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'Miss America: Reality Check'
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Miss South Dakota Kate Wismer performed her talent routine, "The Doll Aria," that she will do in the Miss America competition at a trunk show held in Britton after Christmas. Area residents can get a preview of the Miss America contestants on Friday nights on the television reality show, "Miss America: Reality Check."
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Television viewers around the country are getting the opportunity to "get up close and personal" with Miss America contestants prior to the annual pageant scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 26, in Las Vegas.
Included in that group of 52 beauty queens is Britton's Kate Wismer, who was crowned Miss South Dakota last summer.
For the first time ever, the Miss America hopefuls are featured in a four-week reality show leading up to the pageant. All 52 girls recently spent time in Los Angeles, all living in the same house for 10 days (Nov. 5-15). Camera crews were on hand 24 hours a day to record the interaction among the candidates.
The show, "Miss America: Reality Check," was aired for the first time last Friday on the TLC network (Channel 116 on Britton's cable system). Episodes are scheduled for the next three Fridays (Jan. 11, 18, and 25) at 9 p.m. with the Miss America event, also on TLC, on Jan. 26, beginning at 7 p.m.
A reality show was done last year, but it was just a two-hour special, not four, hour-long episodes.
"We were all divided into teams and every episode features an athletic event and another activity," said Wismer, who is a member of the Red Team but was sworn to secrecy about the results of the show. "Nobody ever gets kicked off like some of the reality shows, but every episode ends with a progress report. If Miss America was crowned that night, they list the top three, and they list the bottom three."
One of the purposes of the show is to allow viewers to get to know the Miss America candidates in an attempt to improve ratings of the Miss America Pageant. But it is also designed to modernize the image of the long-time event.
"They are trying to mold Miss America to fit into a more modern image," noted Wismer, who sported a new haircut, courtesy of the reality show. "They don't want a girl walking into an interview in a "pageant suit" that makes her look 42 instead of 22. There are a lot of things they wanted to update, and they want 52 very different looking girls, not everybody with the same "Miss America" look."
Wismer said the reality show was a bit stressful.
"You're on 24-7 for 10 days, and there were cameras everywhere all the time. The first thing you had to do every morning was put on a microphone."
Despite the fact that 52 highly competitive girls were all living in one house for 10 days, Wismer said there really wasn't the drama some may have expected.
"With 52 girls in one house you might think that there would be cat fights every day," laughed Wismer, "but the funny thing is that there wasn't any drama. The only drama was natural, like tripping down stairs or when one of the girls got sick. The running line all week was that we were 52 of the nicest girls in America and none of us was going to act up or be stupid. When you forgot all the craziness, it was just like summer camp for 52 girls."
Even though a top three and bottom three are selected at the end of each episode, the series will not have any direct effect on the selection of Miss America.
"Anything that happened in LA is not going to matter at all," stressed Wismer. "Judges will be briefed on the goal of the show - to update Miss America's image - but they are not allowed to watch it."
But Wismer does think the experience will help.
"The reality show is supposed to really level the playing field. It's supposed to help me stand up to some of those southern girls who have been career pageant girls and competing since they were five."
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©Marshall County Journal 2010
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