Bitchery reader MaryKate sent me this video from a beauty contest in the 80’s. Now, I’ll be honest: I went to a women’s college in the deep south, and in my Freshman dorm there were many titled beauty queens. If I recall correctly, there was a Miss Georgia Peach, Miss Peach Blossom, Miss Gritfest, and assorted county and state Miss, Jr. Miss, and Lady titles as well. And at the time, I’m embarrassed to say my own college had a beauty pageant, which I had to cover as editor of the school paper. Not even joking folks. The stories I could tell.
Anyway, not ONCE in the history of my college pageant was there a talent performance like this one, so painful, so hilarious, so utterly utterly odd, I’m sure it will inspire you writers of futuristic romance with all kinds of fabulous new heroines. Or make you dose yourself with Vicodin.
If she even made it to the top ten it was because she blew one or all of the judges.
I saw this last week. I’m still in shock. First of all, is she shooting people with the trumpet gun? Is that what she’s doing? And did she ever find that note she was searching for when she was blowing the horn? Cuz if she did, I missed it.
Did she receive any applause at all? I’m thinking probably not.
Oh, Sarah. I really needed that this morning! Thank you.
You have to admit that she performs with conviction. She really sells it.
I… I… I may be at a loss for words.
::kicks self:: Get it together, girl.
My first reaction was that it’s traditional for untalented beauty pageant contestants to very quickly learn to sing. Just one song, just passably enough so as not to embarass themselves. So why, I wondered, did this woman think she could learn to play the trumpet in three weeks?
Then I realized that she wasn’t playing the trumpet. She was playing a trumpet-shaped kazoo. Suddenly it made a good deal more sense—she was trying to learn to sing just one song, but put a twist on it.
As painful and horrifying as that is to watch (I don’t know if the audio simply isn’t positioned to pick up audience reaction, but danged if you can’t hear crickets in the stunned silence that follows), I have to give her props for poise. Maybe she’s just insane and thinks the performance is going over well. Maybe it’s really a parody performance, mocking the low value placed on “talent” in most beauty pageants. Whichever it is, she never loses her smile for an instant. She makes me believe that she believes this is a great performance, and thus I cannot find it in me to laugh at her.
But…wow. That’s three or four different bad ideas all rolled into one, there.
Yeah.
Ow.
I showed my boyfriend, an erstwhile trumpeter, that, and he almost cried.
(On another note, are you talking about Agnes Scott? I have a friend who went there, and while she wasn’t a beauty queen, she was certainly a Southern belle.)
(Your38? No! I just turned 25! Also, bad grammar, accusatory spamblocker word!)
Couldn’t. Make. It. Through.
I just love when she breaks out the Charlie Chaplin dance.
If only George Lucas had known that trumpet shaped guns would have made the whole fucking movie better.
Sadly, that’s the type of performance I would have given, had I ever entered a beauty pageant.
And, until I was about 16, I might have thought it was cool. 😀
Nope, I didn’t go to Agnes Scott, but I know a bunch of women who did. And yup, I was surrounded by Southern Belles – which was a great deal of fun because for freshman and sophomore year, I was the only Yankee, and one of a very few who didn’t go home on the weekends.
I went to a peach festival with Peach Queens and even a Watermelon Queen. Blogged about the horridly hot day, too. 🙂
http://relliott4.wordpress.com/2006/07/15/country-music-and-ankle-tattoos/#comment-1140
Just to say – as I was loading this up on YouTube, I misread the title as “Star Wars Strumpet” … =D This was brilliant – I especially love the Cantina-music dance interlude!
Btw, here’s another funny Star Wars vid I’ve been sent this week!
She’s totally off key. On top of that, she has a camel toe. But man, is she brave!
You know how you’re not supposed to put a Qtip actually in your ear canal? I want to pull the cotton fuzz off and poke away.
This is what I couldn’t help thinking…here this is, twenty years after this event and this poor woman thought, “yeah, I totally sucked, but it’s over and I’m never going to have to think about it again.”
Then comes YouTube.
John Williams must be so pleased.
Ouch.
Is it supposed to sound like that? Really? I must have been watching a different movie all these years.
And Rinda, does that mean you missed the Cantina theme breakdown toward the end? Too bad…
Suppose she posted it? Because it somebody else did, it could rate as a hate crime.
Wow. I wish I could un-watch that… where’s that damn time machine…
Do you think that she actually paid someone to choreograph that for her???
Yeah, I missed the end. I don’t think I could go back through and try again either. I saw the Charlie Chaplin thing and lost it.
Well, I can die now. I’ve seen everything.
Sweet baby jesus….
wouldn’t you love to have some star wars nerd translate R2D2 …sounds like he’s cussing her out about a minute thru the video.
Or maybe he was yelling for jaba the hut to open the trap door lol
Speaking as someone who comes from the UK where we don’t really have beauty contests, all I can say is why can’t we have them too? That routine hit a pinnacle of WTF that most of us can only dream of. God bless that girl 🙂
Oh yes! The Beeb definitely needs to put on some really horrendous beauty pagents.
Dear Goddess, I’m speechless.
“Miss Gritfest” – SB Sarah, please tell us you made that up. Please!
I’m from Louisiana, and let me tell you, we love our beauty pageants in the South. My home town, Blanchard, is host to the yearly “Poke Salad Festival”, where you can be crowned “Miss Blanchard Poke Salad”. No really, go peruse this year’s “winners.”
http://www.pokesaladfestival.com/pageant.htm
There is also Dubach, La, home of the Dubach Chicken Festival. Also has a beauty pageant. Miss Chicken anyone?
http://www.dubachla.com/chicken.html
Rinda, I believe the endless country music circle of hell is below the one for liars, if I recall my Dante.
This video made me long for the days when twirling a baton was considered a talent. Thousands of voices cried out in pain and were suddenly silenced..not.
I LOVE the Darth Vader Blues. That was just awesome.
my word showed67. you bet.
Holy fuckety fuck. Do I get a prize for making it all the way through to the end? And I think this clip was what sent Vader over to the dark side. This chick totally misread the requirements—“1/3 of the score will be given for talent, performance less than 3 minutes” as “a talentless performance.” Thank all applicable deities for that less-than-3-minutes caveat or I couldn’t have made it.
Next Bitchery Title should totally be Miss Gritfest.
I got up to sneaking away from invisible
buttsex
Storm Troupers and I had to make it stop and go away.
Spent some unfortunate years in Kennett Square, PA—mushroom capital of the world.
They crowned, if I recall correctly, a Mushroom Queen AND Princess (and either Maid or Lady In Waiting… someone who was 6 years old, anyway…). ‘Cause, you know, so many different age groups wanted to get in on that hot fungus action.
OMGWTF?!?
Why didn’t someone who saw the rehearsal stop her? That just made Britney Spears’s performance at the VMAs look spectacular.
No beauty pageants in the glorious U of K? No Miss Middle Wallop or a Sodbury Princess? No Little Miss Sexually Precocious pageants, either? Y’all are missing out.
What I learned from Miss Douglas, if that was indeed her real title: Some people believe in themselves, no matter how horrible they are; if I’m half as talentless as Miss D., I can believe in myself twice as much. It’s inspirational, is what it is.
Still, the question hangs in the air: Why _didn’t_ somebody stop her?
Why didn’t they stop her? Because they were all laughing their asses off on the sidelines, of course. Hasn’t anyone mentioned how completely and utterly bugfuck insane pageant families are yet?
The world needs more no-talent contests.
American-or-Whathaveyou Idol isn’t enough.
Maybe I’m not as smart as I think I am -I watched the whole thing. It was like rubbernecking a car accident on the highway. It had this horrible fascination…I kept wondering if it would, or even could, get worse. Know what I mean?
If I had been in that video, I’d change my name, get plastic surgery to change my appearance, and move somewhere far, far away (ha).
OMG. Are there any embarrassing videos of ME that could end up on YouTube? Must search memory!
Actually. Watched. It. All.
WTF?
It was like watching a train wreck happening.
Oh, the horror.
Sue
Google seems to think this was a late 70s Miss Nebraska pageant, and that Miss Hedger was Miss Douglas County – in other words, Miss Omaha.
One step away from the Miss America pageant. We was robbed!
That was truly craptactular, but yes, also brave. Bless her heart, I think if someone had yelled, “They’re trying to steal the crown! Cover me, Miss Douglas!” she would have dropped, rolled, and come up emptying her spit valve.
The only thing more funny I’ve seen today is ‘Darth Vader gets the blues.’ Thank you, Christina.
Sarah, did you graduate from Columbia College in South Carolina?