3. "If You Were a Color, What Color Would You Be?": The Interview and Talent Competitions in the Miss America Pageant

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter I
2. CONTENTS VII
3. ILLUSTRATIONS IX
4. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XI
5. INTRODUCTION 1
6. 1. "A Certain Class of Girl": Respectability and the Structure of the Miss America Pageant 31
7. 2. Anatomy of a Beauty Pageant: The Swimsuit Competition 58
8. 3. "If You Were a Color, What Color Would You Be?": The Interview and Talent Competitions in the Miss America Pageant 87
9. 4. Bodies of Difference: Race, Nation, and the Troubled Reign of Vanessa Williams 123
10. 5. The Representational Politics of Whiteness and the National Body: Bess Myerson, Miss America 1945, and Heather Whitestone, Miss America 1995 153
11. 6. International Spectacles, National Borders: Miss Universe and the "Family of Nations" 181
12. CONCLUSION 205
13. NOTES 211
14. BIBLIOGRAPHY 241
15. INDEX 265