Monday, January 29, 2007

Miss America confronts not-so-pretty TV reality

Twists try to revitalize pageant's makeup.
By Amy S. Rosenberg
Inquirer Staff Writer
Miss Pennsylvania, Emily Wills, left, rides in a gondola along with Miss New Mexico, Christina Hall, second from right, and Miss West Virginia, Tiffany Lawrence, right, at the Venetian hotel-casino in Las Vegas.
AP Photo
Miss Pennsylvania, Emily Wills, left, rides in a gondola along with Miss New Mexico, Christina Hall, second from right, and Miss West Virginia, Tiffany Lawrence, right, at the Venetian hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

Miss America was not the underage beauty queen who tearfully apologized for drinking too much, not to mention making out with Miss Teen USA, and was sent to rehab after a weepy appearance with Donald Trump.

If only.

No, in the 2007 edition of Making Miss America Matter Again, what passes for crisis Miss A style (the other was Miss USA) is the 52 contestants' being ordered to - omigosh! - remove their (not what you're thinking) makeup in front of the cameras.

This is during Pageant School, a tepid two-hour Apprentice-like reality-kinda pageant psych-up show taped in Los Angeles, which will be shown seven times on CMT and its sister stations between today and tomorrow, when the pageant itself is telecast live from Las Vegas.

"It took me a long time to let my family and friends see me without makeup," a panicked Miss Arkansas says. "And now all of America is going to."

Hey, tune in for yourself if you want to know how it turns out. No spoilers here.

Returning to Vegas after last year's debut outside her ancestral Atlantic City home on cable country-music network CMT, the Miss America pageant is still fiddling around for just the right mix, the perfect fix, the next big idea that will reestablish it as a player on the televised-pageant scene, not to mention the American pop-culture landscape.

Part CMT cowgirls, part Vegas bathing beauties. Part desperately seeking sex appeal, part can't seem to shake that wholesome thing. Mostly hoping channel surfers mistake them for the gorgeously bosomy briefcase girls on Deal or No Deal who line up just like Miss America contestants but get better ratings. That television juggernaut will also air tomorrow at 8 p.m.

(Naturally, Miss USA already snagged that special gig to have its contestants be Deal or No Deal briefcase beauties. Foiled again!)

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