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July 29, 2021 - Dennis Prager Show
08:30
The Male / Female Hour with Miss Tennessee
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Anyway, I explore a lot of these, every issue that I can think of, and through various, well, basically family contacts, we learned that Miss Tennessee, specifically Miss Tennessee Volunteer, I'll explain that in a moment, was in town, and I thought, you know, why not have her on the show?
There are a lot of questions that I have, and sure enough, she's here.
Her parents are with her.
She's Amelia Collins, and you could obviously look her up, and I'm sure many of you will.
Most logical instinct.
And welcome to the show, Amelia.
Thank you so much for having me.
So, first of all, explain the difference between Miss America and Miss Volunteer America.
So Miss Volunteer America is similar to Miss America before the changes, before it became Miss America 2.0, in the sense that we have a swimsuit still, we have evening gown, we have talent, and interview.
And I think our scoring is also a little bit different in the sense that interview actually accounts for the majority of our score.
Really?
Yeah, 40% of our score.
Oh.
That's a lot.
How does it break down the other percentages?
They're all even.
They're 20% each.
So, talent, interview, swimsuit, gown.
Yes, and then we also have an onstage question for final night.
I know.
Well, those questions have always been problematic to me.
It's somewhat like, would you like to see the world peaceful?
But you don't know what's coming, right?
You don't know what the thing is.
You have no idea.
You actually picked the question out of a fishbowl.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
So what was your question?
So my question started out by saying your generation is often considered entitled, but what's one word that you would use to describe your generation?
Oh, that's a toughie as an immediate response.
So what did you say?
I chose to say the word educated, and I explained that I feel like my generation has access to a lot of resources, and we can use that in whatever way, but we definitely need to take advantage of having social media and that sort of thing.
So wait, the question was, a lot of people would describe your generation, what was the term, as what?
As entitled.
Oh, as entitled.
Oh, yes.
Now, so of course, we're all thinking, what would we answer?
So this is why, among other reasons, because swimsuit would not do well with me, but in all seriousness, if I were in a competition like that, as soon as you asked it, my mind raced and I came up with indoctrinated.
That's really what I think this generation has been indoctrinated.
But anyway, you don't have to react to that.
I'm just thinking what I might have said.
So educated is certainly accurate.
So this is an alternative to the Miss America contest.
Now, so let me get to a question that, you know, sort of the elephant in the room.
I want you to know, there's no way you would know this.
Though I have not seen a Miss America contest since I lived in my parents' house when I was in college, which was some time ago, my parents watched the Miss America contest every year.
And there was always a swimsuit competition.
My parents, in my case, were religious Jews.
I know you come from a religious Christian home.
And it wouldn't even occur to them that there was anything wrong with it.
In fact, my father would discuss with my mother why he liked Miss Utah or whatever it might be.
And then she'd say, oh, no, no, no.
Are you kidding?
Did you see Miss Michigan?
And it was great.
It was so wholesome, so to speak.
And they're out there, obviously, in their bathing suits.
I completely objected to Miss America contest forcing the women.
People for women's choice said you have no choice.
There is no swimsuit competition.
So your Miss America or Miss Volunteer America competition has kept it in.
Yes.
So you come from a religious Christian home, correct?
Yes.
Are you still Christian?
Yes.
Unfortunately, not every kid who...
Raising a Christian home stays Christian, as we well know.
Okay, so how do you, if you indeed need to, reconcile the swimsuit competition and your religiosity?
I honestly don't think it affects me that much.
I look at the swimsuit as something that's so empowering, and it also gives me a chance to make sure that I'm still staying healthy mentally and physically.
And so I don't really think it affects...
My relationship with God or my religion in any sort of way.
Right.
Are there other religious women in the competition?
Yes.
Mine and Miss Tennessee Volunteer, the majority of them were Christian.
Right.
Look, as I said, I defend it.
There's a sexual element.
I think it's silly to deny it, obviously.
Beautiful women in swimsuits has a sexual connotation.
I don't think that's an issue.
It's funny, as I've pointed out, you might find this of interest.
When America was much more religious, they were completely accepting of the swimsuit competition.
Secular America doesn't like the swimsuit competition.
That's the irony.
Yeah, that is.
I think a lot of people assume that it objectifies women, but I think they forget that we have the choice to compete in that, and we are making the choice to do swimsuit, and it's actually something that a lot of us look forward to.
I mean, that was one of my favorite aspects of the competition.
It's also super glamorous, and it's really fun to strut across the stage in a swimsuit.
Good.
I'm glad you said it.
That's exactly right.
Why shouldn't it be?
There's something, everything is upside down in the world in which we live.
Your reaction is perfectly legit.
I'd like people to call in if you think, if you're listening and you think that it objectifies women, by the way, which to a certain extent it does.
Who isn't objectified?
I mean, Aishi, you know what?
We should do an hour on the whole issue of objectification.
Everybody is objectified in a certain sense.
You objectify your doctor.
Your doctor has one role, to be a doctor.
Everyone is objectified in some way.
And if there's an element of sexual objectification, so what?
Nobody gives the second sentence, and therefore what?
You're not seen as more than that?
That's ridiculous.
Let's talk about the more than that.
You're in math, is that correct?
Yes, I'm a bio-math major.
Okay, there you go.
She's a bio-math major.
It's a new major, actually.
It's fairly new.
Oh yeah, now that you mention it, you're right.
There's a new major every week, basically.
Half the time I ask a college kid, you know, what are you majoring in, I don't understand the subject.
What is Biomath?
So it's a combination of biology and mathematics, but we use a lot of math modeling to describe and explain biological phenomena.
I haven't gotten super into my major courses because I'm coming up on my junior year, but so far I've done a lot of research with epidemics and kind of modeling how that works with certain populations.
But it really covers computer science.
Honestly, any type of science and a lot of math as well.
All right.
We'll be back with Amelia Collins, Miss Tennessee, in the new competition, as it were, out there.
If you have any questions or reactions to anything that I have said, 1-8 Prager, 776-877-243-7776.
You are listening to the Male Female Hour.
This is the second hour of my show every Wednesday.
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