Donald trumps us again
He may have the worst hair in the business, but no one can call Donald Trump a bad marketer. He is, in fact, brilliant at it, and he’s got America’s number on speed dial.
Every year he finds a way to get us to pay attention to his beauty pageant, usually by tossing us something to be outraged about, which we foam and freak over like caged tigers over prime rib. Last year we salivated for months over Carrie California, homophobia, “free speech” and sexxxy pictures. This year it’s breaking ethnic barriers and…sexxxy pictures.
The hype started last week when NBC led off the Today show with a “story” about the sexxxy pictures Miss USA (also owned by NBC) posted to its Web site of contestants, not waiting for blonde hair and silicone to generate this year’s buzz. Then the first Muslim woman won the title, which is absolutely worth talking about (I don’t want to say “newsworthy” because we’re talking about a beauty pageant here; no one expects her to now broker Mid-East peace), but that discussion was quickly drowned out by the inevitable sexxxy picture scandal.
The topic dominated Detroit radio this morning on my way into work. Around midnight, something like eight of the top 10 stories on freep.com had something to do with Miss USA Rima Fakih from Dearborn, MI and her sexxxy stripper photos, released Monday by local radio show Mojo in the Morning. And this is in a city where a 7-year-old girl was shot and killed in her sleep during a police raid Sunday morning as a reality TV crew rolled.
Take away the radio station element, the should-they-or-shouldn’t-they question, the implied racism (which is unquestionably an outrage), whether you support this woman or think she should lose her title less than 48 hours after claiming it. The question I want answered is this: What are we so mad about? Most women who participate in pageants like Miss USA are using their looks to leapfrog into careers as models, actresses, entertainment talk show hosts and the Lingo girl. Sometimes questionable but always sexxxy photos and videos are an inevitable part of trying to get ahead in that kind of career trajectory. Don’t tell me we’re outraged when they inevitably surface because we look to pageant contestants as role models for other women.
Oh Donald, you got us again! Every other time of the year we dismiss Miss USA and its sister productions as sleazy misogynistic exploitations of women, but every spring we become invested in them all over again and outraged at the conduct of their participants. And all because of the scandals you feed us and tell us we should care about.
Filed under: rants | 1 Comment
Tags: Dearborn, Donald Trump, feigned outrage, Michigan, Miss Universe, Miss USA, Miss USA photo scandal, NBC, Rima Fakih, scandal, sexxxy pictures
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