As promised, here are some of my thoughts on this year’s Miss America Pageant. 1) This year’s Pageant was a real Pageant, complete with an entertaining production. The crowning moment of Miss Wisconsin, Laura Kaeppeler, captured this well. Yes, those are mascara-tinged black tears running down her face. My first reaction via Twitter (I LOVED [...]
I normally have friends over to watch Miss America (this year will just be me and my men though); they often wonder how I so accurately predict members of the Top 15 at the start of the pageant. I have two “insider” tips: 1) Follow who wins the preliminaries during pageant week; 2) Read some [...]
This post was happily featured on Babble on April 18, 2012 as the post I am most proud of us a mom! One week ago I gave birth to our precious son, Carston Cook Levey Friedman. We have been affectionately referring to him as Little Man. During labor I spent a good amount of time [...]
Tyra Banks has invented her own version of Hunger Games. No, not her competitive reality TV show America’s Next Top Model, but Modelland, her debut novel about a mythical world where girls compete to become supermodels with superpowers. Modelland, which came out in September, is pure Banks. It’s a bit overblown and overly long, with [...]
Princess means that you’re a loser! A lot of feminists might agree with this sentiment– especially with the recent release of Disney’s newest princess targeted at the preschool set, Sofia the First. But it was a child beauty pageant mom who uttered this line during the continuing fourth season of TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras, which [...]
I recently published a book review of Francesco Duina’s new sociological investigation on competition in the latest issue of International Review of Modern Sociology. You can read the review by CLICKING HERE. While it did appear in an academic journal, I believe the review (and the book itself!) should be accessible to a non-academic audience. [...]
To outsiders it might seem like there are lots of links between the world of child beauty pageants and the world of adult beauty pageants (which do not exclusively include the Miss America, Miss Universe, and Miss World systems, but those are certainly the most prestigious and well-known). But that isn’t quite right. Lots of [...]
CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ON THE HUFFINGTON POST CULTURE! He was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for twelve years. But Whitey Bulger was ultimately brought down by Miss Congeniality. No, not Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock’s eponymous female FBI character in the 2000 film), but Anna Bjornsdottir. According to The Boston Globe, which [...]
The economics of beauty? Well, that sort of economics definitely interests me more than stories about unemployment rates and tax cuts. (Yes, yes, I know they are important [though often depressing] topics.) Since I’m married to an economist I feel I can say that sometimes economics can be a bit boring… In any case, it’s [...]
Last night Miss Angola, 25-year-old Leila Lopes, was crowned the 60th Miss Universe—the first ever winner from Angola. She beat out 89 other hopefuls in Sao Paulo, Brazil to take the crown. The hosts declared this to be the “most coveted title in the world,” a statement I’m sure many would disagree with, even if [...]
