beauty Queen

In the article Kate Shindle talks about the image of Miss. America and what it stands for had changed. She said from the beginning, “If often seems that they can’t even agree on what she stands for” (613). The image that the Miss. America used to project was good leadership roles in their community and doing things to help soceity. She said they used to go out and help people with different issues like health issues like AIDS and HIV. She got this leadership standing from Miss. America because it gave her standing to be able to talk to many people about these issues. This is the image that those girls want to have but I think that is not what society views as the big picture behind Miss. America. All we see are these skinny, tall beautiful girls in nice clothes walking around on stage talking about the idea of world peace. Shindle points this out too, “I thought my work on the front lines of a life-and-death issue made it clear that there is more to the Miss America program then swimsuits and evening gowns. I quickly realized that wasn’t the case” (615). All we think about these girls having is a pretty face with lots of make up on it. We don’t view them as being really all that smart or really caring about other people then themselves and others like them. She says that she now recognizes this and wishes it would change, “Granted, the belief that beauty and brains are incompatible is an old one but oranizers should do more throughout the year to counter the public’s perception of Mss America as someone who does little more than turn up at boat shows” (615). That is a good idea to try and do things to try and change this materialistic stereotype that we have against these girls but I think that the image that they have now going to be really hard to change. Society had had this idea about those girls for so long that I think that it would be almost pointless to try and change. She thinks it would help if, “Organizers just out the minefields-the trivia contests, the backstage dish sessions that threaten to make the contestants look bad- they’d have more time to say it. That would mean including more footage from the ‘personal interview’ portion of the show, when contestants talk about their political views and platform issues” (616). This would be a really good idea once again but I think that our society has this idea of these girls that don’t really care about what going on in the world and to try and change this idea that everyone had would be really hard because it would seem fake. Even though the girls are viewed as fake people, we would think that the girls were just faking the fact that they care about things such as political issues.