2. 外语
  3. (1)That title always had grandeur to it. "Miss America." Ah, this simple, arrogant brilliance! It suggests a Prom queen who want

(1)That title always had grandeur to it. "Miss America." Ah, this simple, arrogant brilliance! It suggests a Prom queen who want

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问题     (1)That title always had grandeur to it. "Miss America." Ah, this simple, arrogant brilliance! It suggests a Prom queen who wants to become the Statue of Liberty. Now she’s 75 and darned if she isn’t fresh as a Hard Copy headline.
    (2)When the Atlantic City pageant airs this Saturday on NBC, some ambitious young woman—one of the 50,000 who try out each year—will realize the gossamer dream that last year enveloped Heather Whitestone, the first deaf Miss America. But in the months leading to that night, the pageant has been slapped with unseemly controversy. A Miss Maryland runner-up charges that she was denied her state tide because of vote rigging. Other state runners-up are vexed because a woman who had lost the Miss New Jersey competition four times decamped to Delaware and won the title there. The Virginia delegate was stripped of her title after claims that she inflated her credentials. And throughout America the anguished debate roils on: Should the swimsuit competition be dropped?
    (3)Scandal is the coin of contemporary celebrity, and it arouses the interest of the public. What is interesting is how people come to care about the pageants politics: in 1945 the naming of the first Jewish Miss America, Bess Myerson; in 1979 the dumping of Bert Parks, the show’s emcee for 25 years; in 1984 the dethroning of Vanessa Williams, the first winner of color, after sexually provocative photos surfaced. Race, creed, age, all have clouded the show. But like the winner at the moment of coronation—brandishing a mile-wide smile as she sobs on the edge of both the runway and hysteria—the pageant proves that pretty can be messy. It serves as a kitsch microcosm of a conflicted country. Miss America is America.
    (4)This year Americans can be a part of the pageant, and not just by guessing the winner and trashing the losers. In a plebiscite, the I-can’t-believe-it’s-a-beauty-pageant, pageant is letting viewers decide whether the swimsuit competition will be retained. Before every commercial during the first half of the three-hour show, two phone numbers will appear—one for yes votes, one for no. The tally will be updated throughout the program. Normally the swimsuit competition is the first event of the evening; this year it will be the last— unless it is eliminated. Which it won’t be. Straw polls indicate wide support. And 42 of the 50 contestants are for it. Says Emily Orton, Miss Oregon: "The media can make you feel a lot more naked than a swimsuit. So if you can’t be comfortable competing in this, you won’t feel comfortable being Miss America."
    (5)No question that the contestants must parade as objects—not sex objects, exactly, since the bathing gear they are made to wear is about as revealing as a cassock, but surely as objects—for ogling, for censure, for pity. Lee Meriwether, Miss America in 1955, recalls her agony in a one piece: "I was dying a mousand deaths. I’ve never had people stare at me like that, and with binoculars! I’ll be thrilled if they can get rid of it." Says this year’s Miss Montana, Amanda Granrude: "We shouldn’t have a woman in a veiled strip show." Even Leonard Horn, who runs the Miss America Organization, says, "I personally cannot rationalize it." Eager to italicize the scholarship program that gives more than $24 million a year to contestants, Horn sees the swimsuit segment as a tacky relic of Miss America’s childhood.
According to the passage, the pageant _____.
选项 A、is also a trick involved in politics
B、denies the admittance of the dump
C、allows the contestants to reveal their vanity
D、is the miniature of the American society
答案D
解析 第3段提到，有趣的是人们如何关心选美比赛的政治内涵：1945年第一次提名犹太人美国小姐；1979年著名选美节目主持人被弃用……本段最后说“它是一个充满矛盾的国家庸俗艺术的缩影”。据此，选D。
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