Miss America 2008 is Kirsten Haglund from Michigan

Miss America for 2008 has been crowned. While there are many that are happy that Kirsten Haglund, Miss Michigan won, the focus was more on the changes to the pageant format than in the winner. With all of the hoopla surrounding Miss America Reality Check, an attempt to modernize the pageant that has steadily lost viewers over the last decade or so, one must ask the obvious; "did it work?" The answer isn't simple. The truth is it is a bit "yes" and "no."

According to the premise of the reality series, the powers-that-be at the Miss America pageant wanted to update the stale image of America's reigning beauty queen. They succeeded modestly in some areas, but failed miserably in others.

Most people believe that the reason for the pageant's loss of viewers has been the disconnect between the pageant winner and the average American woman. Women of today no longer identify with the plastic Barbie doll figure that the program churned out year after year. She simply doesn't represent what women aspire to be, nor does she represent everything that mothers want their daughters to look up to.

With all of that in mind, Miss America Reality Check attempted to make some major changes in how the state candidates represented themselves in the pageant. They worked to tone down the heavy makeup, deflate the big hair, and update that robotic pageant walk. On those issues that definitely made some headway.

It was nice to see girls, for the most part, look closer to their actual age. It was also wonderful to see women with short hair and edgy haircuts as well as long flowing locks. One notable contestant who made the semi-finals even dared not to tease her hair; looking refreshingly like a "real" woman.

A lot of the girls showed a bit of "sass" on the runway as they modeled; twirling and posing more like models than wooden statues. Gone was the totally fake smile; replaced with something a little more natural, at least in most instances. On all of those points, the pageant gets kudos.