<p>I felt sooooooooo badly for Miss Florida. What bad luck. I wonder if she would have finished higher if she hadn’t gotten injured.</p>
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<p>I totally agree.</p>
<p>This is a GREAT piece on this phenomenon:</p>
<p>[Miss</a> New York crowned Miss America: Why are racist tweets the story?](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2013/09/16/miss-new-york-crowned-miss-america-why-are-racist-tweets-the-story/]Miss”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2013/09/16/miss-new-york-crowned-miss-america-why-are-racist-tweets-the-story/)</p>
<p>^Consolation: agreed.</p>
<p>I searched Youtube but could not find the actual performance of Theresa Vail singing Puccini so I could judge for myself. Many people who know nothing about singing or opera will claim someone is the greatest thing since Jenny Lind when it just ain’t so.</p>
<p>Here it is:</p>
<p>[Miss</a> Kansas 2013 Sings in Miss America Talent Competition - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>She obviously has a very good voice, although Nessun Dorma was a bit beyond her. I think if she had chosen something more suitable people would be talking about how good she was.</p>
<p>Mommusic,
In this you tube clip, there’s a brief bit of her TRYING to sing opera it starts at about 2:58. She sang Nessum Dorma because “it’s a man’s song” and she’s all about overcoming stereotypes. She learned it by watching YouTube. All I can say is Yikes. It would be nice if she had actually tried to learn a little bit about opera. if she had, she might have figured out that you can’t learn it by watching youtube, among other things. Even her hometown newspaper said she was awful.
<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube;
<p>Cross posted with consolation</p>
<p>Ugh… why’d I watch that clip (I actually only made it about 20 seconds into the song)?</p>
<p>I can’t ‘unhear’ it!</p>
<p>That was horrible!</p>
<p>Well, she definitely doesn’t have the breath control for that aria, and she would have been well advised to sing something that didn’t leave her completely exposed at the top of her range.</p>
<p>Consolation is right. Why pay any attention to a few (even if there are several of them) knuckle-dragging idiots who hid behind anomynous comments. Hey, I wouldn’t have chosen Ms. NY only because I was rooting for the Army sargent, but Ms. NY won fair and square; case closed.</p>
<p>Incidentally, I really don’t consider her victory “a first.” There have been at least two more non-white winners since Vanessa Williams, haven’t there been? And at least one is a first generation American. In my opinion, the winner’s ethnicity is no longer an event.</p>
<p>IMO, the winner’s ethnicity is an event only because it shows how we are making progress – slowly, but progress.</p>
<p>People fear what they don’t understand.</p>
<p>Oh Consolation, now I wish you hadn’t found that clip! Dear god, that was awful. My ears.</p>
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Bless her heart. When I saw her knee brace (among ther things) I knew it was a done deal.</p>
<p>Her victory may not count as a first for a nonwhite winner, but she is the first Indian-American to win Miss America. It’s great to see diversity. (And it’s great to see that Miss Texas is an African American woman.)</p>
<p>The first African American from Texas was back in 2006.</p>
<p>Yes, Shilah Phillips was the first African American Miss Texas. It’s great to see diversity in perceived stereotypical (pehaps even cookie cutter) events/situations.</p>
<p>There was one in 2008 who won Miss USA and went on to place in top 10 in Miss Universe.</p>
<p>Correct, Crystle Stewart was Miss USA 2008.</p>
<p>I’m not an opera expert … but in the “for what it’s worth” for Miss Kansas.</p>
<p>From an article: </p>
<p>"Vail entered her first competition just nine months ago on the advice of her commanding officer. But when she was told she wouldn’t be able to use archery as her talent, she had to pick another performance focus…and quick.</p>
<p>So chose to sing opera, “I’d never sung opera in my life,” Vail said.</p>
<p>But 48 hours later she had mastered a Pavarotti piece she found on YouTube and won the Miss Kansas talent competition."</p>
<p>She had intended to show her expertise with archery - but was told a few weeks before the competition she could not - so she tried this. Maybe it was too hard, too much of a reach - but I give her credit for her courage to try. And for standing on stage with here tattoos and to just be proud of who she is and what she stands for. Maybe we could applaud her courage instead of attack her performance.</p>
<p>Opera is about talent and hard work, not courage. It’s difficult and she stunk. No surprise. I applaud all sorts of courage. This was just stupid.
Unbelievably stupid.</p>
<p>Well I guess stupid enough to make the top ten …</p>
<p>Well if your yardstick for cultural achievement is a Miss America pageant…</p>