The Miss America pageant, aired Sunday on ABC DIS, -0.10% , was expected to have a different look this year, as the first iteration with no swimsuit competition. It also had a new tenor, with contestants from Virginia, West Virginia and Michigan, in a dramatic departure from the studiously apolitical and even comically anodyne insights expressed in the past, staking out positions on national-anthem kneeling, willfully divisive politics and public-health dereliction.
Here’s Miss Michigan Emily Sioma, taking up the issue of the Flint, Mich., water crisis in her introductory remark:
Miss Michigan Emily Sioma emphasizing the Flint Water crisis.
"I'm from the state with 84% of the U.S.'s fresh water, but none for its residents to drink." pic.twitter.com/S2IzKvgAig
— Shaun King (@shaunking) September 10, 2018
Blown away by Emily Sioma using her 20 second to highlight the flint water crisis. https://t.co/jKhTn1X7sL
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) September 11, 2018
Politically charged as that crisis has been — Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, was sued for demonstrating “an outrageous conscious disregard” for Flint residents’ health — Miss West Virginia pushed arguably harder. Asked in a preliminary interview portion to name the most serious issue facing Americans today, Madeline Collins responded, “Donald Trump.”
Hailing from a state that Trump carried 67.9% to 26.2% over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, Collins allowed that some people have positive feelings toward the president even as others do not:
‘Unfortunately, he has caused a lot of divide in our country, and until we can trust in him and the choices that he makes for our country, we cannot become united.’
In what the pop-culture website the Mary Sue called a preliminary interview, Emili McPhail, Miss Virginia, waded into the debate over whether NFL players kneeling during the playing of the national anthem to protest racially biased policing and other social injustices are being disrespectful of the flag or merely engaging in free expression:
‘Kneeling during the national anthem is absolutely a right that you have, to stand up for what you believe in, and to make the right decision that’s right for you. It’s very important that we also have to take into consideration that it is not about kneeling: It is absolutely about police brutality.’
A question about the propriety of NFL players kneeling in protest during the National Anthem helped select Miss Virginia Emili McPhail as one of the preliminary winners in the Miss America competition. https://t.co/zdiW8p0Jtb
— Lance Ing (@lanceingthing) September 7, 2018
Key Words: This just might be the best defense of the NFL’s national-anthem protesters you’ll ever hear from a politician
The pageant’s winner, Nia Franklin, representing New York, reportedly said that becoming the first woman crowned Miss America without having to ply the stage in a swimsuit was meaningful. “I’m happy that I didn’t have to do so to win this title tonight because I’m more than just that,” Franklin continued. “And all these women onstage are more than just that.”
Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox News FOX, -0.18% FOXA, -0.07% personality who heads the Miss America Organization (she took the crown herself in 1989), said earlier this year that the pageant — which she hopes to see position itself more as a scholarship competition than a beauty pageant — aims to move past appearance-based judgments, “because we are interested in what makes you, you.”
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