Miss Texas Celebrates Free Enterprise on Live Television
By Jonny Zachary, Contributing Writer
Amidst the controversy surrounding Donald Trump, the show went on…The 54th annual Miss USA pageant, to be specific. After weeks of hostility, the pageant was officially announced to air on the Reelz channel (which also airs the Movieguide® Awards) on Sunday, July 12th after NBC and Univision dropped out from airing the broadcast. There were a few mishaps as well as positive moments.
First, the show only brought in around 925,000 viewers—a steep drop from last year’s count, despite being available on the Reelz channel as well as online. Last year, Miss USA brought in an audience of roughly 5.6 million even while airing during the NBA Finals. Although the turnout was low when comparing to NBC’s, the audience was nine times as large as Reelz’ average viewer count. According to Reelz CEO Stan E. Hubbard, the decision to air the pageant on Reelz, “was based on our belief that this special event, and the women who compete in it, are an integral part of American tradition.”
There were a few slip-ups during the question-and-answer portion of the show, such as Miss Rhode Island getting stuck answering a question about political correctness and failing to complete her answer in time. Miss Nevada, as well, had a flub when she was asked how she would specifically improve race relations in the country. “Get more racist groups together and be able to be with each other in a non…we need to be more accepting of each other,” Nevada said.
Despite the two ladies’ mistakes, one contestant proudly proclaimed her stance on the free market and declared her pro-capitalist outlook. When Miss Texas was asked whether the government should “impose boundaries on salaries of executives” or not, she answered, saying, “This is the land of opportunity and CEOs — I believe that they work hard enough for their money, so I believe that they should be able to attain whatever it is they are working for.”
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