Last night saw the series premiere of TLC’s Miss America: Countdown to the Crown, an effort to both attract the much-desired younger female demo and create interest in the beleaguered beauty pageant.
As the series’ official site explains, the show follows 52 state “title holders” as they compete for 15 slots in the actual January 24 pageant.
With 52 women to get to know — and one hour in which to do it in — the premiere didn’t give us a particularly strong impression of any of the contestants. (We think we remember liking the spunky Miss Missouri.) But then… there was Gretchen Carlson. The former Miss America winner and current co-host of Jezebel hating Fox & Friends turned up as a special “consultant” and was given the task of posing questions about hot-button social issues — sex education, same sex couples and adoption — in order to get the contestants to “debate”. (Culture wars? What culture wars?) In the clip above, Carlson the Republiblonde is introduced to the ladies by the show’s host, and then gets down to the business of separating the real Americans from the arugula-eating elitists. (If nothing else, we now know that Miss America is probably going to be a Republican.) Below, stills of the ladies’ reactions to Carlson’s initial appearance on the scene.
“The chick from Fox News???” (The pursed lips give it away)
Check out the girl in the middle: