The newly-crowned Miss America doesn’t like videogames very much, saying that parents should take them away and make their kids play out in the streets like she did.
Caressa Cameron, who was crowned as the new Miss America on January 30, doesn’t seem to care for videogames. The 22-year-old broadcast journalism major from Virginia said during her interview at the pageant that videogames and other forms of electronic entertainment are a big part part of why the current generation of kids are so lazy. “Take away the TV, take away the video games, set some standards for our children!” she said.
Parents need to “encourage” their kids to play outside instead, she added, saying they should be “playing imaginary games with sticks in the street like I did when I was little.”
I have no idea where to go with this. On one hand, it is pretty awesome outside and I’m inclined to agree that kids should spend more time running around in it. But on the other, her blanket criticism of videogames is entirely uninformed and sensational, and there’s something about taking advice on parenting from a woman whose career involves looking pretty and trying really hard to sound less stupid than her competitors that feels a bit off somehow. (I do like the idea of sending kids out to play in traffic and poke each other in the eye with branches, though.)
“You can be and become anything that you want to be, even Miss America,” she gushed unironically, presumably intending to encourage children to strive for excellence. It’s an admirable sentiment, I suppose, but one that’s counterbalanced somewhat by a statement made by Kellye Cash, Miss America 1987, that’s actually posted on the official Miss America website:
“I was a pianist, but not quite good enough to get a music scholarship; an athlete, but I didn’t play a varsity sport; smart, but not smart enough to get an academic scholarship. So competing in the Miss America program was an opportunity to get a scholarship for school.”
That’s right, kids: When all else fails, you can put on a bikini, climb up on a stage and shake your moneymaker for Rush Limbaugh. Dare to dream!
Source: Examiner.com
Published: Feb 2, 2010 06:28 pm