Vaseline is administered to the teeth. Duct tape, safety pins and bobby pins are securely in place.
Months of preparation and sleepless nights led to this one moment.
Nausea, excitement and sheer adrenaline fill the women who will be standing on stage — but the Vaseline and a lot of practice keep their lips from changing to the eager position of expectation their nerves really want their lips to make.
A crown sparkles in the distance like the Holy Grail of future opportunity.
And each woman waits.
The names are announced, and one by one, the contestants’ faces shift from learned smiles to ones of real disappointment.
Then there are two.
One will hold the title and don the crown. One will need to be satisfied with first runner-up.
“There is nothing better than getting to the two final girls, hearing the other girl is the first runner-up, then having everyone cheer for you,” says Marianna Hewitt, an enthusiastic pageant competitor who received her highest award by being named Miss Teen Galaxy 2006.
Beauty pageants, scholarship pageants — whatever you want to call them — grace everything from the pages of American history books to blogs in today’s Internet world.
Pageants were a popular target for the women’s movement and the subject of Sandra Bullock’s hit, Miss Congeniality. Many famous women have titles sitting on their resumés beside Oscars, Emmys and various career achievements. Many also have them on their list of no-no’s for a society of equals.
Pageants have been an institution of creativity or controversy for decades, depending on how one looks at it. A new generation of feminists is forming its own opinions about beauty pageants. These critics struggle with the positives and negatives of the competitions. For those competing, however, the pursuit is for the crown, the title, the opportunity and the experience.
Marianna Hewitt: A model student
Marianna Hewitt can’t count the number of pageants she’s been in on two hands.
She had been Miss Junior Teen Ohio, Miss Ohio Teen USA First Runner-Up, Miss Teen Ohio Galaxy winner and several other runner-up positions and “almosts.” The title she is most proud of is the title she was given last year: Miss Teen Galaxy 2006.
“Winning is the greatest feeling in the world,” the sophomore pre-journalism major says.
But it took time, desire and money to get where she is.
“Lots of money! You cannot do it without proper financial support,” Hewitt says. “There is pageant coaching, interview coaching, personal trainers, stylists, hair, nails, tanning, traveling to other pageants to watch and see girls in person, wardrobe, everything.”
She has a pageant coach in Detroit whom she visits once a month. When time creeps to only a few months away from the pageant, Hewitt drives to see her coach every weekend, where she gets help with walking, interviewing, physical stance and stage presence. She and her coach must even agree on her wardrobe. Not a detail is missed.
While her pageant coach lives north, Hewitt travels east to New York City to visit her interview coach.
“He is amazing,” she says. “He really teaches you to think on your feet and answer without thinking about it.”
Most of the pageants Hewitt competes in are modeling-based. The pageant requires an interview, along with eveningwear and swimsuit modeling. The last two parts of the competition are the most nerve-racking, she says. To compensate, she has a personal trainer when she lives at home and works out in the morning and the evening. This busy schedule of pageant life has left her a master of time management.
Hewitt sits gracefully in The Hub as she studies for her final exams — two weeks early.
“I’m so busy,” she laughs. “I have to start early.”
The 19-year-old is a Delta Gamma and lives with two of her sisters who also compete in pageants. She says it is nice to have the support of her roommates because they understand why a busy social life is hard to fulfill sometimes.
The black-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned half-Vietnamese, half-Italian can’t be described as anything but striking. The trips to Detroit and lessons on enunciation have trickled down to every aspect of her life, she says, mentioning that she finds it easier to speak in public and in class because of her training.
That combination of looks and hard work led to her winning her competitions. The most incredible experience of her life, she says, came when she was crowned the winner out of all her competitors from around the world after traveling through preliminary competitions.
As a part of her winnings, Hewitt says she has been able to make numerous connections with talent agencies and celebrities.
This statement is pretty modest of her accomplishments. She has been photographed for CMH Magazine, Mukkah Cosmetics and Maxim. The camera couldn’t keep its eyes off of her either. She was on last year’s MTVU hit “IMU” and has acted in commercials for Wendy’s. She also landed a modeling deal with a small agency that helps sponsor the pageant.
“While we don’t get scholarships in Miss Galaxy, I’m making steps toward a possible career,” she says. She is studying to become a broadcast journalist, but she says modeling can help pay the bills and would be a dream career.
Hewitt plans to continue competing and is practicing for a Miss Ohio preliminary. She says she likes to stay busy, and the discipline pageants teach has helped her handle college classes and schedules. But the most important thing for this young adult is the fun.
“I’ve made lifelong friends because of the pageants I’ve done. I don’t want to stop,” she says.
Angela Funovits: It’s magic
Angela Funovits’ story is a little different.
The current Miss Maple City first runner-up admits that competing in pageants has one large attraction.
“There are a lot of reasons to participate, but the scholarships are great,” says the 19-year-old integrated life sciences major and NEOUCOM student who is working her way to med school to become a physician. She says the money she earns through pageants could definitely help foot the bill.
Miss Maple City is a part of the Miss America System, which is renowned for the large amounts of scholarship money it provides its victorious competitors. There are 22 local preliminaries throughout the state of Ohio whose winners go on to compete in Miss Ohio. The Miss Ohio winner then goes on to compete for the title of Miss America.
This pageant circuit has judging portions for talent and onstage questioning, along with swimsuit, eveningwear and interviews. During the interview, each contestant is asked to speak about her “platform.” This is a cause that the contestant would work to support and promote if she wins the title.
The interview and the talent portions comprise the highest percentages of a contestant’s total score. Funovits found a way to combine them.
When she was in elementary school, Funovits picked up magic and never looked back.
“I was incredibly shy, so I started to do magic to get comfortable in front of people,” she says. “I’m largely self-taught.
“I would check out books from the library when I was little and not return them because I didn’t want other people to learn my tricks,” she jokes.
The Avon Lake native has gone on to perform in front of Masonic Auditorium and Performing Arts Center, Nashville Radio Café and Cleveland Playhouse, but there is one audience that captivates her the most.
In high school, Funovits volunteered at hospitals around Avon Lake and would perform magic tricks for patients waiting in pre-operation rooms to help them relax before surgery.
“It was then that I realized my magic could help make a difference in someone’s life,” she says.
Soon after, Funovits started Seraphim One Outreach. The program addresses the psychological needs of the cancer community. She works to pull together area magicians to perform in hospitals for cancer patients and their families.
“Performing for them gives me purpose,” she says. “Taking someone at such a difficult point in their life and empowering them is so fulfilling for me.”
Funovits says she decided to use Seraphim One Outreach as her platform. As Miss Teen Cleveland, she was able to nationally promote “Using Magic to Achieve Holistic Healing,” which focused on the goals of Seraphim One.
“With a (pageant) title comes power as far as promoting a program,” she says. “If you have a crown, everyone will listen.”
Miss America pageant winners also have a big responsibility to work extensively with their platform during the year of their reign, she says. Funovits says the circuit’s dedication to service is important to her and a good argument against the stereotype that pageants are pointless.
An estimated 12,000 young women participate in some circuit of the Miss America Organization at state or local levels. In 2005, the organization’s total awards given to competitors at state and local organizations in the form of cash or scholarship assistance totaled about $45 million, according to its Web site.
Contestants performed 12,384 community service projects in 2000. The total number of hours recorded for those service projects was 571,177.
Funovits says the many pageants she has competed in have made her a stronger, more confident person.
“It’s amazing the way it can help you grow as a person,” she says. “And if I can put myself up on a stage in a bikini and walk around — I can do anything.”
“Bra Burners” Versus “Cattle”
In 1968, the Miss America beauty pageant was an American institution. It was a tradition. Female competitors showed their strengths in cooking, cleaning and looking beautiful in a bathing suit, and the public embraced these bathing beauties.
That same year, second-wave feminism ignited at the pageant.
Women’s liberation activists protested outside the arena in Atlantic City where the Miss America contest was held. Their goal was to show how all women were hurt by Miss America and similar beauty competitions.
And to make their voices heard, the feminists decided it was war — of the activist sort.
Posters held by protesters lined the boardwalk. A crown and sash proclaiming “Miss America” adorned a live sheep. Stiletto shoes, bras, makeup and hair curlers were pitched into a trash can and burned.
They auctioned off a Miss America puppet and chanted, “Ain’t she sweet, making profits off her meat.”
The bar was raised in feminist activism, and a stereotype was generated for both sides of the beauty pageant battle — the bra burners versus the women parading themselves like pieces of meat.
Since then, both the feminist movement and the beauty pageant circuits have faced highs and lows. Thirty-eight years have passed, and a new generation has never seen such radical activism or a pageant with such domestic goals — leaving many in limbo about how to react to today’s beauty pageants.
“I think that beauty pageants are both empowering and degrading,” says Emily Costa, a junior anthropology major and president of the Kent State Feminist Union. “The Miss America Organization offers scholarships to the women who compete, and winning the pageant is one way to try to make a difference. On the other hand, they’re being judged for their bodies and their looks. They’re trying to fit America into one woman — which is impossible and immediately biased.”
While not all pageants provide scholarships directly, Miss America has become the biggest sponsor of them.
That’s a far cry from just the sash and crown that was given in 1968. Costa says she believes the opposing sides have helped each other.
“I think the media picked up on the protests from the ’70s and made fun of (feminists). As feminism picked up, the problems with Miss America began to be taken more seriously,” she says. “Miss America was like a litmus test for women in America and what’s expected of them. Women in these contests now want scholarships for school. They want education. They want medical degrees so they can change the world. They’re not the ditzy girls that were kicking around in the 1970s.”
The swimsuit and modeling portion of the Miss America pageant account for the smallest segment of an individual’s score. The platform section of the pageant has become the most important, and winners have the opportunity (and responsibility) to create funds and awareness for their individual philanthropic organization, says Andrea Andryscik, Miss North Coast and Miss America hopeful.
The scores for beauty and body as criteria for a title are something feminists have a problem with. There is always going to be an issue whenever a woman is judged based on her appearance, Costa says.
“Women in these pageants are not ugly. They are not overweight. They are not the average American woman,” she says. “There is still the issue of, yes, these women are doing good things with the ‘power’ that comes with the pageant title, but they got that position in part because they’re attractive.”
Instead of pageants promoting the image that women are domestic and innately happy with staying in the home as they did in the 1960s, they now play on the message that attractive women will be more successful in life, Costa says.
And it’s not a message found to be incorrect.
“Overweight or ‘ugly’ women are passed over for promotions, raises and jobs in general,” Costa says. “They do not get front desk positions. It’s a bad message to send. The media has normalized the judgments of appearance.”
Miss Galaxy competitor Marianna Hewitt, however, questions how people can find something bad that instills confidence and a sense of self in young women.
“They are not degrading at all,” she says. “There are so many pageants for everyone — babies, preteens, teen, miss, mrs., elite, plus size, ethnic, educational. Anything you can think of, there is a category you would fit into.”
But in Hewitt’s reasoning lies the problem for many feminists.
“Most (feminists) realize that beauty is an individual characteristic, but we also realize there will always be people who feel otherwise,” says Hilda Pettit, director of the KSU Women’s Resource Center. “The most unfortunate example of this, in my opinion, is mothers who enter their daughters in competitions at an early age, encouraging both competitive behavior and setting unrealistic standards of beauty.”
She says the average female viewer may feel “very inadequate and ugly when watching a pageant, and younger girls may develop expectations of ideal beauty that are unrealistic and may possibly lead to the development of eating disorders or self-esteem issues.”
Pettit’s next statement, however, shows the jury is still out on whether those participating are degrading themselves.
“On the other hand, the women in the pageant have chosen to compete because they are very proud of their beauty as they perceive it,” she says, “and it would seem unfair to me to condemn them for pride in the ideals of beauty that they value.”
The feminist movement, Pettit says, has changed its focus from beauty pageants to something else.
“Frankly, I believe that most feminists have just written beauty pageants off as a waste of time. I think that we pay very little attention to them,” she says. “Unfortunately, their impact may have been replaced by other media portrayals of women in advertising for products.”
The idealistic beauty that is so prevalent in beauty pageants is now seen in promotions for clothing, perfume, jewelry and other products used by women, Pettit says. These advertisements have become a bigger concern for feminists because the public sees them every day — pageants are optional to view.
And women aren’t the only ones affected by this “idealistic beauty.”
“Men who see all the advertising also learn to expect the standards of beauty in ads to be held by typical women,” Petitt says. “This in turn puts more pressure on women to conform to societal perceptions of beauty because, despite feminist intentions, women do care what other people think about their appearance. A horrible, vicious circle.”
Hewitt and Andryscik say that the pageants have changed their lives and made them better people. Since there have been changes in the goals of the pageants from decades before, feminists today aren’t so worked up about them — but they will never completely agree with their ideals.
“Like pornography, it’s a good thing and a bad thing,” Costa says. “And let’s face it; Miss America is a type of pornography — minus the facial at the end — only the participants are more rounded characters with goals.”
Jackie Mantey is a junior magazine journalism major.
This is her second story for The Burr.
Contact her at jmantey@kent.edu.
STORY Jackie Mantey
PHOTO Elizabeth Myers
ABOVE Angela Funovits poses with the playing cards she uses in her magic tricks. The 19-year-old has been performing magic and modeling for almost ten years.
BEFORE THE FAME AND PAPARAZZIRecognize these names? Before they were leading successful careers and high-profile social lives, these women were feeling the pressure and rewards of beauty pageants.
Oprah Winfrey
Winfrey held the titles 1971 Miss Fire Prevention and Miss Black Tennessee before becoming one of the most powerful women in the world. But it wasn’t all crowns and glory. She also competed in the Miss Black America Pageant preliminaries but didn’t make the finals.Paula Zahn
This television journalism star of CNN’s "Paula Zahn Now" worked her way through school by earning scholarships through the Miss Teenage America Pageant. She made the finals in 1973.Marla Maples
She was named Miss Photogenic after placing fourth in Georgia’s Miss Teen Pageant. Now, paparazzi take photos of this second Mrs. Donald Trump.Vanessa Williams
This singer who wowed the world with her voice in her hit “Save the Best for Last” was also the first black woman to win the Miss America pageant. Her reign, however, was riddled with controversy. She was asked to give up her crown and title when Penthouse published sexually explicit photos she had posed for prior to her career in entertainment.Diane Sawyer
This journalism standout might not be what she is today if it weren’t for beauty pageants. After being crowned 1962’s America’s Junior Miss, she used the money she earned from the title to attend Wellesley College. She went on to work as a weather girl, a press aide to Richard Nixon and a 60 Minutes correspondent.Tiffani-Amber Thiessen
Who knew the girl who played cheerleader tomboy (yet enviously beautiful) Kelly Capowski was a former beauty queen? Before she was starting an acting and modeling career for herself on "Saved By the Bell," Thiessen was a Miss Junior America and won the Teen Magazine Model search.Halle Berry
Before college-aged men across the globe drooled over her nearly nude appearance in Swordfish, this actress was making a name for herself throughout the American beauty pageant circuit. Although she now holds the claim of Oscar-worthy actress, Berry was Miss Teen All American, Miss Ohio-USA, first runner-up to Miss USA in 1986 and fourth runner-up to Miss World that same year.