On Sept. 8, 1945, just a few months after the German surrender in World War II, my mother, Bess Myerson, became the first — and to this day, only — Jewish Miss America. When you look back on that moment in history, it might be easy to imagine that postwar sympathies helped my mother secure the crown.
To the contrary, the anti-Semitism that pervaded American life before the war persisted (and, in some pockets, intensified) after the war’s end. Some people blamed the Jews for American involvement in the conflict.
My mother’s predecessors as Miss America were busy (and well paid) “fulfilling duties” — touring the country and making promotional appearances — but none of the pageant’s sponsors wanted their products associated with a Jew. She soon realized that for her there would be no duties.
“I couldn’t even stay in certain hotels,” my mother later told me. “There would be signs that read, ‘No coloreds, no Jews, no dogs.’ I felt so rejected. Here I was chosen to represent American womanhood and then America treated me like this.”
Almost since its inception in 1921, the Miss America pageant has been a lightning rod for controversy. In the 1920’s, it was denounced by conservatives for corrupting women and promoting loose morals. During the rise of Second Wave feminism in the ’60s and ’70s, the protests came from progressives, who saw the tradition of women parading themselves in front of men for approval as a woefully outdated ritual.
But my mother’s unlikely win at a time of rampant anti-Semitism became an important moment in Jewish American history, and she changed a lot of hearts and minds along the way. The Anti-Defamation League approached her and convinced her to to go on a national speaking tour addressing high school students about the dangers of hatred. In time she would begin to be offered entertainment and business opportunities that had previously been denied to her because of her heritage.
The pageant can help inspire progress. So why does it feel like it’s so often a step (or three) behind the cultural conversation, rather than leading it? It’s because the pageant, in both its rules and its selection process, has always been a reflection of our flawed nation, including its slow-to-adapt parts.
It wasn’t until 1970 that a black woman, Cheryl Browne, had the chance to compete in the contest. As shamefully late as this now seems, it was only a few years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And when Vanessa Williams became the first black woman to win, in 1983, she — not unlike my mother — endured vicious animosity, in the form of hate mail and death threats throughout her (abbreviated) reign. It got so bad she couldn’t travel in certain parts of the country without armed guards.
As recently as 2013, when Nina Davuluri became the first Indian-American woman to win the crown, she too faced an onslaught of xenophobia and racism — this time via the preferred delivery method for today’s ever-emboldened bigots, social media. A typically harsh comment read, “Miss America is a terrorist.”
The horrific responses directed at each Miss America who deviated from the white, Christian “mainstream” highlight the conundrum the pageant has found itself facing in recent years. Ratings have been in steady decline, in large part because an increasingly vocal slice of this giant and unruly electorate called the American people started to expect fairer representation on that stage, while a chunk of the pageant’s core audience apparently wasn’t ready for it. A scandal in 2017 involving leaked emails in which top members of the Miss America Organization traded misogynistic barbs about contestants certainly didn’t add to the pageant’s appeal.
Miss America and its organizers are not beholden to any particular dogma, other than the rules of capitalism. They are simply trying to win as many eyeballs — and therefore sponsorship dollars — as possible. Last year, in an effort to answer criticism that it was a sexist event that promoted unrealistic standards for women, the pageant announced it had finally eliminated the swimsuit competition, and that physical appearance would no longer be judged. Still more changes are expected to be made for this year’s ceremony, being broadcast Thursday. The pageant website refers to this new era as “Miss America 2.0.”
The changes didn’t keep the ratings from continuing their downward turn last year. And they seem to have alienated those who are less inclined to more liberal cultural shifts: A recent editorial in The Press of Atlantic City began, “Each new announcement by the rebranded Miss America Competition sounds more distant, like the social/political activists now running it have wandered further from mainstream America — and maybe life itself.”
It continued, “Too bad the women behind Miss America 2.0 seem to have a bad conscience about feminine beauty. They’re fighting something so deep and essential to people and nearly all other forms of animal life that they are certain to fail.”
But if you think that the young women vying for the title will look more like your friends and neighbors this year, think again. A quick glance at the “candidates” — the word “contestant,” like the term “beauty pageant,” is no longer used by the organization — on Miss America’s website belies the claim that looks no longer matter.
In order to make it to the big stage, these women have had to win pageant after pageant at the local and state level — a process that seems to have created a field of candidates who look remarkably similar to the contestants of years past. So until Miss America’s new policies filter down to all of these smaller competitions, this organization will remain what it has always been: a beauty pageant.
Is the nation ready for a Miss America who doesn’t conform to conventional beauty standards? Would anybody tune in? Would she be subject to the kind of contempt that my mother, Ms. Williams and Ms. Davuluri endured? Or would she manage to make a nearly 100-year-old tradition suddenly relevant again, serving as a symbol of a new era in which a woman’s value is no longer measured in bust, waist and hip sizes?
If past is prologue, the organization is looking to us, its potential viewers, to answer those very questions. So, let’s all take a deep breath, stay calm and try to respond to them to the best of our ability. We’ve got the power to push the organization further into the 21st century.
Barra Grant (MsAUglyDaughter) is a writer of and performer in the forthcoming play “Miss America’s Ugly Daughter: Bess Myerson & Me.”
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