Miss America Pageant Should Ditch Divisive Political Questions & Use Nurse’s Monologue as Model

(Photo property ABC/The Miss America Organization)

The old joke used to be that Miss America contestants would answer, “World peace,” when asked what they would want to accomplish during their reign if they won the contest. I have no idea if any of them ever actually gave that answer, but that was the joke.

In my opinion, the “world peace” response would have been a step up from the questions the finalists had to answer at this past Sunday’s pageant, largely due to their unnecessarily political nature.

After the swimsuit, evening gown, and talent portions of the Miss America pageant, contestants were asked to answer one question each from the judges in 20 seconds for 20 percent of their final score. The purpose of the questions is likely to show that the young women are engaged with current events. But the brevity required of them is the equivalent of trying to solve the country’s most complex issues in 140 characters or less on Twitter. There’s also the fact that the questions have gotten increasingly political and divisive in nature.

For instance, when asked if she supports a ban on military-style assault weapons, Daja Dial (Miss South Carolina) responded that she doesn’t. Instead she supports education about gun safety. So she thereby ticked off the approximately half the country that’s liberal.

Meanwhile, Hanna Robison (Miss Tennessee) declared her opposition to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood when asked about that measure currently working its way through Congress. So she thereby ticked off the approximately half the country that’s conservative.

Miss America winner Betty Cantrell (Miss Georgia), on the other hand, only ticked off New Englanders when she branded Tom Brady a cheater.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I was under the impression that Miss America travels the country for an entire year to be an inspirational figure to young girls and women, encouraging them to get a good education, develop their natural talents, and support charitable work. These are all ideals that are supposed to transcend politics. By forcing contestants to answer questions that divide much of the country, Miss America becomes another platform in the culture war that divides more than unites.

A much better approach, in my opinion, could be modeled on Miss Colorado Kelley Johnson’s unique approach to the talent competition. Instead of singing or dancing or playing an instrument, Johnson delivered a monologue about her work as a nurse for Alzheimer’s patients, telling a story about a man who taught her that patients in hospitals need to be treated like human beings, not just a room number or diagnosis.

Johnson’s delivery came across as sincere, meaningful, and substantive. It might have even given her an edge in the competition. Unfortunately, when asked what woman she thinks deserves to be on the $10 bill, she answered Ellen DeGeneres because of the entertainer’s kindness, humor and commitment to tolerance. Nothing against Ellen, but that answer may have hurt Johnson in the scoring since Americans’ top choices for the $10 bill placement are historical figures like Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, and Amelia Earhart.

Still, Johnson’s monologue delivered an effective snapshot of who she is and what she wants to accomplish with her scholarship money. Having contestants reveal an important life lesson, a story from some charitable work they’ve done, or the value of education in their lives is much more relevant to the work of Miss America than gun control, abortion and Tom Brady (unless they’ve chosen those topics as their platforms).

There are enough aspects of our culture that have become infected by the relentless negativity that surrounds modern political debate. It would be nice if Miss America could transcend that negativity and bring people of all political beliefs a more unifying message.

UPDATE: On today’s episode of “The View,” Michelle Collins and Joy Behar apparently made snarky comments about nurse Kelley Johnson, who I wrote about above. Nurses are not happy with the two co-hosts. and are showing their displeasure on Twitter.