... a lavish and detailed account of the various milestones that have defined the pageant for decades ... a spellbinding narrative replete with information about one of the nation’s more iconic events ... contestants of color...faced racism from pageant fans who were resentful that a non-White woman was chosen as the representative of American beauty and womanhood. These are some of the book’s most riveting narratives. Mifflin shows the periodic moments of indecision that have plagued the pageant in lucid detail ... Mifflin gives an intensely detailed description of Vanessa Williams’s selection as the pageant’s first Black Miss America and the backlash and racial fallout that followed. Mifflin’s perspective on the racial, cultural, and sexual stereotyping; the conspiracy theories; and on Williams’s resignation following the nude photograph scandal is deeply informative and compelling ... a fascinating and entertaining account for anyone interested in reading a first-rate analysis of the United States’s most distinctive beauty contest.
Looking for Miss America is, in the language of pageantry, lavish in its research, and its prose is sparkling. It is a riveting, multivalent history. About this, if nothing else, most feminists and pageant enthusiasts will agree ... This history of the Miss America pageant is probing, scintillating and tremendously entertaining—a pleaser for feminists and pageant devotees alike.
Mifflin is no Miss America apologist. She’s cleareyed about the pageant’s many hypocrisies and failures, which include a legacy of racial exclusion ... The marks she hits are largely familiar, and her galloping pace through a century of pop culture—310 pages pass swiftly—produces some moments of Wikipedia on speed .... Looking for Miss America is at its best when Mifflin pauses this sweeping summary to tell the stories of individual contestants. The pageant’s tensions and ambiguities emerge most vividly through the way particular women understood them in the context of their particular time ... The commercial promise that saw the pageant through shifting winds of feminism and fame would seem, at present, to have mostly disappeared. Mifflin’s lively book reads as an obituary.
Mifflin’s deep research, numerous support texts, nuanced analysis and punchy writing weave an engaging account. (The history of the bathing suit portion of the pageant is especially fascinating.) She interviewed over a dozen past pageant contestants, pageant employees, a judge and others for a comprehensive behind-the-scenes narrative ... Even if you’ve never watched a single Miss America pageant on TV, anyone with an interest in American history would benefit from this deep dive into a complex cultural figurehead.
Many events will be familiar to even casual observers of American culture...but Mifflin situates these events in the pageant’s historical context, allowing for a better understanding of their cultural impact. While deftly commenting on the racism and sexism that have characterized the pageant’s history, she also makes space for the contestants to speak openly for themselves about their own experiences, something pageants themselves are not known for ... This work offers a thought-provoking, balanced, and highly informative look at an institution that has perplexed and enticed Americans since its founding.
Though she explores the serious failings of the contest, Mifflin also relishes the nostalgia and camp associated with Miss America, making this social history a perfect summer read.
Journalist Mifflin offers a lively and probing appraisal of a pageant that will observe its centennial in 2021 ... Mifflin relates all of this without descending into ridicule or screed and with a keen sympathy for both the costs and benefits to entrants. Whether fans or foes of Miss America, few readers will see the pageant in the same way after finishing this book. A cleareyed look at an iconic beauty pageant and its efforts to stave off irrelevance.
