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Cardboard Pageantry

By Ella Byrne-Cabot

Edited by Katherine McDonagh

And there she is

Walking on air she is

Fairest of the fair she is

Miss America.

-from “There She Is, Miss America” written by Bernie Wayne

NASA resumes space flight after the Challenger explosion that happened two years prior, the crack cocaine epidemic emerges in the United States, popstar Bono is elected mayor of Palm Springs. But most importantly, Kaye Lani Rae Rafko, Miss Michigan, wins the title of Miss America, the most coveted claim to the throne of the American pageant monarchy. The tiaras can barely rest comfortably on the girls’ huge and fluffy permed hair which signals that this is the 1988 Miss America Pageant, live from Atlantic City.

“This is exhausting”, Gary Collins says, donned in an all-white suit with a black bow-tie. Collins will host the pageant for two more years until 1990. The glimmering, flowy, pastel dresses are arranged in a line, the girls smile and their eyes twitch with anticipation. These ladies are all winners representing their states, they are the top fifty most eligible young women, and the ones on stage now are even more cream of the crop, whipped cream of the crop if you will. As we, the 1988 viewers, sit in our living rooms, eating California raisins and drinking Dr. Pepper, it can seem easy to feel inadequate. Our only talent seems to be being susceptible to television and catalog advertising. Luckily for us, there’s a way we can epitomize both.

The Miss America Pageant game was rolled out in 1988 by NAPLAC. This board game sells on eBay for only $18, or your grandmother can keep it in her attic and give it to you for you and your girlfriends to play. My girlfriends were regrettably not excited to play it but my boy-friends were.

The best part of the game is choosing your state (Hello, Miss D.C! How progressive!) and which girl you want to play as. The complexions are as follows; white, ginger, Hispanic, vaguely East Asian, and Black. Then you dress them up, although this particular board game box was so old that the quintessentially 80s outfits were curled and nonadhesive with age. No matter that the girls are pantsuit-less and in their undies, we play on. One of the qualities conducive to being a pageant queen is perseverance.

As contenders, we collect cards that correspond to different skills such as talent, scholarship, and appearance. There are different game modes that test different skills such as spelling and basic math (keep in mind the target demographic is preteens) which we didn’t delve into as it was almost our curfews on Halloween night and our collective I.Q at that point mirrored that of my three-year-old brother. The winner receives a certificate that you fill in with their name and state (signed by Kaye Lani!) as well as bragging rights, although I’m not sure many people cashed that one in.

A product of its time, a time that has passed despite vies to stay relevant over the years, The Miss America Pageant Game has lain forgotten in countless attics and basements, gathering dust and mildew, and for a night, She was alive again. There She is.

Sources

Desmond, Johnny. “There She Is, Miss America.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMLKaseOPtw.

Watson, Elwood, and Darcy Martin. “The Miss America Pageant: Pluralism, Femininity, and Cinderella All in One.” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 34, no. 1, 2000, pp. 105–126., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.2000.3401_105.x

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