Miss America: American Dream Realized

Photo courtesy of AP.

Nina Davuluri was crowned "Miss America" last night, the first Indian-American to hold the storied title. Immediately following the crowning, Twitter exploded with racial slurs, including calling Davuluri "Princess Jasmine," "Muslim," and "al-Qaeda." The caption "This is what a REAL Miss America looks like" was put next to Miss Kansas's photo, a bombshell blonde in her Army fatigues. One twit tweeted, "Only in America can #MissAmerica not 'look American.' #GodBlessAmerica."

Before I get to the obvious smack-down of stupid, here are a few tidbits you should know about the new Miss America:
1. She was born in Syracuse, New York. She is American-born, just like everyone else in that competition.
2. She is not Muslim.
3. India doesn't have any al-Qaeda ties. Neither does Miss America.

Now. One of the tweeting haters has the last name "Clearkin." What is the origin of that name? Irish? Another one of the tweets came from someone with the last name of "Priest." English. Another was "Dague." French. Unless you are of Native American descent, your ancestors came to the United States and you hail their success as "the American Dream." You tout your family's business ventures and climbing of the societal ladder as coming out of our "melting pot" of a country. You see yourself as a third-, fourth-, or fifth- generation "American." Do you think your grandparents or great-grandparents should have been treated as American, even if they were immigrants or children of immigrants? Of course you do!

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Miss America Nina Davuluri is the daughter of immigrants. Her family is the epitome of the traditional American Dream! Unless you don't count brown people coming to America to have a better life as the American Dream. I mean, come on, our country is white, right? We are the Americans. Yeah, I guess our ancestors were English and Irish and German, but hey, we are American. Because we are white. And brown people weren't included in the "traditional American Dream." Because they worked for us, the white Americans. And when did brown and yellow people get to start coming here and taking our dream anyway? This is still white America. A melting pot of WHITE.

I really hope you can see how full of crap that previous paragraph is. Any of you who say that Nina Davuluri doesn't deserve to be Miss America because she's "not American enough" need to stop talking or tweeting or whatever it is that you do to perpetuate racism. The fact that this Miss America did a traditional folk dance for her talent and won is amazing! She's embracing her heritage at an iconic American event and being rewarded for it--that is the American Dream.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Women's Appearances in American Society

On Friday I watched "Katie," Katie Couric's new talk show on ABC. I am an infrequent viewer of the show, mostly because I'm so tired of television by that time of day, but I saw a commercial about Friday's topic: a woman who gave up makeup and hairstyling for a year; so I had to watch!

The show was great--Phoebe Hyde Baker gave up makeup and hairstyling for a year. The entire audience of "Katie" took their makeup off in solidarity and so did Katie, herself! She talked about makeup and how much time and money women in our society spend on it. They also talked about the fact that it is actually important in our society for women to look a certain way to be successful.

As I watched the show, I realized that I've already written about three of these topics.

Katie did an experiment in which one of here staff went on the street all glammed up and asked for directions or use of their cell phones from strangers. Then she did the same thing with sweat pants, no makeup, a big coat, and sneakers on. Was there a difference in the way she was treated? Yes there was--same as the results of my own experiment back in October:
Social Mini-Experiment: Does Appearance Actually Matter?

On Katie's website for a while (I can't find it anymore, for some reason) there was a "Beauty Wealth Calculator" that you could use figure out how much money you spend on your looks each year, as well as how much money you've spent accumulating your "beauty wealth." It was fascinating! It reminded me of another piece I wrote in October:
How Much Do Celebrities Spend on Their Looks?

One of Katie's guests was a woman who has worked in the fashion magazine industry for years. They showed a photo of a model on the runway--and then a print ad of the same model. Vastly different looks! In the print ad they had edited the photo to the point that she looked deformed, she was so skinny. This point, in my opinion, wasn't touched on enough during the show (but, really, they had enough material in that show for an entire week of shows!), so I thought I'd pull this piece out of the archives again. It's the most popular piece I've written to date.
Mini-Experiment: Swimsuit Photo Retouching

I absolutely loved Katie's show on Friday! It was geared toward making women feel great about themselves and learning how to work with what they have in their appearance instead of putting a mask on every day. There were beautiful stories shared about personal victories and growth. There was courage shown by Katie and everyone there with them not wearing makeup. It was fantastic to see women baring their faces on that stage and talking about how we need to overcome so much more than what we usually talk about.

One of the things I was most intrigued by was that this "Au Naturale" show aired the day before the Miss America 2013 beauty pageant. Miss Montana, Alexis Wineman, has Aspberger's syndrome and wants to be an art therapist. Miss Washington DC, Allyn Rose, is getting a double mastectomy to prevent her family's long history of breast cancer from taking her life. Miss Iowa, Mariah Cary, has tourettes syndrome. But Miss New York won. She wants to get a degree in cosmetic and fragrance marketing. And is from Alabama. And doesn't embody "Brooklyn" any more than I do.

It blew my mind that there were (at least) three very real women baring themselves (not only in the swimsuit competition) on that stage who were passed over for a tap dancer posing as a Brooklynite. Allyn Rose (DC), a guest on "Katie" back in the fall (I watched that episode, too!), didn't even make the semi-finals. Alexis Wineman (MT) won the "America's Choice" contest, but didn't make it past the top 15. Mariah Cary (IA) came in fifth.

I think the "Au Naturale" episode of "Katie" can teach us all about how women need to take stock in what they are really about. I think if the judges of Miss America hadn't been interviewing the contestants and watching their routines on Friday but had watched Katie's show instead, the outcome of Saturday night would have been different. Being real and loving who you are is the most important thing, and I think--no, I know--that if more celebrities like Katie bring it into the headlines, this will change. Women will feel less threatened by society to focus so much on their appearances and, as a byproduct, will have more time and money to spend on other things that make them happy and successful.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi