I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while, and I’ve decided, in my opinion, the only thing worse than watching the Miss USA pageant on television is watching the Best in Show dog competition that was on recently.
I have nothing against beauty pageants in particular, it’s just that watching them makes me wish I could be watching anything more interesting, like paint drying or the clothes going around and around in the dryer or even those horrible morning news programs that I like to complain about. I have nothing against the girls who compete in the competitions, although the tradition seems to be a bit antiquated and sexist, I just am not all that interested in hearing their opinions on global affairs, the national deficit and “world peace.”
Maybe it’s because I despise the sexism of the affair – you don’t see any muscley young men up there with glossed up lips and speedos – or maybe it’s just because I could never look that good in a bikini. Either way, there are few things on television that I find less interesting.
The Best in Show competition is one of those things. It’s bad enough when people are paraded around the screen and instructed to do tricks for the judges, watching animals do the same thing is like watching one of those Jack Hannah segments on a late night television show, only instead of lasting for five minutes, it goes on for hours.
The big excitement of this year’s dog show was the surprise win by Uno, a 15 inch beagle. While I didn’t watch the show, I think the result means one of two things, either Uno was using performance enhancing drugs, or the entire competition was fixed.
Few people know this, but the beagle is the official dog of The Evening Sun. Several members of the staff, myself included, own that particular breed of dog, and unless the competition was to see which dog could chew the most diapers, wake you up the most times a night and then sleep continuously for the longest period of time, I’m not sure a beagle could have taken it without some form of “help.”
While the idea may sound crazy, I don’t think it’s as unlikely as many would believe. Currently, media and political attention is centered on the issue of steroids in professional athletics, but is that any worse than pageant participants sabotaging one another to take out the competition, models who throw up everything they eat to stay at the top of the industry or wealthy celebrities driving drunk and getting away with because they have money?
It’s all cheating. It’s all unhealthy and it all sets a bad example for kids who look up to these people, but the fact of the matter is as long as there is a way for people to cheat and a chance that they won’t get caught, there are some who are going to do it.