An American in Provence

Saturday night I happened to fall upon the Miss France pageant on TV. And then I was sucked into the realm of "This is so lame... I have to watch the entire thing to see who wins..."

I was disappointed by the outfits. Seriously, FRANCE, I expected a whole lot more from you. Let's make their hips look BIGGER!  Let's make them look like they have NO WAIST AT ALL! Besides the Marilyn-swimsuit outfits and the jeweled thing at the end, they were all horrible. I could have designed better outfits.

I wonder how much of the final 12/final 5 is really unknown by the contestants before the announcements. It seems like they would have an idea, at least to have the final outfits that fit and know where to stand during the dances and what dances to do. But let's face it, Dancing with the Stars it is not. The dances are mostly: "Be escorted on stage. Stand in one spot and wave your arms around. When it is your turn to walk down the 'catwalk', stride down, stop at end. Pause. Turn around and walk back to your place. Wait for the other girls to finish. All walk together in two straight lines. Turn around. Walk back. Stop. Look over your shoulder. Wait for applause."

For the outfits, I noticed that some seemed to have lace-up backs, so maybe it really is one-size-fits-all. (not that there is a wide range of sizes to be fit in any case).

I think Miss Tahiti (who ended up second) was the prettiest, but she blew it when she introduced herself and said that she had been modeling since the age of 17 in Paris. I think France (and America too) would want a fresh-faced, rather naive young thing to be their Miss, not some pro. model.

Anyway, the show dragged on FOREVER. Costume change, commercial, another presentation of the final contestants, another opportunity for the folks at home to vote for their favorite candidate, another reminder of "Vote 1 for Miss Pays-de-Loire! Vote 2 for Miss Bretagne!...."

Alain and I had a bet of whether his parents were watching. I said his mother certainly was. He said there was no way his father was watching. We called to check, and were both right. His mom was in the bedroom, watching the pageant on the small tv, and his father was in the living room, watching something else on their main TV.

Another thing I noticed- no Talent competition! Thank god. I think they have gotten rid of that for the Miss America pageant as well, at least the televised portion, right?

Let's see how one goes about becoming Miss France:
1 Pour pouvoir concourir à l’élection de Miss France, il faut être une jeune femme, de nationalité Française de naissance ou naturalisée, être âgée de 18 à 25 ans à la date du 15 novembre de l’année en cours.

Huh. Well, let's see. Too short. Too old. Married.

Dang it. Guess I missed my window of opportunity to be Miss France.

Le Sigh.

Wouldn't it be funny if someone got up there with a really strong accent and said "Hello. My name is ... I am 24 years old and am Miss Provence..."