Confessions of a Beauty Pageant Emcee

There are few jobs in America so vacuous as that of the Beauty Pageant Emcee. For many years, the post was has been held exclusively by Daytime Game Show Hosts and Local Radio-TV Personalities. It is with some trepidation that I reveal that I, too, am part of this pantheon. I have hosted beauty pageants. I know no shame.

I began my career as the sacrificial lamb for the Alpha Zee Delta “Miss Beautiful” pageant in college. It was one of those men-dress-up-in-drag things where men act like women, or; more accurately, how a woman would act if she’d just drunk a case of beer and chased it down with a bottle of paint thinner. Watching the contestants attempt to grope the Emcee was considered part of the fun. I now publicly thank my father for providing the genes that made my long arms possible.

The winner of the contest was an out-of-the-closet homosexual who faked an orgasm while writhing on fake zebra pillows to the song “Pillow Talk” by Sylvia — an act so tawdry that no one doubted he was a shoo-in for the title. I must confess that for days after, I felt unclean and took extra showers to try, like MacBeth, wash off the spots.

In appreciation of my work, they gave me a cigarette lighter with my initials engraved on the side. I still have it in a box of strange odds and ends that hold the history of my earlier life. It is there to remind me to always ask for cash up front.

From that beginning, I moved up to a few “serious” pageants — very, real, serious pageants. There is something twisted about women who allow surgeons to rearrange their body parts in the hope of winning a loving-cup and a lifetime supply of Toni Home Permanent. It is one of the wonders of the age that a beauty queen is considered the girl-next-door while Howard Stern is considered a freak. A few of those scenes and I was done with them.

This is why my regular gig for a long time was an Annual Future Homemakers of America Beauty Pageant. It’s like pageants used to be before silicon implants – pure, wholesome, down home fun. I did this gig for over ten years until either scheduling killed it or the organizers read a blog entry where I made fun of it.  The best thing of all was that in just one evening’s dose, you could fulfill the minimum adult yearly requirement for irony as set by the US Government.

While each contestant walked down the runway, I would read a card about her life that was mostly true. Her activities and her prospects were all carefully “spun” for best effect using clichés that are rounded at the edges from use. For instance, if she said she wanted to be a pediatrician it means she wants to get married and pregnant and not necessarily in that order. If she thanks her parents, it is for eating cat food for twelve weeks to pay for her gown.  If she uses the phrase “Enjoys Talking on the Phone” for an activity, that means she has no talent and less wit.

Every year someone would aspire to go to the local state university and major in Cosmetology — no matter that doing hair is taught at Beauty College and not at a state university. I was wicked once and changed that to Cosmology — creating a philosopher-queen at a stroke with no one the wiser.

After the runway, the singing by someone who really shouldn’t have, and the announcements of semi-finalists it is time for “The Question” aka “The Moment of Truth”. I would pull a slip of paper from a cigar box and read the question inscribed, twice,and, if she does not faint, she answers. If she is smart, she answers with the soggiest of platitudes while keeping a perfectly straight face.

There was the night, and it will stay with me forever, that one would be queen took a chance on the truth she knew to be true. Her question was: “What is more important: book learning or common sense?” I know, I know, but in small rural towns in Georgia this is actually considered a debatable issue.

Staring down at the judges she came out with a spirited and courageous defense of common sense and its superiority to compulsory public school education. What made this so delicious was that each judge on the panel was a teacher. They stiffened like they had been struck. And they had been. The crowd went wild over this recitation of every rationalization they had ever uttered to defend the C’s and D’s on their report card. Rationalizations they had not only used, but had taught to their own children.

In revenge, in high dungeon, and with immense satisfaction the judges marked big fat zeros by her name. Her shocking lack of common sense got its comeuppance from a number two pencil.

The judges were able to act with such impunity because they were imported from out of town. They were not introduced by name and pageant organizers made sure they were ushered from the gym before the winners were announced. There is always the risk that the elegant girl with the charm school manners that they have picked is actually somewhere below the cockroach in school popularity.

Better that they are safely beyond the city limits before her father knows the results of their labor.

My favorite time would be when they gave me the envelope and I got to see what everyone else wanted to know — how it all came out. Lifetime enmities had been known to flow from these results. I have even seen displays of temper right on the floor. The crowd would finally become quiet for the first time in the night as I called out the numbers of the court and then the number of the hapless first runner up.

From there the end was quick. The crowd roars, young girls cry, and I head for the exits patting the pocket with the really important envelope full of carefully folded twenties. The guy who couldn’t even get a date to the Junior-Senior Prom gets to play Burt Parks for the night and is paid in cash. No cigarette lighter. No cross pen.

If I would just quit making fun of it on the Internet, they might even ask me back.

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Tagged as: Beauty Pageants, Beauty Queens, Emcee