These dumb questions aren't intended to actually see whether you're smart or not. Miss Utah USA might be smart and she might not be, but the last thing I'd use to guess at whether she's smart is whether she can answer this kind of question "correctly." Because "correctly" here just means smoothly, expertly, without hesitation or stammering....When you're in a contest, you know the standards in that contest, and you're judged by how well you do under those standards. She was given an open ended prompt — a factoid about women's income and "What does this say about society?" — and she was supposed to speak fluidly while looking poised. Pausing and looking lost and uttering disconnected phrases is incorrect. Holmes is really only saying she doesn't like beauty pageants. Personally, I don't care one way or the other, but they are what they are. If you don't like the game, don't play. Miss Utah chose to play and ended up on the blooper reel. We get to laugh, just like we get to laugh at stuff like this:
She's not in the news for being dumb; she's in the news for being bad at spontaneous but convincing balderdash manufacturing....
June 18, 2013
Defending Miss Utah.
Linda Holmes at NPR says think about how the question was dumb.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
21 comments:
They're supposed to be dumb.
Beauty contests are celebrations by women of women's physical attractiveness to men.
Men will typically enter a farm animal, given the chance.
She's not in the news for being dumb; she's in the news for being bad at spontaneous but convincing balderdash manufacturing....
So she has no future in politics, or TV news/commentary?
"What does this say about society?"
That I like her for her mind... I get to look at her and she doesn't mind.
I've done that. Not the beauty thing, the sports thing.
Embarrassing.
Ouch.
She was given an open ended prompt — a factoid about women's income and "What does this say about society?" — and she was supposed to speak fluidly while looking poised.
This is why a loathe presidential debates.
She just choked - unfortunate for her, but it happens to most people in competitive endeavors at some point or another. You just hope it happens when no one's looking when you're a kid and still learning, and not at the pinnacle of your chosen field.
All they needed was Reggie Miller as a judge and people would be playing up the choke angle instead of the stupid angle.
There's a reason they don't call them brains contests.
That type of question is meant to weed out the un-PC.
Laughing at that sort of humiliation is mean-spirited and petty.
Given that she couldn't have said "Your data are of no significance", I don't know how an intelligent person was supposed to answer that question.
They should've asked each finalist about a different Obama scandal.
Laughing at that sort of humiliation is mean-spirited and petty.
I agree with that.
That type of question is meant to weed out the un-PC.
And that seems likely.
Jews finally get a true great baseball player since Hank Greenberg and he turns out to be a fraud. Wait, I forgot Koufax.
Good point. It's a doctoral dissertation, not a beauty pageant question.
As I say, if she'd told the truth, she'd have brought down the house.
Click to view picture of Linda Holmes of NPR
Expose them
@rhhardin:
Men will typically enter a farm animal, given the chance.
You're not anything resembling a man and most likely you don't even know any authentic men.
So, you're not speaking from personal experience and you are just making stuff up.
I say as long as the farm animals indicate their consent , what rh does w/ them is a matter of personal choice. I draw the line at marriage, tho.
"I'm in favor of harsher penalties for parole violators
(pause)
(pause)
(pause)
And World Peace!"
See, it's just that easy.
Its good to know that I can count on Powerline.
"Let’s pause there for a moment. This statistic, which has been widely misunderstood, simply reflects the fact that an enormous number of households are not headed by a husband and wife, but rather by an unmarried mother. Those households, as we all know, are likely to be poor, in part because single mothers are mostly uneducated and low-skilled, and in part because it is hard to make a lot of money while having sole responsibility for children. I’m not sure that this tells us anything about “society,” except that it has an extraordinary tolerance for illegitimacy. No wonder Miss Utah was stumped!"
"So, OK, Miss Utah’s answer was not her finest moment. But here’s my complaint: Miss Utah is a 21-year-old beauty contestant. Yet her answer to the question about female-headed homes was subjected to more criticism, and more searching scrutiny, than anything that has been said by Barack Obama or Jay Carney in press conferences over the last four years. And let’s not kid ourselves: Powell’s answer at least equalled the coherence of the average pronouncement from Jay Carney when he gives press briefings, or President Obama when he tries to wing it without his teleprompter. Or Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, any time they step in front of the cameras."
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/miss-utah-vs-barack-obama-and-jay-carney.php
The job of a beauty queen is to cut ribbons and appear on interview shows. In both situations it is more than likely the BQ is going to be asked a stupid, leading question with a microphone in her face. Her ability to not embarrass herself while looking pretty is her one and only job requirement.
They should stop letting people who look down on beauty pageants make up questions for beauty pageant contestants. They're spoiling them.
"What do you think about THIS thing my progressive suborder thinks is more than beauty pageants?"
Pretty soon the young women are going to start treating them like hecklers.
Post a Comment