Miss New York, Kira Kazantsev, was crowned Miss America last night, making this the third time in a row that Miss New York has won. The new Miss America is a first generation American; her parents immigrated to the U.S. from Russia. She triple majored in political science, global studies, and geography at her university and plans to use the scholarship she won last night to attend law school. Her pageant platform is "Love Shouldn't Hurt: Protecting Women Against Domestic Violence," and is inspired by personal experience from an abusive relationship.
Looking at all of these facts, I'm impressed with the new Miss America. However, as I was watching the pageant last night with no prior knowledge, I started rooting for Miss New York as soon as I saw her in the Evening Gown portion of the night.
White and metallic colored gowns were popular among the finalists, but Miss New York's gown stood out to me. She opted for a fashion forward gown. The white dress is classic and beautiful, only with embellishments on the ends of her sleeves. This was the only long-sleeved dress worn, proving to America that in order to be beautiful, women don't have to expose a lot of skin.
Other dresses were nice, and I was also a fan of Miss Arkansas' embellished white gown (below), but it was clear to me that I wanted Miss New York to win with this dress. Every other evening gown had a plunging neckline, and was often accompanied by a high slit. True, Miss New York's dress dips lower in the back, but it was classier than the several gowns with a trendy circle cutout in the back.
In the final lineup of the remaining 5 contestants, the future Miss America stands out in her striking dress. I should also give her props because it's an expected trend for the evening gowns to have lots of sparkles and shimmer, which she strayed away from.
I'm also in love with Miss New York's outfit choice she wore while performing her talent. The shoulder embellishments are something that I still love, and the blue jumpsuit looked so comfy as she sat cross-legged on the stage.
There were many negative comments on her talent, which was her singing Happy while tapping a red cup rhythmically. She said that she was inspired by Anna Kendrick, who tweeted this funny reaction when she saw the performance. People on twitter accused Miss New York of not doing anything particularly talented or difficult. I do agree that many of us could have sung and tapped that performance, but according to Miss New York, that was the point. She says that she chose to do something that many could do because she wanted to inspire young girls to see that many of them could be Miss America. I don't think this was a blunder, she got the audience clapping and since so many contestants sing for their talent, she took it to a more trendy and interesting place. Singing is a beautiful talent, but about half of the contests sang last night, and it has become a difficult one to stand out in, which Miss New York accomplished.
The question portion was where Miss New York did her best and impressed me the most. All 5 of the women did well and there weren't any blunders. Kira stood out because she didn't just answer a question with grace and in a professional way. She was asked a hard question about an issue, and in her answer she brought up another important issue. She was asked about the female U.S. Senators and instead of giving a bland answer about how important it is that women are in politics, she said that they should press the issue of combating sexual assault in the military. It aligned with her platform, and you could hear the passion in her voice. The judge who asked the question, gave a big smile in response to the answer, and it was clear the judges were impressed.
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