May 07 2009
Miss California Faces Backlash
Carrie Prejean is learning the difference between free speech and speech without cost. The Miss California winner finished second in Donald Trump’s Miss USA pageant last month.
Prejean blames her loss on Perez Hilton, who gave her low marks for her response to a question about gay marriage. Prejean doesn’t support the idea. Hilton then trashed Prejean on his blog.
Prejean did a press tour to complain about the pageant system. Afterward, one of her old modeling photos surfaced. There’s debate now whether the picture is sufficiently scandalous to warrant Prejean’s ouster from the Miss California crown.
I’ll never understand why Hilton was judging a beauty pageant. Didn’t NBC–which has a TV deal with Trump to air the Miss USA and Miss Universe events–have any actors available? Someone from Chuck or My Name is Earl or Southland, for example? Help hype those shows and keep things professional.
That said, Prejean was a sore loser. She didn’t take the high road. She had to know trying to expose pageant secrets would bring a swift response. Hence, the leaked photo.
Now she’s stuck. The people who wouldn’t care about her pictures probably don’t appreciate her view on gay marriage. The people who like her political stance won’t like her posing in panties and a smile. She’ll have her integrity and that counts for a lot. She isn’t likely to gain much else from this experience.
She’s not ready to give up her fifteen minutes of fame and continues to call herself a victim, completely oblivious to the fact that there are actual victims of homophobia out there who have had much worse experiences than getting second in a beauty pageant and being called “stupid” by a blogger.