"He liked parades with floats full of Miss Americas and Miss Daytona Beaches and Miss Queen Cotton Products." --Flannery O'Connor, "A Late Encounter with the Enemy"
A whole slew of top execs at the Miss America pageant have resigned, and for the best, or rather worst, of reasons. They were caught exchanging (not so) smart remarks about the beauty pageant's entrants--ranging from their appearance and intellect to their sex lives. Whatever else may be said for these men, one thing for sure is that they are no gentlemen. And showed it by the content of the emails they sent.
The president of the pageant--now happily the former president--is a character by the name of Josh Randle, who couldn't just say he was sorry and leave as quickly as he could, but just had to add that he made all these self-incriminating remarks months before he started working for the Miss America pageant back in 2015. But so what? When caught out, he had to admit his conduct was wrong. Not to mention callous, stupid, sexist, less-than-chivalrous and well, Gentle Reader may and should feel free to add any other terms of opprobrium he feels appropriate to describe Mr. Randle's wholly inappropriate comments.
Mr. Randle was responding specifically to an email about the appearance of the contest's winner back in the now long ago year 2013, one Mallory Hagan. "I apologize to Mallory for my lapse in judgment," he said. If he had only stopped with that simple statement, "I apologize," he might have left with some shred of his dignity and the pageant's still salvageable, but these types no more know when to finish than they do how to start.
Lapse in judgment? That's like calling a man's making an unimaginable ass of himself a lapse in etiquette. Mr. Randle just couldn't help jabbering on and on, and with each comment he dug himself deeper into the hole he seemed absolutely determined to dig for himself. Until there was no hope of ever digging himself out of this man-trap of his own making. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make sound like total idiots.
His emails, said Mr. Randle, don't "reflect my values or the values I worked to promote at the Miss America Organization. Although this terrible situation was not caused or driven by me, in light of recent events and new developments, I am no longer willing to continue in my capacity as president and earlier today offered my resignation to the MAO Board of Directors."
Which accepted his offer with an alacrity that's about the only thing which offers some hope for that now self-divided outfit.
If Gentle Reader will forgive us for going into lurid detail, pageant officials' emails included an unacceptable term in reference to the winners of the beauty contest in the past, wished that a former Miss America were dead, and, just to add further indignity generally expressed views unfit for an officer and a gentleman of the Miss America Organization or any other.
To their credit, a number of Miss America contestants--49 in all--joined together to protest against Mr. Randle's rants. "We stand firmly against harassment, bullying and shaming" they announced, and were "deeply disturbed and saddened to learn of the sickening and egregious words used by Miss America leadership in reference both to our group and to specific members of our sisterhood." They demanded the resignation of four of the pageant's chief officials--including its chief telecast writer Lewis Friedman. Shame on all these so-called men.
Among the latest to add her voice to the collective outrage being expressed against the pageant and its officials was Arkansas' own Elizabeth Gracen, who won the beauty contest back in 1982. "I am proud to stand with them," she wrote on her Facebook account. "Change is in the air!" It better be for the pageant's sake and sake of its now endangered future.
Dick Clark Productions--his name used to be synonymous with Miss America pageants when the whole family might gather on a Saturday night to cheer on a contestant from their state--announced that it had cut its ties with the Miss America product because of these emails, which it described all too accurately as "appalling."
Whatever happens now to the pageant, there's some consolation for the rest of us knowing that the miscreants behind this spectacle brought the whole thing on themselves.
Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 12/31/2017