Author |
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Roxip
Member
01-29-2004
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 7:26 am
This show irritates me because it really only focuses on about 10 of the 52 girls (and I'm being generous by saying 10). It is like they are trying to manipulate you into liking girls that might not otherwise be shown in the pageant. I don't think any of the contenders from the states that usually win have even been featured (with the possible exception of Miss Florida).
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Roxibalboa
Member
08-15-2004
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 10:15 am
Roxip, I agree and came here to comment on that. I live in Ohio and I have seen Ohio in the background twice. I think they already know which girls are going to be the top 10, or whatever you call that in a pagent and that is who they are focusing on. (and how is it already predetermined?). You know how the show starts and they almost immediately narrow it down to 10 girls. I think that is why we are only seeing about 10, and that says they have known for a long time who the top 10 will be. I never watch the pagent but I guess I'm going to have to to see if this is true. (guess that is why they did this reality show, to sucker us reality junkies into watching the actual pagent)
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Roxip
Member
01-29-2004
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 12:40 pm
I don't think so, unless they are truly going with this "New Miss America" -- in which event some of the better looking and possibly more talented girls might be overlooked. I know this is not PC to say, but some of the girls they have featured are really lovely girls but in no way do they meet the standard I am used to for Miss America. Miss Alaska is a case in point -- she is really cute but she doesn't fit the standard I have in my mind for Miss America. I think it is obvious they are just trying to feature some of the other girls...perhaps even influence our voting. How can we vote for a contestant if we haven't had a good chance to see the talents of ALL of the girls...they just want to push one of their chosen ones into the top group. I'm from Texas...Miss Texas is always a contender for Miss America. Miss Texas has been seen maybe 2-3 times and that is in the background. I hope TLC doesn't insist on having "their" girls in the top group just because they are doing all this promotion for the pageant.
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Seattlemom
Member
05-10-2005
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 6:06 pm
LOL LOL Alisons I am originally from Massachusetts and my son was born here in Del a where! And because of that LOL he moved to Washington he hates it here! and LOl Route 1 tolls are the only ones I can think of that are even close to being 15 feet apart LOL Hey Dfng you know what is bad LOL I can get lost in Delaware HAHAHAHA
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Whoami
Member
08-03-2001
| Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 7:10 pm
I agree its frustrating not to see all the women. I've only seen Colorado in passing a couple of times. And I still have no clue which team she was placed on. Their website is one of the most piss-poor reality show websites I've seen. It would sure be nice if episode follow ups were posted, but apparently it looks like all they did was put up the contestant's bios (which aren't all that much to write home about and find out much about them), and haven't touched the website since the beginning. If I were to choose a favorite from the ones who have been featured, it would be Miss Alaska. She seems to be taking this revamping to heart, right down to approaching the advisors for more feedback. I liked Miss Utah at first, but I think I'm kinda over her "I don't know what I'm doing" shtick. She has to know something about what she's doing, or she wouldn't have been selected as Miss Utah. Either that, or there are some pretty poor choices of contestants in Utah. It will be very interesting to see how many women embrace the stuff they learned at this thing, and truly transform themselves for the pageant. I kinda think there will still be the die hard bunch who will go right back to glitzing themselves up to look all "pageanty." If so, I think it will then be interesting to see which type of contestant the judges pass on through. You can't transform the pageant if the judges don't embrace the changes. My fantasy from all this is that the Miss American Organization does succeed in re-inventing the pageant industry, and that it trickles down to the kiddie pageants. Wouldn't it be awesome to see kiddie pageants without the whole concept of dressing the kids up as 40-year-old hookers?
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Cricket
Member
08-05-2002
| Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 6:37 pm
I was horrified last night when Miss Washington was picked as one of the Top 3 and actually won a prize. She seemed sooo jealous of the other women and was constantly making catty remarks. No matter how happy she says she is, I'm not buying it. I don't think she's attractive at all and her whiny personality is just a further turnoff. I wonder how much of an impact of what happens on this show has on the real contest. I'm hoping none, but I'll be watching later to see if it helped her. All they have to do to get more viewers is to put the talent back on the show. When they got rid of that, I stopped watching. Why don't ask the viewers why they stopped watching, rather than assuming?
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 7:12 pm
Miss America has always had the talent. Miss USA doesn't.
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Happygal
Member
11-15-2004
| Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 8:44 pm
oh my...the talent portion of tonight's show was so bad it was beyond words. Only Wisconsin and Washington were reasonably good. Those other singers and dancers were ... I was surprised with the winner. Obviously she came across better in person with the judges than on tv.
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Stacey718995
Member
07-06-2007
| Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 8:55 pm
Did anyone watch the actual pageant on tonight? I recorded it, I am ff'ing now to see who the top was/who won
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 9:04 pm
i did. my sil called me from CA and we gossiped through the whole thing! LOL i thought Ms. Texas' jazz point routine was amazing. that took incredible strength and balance. didn't like alot of the changes they made and what happened to poor Mark Stines? he just couldn't talk at all.
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Stacey718995
Member
07-06-2007
| Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 9:12 pm
I am half way through the talent right now. I think I kind of feel like watching the reality show was a waste I haven't watched the final episode yet, I am thinking why bother?
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Cricket
Member
08-05-2002
| Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 9:48 pm
Miss America has always had the talent. Miss USA doesn't. Right, Texannie, but they used to show a lot more gals doing their talent. Tonight there were only 8. I couldn't believe how quickly they went down to 15 and then 10. Wow! I agree with you about Miss Michigan, Happy Gal. She looked so plain in her video on the left when she was talking. She did look better with makeup tonight, but I didn't think she was anything special. I loved Miss Texas's talent. Cute dancing. What she did was very hard. I was happy to see Miss Wisconsin make it as far as she did. Even though I didn't like Miss Washington going in, I thought she had a lovely gown in that competition and a very nice voice. If I hadn't seen her on the reality show, I may have been pulling for her to win. It seemed like Mark Stines couldn't read the teleprompter.
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Whoami
Member
08-03-2001
| Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 11:07 pm
Various takes and thoughts....final or not (I think they're my final thoughts, but I reserve the right to say more later if so inspired, LOL)...... First, an article I found on the revamping. Miss America Confronts a New Reality. A little past halfway down the article, it talks about how the old schoolers are taking this change. As expected, they don't seem to be embracing it too much. Have only watched bits and pieces of the pageant while doing other stuff. Have it recording on the DVR, and may/may not watch it in full. Haven't decided yet. LOL at Miss Pennsyvania during the introduction of the states at the beginning. She introduced herself as being from the state where everyone knows their state flag. Thought it was tacky and cruel to make these women dress up in their talent costumes, and then tell two of them, "oops, sorry, you don't get to perform after all." If the Miss America Organization really wants to revamp this whole pageant, the next thing they need to focus on is the talent competition. The whole approach of "if you can't do anything else, just sing a song" has always been cringe-worthy. Now, with the popularity of American Idol, and all the talent shows out there, its become even more obvious that most of these women just can't sing. Even the dancers, which I usually look forward to, left something to be desired. So maybe I'm also getting spoiled by the dance reality shows now too. I'm no expert, but I'd say the first dancer didn't have much control on her pirouettes. At least she danced en pointe, which does take training and talent. The jazz dancer did hit some striking en pointe poses. But her split leaps showed some weakness to my untrained eyes. Looks like there wasn't much height in the leaps, or extension in the legs. The third dancer seemed to have the most control on her dance moves, so I deemed her as the best. Now, as for the difficulty of each of the dancer's content, I couldn't tell ya. So, it may be the third dancer had the most simple routine, and that's why she looked the most in control. At least, this year, the other "back up" talent wasn't amongst those who performed. Not a single piano player in the mix!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 11:30 pm
Haven't read here, but yikes! I agree that the "talent" was just embarrassing, but at least I'd started recording ahead and could ff once I saw a bit of that. The host was just terrible! Could it be because of the writers' strike? Probably not because he kept fluffing lines, confusing states, and just was pretty much a trainwreck. The guy who was siting with the rejected women was so much more at ease, as was the actor who hosted the "reality" show. I thought most of the new stuff was ignored (unless you are a fan of the "new improved" way to model your swimsuits by striking various exotic dancer poses and then getting in as much hip action as humanly possible (there were some exceptions.) I thought the girl the viewers voted in was more different, but of course they got rid of her at the first opportunity. And all the commercials for sponsors, ugh. The highlight for me was the commercials for Trading Spaces and the return of Paige Davis.
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Woofy
Member
08-09-2001
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 12:36 am
I though that some of the new things worked .. but the removal of state representatives was handled terribly .. Instead of doing it in a positive manner (Announcing the ten who will be remain and allowing the 6 who weren't to slither off silently would have so much better than the Negative manner in which it was handled. "Now we're going to name the six girls who aren't moving ahead." Rude and terrible. And the elimination during the "talent" competition was an embarassment .. the audience was groaning. Mark Stines (?) was uncomfortable, and the manner in which it was handled was disrespectful to all involved.
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 6:55 am
Woofy, I can kind of see how they 'thought' that might be a good idea. In this day of praising a child for every single thing they do...at least the girls who were eliminated were given a chance in the sun. i was thrilled when they gave the baton twirler a chance to perform. one thing i do think was a great goal, whether or not it will be accomplished was to try to make someone like Miss America the "IT" girl and a role model rather than someone like Britney Spears.
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Alisons
Member
01-10-2003
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 7:19 am
I thought that naming Lindsay Lohan as a bad example was tacky. For heavens sake, she has been through extensive rehab this year and is struggling to stay sober, she doesn't need to be dissed on Miss America! The host was TERRIBLE. If you are going to invest in revamping the program, PAY THE BUCKS AND GET RYAN SEACREST. I think that Miss Michigan has a lot of charisma that does not come off on TV - I remember someone saying during the walking the runway part of the TV show that they could not take their eyes off her. I kept wanting to pluck her eyebrows, she does not look polished. Oh well, they probably did that 10 seconds after she was whisked offstage.....right after they wiped the lipstick off her face! (Talk about a bad moment - you have just been crowned Miss America, all eyes are on you and you have lipstick all over your face like you put on your makeup drunk.)
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 9:25 am
that was what was so weird to me, Mark Stines usually does a great job at things like this and he has posted this in the past too.
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Kappy
Member
06-29-2002
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 11:23 am
I admit I only tuned in during the last hour just as they were announcing who was going to do a talent portion and who wasn't. My son thought the audience were booing the contestant which he found rude. I said, no, I think they're booing over the fact of who just got eliminated. But I was confused because having tuned in late, I just assumed that the person who was eliminated would leave the stage and instead, there she was, broken hearted and being asked to perform. I turned to my son and said, why doesn't she just say "Heck no! You just eliminated me! Find somebody else to perform for you all!" Lol, like the mother & daughter who refused to have their sashes cut in the Mother of All Pagents show! I thought that was just down right cruel and turned off the rest of the show. Now I'm reading elsewhere how the earlier ones who were eliminated had to do a 'walk of shame'? What the heck? I liked the infusion of reality to an extent. I had high hopes from that show that there really would be changes in the actual pageant. But from I saw, ayeeeeee!
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Roxip
Member
01-29-2004
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 11:24 am
Personally I detest the "IT" girl emphasis. It reminds me too much of the <66> "IT" girls who have no talent and have taken over the celebrity airwaves...the Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashians of the world. I don't need to see any <66> girls making obscene poses by thrusting out their hips and throwing their arms over their heads...I want to see girls who are using their lives in positive ways, who just happen too be beautiful. I'm NOT saying that these contestants were <66>...I just think that is what the producers of this show were pushing down towards us through them. (And I noticed most of the girls had gone back to the glittery gowns and overly made up faces by the way, so much for toning it down -- Miss Washington, who was praised so much on the realityshow, had on enough eyeshadow to keep Loreal in business for years). I wish we could know more about these girls' personal accomplishments. How are they going to benefit the world through their actions? And the question part...the majority of them were centered around celebrities. YUCK! And the girls who made up the majority of the top 8? They were from the states who have traditionally done well in the pageants...so what changed? By the way, I thought Miss Utah looked dramatically better in her tasteful one piece suit than all of the other girls did in their bikinis. I guess I'm just a little more conservative, but even my 10-year old thought she looked great.
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Whoami
Member
08-03-2001
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 12:30 pm
Warning to those who DVR'd and haven't viewed yet. Our DVR cut off right on the hour, yet the show ran over a few minutes. So we missed the crowning. I think it cut off with the four ladies left, the announcer said, "and the new Miss America is...." and our recording ended. LOL. Mom insists on seeing the crowning, even though we know who won. So, since this is being replayed a few times, I get to record the whole darn thing again, ff to the end, and then let Mom see the crowning. Just thought others might want to be aware, in case they have the same problem!
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Jasper
Member
09-14-2000
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 12:46 pm
I can't remember the last time I watched a pageant on TV but decided to watch after seeing the Unchecked, I'm sure they pulled in huge numbers due to that show. I can't think of anything positive to say about the host so I'll say nothing. I thought the whole set up of eliminated girls and some DJ on one side and parents on the other quite strange. I figured either Indianna or MIchigan would win and it looked like from Indianna's reaction she thought she would win as well. And why did they say the questions were what visitors to America wanted to ask? They were obviously set up questions they were reading and all but one I think had to do with celebrities. The talent portion seems so dated and almost juvenile. Do they not do things like Miss Congeniality etc in these contests anymore? And what qualifies these people to be the judges? The show while two hours and who knows how many commercials (thank you PVR) still came off to me anyways as very rushed. Up down eliminated, next and moving on. I can't see how anyone can get a feel for who is representing your country by an answer to one of those vapid questions. Why don't they spend some time with showing some prior interview with the finalists talking about their accomplishments and goals?
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 2:23 pm
Roxi, I think that was the point..to have to IT girl be of something of substance and NOT like the current IT girls.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 8:18 pm
The problem is that "it" girl already has several long standing meanings, most of which were, presumabely NOT what the pageant was trying to promote.. Per wikipedia
quote:Modern "It girls" Since 1927 the term has been extended beyond the world of film, referring to whoever in society, fashion or the performing arts was in vogue at the time, including, from the 1960s onwards, singer and Rolling Stones' muse Marianne Faithfull, Talitha Getty, model Jean Shrimpton, actress and socialite Edie Sedgwick, actress and comedienne Goldie Hawn, 1980s "wild child" Amanda de Cadenet, model Kate Moss, socialite/actress Paris Hilton, actress Tara Reid, pop-icon Britney Spears, actress from The O.C. Mischa Barton,actress and socialite Nicole Richie, actress and "boho"-queen Sienna Miller, TV presenter Alexa Chung, famous fashionable twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, actress Lindsay Lohan, and socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. The writer William Donaldson observed that, having initially been coined in the 1920s, the term was applied in the 1990s to describe "a young woman of noticeable 'sex appeal' who occupied herself by shoe shopping and party-going" (Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics, 2002). At around the same time the term posh tart was coined as a broad equivalent, though this tended to be reserved for those, such as Palmer-Tomkinson and Lady Victoria Hervey, daughter of the 6th Marquess of Bristol, who came from the "higher" echelons of society.
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Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 9:13 pm
I figured Michigan was going to win when I saw her evening gown. I went WOW, that is sparkles and nude spots, people will like that! LOL.
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Roxip
Member
01-29-2004
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 9:58 pm
I would have liked to have seen some talent other than dancing and singing. I thought that the last ballerina was the best of the dancers. Didn't care much for Miss Washington's song. By the way, when my college roommate was in the pageant she played piano...and she was awesome. So I don't consider playing piano a "second string" or whatever talent. I thought the violinist was probably the most talented musician of the ones featured. But they were all trying so hard to be "cultured" that they seemed stiff and contrived.
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Whoami
Member
08-03-2001
| Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 10:08 pm
Well, I should clarify my remark about piano playing being a "backup talent." Its just that, piano playing (along with singing, dancing, etc) when done well by someone who has a true talent in it is one thing. Its just that, for years I remember the ONLY "talents" they showed were singing and playing the piano. And usually the singing was mediocre to terrible, and the piano playing was usually nothing to write home about either. But maybe my bigger beef from the piano players in the past is how they'd get pageanty with their performance, and grin and mug at the camera, rather than focusing on their instrument. The hokey look always distracted me from the music being played. I liked how last night the violin player seemed more into her playing, than trying to look like a beauty queen playing the violin. I can remember someone playing a wind instrument (can't remember now which one), and she had to figure out how to blow into her instrument and smile at the same time. It was really hokey, IIRC. 
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Panda
Member
07-15-2005
| Monday, January 28, 2008 - 8:23 am
and it looked like from Indianna's reaction she thought she would win as well. LOL I was thinking the same exact thing!!!!!
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Roxip
Member
01-29-2004
| Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 11:25 am
I thought that both California and Indiana were sure they had won it. Was amazed that California didn't even place in top 5.
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Cathie
Member
08-16-2000
| Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 10:29 am
I took Indiana's reaction differently. I thought "yep, a bridesmaid again" like the old rules are still holding true.
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