A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Release Date:
January 27, 2002
Original Title:
Miss America
Genres:
Documentary | TV Movie
Production Companies:
Clio TV
Doug Orchard Films
GBH
Visualizing History
Production Countries:
United States of America
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 102
Tracking the country’s oldest beauty contest—from its inception in 1921 as a local seaside pageant to its heyday as one of the country’s most popular events—Miss America paints a vivid picture of an institution that has come to reveal much about a changing nation. The pageant is about commercialism and sexual politics, about big business and small towns. But beyond the symbolism lies a human story—at once moving, inspiring, infuriating, funny, and poignant. Combining rare archival footage, with a host of intimate interviews with distinguished commentators including Gloria Steinem, Margaret Cho, Isaac Mizrahi, former contestants and behind–the–scenes footage and photographs, the film reveals why some women took part in the fledgling event and why others briefly rejected it - how the pageant became a battle ground and a barometer for the changing position of women in society.
Associate Producer:
Sarah Kramer
Cheryl Teetzel
Consulting Producer:
Cara Martes
Coordinating Producer:
Susan Mottau
Director:
Lisa Ades
Director of Photography:
Buddy Squires
Peter Nelson
Stephen McCarthy
Editor:
Toby Shimin
Executive Producer:
Margaret Drain
Jeanne Houck
Lola Van Wagenen
First Assistant Director:
Curt Casassa
Music:
Douglas J. Cuomo
Producer:
Lisa Ades
Lesli Klainberg
Mark Samels
Writer:
Michelle Ferrari
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.