The state level pageants are bad enough and seem to always reward the vicious "In it to win (at all costs)" drama queens, but what they’ve done to the national level pageant has completely destroyed the veneer of respectability Miss America once had.

From my eyes the whole even is so firmly wrapped in plastic that no trace of authenticity has a prayer of slipping through. First you take perfectly lovely young women, and then you lay enough makeup on them to pave a road with. I swear the last pageant I saw they looked more like stepford wives in their thirties than 19 year old girls. Then you paste the most vacous fake smiles known to man and add the most vacous fake commentary known to man and violá, you have the pre-packaged, instantly microwavable, TV-dinner Miss America Pageant.

I’ve nothing against the contest per-se, even if I find it a bit sad that so many girls think that nothing in the world could be as important as being prettier than the other girls. However, whatever redeeming qualities the contest could have, it loses in the tacky style of the whole affair.