Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 24, 1995 TAG: 9507240135
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Anyone who stayed up for Grant's late-night TV apology tour found herself squirming in her nightie, it was so awful watching Hugh, that charmster-turned-lewdster, face the music.
And now see Andrea saunter away from her 1995 Camaro - repo'd because her credit check was done after the fact. See her say good-bye to her cellular phone and her Southwest County apartment.
Feel for her as she tries to maintain a shred of dignity with her head held high, her matching red lipstick and shorts, her Barbie-colored hair gleaming in the sun.
A cross between Tai Collins and Miss America.
A fallen celebrity whose stardom just took an exponential leap.
Like Hugh Grant's movie, ``Nine Months,'' the beauty queen's media glow is brighter than pageant officials had ever dreamed. Unlike past Miss Virginias, her name and her picture will leave a lasting imprint in our memories.
Faux news, I call it. It's the stuff we talk about in the elevator and over the water cooler, and it doesn't have to run on the front page.
Remember how secretly tickled everyone was when The Homecoming Queen's face erupted with a giant zit on her big night?
What truck-driver ailment do you automatically think of when baseball hero George Brett's name comes up? Do you even remember if the Kansas City Royals won the championship that year?
When WDBJ news anchor Keith Humphry reports a particularly interesting story, which do you remember: the details of his report, or whether his tie was askew?
And then there's Pee Wee Herman's hands-on movie experience - in front of the screen rather than on it. Did you cheer when he made his hilarious comeback on ``Murphy Brown'' last fall?
Or did it make you squirm?
Here's why I think the Ballengee debacle is the epitome of faux news. Ballengee cheated on her resume - she looked over the smarter girl's shoulder and wrote down what she saw.
Then she padded her fact sheet just as surely as beauty queens pad their bras...and tape up their buttocks...and apply their makeup with a trowel.
I've been backstage at these so-called scholarship contests. I've seen the starved women nibble their Snickers just before prancing out to be judged.
Everything about the pageants is faux.
Only Ballengee made the faux pas of getting caught - not because she pretended to be a natural beauty, but because she pretended to be a scholar.
There was something symbolic in the shopping bag that pageant officials used to haul away Andrea Ballengee's crown.
It was as plastic as the turbulent shallowness we let penetrate our lives.
Perhaps knowing the troubles of others makes us feel better about ourselves. And perhaps, because we don't know how to talk over the water cooler about things that really matter, it's easier to fill the dead air time with trash.
Andrea Ballengee didn't commit a crime like Hugh Grant. She told a few lies. She embellished the facts on paper just as contestants embellish their beauty on stage.
But unlike Hugh Grant - whose real hurdle now is moving beyond the world-wide embarrassment and re-inventing himself as the talented actor that he is - Ballengee's career has been built on looks.
Would she have won the crown had she told the truth on paper?
Would she have won it without her high-heeled swimsuit performance, without the tape and make-up?
Those are the questions we should be asking each other over the water cooler.
Even caustic David Letterman admitted it on his show last week: Enough already.
It's time to give the jokes a rest. It's time to talk about the real stuff.
Beth Macy is a feature writer whose regular Extra column runs on Thursday. She found it interesting that the thesaurus listed dozens of words for prostitute, but only one - john - for the solicitor.
by CNB