SMILE (1975)
The beauty pageant is the most popular spectator sport in America, according to this Michael Ritchie satire, which gives us a good long look. Following the contestants of California's Young American Miss pageant, we learn that pep is a competitive category (just like grades, personality, and '' talent''), that contestants really do put Vaseline on their teeth to help them maintain a smile, and, of course, that one girl wants to be ''a veterinarian or a nun.''
SHAG: THE MOVIE (1989)
Four girlfriends head to Myrtle Beach, the site of two very important events in the summer of 1963: A shag contest (in this instance, shag is a dance, go Pudge!) and the Miss Sun Queen Pageant where Melaina (a blonde Bridget Fonda) goes against her initial instinct for the talent portion of the competition — an interpretive bikini dance to ''Dixie'' — and opts for a dramatic one-piece reading from Gone With the Wind.
MISS FIRECRACKER (1989)
Holly Hunter is never boring and neither is this eccentric Southern comedy. As Carnelle, a twentysomething fish-gutter in Yazoo City, Miss., she is determined to trade in her nickname, ''Miss Hot Tamale,'' for the title of ''Miss Firecracker'' — a crown she's wanted ever since she watched her cousin win it in a red dress more than a decade earlier. Adapted from Beth Henley's stage play, Carnelle's quest for acceptance via tap-dancing and costumes provided by a seamstress who tailors for bullfrogs, is funny, sad, and funny-sad. Or, essentially, your standard pageant-viewing experience.
TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING! JULIE NEWMAR (1995)
What's harder to believe: That the director didn't even want to let Patrick Swayze audition for the film, about three drag queens who road-trip cross country for a pageant and stall in a small, style-deprived town? (Swayze earned the role of sage Vida Boheme by improvising a 30-minute monologue inspired by the bullying he suffered as a boy studying ballet in Texas.) Or that Chi Chi Rodriguez (John Leguizamo) actually ended up with the crown?
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1997)
Being stalked by a murderous fisherman is not nearly as fun as it sounds. Having had her hair mysteriously chopped off in the middle of the night — and the word ''SOON'' written on her mirror — reigning Croaker Queen Helen (Sarah Michelle Geller) was a little bit hesitant to attend the annual Croaker Queen pageant for fear of her life. Only said fisherman wasn't ready for her yet. Instead, during the ceremony he took her boyfriend Barry's (Ryan Phillippe) life, causing the queen to shriek in panic. Talk about a killer pageant.
HAPPY, TEXAS (1999)
This underrated comedy finds two escaped convicts — Jeremy Northam and Steve Zahn — posing as a gay couple hired as consultants to a small Texas town's contestants in the Little Miss Fresh-Squeezed Pre-Teen Beauty Pageant. While Northam plans a bank robbery (and tries not to be romanced by William H. Macy), Zahn steals the film with his devotion to the girls' costumes (''I'm trying to figure out if slip-stitching or basting is the best way to sew on a sparkly heart'') and choreography. It's impossible not to rewind their big number, set to Björk's ''It's Oh So Quiet.''
DROP DEAD GORGEOUS (1999)
Backstabbing and drama behind the scenes at a beauty pageant? You betcha! In the quaint town of Mount Rose, Minn., the Miss Teen Princess America pageant is equivalent to that of a war zone — you're lucky if you make it out alive. Among the mishaps during the competition: one contestant dies in a farm explosion, an ''accidental'' fire sends another contestant's mom to the hospital, some girls get food poisoning, and costumes wind up missing.
MISS CONGENIALITY (2000)
She's uncouth, clumsy, and the antithesis of girly. So it seemed like a disaster in the making to send FBI agent Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) undercover to compete in a pageant (that was, oh, being targeted by terrorist threats). And while Gracie didn't earn the ultimate crown, she did win something a lot more rewarding: the chance to see past the shallowness of the contest and into the hearts of genuine women. Oh, and Benjamin Bratt.
BEAUTIFUL (2000)
When your life's ambition is to win the Miss America contest, you have to be merciless in order to get your hands on the supreme sash. So merciless, in fact, that it might even mean enlisting your best friend to pose as your daughter's mom just like Mona (Minnie Driver) did in order to escape the pageant's strict rules.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006)
The Hoover family puts the fun in dysfunctional when a series of misadventures along the way to California in a rickety yellow VW van almost causes them to miss 7-year-old Olive's (Abigail Breslin) chance to compete for the coveted Little Miss Sunshine title. Her spirited — yet mildly inappropriate — rendition of ''Super Freak'' may have cost her the crown, but she sure looked happy in the spotlight.
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