BY EMILY BECK COGBURN
In the longtime rivalry between the Miss USA and Miss America pageants, Miss USA is the flashy upstart while Miss America is the modest one with her head in a book. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The Miss America pageant started in 1921, the talent competition was added in 1935 and the first scholarship was given in 1945, according to the organization’s website. Miss USA began as a breakaway competition, begun by a swimsuit company in 1952 that had been a sponsor of the older pageant. “Competitors in the Miss America Pageant do it for scholarship money for college. They have diverse career interests,” says Valerie Hayes, who bills herself as the Pageant Coach and hosts an online talk radio program about pageants.
In contrast, Miss USA competitors see the pageant as a stepping stone to careers in the entertainment industry — in acting, modeling or broadcasting, she says. Miss USA is a subset of the Miss Universe contest, a for-profit organization owned by casino mogul Donald Trump and NBCUniverse. For the past six years, the pageant was held in Las Vegas until moving to Baton Rouge for the 2014 event. The Miss America Organization, which moved the pageant back to its historic Atlantic City, New Jersey, home last year, is a nonprofit and has connections to charities such as Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
“Since its inception, Miss USA has been unabashedly a beauty/swimsuit pageant. It hasn’t confused its identity by adding talent, making interview a main scoring component or offering educational scholarships — all of which Miss America did after it began. This has allowed the production to embrace the sex, show the women in skimpier bikinis, etc.,” says sociologist Hilary Levey Friedman, a beauty pageant expert. Do these contrasting approaches to pageantry lead to a different reaction from audiences? Not so much, says Hayes. Actually, viewers tend to confuse the two events.
“If someone tells me they watched a pageant last night, I’ll ask which one. If they don’t know, I’ll ask if it had a talent competition. If it did, then it’s Miss America,” Hayes says. “For most viewers, they’re not that different.” Pageant professionals and more experienced fans can distinguish the two, she added. Not surprisingly, the subtle contrast between the pageants has not resulted in much difference in viewership in recent years. Both are significantly down from Miss America’s heyday in the 1950s, when the show in 1952 drew 39 percent of the TV audience. Last year was an exception. Miss America dashed ahead of Miss USA, capturing around 8 million viewers, its best ratings since 2004, when the pageant last appeared on ABC. Miss USA had 4.6 million viewers on NBC, perhaps because it aired at the same time as the NBA finals, according to website zap2it.com, which analyzes Nielsen ratings. Previously, Miss America had looked to be on the rocks, with poor ratings prompting ABC to drop the show and the organization forced to move on to cable stations. Picked up by CMT in 2004, it faltered even more. “The production was abysmal,” Hayes says.
CMT also moved the pageant from its original home in Atlantic City to Los Angeles. The cable station then dropped the Miss America pageant in 2007, after which TLC decided to air it. While at TLC, the pageant’s ratings climbed back, rising to 4.5 million, up from 2 million to 3 million during its time at CMT. It returned to ABC in 2011.
by EMILY POPP
When you think of "pageant dresses," poufy, overworked gowns with a smattering of sequins may come to mind. But that's not how it always has to be. Case in point: Miss USA winner Nia Sanchez. The 24-year-old Miss Nevada blew us away with her red, mermaid-style number designed by Michael Costello that she wore as she was crowned Miss USA 2014. It's everything a pageant dress should be. The crimson curve hugging gown totally gives us some Jessica Rabbit vibes, and it's sofigure flattering—although Nia would look stunning in a bolt of burlap (she's a fourth-degree black belt, people!).
We caught up with the designer himself, Michael Costello, and he exclusively revealed all the behind-the-scenes scoop on Nia's winning look. "We had to keep that dress top secret," explained Michael. Originally Nia tried the dress on in a different color. "I said we have to do this in red, it would be everything, yes we must do this in red." After deciding on the dress, Michael had a few tailoring tweaks to make, so he had to FedEx the dress to Nia to make sure it got to her in time. "We shipped it to Nia in Baton Rouge," said Michael. "I remember walking to FedEx, and I was so nervous it wouldn't get to her. I was so afraid. She texted me when she got it, and said, yay it fits her perfectly!"
And here's the cherry on top of the sundae: You can buy this exact dress! Michael posted a pic of Nia in his dress on Instagram with the caption, "CONGRATULATIONS to my beautiful friend @missnvusa2014 Nia Sanchez who won last night @missusa... I am so happy for you. You deserve it. I had a feeling lol!" And he added, "This dress is available to order by emailing MICHAEL@MTCOSTELLO.COM it is available in every color you can dream of. And we ship worldwide. Yup I had to throw that in :)" So, if you've got a "Gorgeous Dress Fund" that you want to break into, we've got just the gown.
Source: E! Online
Fourth-degree black belt and all-around stunner Nia Sanchez was crowned Miss USA 2014, the biggest battle of the now former Miss Nevada's life becoming the struggle to hold back all the tears after her name was called at the end of the three-hour beauty-and-personality-fest. Giuliana Rancic and Thomas Roberts did the hosting honors at the Baton Rouge Civic Center in Louisiana. Sanchez clasped hands and traded well wishes with first runner-up Miss North Dakota,Audra Mari, as they waited out those final seconds, but it was the 24-year-old from Las Vegas who stood alone with the bouquet, the sash and—best of all—the tiara.
Sanchez beat out 50 other fellow beauty queens to claim the title, which was handed over by Miss USA 2013 Erin Brady. Her night started to take a turn for the fabulously possible when she was named one of 20 semifinalists shortly after the show got underway. Combined with her bikini strut and her evening gown prowess, Sanchez proved to having the winning answer when judge Rumer Willisasked about recent reports regarding sexual violence on college campuses, and what sort of policy should be implemented to combat the disturbing statistics.
"I believe that some colleges may potentially be afraid of having a bad reputation and that would be a reason it could be swept under the rug, because they don't want that to come out into the public," Sanchez, a Taekwondo expert, said confidently (though by this point, every contestant's voice was wavering). "But I think more awareness is very important so women can learn how to protect themselves," she added. "Myself, as a fourth-degree black belt, I learned from a young age that you need to be confident and be able to defend yourself. And I think that's something that we should start to really implement for a lot of women."
