Ugly Pageant Huge Success
by: Matthew Hays
NEW YORK—The first-annual America's Ugliest Woman Pageant, broadcast live this week on FOX, was a huge success. Sinpit Jones, the pageant's designer, conceived the event after noticing the general prevalence of beautiful people on television. She said, "I noticed an utter lack of uglo-americans on television and I thought that if we had a pageant to honor those who would never get a job on mainstream television, they would gain more respect in mainstream America." The pageant comes after intense criticism of the media for not having enough uglo-americans on television.
The competition included a Halloween event, where all of the women dressed in their favorite costume; a swimsuit event, and an evening-apparel event. Jones wanted to make the competition varied, but also wanted to maintain some of the common events seen in pageants. "We plan to look at a wider variety of criteria," said Jones, "But what we really need is more audience feedback."
Each state chose one competitor as a representative to the pageant. Miss Nebraska, Feio Lewis said, "It was a great honor to represent my home state of Nebraska at the competition. Even though I didn't win the pageant, I thought it was great to see all those uglo-americans on the forefront for the first time in television history." Miss Alabama, Feo Brown, said, "I thought the thing went off without a hitch, and I'm sure my family will be proud that I am one of America's ugliest women."
Those winning the competition from first to third include Miss Massachusetts, Fellfromatree Johnson; Miss California, Stick Smith; and Miss South Dakota, häßlich Schwartzman. When asked what she would do with her winnings, Johnson said, "I can now be free to travel to California to get one of those Hollywood plastic surgeons to fix my face." She took home a grand total of $100,000. Her fellow champions had similar plans for their winnings, but they only received $50,000 and $25,000, respectively.
Executives at the network were concerned about ratings, but through heavy lobbying and an intense effort on the part of uglo-americans, the pageant was broadcast on national television. FOX chief Lochlan Murdoch said, "The FOX network was proud to bring the plight of the uglo-american to the forefront of national television. We also see that we have been overly-discriminatory toward those who were good looking for our shows, but now that has changed."
FOX already has plans to rebroadcast the program twice in the coming weeks, and has signed for another five years of broadcasts. Program director Brendan Flin said, "The FOX network is proud to sign the America's Ugliest Woman Pageant for five more years."
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