Sunday, January 27, 2008

Pageant Poll: Crowning Format

Pageants used to allow the entire Top 10 to compete in all the phases of competition, then four runners up would be called and the remaining six women would all hope to hear their name as the winner.

Does anyone know when they changed things? In all my pageant experience the field has been narrowed to 5, culminating with two women grasping one another, waiting to hear which would be named the winner and who would be the first runner-up.

Miss America 2008 went back to the “old way.” Which do you like better?

3 comments:

  1. I think it is cruel to name the winner out of the remaining four.
    So after the 4 RUs are named, that means there is one winner and the other three were actually 6th, 7th, and 8th. So sad for those standing there. Perhaps they want to be cruel to improve ratings (like a reality show) or someone calling the shots doesn't know how it feels to be humilitated.

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  2. Actually, that doesn't seem cruel for various reasons. When it is down to 5, the 1st RU does not get much attention and is whisked away instantly. The cruel part of this years pageant was the elimination that they did, especially to the 9th and 10th place contestants during talent. Now, that was cruel!! I like the winner being called from the 8 or 10. Either way they do it, if you are in that group, you know you were a semi-finalist instead of being in the rest of the field of contestants.

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  3. Ya know, I haven’t even voted in this poll because I see both sides… I hope this makes sense- I’m having a little trouble making it clear in writing-

    I do like that all the runners up have their moment in the 08 format and I agree with the second commenter that it’s not necessarily cruel to the girls left standing, because they’re still semi-finalist and deemed superior to 40 other women!

    I think the cruelty comes with the speculation of the winner. When it’s taken down to the 1st RU and winner, it’s a 50 - 50 shot… both for them and for anyone guessing. If you guess wrong, it’s no big deal; you still picked the “second best.” But when speculators are picking one out of three or five, and they don’t pick the winner- that just seems worse to me somehow! I have to believe a newly crowned Miss America is too busy to read blogs and message boards, and clearly not in need of any of our approval anyway, but I still hate that my viewing party didn’t have her on our radar.

    I know that’s the risk I took by “live blogging,” but now I feel like a bad pageant fan… Compounded by her Michigan/ Ohio connection! Perhaps if a state that I had little chance of coming in contact with won, I wouldn’t feel so bad right now! lol!

    ~Abby

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