Adams, also a Crimson editor, set the comic tone of the evening as the special guest co-host. He was introduced as “Anita Mann,” but quickly insisted on changing his name to “Igotta Mann,” saying that he had found a boyfriend.
“My name is Igotta Mann now, because I got one now,” he said.
He said that, since winning the pageant last year, he had acted in a movie called Crouching Tiger Hidden Drag Queen. He also complained about having failed with his “world peace” platform, and said that he came back sore from visiting American troops in Afghanistan, who he said had not seen their wives in a long time.
“Always persist in the face of adversity. Never mix brown and black. Use a lot of lubricant,” Adams advised this year’s competitors. “And never deny who you are, unless it gains you social and economic advantages.”
After the competition, Adams said that he “felt a lot lighter without the weight of the crown.” Although his title of Miss Harvard 2002 was unofficial, he said that he had been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal Online and other publications, invited to speak at an AIDS rally with Miss Universe 1998 and participated in the Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year parade.
Absent from this year’s pageant was the controversy surrounding last year’s event, when some students voiced concerns about the way beauty pageants portray women.
“There were some people who assumed that it was going to be something stereotypical, but they didn’t realize that it would be a mock pageant,” Soong said of last year’s contest. “We tried very hard to be sensitive to women’s issues while still making a good show.”
“We were worried that something similar would happen again, but we didn’t hear any complaints,” he added.
This year’s event was not as well attended as the inaugural Miss Harvard contest, nor as financially successful.
In contrast to the capacity audience drawn by the 2002 event, which was also held in Leverett, the crowd at Friday’s contest filled about half of the dining hall.
And this year’s contest raised about half of the amount as last year’s contest, which brought in a $970 profit.
But Soong said in an e-mail that he expects IMPACT will stage the pageant again next year.