Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Following Up: Miss Dumb Blonde USA


With the debate sparked over the Miss Teen South Carolina video, there has been a lot of back and forth over whether the ridicule of Lauren Caitlin Upton was mean or desserved. Rebecca Traister weighs in on the debate:

Maybe we're not laughing because she's a pretty girl; maybe we're laughing because she chose to go on national television, where she wanted to win a contest that included a question-and-answer session, and then made a total ass of herself in that question-and-answer session. And while we're on the subject of the pageant, why are we snorting at a stupid answer when we don't bat an eye at the fact that Upton and her pageant sisters are smearing Vaseline on their teeth and parading around in bathing suits and evening gowns, hoping to be judged superior to one another and deemed emblematic of young American womanhood? Where, exactly, does Upton's (and our own) humiliation begin? Perhaps not with a geography question.


Exactly. I stand by posting the video on this feminist website.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

me too! I have heard it said that she got nervous and didn't hear the question (I think I mentioned this before). I say that getting confused and not hearing the question would not naturally lead to calling Iraq "The Iraq".

Also, I take huge issue with the fact that she was 3rd runner up. I don't know how many girls compete in this cattle show, but if answering the 'skill testing' question in such an incoherent way doesn't make you ~lose~ the competition then the barely there facade of "they have beauty AND brains" has been completely shattered. We know how that it is simply the meat of these young women that anyone in the pagent is interested in.

I hope this comment makes sense...I just woke up.