It’s sad the annual Junior Miss competition is shutting down after 48 years of providing high school seniors a chance to strut their stuff in a wide range of skills and talents. It’s sad, too, that henceforth there will be fewer scholarships for exceptionally promising young women.
A news story on this institution’s demise explains:
The pageant said in a statement that “to attract a sizable viewing audience in these times” would require it to compromise its commitment to promoting a wholesome image. Young women compete in categories such as talent, scholastics and fitness — but not in swimsuits.
With sponsors dwindling, the program increasingly turned to local and state governments for money.
We take exception to the implication that including a swimsuit competition necessarily debases a pageant to the point of unwholesomeness. The wearing of a bathing suit, like anything else, can be done well or badly. A well-run pageant will see to it viewers and judges are spared the sight of tacky designs, too-small or otherwise ill-fitting swimsuits.
Normal, well-adjusted people will find nothing unwholesome in a pageant that includes a swimsuit segment as part of its program. Sexually immature and/or repressed people are likely to find something unwholesome in almost anything that involves the human body. What a shame the pageant’s being discontinued because of their inadequacy.
That said, we’ll add it’s equally a shame too few sponsors see value in supporting a pageant that doesn’t include a swimsuit competition.
The final Junior Miss Pageant will take place June 25.
I would say there is more to it than just
swimsuits. Pageants are expensive
to produce, there is alot of liability
exposure, and their popularity is waning.
Like vaudville, their time has come and gone.
The clear implication in the news item is that potential corporate sponsors are unenthusiastic about these pageants because they perceive the lack of a swimsuit competition limits mass-audience appeal.
At one time I would have agreed about the bathing suits.
But there are so many creeps and sex offenders around
now. I don’t think I would want a daughter drawing
attention in a bathing suit event like that.