Blog Follow-Ups: Botox Mom, Bernard Lagat's Son, and Miss America's Daughter

Many of my blog posts fall into one of the following categories: beauty pageants, child beauty pageants, and competitive children.  Today's post features updates on some of my most popular stories in each of these areas.

1) Botox Mom (aka Kerry Campbell/Sheena Upton)- It's been reported that Botox Mom (who never actually used Botox it turns out) is working with the Department of Children and Family Services in California to keep custody of her two daughters.  Upton is taking parenting classes, undergoing mental health counseling, and living with a family member to help her girls recover from the events of this past spring. I don't think we'll be seeing the Uptons on this season of Toddlers & Tiaras, do you?

2) Miika Lagat was back in the news this weekend as his dad ran in the US Track and Field Championships.  In an interview Lagat reported: "Lagat, who's son Miika is his #1 fan and was cheering for him every lap of the 5,000m on Friday night, said it was OK with Miika that his dad did not win. Bernard said Miika told him BEFORE the race, 'You know what daddy, you've run a lot (this week). If you lose, it's part of running.'" Let's not forget that Miika is five-and-a-half. He's pretty wise for someone so young, but having grown up around racing I guess he's earned his wisdom. I wonder if he will be racing soon?

3) Speaking of children of celebrities, Diana Dreman was just crowned Miss Colorado 2011. What's special about that? Well, her mother is Rebecca King, Miss America 1974. I am 99% sure that this is the first daughter of a Miss America to compete on the Miss America Pageant's stage. As the daughter of Miss America 1970, I have a lot of respect for Diana for putting herself out there-- but I also worry for her. I never did pageants, though there was a moment when I was a kid when I thought, "Hey, I could do that." My mother, wisely, didn't let me participate saying, "If you win, people could say it is because of me. If you lose, it could be because of me. You need to do your own thing." Not surprisingly, my own thing did not involve walking on-stage in a bathing suit (because, really, I think for most people, that is the stuff of nightmares).

In any event, I do think that Diana has the "Miss America look." I read on the pageant message boards that her talent routine is weak (dance), but I would expect her to go pretty far in Vegas come January. First of all, it's a great story for the Pageant. I will definitely be interested to see what a) the mainstream media makes of this story, and b) what pageant insiders make of it. And, of course, I'll share my thoughts!

Two other quick things to note: Rebecca King, Diana's mother (who was also Miss Colorado-- the last to win Miss America!), signaled a new stage in Miss America's development, back in the early 1970s. King was basically the first to use her scholarship money for professional graduate school. She became a lawyer and has had a successful law practice. She has also stayed involved with the Pageant, serving on its Board-- so it will be especially interesting to see how this plays out, since Diana has presumably met much of the Miss A leadership over the years... Second, I can't resist noting that this is not the most (in)famous pageant mother-daughter duo to come out of Colorado. That, of course, would be JonBenet and her mother, Patsy...

The Odds Look Gorgeous: A Quantitative Analysis of the Miss Massachusetts Contest

Please check out my piece in the June 19, 2011 issue of The Boston Globe Magazine! It is an analysis I did of the past 25 years of the Miss Massachusetts America Pageant. No Miss Massachusetts has ever won Miss America-- and only one queen from a New England state has ever won, for that matter. Will this be the year? I'll have a full report on this year's Pageant in a few weeks.

You can see the printed version by clicking HERE (and you can see the headline on the cover and the description of the article by clicking HERE).

An online slideshow version is also available HERE.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts and hope you enjoy!

There She Goes... A Trailblazing Beauty Queen

Please note: This appeared on The Huffington Post on March 15, 2011 as "There She Goes: A Trailblazing, Feminist Beauty Queen."

This week women around the world observed the 100th celebration of International Women's Day.  We honored female trailblazers and leaders.

One woman not discussed was Jean Bartel, Miss America 1943, who passed away on Sunday night. Some of you may think that beauty queens aren't female leaders, and that they certainly aren't trailblazers.  But Jean Bartel was both.  Her reign illustrates how the Miss America Pageant was historically a transformative, feminist enterprise for American women.

When the Pageant started as a bathing beauty contest in 1921, no "respectable" women participated.  It wasn't until 1935 when the formidable Lenora Slaughter (a female leader in her own right) took over the Pageant that it began to become an endeavor for the nation's "ideal" young women.  Slaughter insisted that the girls competing could be something more than pretty faces, and she went on to establish some of the most distinctive and enduring characteristics of today's Miss America Pageant.  In 1938 Slaughter made the talent portion of the competition mandatory; in 1941 she got the name officially changed to “The Miss America Pageant;” and in 1945 she gave out the first scholarship to the winner. All of Slaughter’s effort were a calculated attempt to attract “ladies” to participate in the Pageant.

And Jean Bartel was one of those ladies. In 1942 she entered the Miss California pageant, after learning that one of the national pageant judges was a Broadway financier.  Bartel wanted to be a Broadway star and she figured this would be her chance to show of her singing chops, thanks to the talent portion of the Pageant.  She entered the state pageant-- won-- and a month later traveled to Atlantic City where she also won. The rest is history.

Jean Bartel made history for the Miss America Pageant, and pageantry in general, in two ways (all while selling more war bonds than any other individual in 1943).  First, after her win, Bartel said she would not pose for pictures in her bathing suit.  She was quoted as saying, "I use a bathing suit to go swimming in." For an organization that started out as a bathing beauty contest, and was sponsored by Catalina, a bathing suit company, this stance certainly upset the apple cart.  Bartel's actions paved the way for Yolande Betbeze, Miss America 1951, to take a stand for "propriety," and refuse to be crowned in her bathing suit.  Betbeze's decision was particularly fateful, as it led to Catalina pulling their sponsorship and starting their own beauty pageant-- what is known today as the Miss USA Pageant, part of the Miss Universe system, now owned by Donald Trump.

It is also thanks in large part to Bartel that the Miss America Pageant is reportedly the largest source of scholarship money for only women anywhere in the world. Yes, Miss America is a pageant, but it is also a scholarship program, and Jean Bartel was instrumental in that transformation.  When she was crowned Bartel was a student at UCLA.  During her year she met with various sorority sisters who suggested that the Pageant could help support women in earning their college degrees.  Bartel mentioned this to Slaughter who awarded the first scholarship shortly afterward to Miss America 1945, Bess Myerson (also the first, and only, Jewish Miss America).  

Imagine funds available in the 1940s to help women pursue higher education-- this was cutting edge at the time.  Recent Miss Americas, and their fellow contestants, have used winnings to pay for undergraduate and graduate degrees, and to specifically pay for medical school and law school tuition bills.  Today this may seem less extraordinary than it was in the 1960s and 1970s when women simply did not pursue graduate degrees in large numbers, both because of limited opportunities and finances. Miss America 1974, Rebecca King, was able to pay for law school because of her scholarship winnings, and is credited as being one of the first Miss Americas to use her winnings for graduate education. Yes, she had to wear a bathing suit to get the money, but thanks to Bartel and Betbeze at least she didn't have to wear it while being crowned.

With so many more opportunities available to women today-- both in higher education and in entertainment-- it's easy for many to dismiss the Miss America Pageant.  But Jean Bartel reminds us, particularly as we think about women's roles around the world, that it hasn't always been so easy.  While parts of the Pageant may seem a bit outdated today (like the swimsuit competition), those features evolved over time and women fought hard for progress when it came to baring their bathing suit bodies and supporting their minds. Who knows what changes the next seventy years will bring, and who the trailblazer who brings them will be.

T(w)een Idols

Are your fingers ready? Voting starts for American Idol this week (with a new option to vote via Facebook, in addition to calling in or voting by texting) and the Top 24 seems to be full of talent.

It also happens to be one of the youngest groups yet.  Thanks to John Kubicek's calculations we know that this is a slightly younger Top 24, on average, at 21.25.  The eldest contestants are 26, so there is a decade between the babes and their older competitors.

AI made headlines this summer when it announced they were lowering the age limit and 15-year-olds could audition.  One of those 15-year-olds is Thia Megia, part of the Top 24 (though she has turned 16 since her initial audition).  Lauren Alaina is also 16, and considered an early frontrunner.

American Idol isn't the only reality show on television with increasingly younger contestants who are top competitors.  Former Idol judge Paul Abdul's recent show, Live to Dance-- which rather quickly came and went-- awarded first prize to 10- and 11-year-old ballroom dancers Amanda and D'Angelo (who are amazing and adorable, check them out).  The first runner-up was 11-year-old Kendall Glover.  They beat out an 83-year-old dancer, along with many professional dancers in their 20s and 30s.

And this year the oldest competitive reality show of them all, the Miss America Pageant, crowned a 17-year-old.  While in the early days of the Pageant there were younger winners, since the introduction of age limits in 1938, Teresa Scanlan is the youngest to take the crown. On one of the beauty pageant message boards I read, posters refer to the current Miss America as "the fetus."

Americans have loved precocious performing children since the days of vaudeville. Historian Gary Cross has written about two different types of kids adults love-- the cute and the cool.  Today's performing kids manage to capture both sentiments.

Given the historical record I'm reluctant to say that young performers, and winners, are a new trend.  What I can say is that these recent success stories are linked to children's tendency to specialize at an early age.  Part of the appeal of Amanda and D'Angelo is that it is rare to see ballroom dancers with such fantastic ballroom and dance technique at age ten.  They didn't get to this level by playing soccer and piano afterschool in addition to their dance classes.  Moreover, this isn't Thia Megia's first time on a reality show; at 14 she competed on America's Got Talent.  I'm guessing she didn't spend her time learning tennis or the violin in between appearing on two of the most popular talent competitions-- she's been singing.  Finally, Miss America Teresa Scanlan was homeschooled until she was 16, which allowed her to devote her time to pageant prep (she started competing at age 13) and develop her musical talent on the piano.  Early specialization, which means more hours of instruction and practice earlier in life, allowed all of these t(w)eens to become better younger.

All of these young people are definitely talented and they have worked for their successes.  Hopefully they won't regret all those years of practice for a singular goal when they are 29-- like another t(w)een idol, Britney Spears.  I'm guessing neither Thia nor Lauren will be singing "...Baby One More Time" on Wednesday night's Idol show.  Will you be voting for either of them?

[PS. I've written elsewhere about the labor laws that protect child performers, and how those laws need to be tightened for kids on reality TV shows, which is very relevant here. If you are interested check out my USA Today piece or my Contexts piece.]

Beauty and Brains: Cambridge Goes Glitz

This past weekend Miss Boston 2011 was crowned. MIT senior Dianna Leilani Cowern competed, though she lost out to Sara Carlisle.  The coveted crown was placed on Ms. Carlisle’s head by the reigning Miss Massachusetts 2010, Loren Galler Rabinowitz, who also graduated from Harvard in 2010.

Ms. Galler Rabinowitz was second runner-up in last year’s Miss Boston pageant (the first runner-up also had a Cambridge connection, as she is a student at Harvard’s Divinity School).  But she went on to win a different preliminary pageant, Miss Collegiate Area, and then the Miss Massachusetts title. So Ms. Cowern still has a chance to help Cambridge sustain its presence in the Miss America program this year.

Over the past decade Cambridge, but Harvard in particular, has emerged as a site of beauty pageant winners. Who would have thought? But with the scholarships available through the Miss America Pageant, and the rising cost of higher education, pairing brains and beauty has never made more sense.

I’ve been able to identify the following Harvard-MIT Miss America contestants (only those who have made it to the national pageant in Atlantic City/Las Vegas). Do you know of others?

• 1995- Marcia Turner, Harvard, Miss Massachusetts
• 1998- Elizabeth Emerson Hancock, Harvard, Miss Massachusetts
• 2002- Laura Lawless, Harvard, Miss Arizona
• 2002- Carrie Ann Haberstroh, Harvard, Miss North Dakota
• 2003- Laurie Gray, Harvard, Miss Rhode Island (Top 10)
• 2003- Nancy Redd, Harvard, Miss Virginia (and Top 10)
• 2003- Erika Harold, Harvard Law School, Miss Illinois and Miss America (Erika had already been admitted to HLS when she won, so she deferred her entrance and graduated in 2007)
• 2004- Allison Porter, Harvard, Miss Washington
• 2004- Erika Ebbel, MIT, Miss Massachusetts
• 2006- Allison Rogers, Harvard, Miss Rhode Island
• 2009- Anne Michael Langguth, Harvard, Miss Iowa
• 2010- Loren Galler Rabinowitz, Harvard, Miss Massachusetts