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I watched the pageant LIVE for the first time ever last night. In fact, it was the first time that I saw a LIVE pageant on TV ever. By that, I mean live in my time zone (Pacific). The broadcast was supposed to air on TLC at 8pm, but mercifully, I have TLC HD, which takes the feed from the Central and Eastern time zones. So I was able to see the pageant at 5pm, as opposed to waiting until 8pm for the delayed telecast.

Some thoughts:

• Mario Lopez sucks as a television presenter.
• Kirsten Haglund looked even worse than when she won Miss America. Clearly, she did not take to the lessons in Miss America: Reality Check.
• Miss Arkansas was robbed.
  
• Miss Hawaii was robbed.
• The winner, Katie Stam of Indiana, was pretty good throughout the competition, and deserving of her win.
• However, save for Miss Hawaii, the talent competition was AWFUL. Terrible singing and terrible dancing. Even Miss Indiana was not immune.

I for one think that Miss America needs a massive overhaul. What TLC has been doing for Miss America has been noble and well-intentioned. However, what they've been doing is basically exfoliating. For Miss America to change and be a relevant pop culture icon again, you need to clean out the pores, so to speak. It seems that the local, regional, and state organizers in the Miss America system can not or will not change the way they do things. In their minds, beauty queen = big hair, thick makeup, affected mannerisms, and phoniness. That's what they believe in, and unless things change, that's what they'll always believe in.

I don't suggest that Miss America be replaced with Victoria's Secret models, great beauties with presence but not known for their personalities or depth. I think that there are some good things about Miss America, such as emphasis on community service and the scholarship money and the pageant's long history. But I think a beauty queen should be contemporary, beautiful, full of presence, and have brains, personality, stamina, and charisma. Sadly, Miss America contestants of late seem to be lacking in those departments. I'd also like to see more Miss America contestants with relatively progressive outlooks on life, otherwise we'll have a bunch of relative neo-con bitches (see Gretchen Carlson) trying to be "your ideal".