Beauty pageants ... gone wild!

It’s the eve of the Miss America Pageant, and all is not well. A cloud hangs over the 86-year-old institution, as well as every other contest of its ilk. From Miss Universe all the way down to Miss Cheese Curd of Ellsworth, Wis., the whole practice of tiara competition is under fire.

It would be easy to blame the pall on the recent exploits of several prominent beauty pageant winners. The current Miss USA, Tara Conner, attended Donald Trump-ordered rehab, forcing her subjects to endure Trump’s ugly battle with our nation’s moral arbiter, Rosie O’Donnell. Meanwhile, Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees, lost her sash in December following an Internet photo scandal featuring her engaging in “raunchy” behavior with other women in a Florida nightclub. And Miss New Jersey USA, Ashley Harder, relinquished her crown earlier in January on account of her inability to manage her fertility according to pageant rules (she’s pregnant).

Certainly these three unfortunate young ladies failed to live up to the USA pageant agreement, which dictates that contestants abstain from illegal, immoral and inappropriate behavior; that they are not now nor have they ever been pregnant, and are, in fact, female. But let’s be honest. Beauty pageants have been sending mixed message for years. It was a matter of time before contestants started to crack. Frankly it’s surprising it didn’t happen sooner. Face it, this competition needs to take the advice of one Dr. Phillip McGraw and “start getting real.”

Now, Miss USA and Miss America pageants are two separate institutions. Miss USA, for example, is owned by the Trump organization and doesn’t include a talent portion. Miss America is a non-profit organization and presents itself as more than a beauty contest, and prizes include scholarships for higher learning. As proponents proclaim, “Other pageants are looking for a model, but Miss America is looking for a role model.”

But c’mon! The competition takes place in Las Vegas, a city of legalized gambling nestled in a state that gives the A-OK to prostitution. Frankly, this scholarship nonsense — mixed in with a contest that requires contestants use double-sided tape to keep their butts from falling out of their bikinis — just really confusing?

Of course, there were warnings. Let’s not forget 1984’s winner, Vanessa Williams, who lost her crown when Penthouse magazine published the erotic nude lesbian photos she posed for long before entering the competition. But perhaps the pageant should take note: She’s the most famous Miss America ever, with a successful singing and acting career. Oh, the shame!

To quote Ned Flanders, if we are unable to live in “a world more like the America of yesteryear that only exists in the minds of us Republicans,” maybe it’s the pageant that needs to change. Maybe it’s time beauty pageants everywhere finally embrace the female-commodifying practice that feminists mocked in 1968, when they crowned a sheep Miss America. It wouldn’t be hard — just change up a few things to match the young female role models our society values today.

And the new categories are. ...

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