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From: minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Vanessa Williams (from the Boston Phenix)
Message-ID: <45@decvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 28-Jul-84 20:14:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: decvax.45
Posted: Sat Jul 28 20:14:04 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Jul-84 00:55:44 EDT
References: <1028@eosp1.UUCP>
Organization: DEC UNIX Engineering Group
Lines: 35

The following is a quote from an article by Michael Matza in the
current (July 31) Boston Phenix:

"If there's a personality profile that exemplifies all the players in
this made-for-People melodrama, it includes a longing for status among
the rich and famous, a willingness to to be extreme -- and single-minded --
in the service of a cherished ideal, and an unerring instinct for the
main chance.  When the book or movie abut the Vanessa Williams Story
comes out, look for the word exploitation on the dust jacket or marquee
in capital letters.  Williams, to be sure, is the victim in this drama,
but she's far from a babe in the woods.  Her pictures tell us that, as
does her surpassing achievement in what has to be the most ruthlessly
cut-throat competition ever devised for ambitious young women.  Including
the local and regional elimination contests that serve as the preliminaries
for the final at Atlantic City, some 70,000 women compete annually for the
coveted Miss america crown, estimates author Frank Deford [author of
'There She Is', the definitive book on the contest].  How does a woman
manage to elbow aside 70,000 other apsirants on her way to that flashbulb-
popping  walk down the shining runway?  Calculatingly, no doubt.  And
it's probably safe to say that Miss Americas before Vanessa Williams and
those who'll come after her have done and will do things with their
clothes on that are morally more ambiguous than her silly but harmless
photo session in the nude....

"So it's bye-bye Miss America Pie.  And with you, let's hope, go
the amiss American pieties and myths about womanhood, and wholesomeness,
and pagentry."

Transcribed by

Martin Minow
decvax!minow