The Miss America pageant will be down one of its most notorious portions when the annual competition returns. When they crown Miss America 2019, she will have been awarded the honor without competing in a swimsuit round of the pageant, as it will no longer exist. The organization's chair of the board of trustees, Gretchen Carlson, made the announcement on Good Morning America, earlier today.
A former Miss America who won the competition in 1989, Gretchen Carlson explained the reason behind rebooting aspects of the pageant. Per Carlson's announcement on Good Morning America, it is so selecting the winner of Miss America will no longer involve her being judged for her physical appearance. As many probably know, the swimsuit round has long been a source of criticism by detractors. Losing the swimsuit portion is not the only thing Carlson announced Miss America is changing.
Competitors will no longer be required to don an evening gown. That portion of the pageant will now allow prospective Miss Americas to wear the evening fashion of their choice. Based on Gretchen Carlson's wording, the women will still be able to wear a dress, if they desire to do so. During the newly retooled segment, participants will use the platform to do more than walk across the stage. They will also discuss how they will implement their "social impact initiatives."
Being left untouched by the reboot is the talent portion of the competition. Miss America will still need one to be crowned. While maintaining that the swimsuit portion of the pageant was not a highly-rated aspect of the pageant, Gretchen Carlson remarked that people liked the talent portion. She did not state if the latter was the most-watched aspect of Miss America.
With the announcement of the changes, many questions will undoubtedly be brought to the fore, such as whether or not, they will help bolster the declining Miss America ratings. Will the inevitable hubbub around the alterations get more people to tune in to see how they turn out? Are these the changes the competition needed to make to regain its ratings and pop culture relevance? In its previous form, nearly 5-and-a-half million people tuned in to see Miss America 2018 crowned, per TV by the Numbers.
And what does losing the swimsuit round of Miss America actually mean for the long-running pageant? If they really want to determine the winner based solely on inner beauty, there is a way to do it. The Miss America organization could judge the competitors based on a paper resume filled with their merits and answers to crucial questions, without ever seeing what they look like. That way the winner is truly based on facts and not figures, although it wouldn't be much of a pageant to draw viewers.
Miss America 2019 will be crowned September 9 on ABC. For more television content, check out CinemaBlend's guide to TV's summer premieres. If you want to know what's coming after summer, check out the 2018 network TV rundown to find out which shows have been cancelled, and which ones have been renewed.
