What Dumplin’ and Queen America Say About Female Beauty

Midway through the 1999 movie Drop Dead Gorgeous—still one of the most caustic satires of beauty pageants and their scarily dedicated contestants—the mockumentary’s camera crew goes to visit the reigning Mount Rose American Teen Princess, Mary Johanson (Alexandra Holden). Lona Williams, who wrote Drop Dead Gorgeous, knew intimately the toll that pageants could take on the women and girls who participated—she’d been crowned Minnesota’s Junior Miss in 1985, placing as first runner-up nationally.