The television broadcast was cheery as ever and rebranded to address criticism. But behind the scenes, there’s a “kind of a civil war” brewing.
ATLANTIC CITY — If you tuned into the Miss America pageant last night, you may have noticed a few changes.
For starters, this year’s event was called a “competition,” not a “pageant.” The participants were “candidates” — interviewing for the job of Miss America — not “contestants.” There was no runway this year, and the word “Miss” had been stripped from the sashes, though each still had a little pocket that could conceal a lipstick tube.
And, of course, in the wake of #MeToo, there were no swimsuits.
This was the debut of the newer, woker Miss America — or “Miss America 2.0,” as it has been rebranded by its new chair, Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox News anchor and Miss America 1989. This year’s candidates, as the show’s televised introduction explained, were “diverse and inclusive,” “empowered,” “leaders” and “beautiful — inside and out.”
The group included a neuroscience graduate from Harvard and a software developer for Microsoft whose platform was women in STEM. Candidates spoke about surviving cancer, growing up with incarcerated parents and their undergraduate degrees in women’s studies. They addressed domestic violence, mental health and sexual assault. Four of the five finalists, including last night’s winner, Nia Imani Franklin of New York, were women of color.
But what may not have been visible to those watching were the growing pains of Miss America 2.0. It’s “kind of a civil war,” said Kirsten Haglund, the 2008 winner. Behind the scenes, state and local volunteers plotted a coup against Ms. Carlson, and the reigning Miss America blasted her on the “Today” show.
Much of the turmoil hinges on the elimination of swimsuits, a lack of transparency in decision making, and the pressure to find relevance for a nearly 100-year-old institution in a very particular cultural moment. As Ms. Haglund put it: “Miss America is never going to go back to the 1950s era of the silver screen. But what can it be for the 21st century?”
Miss America has long touted itself as more than a beauty pageant, claiming — somewhat dubiously — to be the largest provider of scholarship money to young women in the country.
But it has also long been the subject of mockery and scorn, a reminder that we still live in a world where women are judged on their bodies and required to have — as John Oliver once put it — a “mint-condition uterus.” (As recently as 2014, candidates had to sign a contract declaring they’d never been pregnant. The 2018 rulebook still required women to declare that they had never been married and were not pregnant and did not intend to become pregnant during their year of service.)
Over the years, the century-old organization has been opposed by religious groups and women’s rights activists. It has suffered internal dissent — in 1950, the pageant winner Yolande Betbeze refused to pose in a swimsuit during her reign — and external pressures.
It endured a minor feminist revolt, when 50 years ago on the boardwalk, feminist activists protested the pageant by throwing bras, girdles, false eyelashes and other “instruments of female torture” into a trash can labeled “Freedom.” (The protesters had planned to set the can on fire but couldn’t get the right permits. So no bras were burned that day, but the act of “bra burning” was born.)
Later, there was that year the producers attempted to rebrand the competition as a reality show; the era that the show moved to Las Vegas (and cable); and the scandal of 1984, when Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America, was stripped of her crown after it was revealed that she had posed nude for Penthouse (the Miss America organization later apologized).
More recently, viewership has dipped, as has the number of women enrolled as candidates. Claims of scholarship donations have been questioned and debunked.
“Since the late ’80s, Miss America has been adjusting its image to maintain relevance and keep viewership,” said Margot Mifflin, an English professor at the City University of New York who is writing a cultural history of the pageant. “Part of that is about the culture around it. At some point people didn’t need to see scantily clad ladies on the stage anymore — they could see it on their computers.”
The audience turnout has certainly been declining.
This year program staff handed out flyers to random passersby on the boardwalk, offering free tickets to fill up empty seats. “All you need to do is get dressed up, really nice, and show up to Boardwalk Hall,” the flyer read. Production staff said they pass these out every year, but this time, they had a reconfigured arena with fewer seats and they still had to give up more free seats.
Maybe the usual crowds were turned off by the drama.
Last December, it was revealed that Sam Haskell, the C. E. O., had sent vicious and lewd emails about former competitors, a move that only reinforced the perception of Miss America as retrograde and sexist.
Ms. Carlson, who had become a leading figure in the #MeToo movement after her sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox, seemed like a perfect replacement — one who would help reform the pageant’s image.
“She seemed like a unanimous win,” said Crystal Lee, a Miss America 2014 runner-up. “We saw her as a maverick, and a leader.”
But the organization has been plagued by internal turmoil since Ms. Carlson was instated. In July, a letter signed by 22 state representatives called for the resignation of the entire board, alleging “obfuscation and fear-based governance.” Then in August, Miss America 2018, Cara Mund, published an open letter accusing Ms. Carlson of “workplace bullying.” (An independent review determined that “none of the information gathered” indicated that Ms. Mund was “treated in a way which would be considered inappropriate either in a typical business setting or in this particular work context.”)
In the week leading up to this year’s pageant, the Press of Atlantic City reported that 5-foot-tall posters of Ms. Carlson were hung around town, with giant letters brandishing her “So Fake.” A blue sash with the words “Gretchen Sucks” was placed on the statue of Miss America perched outside Boardwalk Hall. (A political street art group took credit for the stunt.)
And on Saturday, the day before the pageant, in perhaps the greatest show of revolt, more than 50 state leaders met privately in a hotel conference room to voice discontent with Ms. Carlson, and discuss legal action.
Ms. Carlson declined to be interviewed for this article and remained largely out of sight for most of the week leading up to Miss America. She was holed up in the organization’s corporate office, a small windowless space in the back of the stadium. (“It’s the safest place to be in a hurricane,” said Ida Jones, a longtime volunteer.)
“I keep saying to myself, O. K., what bomb is going to come today,” said Bill Haggerty, a state leader from New Hampshire who has been involved in the organization for 50 years, and attended the meeting of state leaders. “I’ve heard online that a lot of people didn’t want to come this year because they just didn’t want to be involved in the drama.”
“It’s a mess,” said Suzette Charles, an actress and performer from New Jersey who was Miss America 1984. “It feels like every day, it’s another thing.
