Miss Universe

Americans watch Miss Universe to participate in some sort of nationalistic manifestation; what matters now is to win (and win well) against other countries not which state has more beautiful women.

Arizona has got a little to do with this prestigious global event for the simple reason that it has not won a Miss USA title in its own right yet. If a state did not win Miss USA for the year, it will not be able to grace the center stage of Miss Universe and have the chance to win it; Arizona happens to have always suffered this fate for decades and decades. For the sake of the unknowing reader, it must be pointed out that Jineane Ford cannot really lay claim to have given Arizona its first Miss USA win since her ‘victory’ was due to the original Miss USA winning in the Miss Universe pageant. Actually, that is the closest relation of Arizona when it comes to Miss Universe: that the Miss America who went on to win Miss Universe 1980 happened to have Miss Arizona as a runner up. Sarcastic but true. Probably, the Miss Arizona pageant needs to do a lot of revamping to their rules to be able to ace that Miss USA (and hopefully, Miss Universe) title ASAP.

This however, does not mean that there is something wrong with how Arizona gets its beauty contest representatives. This is kind of acceptable since, firstly, there are a lot more other states in the country that are more ’showbiz’ than Arizona. Second, Arizona is more inclined with cultural tourism and is not really known in the industry of beauty contests. The good thing here is that, despite the fact that Arizona does not really pay that much attention to its beauty queens, these ladies are still able to bag some distinctions for the country, at least in the Miss America pageant.