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Hi everyone and welcome back to America Under the Microscope.欢迎回到【闲话美国】.

Hi James.

Hi Lulu, hi everyone.

What are we gonna talk about today？

I have a question. What does evening wear, a bikini and talent show all have in common.

Evening wear and bikini and talent show, oh, are you talking about pageant, the beauty pageant？就是选美大会这种.

Yes, and that I feel will be the perfect topic for our talk today.

Honestly when it comes to beauty pageants, first thing that comes to mind is Miss Universe这种环球小姐, but that's the world？

Yes, it is the world.

So I know of that one, all of Americans know that one too, but we're gonna be focusing most Americans only care about Miss America.

Honestly, in my impression beauty pageant they do seem to be slightly more popular in America compared to many other countries, for example, in China, honestly that's not really a thing, not that much anymore or even in the past 10 years.

I've been in China for a while. I haven't seen anything really beauty pageant like, but in America, yes, they are quite common and quite popular, especially more in the southern areas of the United States.

Okay, how does Miss America work？Is it just each state will come up with their own representative？

It's usually like the Top of a kind of a competition tournament. There's usually local beauty pageants, and the winner, the local ones go to the state, the winner of the state will go to Miss America, and the Miss America winner is supposed to go to Miss Universe competition.

It's like any competition, I mean, spelling bees or mathletes, they all sort of do it that way.

Yes, it's just a tournament basically, beauty.

But is it just beauty though, you just mentioned talent show, so they gotta have some talent?

Right, while we called the beauty pageant, being just a beautiful girl is not enough. It is a kind of a talent competition. If we talk about modern pageants from preschool age to adults, the way that it usually comes about is there's a part of it where it's about dressing up, this means doing the hair, make up, dresses, you know, looking very glamours;

but there's also the talent portion, so like winners of Miss America and other beauty pageants, they have to have some talent, whether this is singing, dancing...

Actually, comedy is a talent, magic, it's… the talents can be wide ranging.

I see, this whole beauty pageant thing goes way back. It goes back in history to ancient Greeks, I think.

Looking into this, apparently like in ancient Greece they used to have like the fairest lady in the land kind of competition.

Who's the fairest of all.

Yeah, I think like Snow White, mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all.

Fairest lady would be the most elegant, the most beautiful woman.

And if we go to American history, communities used to have this kind of traditional Mayday of choosing a lady to represent like the bounty or the success of their community.

What is bounty？

It's like being able to grow lots of grains and stuff, being successful harvest and stuff like that.

跟农耕比较有关. Wouldn't that... because if you're representing bounty community spirits, my go to response is a much older woman who can bake.

Well, realize that the standard of beauty has changed over time.

Hmm…that is true, but that was more like in history. Let's talk about modern pageants.

First of all, who attend who participate in these pageants？

Well, obviously girls, pageants starts as young as pre school. So girls as young as 3 years old.

Do they even know what is going on？

I can't comment, but I'm gonna go with probably not, they’re more likely pushed into it by their parents.

And then goes up from there. So most people think of child beauty pageants, it’s like primary school age; and the primary school beauty pageants will be fancy dress, talent and interview.

Interview. So you answer questions.

You'll be answering questions. If they win, usually the prize is scholarship money.

I can understand then why would some girls compete in this then, because they probably need that money to support their education. But one thing is no matter what age they are, the participants are always really dolled up, so they always have a lot of makeup, very very mature hairstyle.

So the girls that do beauty pageants this isn't... that's a very early start. They're gonna get up early, they gotta get the makeup on, gotta do their hair. There's a lot of support behind the scenes because the parents have to help them do all that stuff. And then the competition will take the whole day, it’s a very long day.

It's gonna be really tough for the younger contestants if you're saying that they goes all the way to preschoolers for the whole day, for 3 4 year old's.

Coming back to you're saying the biggest pageant in America, Miss America, how long a history does that have？

I was surprised to find out about this but Miss America's been around for 100 years as of this year.

And it's still going?

And it's still going. They say it's still popular, but the truth is it's decreased in popularity as time has gone on.

Especially with the younger crowd.

Most people my age...

Don't really want...

Don't really pay attention to it, but Miss America is usually televised.

So it's usually like a Sunday that they do the pageant and it'll be on TV and the Miss America pageant, so it has representatives from all the 50 states, plus one from DC, plus one from like Puerto Rico and a few of the other territories.

I see.

So there's more than 50 contestants. And the show always starts with a big musical number or they all sing together and do this choreographed dance.

So it's almost like a variety show in this sense.

Kind of. And they do their nightwear walking where they'll come out...

The gowns...

In their gowns.

晚礼服.And then it's the bikinis.

And then it's the swimwear although nowadays it doesn't have to be a bikini, you can wear a one piece now. But previously it had to be a 2-piece bikini.

I think probably some people complained maybe and then they changed it.

Yeah, and then there's the talent and then there's a speech.

Oh, speech is when they get asked questions like what do you think about world peace？I know that.

Well, actually they don't get asked the question in Miss America. They actually need to prepare their own speech and needs to be a speech that they think that the judges will be respond well to. And they have a time limit that they must complete the speech and all that stuff.

So it's all about speaking elegantly and all the kind of stuff, and they give speeches on things like world hunger, poverty.

Because it will make them look good. It will look like they care about the bigger issues. Actually, after they win the title or any sort of title in this, because they have to influence, some of them they also will go on like charity tours, right, do charity work?

Yes, its actually obligated.

Ok. I did not know that.

Yep, if you win...

You have to.

You need to go on a publicity tour and charity tours. So you'll go on talk shows, you will visit think like... you'll go visit children's hospitals too, talk to the children, you will land your presences to charity drives to get donations and so on and so on and so on.

Because it's almost like you have been selected as a pretty mascot in a way, I mean no offense to girls who win that, obviously that very they are gorgeous. Do you know that？I think if you talk about beauty pageants with Chinese people, we mostly think about probably years ago when the beauty pageants in Hongkong was still very popular because maybe 20 or 30 years in the past probably 20 years ago, turn of the century, that was perhaps when or even earlier than that, perhaps beauty pageant was still a big thing.

And then, many famous actresses came out of that pageant, but now again, it's decreasing in popularity. But do you have any other types of pageant? Because prom we talked about就是那个毕业舞会.

Prom and homecoming, we have queens for this, it's basically another beauty pageant, although not as competitive.

Yeah, but prom also has king, right？

Prom does have a king though, so there you choose... but we also like we talked about rodeos before, and there's a rodeo queen.

Rodeo is cowboys, right？

Yes. So the beauty pageant for rodeo, one of the skills you need...

Cowgirls?

Yeah, you need to be able to ride a horse.

That's pretty cool.

But the rodeo queen, there's no bikini, there's no evening wear stuff, but you do need to show your horse handling skills.

So it's more like the queen of the wrench.

So rodeo queens are horse backed and a little bit different, but it is still a basic, beauty pageant.

Beauty pageant style, okay.

So that ends our basic episode on beauty pageants or pageantry in America.

If anything about this not just in America, just beauty pageants in general, and what do you think of it, share with us in the comment section, we'll see you in the advanced episode.

Thank you, James.

Thank you everyone.

Bye.

Bye.