C’mon, it’ll be fun!” These famous last words have come back to haunt many people. This weekend, I decided it would be fun to humiliate myself in front of a large crowd by participating in something completely alien to me, something I have absolutely no background in and something that normally makes me cringe in disgust. I’ve decided to complete the humiliation by writing about it for thousands of people.
I, Nikkee Porcaro, sailor-mouthed, sarcastic, unladylike Jersey girl, competed in a Miss Maryland “scholarship” pageant.
Aside from the fact that I have about as much beauty queen material in me as Courtney Love coming down from a coke binge, the experience was weird and at times, hilarious. I went in with some preconceived stereotypes, and some held up, but some, surprisingly, did not.
I expected the girls to be nasty, sabotaging each other’s dresses and trying to intimidate competitors, but every girl was sweet and helpful, genuinely concerned and saying how “pageants were one big happy family of girls trying to help everyone.” (Though when they began talking about their respective “poise” and “wardrobe” coaches, I couldn’t relate.)
These pageants have opening numbers all the girls must participate in. Most people are familiar with the song “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” from The Lion King. Well, the opening number was “I Just Can’t Wait to be Queen,” with new words and an accompanying dance involving lots of twirling and mimed crowning movements. After I finished laughing, I realized everyone thought it was an amazing idea.
After practicing this, we prepared for our interviews. One girl, Cheryl, came up to me. “Do you believe in the power of prayer? Can I pray for you?” she asked.
“Uh, yes?” I squeaked, hoping if I just stood there she’d say her prayer and it would be over.
She clutched my hands and began, “Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for letting Nicole be here …” and all I could think about was the scene in Talladega Nights when Ricky Bobby is praying at the table with his family and goes, “Dear 8 lb., 6 oz. little baby Jesus …” Trying to suppress a full-on laughing fit while a pageant queen is praying for you is not a good thing – it is bad pageant karma.
When the bathing suit portion began, I almost quit the whole damn thing, because walking around in a bathing suit in front of 200 strangers holds about as much appeal for me as driving my car off of a cliff. Someone forgot to tell me you compete in solid colored suits, and of course I had brought my wildest pink and blue bikini. Suddenly, one of the “stage mothers” came up behind me and yanked my suit into my butt crack, sprayed my buns with something cold, knelt down to the floor, and blew on my butt.
This is the ritual of “butt glue,” which I have used for gymnastics, but never with a stranger giving me a wedgie and blowing on my ass. Another stage mom handed me some concealer.
“Oh, thanks, I already have my makeup on,” I said. (What I really wanted to say was that I had so much makeup on I looked like a drag queen.)
“Aren’t you going to cover the bruise on your leg?” she asked, looking shocked.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” I said.
I am a real person. I am an athlete. I fall off the beam. I bump into things. I have bruises. This excludes me as deserving of a scholarship?
Then I found out about the judging.
It is completely subjective. It is complicated, so I won’t explain the whole thing, but basically the judges can place you wherever they want, regardless of your score in each area of the competition.
Not surprisingly, two pageant veterans won, a blonde and a brunette, perfect foils of each other and close friends (who hugged both the pageant directors and judges after the competition. Hmm.) The right girls won; they had pageant hair, pageant makeup and a ridiculous tolerance for high heels, white dresses and corny opening numbers.
While I didn’t have a bad experience, I do question the necessity of these scholarship pageants. I respect the girls who have done this their whole life. But does having a bruise on one’s leg or wearing the wrong bathing suit have anything to do with my scholastic ability?
If these pageants are truly about scholarships, as they claim to be, I fail to understand the need for copious amounts of hair spray, self-tanner and thousand-dollar dresses. One contestant was going for her masters and didn’t even place.
I was completely outclassed and out-pageanted, which was no surprise. But either call it what it is – a beauty pageant – or let the less experienced, smaller-haired girls have a legitimate shot at winning.
Nikkee Porcaro is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at cole120@umd.edu.
