Joyelle Ronan
By the time the year 2000 rolled around, Sandra Bullock had not only proven herself as a girl-next-door romantic comedy heroine in While You Were Sleeping (1995) and Practical Magic (1998) but also as an action star in the Speed franchise. It seems fitting that she’d be perfect for a film like Miss Congeniality (2000), which blends these genres. It was a commercial success, earning over $200 million worldwide against a budget of $45 million. The movie didn’t just impact the rom-com/chick-flick genre, but the pageant world as well. At the time the film was made, the “Miss United States” trademark had lapsed, but after the success of the film, Mrs. United States Pageant, Inc. held a pageant with that name the following year. Miss Congeniality earned Sandra Bullock both a Golden Globe nomination and eventually a less successful sequel. Bullock gives a stellar performance as Grace Hart, an awkward FBI agent who goes undercover as a Miss United States pageant contestant, but Miss Congeniality’s messages of feminism, friendship, and confidence are what make this comfort movie worth revisiting 25 years later.
Miss Congeniality‘s opening scene does a great job of quickly establishing who Grace Hart is and what motivates her. She’s always had a strong sense of right and wrong, even as a kid watching a classmate get bullied. But, she often takes justice into her own hands, like punching the same classmate after she stood up for him, and he was, in turn, mean to her. Many years later, as an agent, she saves her target from choking before locking him up. Grace acting on her emotions and instincts is seen as a weakness by her male peers, especially her superior, who subsequently puts her on desk duty. The men around her, including her love interest Eric Matthews (Benjamin Bratt), respect Grace as an agent, but not as a woman. They look down on her for her lack of femininity, yet she believes she is superior for disregarding things that are traditionally considered feminine. Grace even joins the male agents as they use FBI software to see what the female agents would like in a bathing suit. But, she doesn’t find it funny when she’s the one they’re putting the swimsuit on.
When the opportunity comes up for Grace to go undercover in Miss Congeniality, she is immediately dismissive of the idea. She says, “I’m not going to parade around in a swimsuit, like some airhead bimbo that goes by the name of what? Gracie Lou Freebush. And all she wants is world peace.” She tells Eric, who’s leading the mission, that she doesn’t even own a dress or a brush. As they spar in the gym, Grace eventually agrees to try to become what she so looks down on: a pageant queen. The director of the pageant, Kathy Morningside, played by Candice Bergen, sets Grace up with disgraced pageant coach Victor Melling (Michael Caine). What follows is a classic movie makeover scene, with a bit of a twist. As Grace walks out of the building in slow motion with her heels, tight dress, and sleek hair, everyone is impressed by her new look except for her.At this point, she still holds the belief that a woman’s appearance is correlated to her intelligence, stating, “My IQ just dropped 10 points.” While she eventually learns to embrace her own femininity, it’s not because she thinks she looks hotter in makeup, but because of the relationships she forms with the other pageant girls.
Based on the brief glimpse into her childhood in Miss Congeniality, the audience can assume Grace hasn’t had many girlfriends, or perhaps friends in general. The mission is about stopping a terrorist, but Grace finds a genuine connection with the other women, especially “Miss Rhode Island” Cheryl Frasier, played by Heather Burns. Cheryl invites Grace over to her room for some questionable hot chocolate and asks her what she’s doing for the talent portion. Grace says she’s not sure what she’s doing yet, but ensures it’s not something embarrassing like baton twirling, which happens to be Cheryl’s talent. Up until this point, the concept of a “pageant girl” was more of an idea of a person to Grace, whereas now she sees that Cheryl is an actual person with feelings. She apologizes, and the moment serves as a turning point for Grace. When she jeopardizes her cover by attacking a man she believes to have a gun, pageant director Kathy Morningside tells her, “I’ve been fighting all my life against your type. The type who thinks we’re just worthless airheads. You know who I mean. Feminists. Intellectuals. Ugly women.”
While Kathy’s statement in Miss Congeniality is problematic for many reasons, it brings up interesting questions about feminism regarding pageants. While Miss United States and similar competitions are often thought of as beauty pageants, Kathy corrects Grace and tells her that it’s actually a scholarship competition. Yet, some could argue that women being judged based on how good they look in a swimsuit doesn’t feel very scholarly or feminist. In 2018, the Miss America pageant ended both the swimsuit and evening gown portions of the competition. However, Miss USA retains those sections, with former Miss USA Sarah Rose Summers telling ABC News in 2018, “It’s just exciting and it’s empowering to be able to confidently stand on that stage and just have fun in the swimsuit,” she said. “It takes confidence unlike anything else — true confidence — not just on the outside that you’re exuding to the judges and the audience and the millions of people watching at home, but inner confidence.”
Fitting into swimsuits and evening gowns may feed into societal standards of what women’s bodies should look like, but despite being handed celery, Grace still tries to sneak out donuts, and never loses herself to the pressure or the pageantry of it all, which is why this movie has stood the test of time despite a few outdated jokes here and there. Even when the FBI abandons her after she accuses Kathy of the bomb threat, she stays in the pageant and trusts her gut– which was right. But, the threats that led her to the pageant and even her relationship with Eric pale in comparison to Grace’s own self-discovery that a person can be both feminine and intelligent. As the movie ends and Cheryl crowns her “Miss Congeniality,” she admits that, like her fellow contestants, she really does want world peace.
