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Date Posted: 19:02:10 01/18/24 Thu
This is a complex issue because there are nightmare titleholders. Of course, you cannot base pure facts on hearsay on a message board, but I will use Ericka Dunlap as an example. It was said that the FL board felt that she was a problem and was likely going to be addressed (either that she was going to be asked to resign or they would remove her from duties) but she won Miss America. According to the book Boardwalk in Disrepair by Ami Feller-Otto, the leadership at the time felt that Ericka was very difficult to work with. The one thing that the A&E documentary addressed is that many titleholders are accused of being difficult, etc. and there are a lot of problems with the job of being Miss America. I saw how Ericka treated her now ex-husband on the Amazing Race, so I believe there is merit. But here's the problem at the national level-judges would have not known any of this. They like what they see onstage. Do you remember back in 2001 and 2002 when the contestants were given a chance to vote on who they thought would make the best Miss America? They see behavior throughout the week. It was well reported that Tara Holland was not well-liked by her fellow contestants. I had always wondered why she did not appear in the production number before the end of the show that night. The story was that she claimed to have been injured. So, we can kind of see from the outside looking in that titleholders are difficult, but the final night judges at MAO probably do not have enough time or insight to be able to determine who is going to be great to work with or a nightmare to work with.
I am sure at the state level that there is a lot more room, as it were, for executive directors to steer the judges to the contestant of their choice. However, as one of the posters mentioned above, if they are actively engaging in rigging the pageant for or against a particular contestant it could go seriously with them. They could face everything up to and including legal repercussions. Do I believe that some EDs pick their friends and in a roundabout way tell them who they want? Absolutely. They may explicitly tell them as well. From everything I know from the outside, my state has generally had good titleholders who were kind, nice, and easy to work with. I never thought that there might be one which was tanked with the ballot.
As far as judges looking at social media-that is interesting to me because how do we define who is good or toxic based on their posts? Social media is essentially designed for everyone to put out the best image of themselves. A few years ago social media was part of the scoring or at least part of the competition. Where I think it can be telling is reading personal accounts, whether that person might hold potentially beliefs or make statements which would bring controversy. There was the Miss Teen USA, for example, who made racially derogatory statements and it came out in the press. Perhaps if the judges knew that they would have used better discretion.
I guess this is a complex issue because of these issues. It is hard to really know any contestant except for reputation and the way they conduct themselves during pageant week. I am not sure that final balloting would help at the national level or not. I would imagine it affects states if this is an issue with a potential titleholder. Most local titleholders unless they are in a high-profile area barely have any responsibilities, so I do not think there is a great investment in that.
My concern is that a contestant could still be unfairly tanked. You are essentially playing god with contestants. I realize that is what you sign up for, but you also need to know that there can be times where someone very deserving might be shut out of a title or given less scholarship because of perceptions/biases/unfounded reputations.
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