What "The Competition" Says About Teenage Girlhood

[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now we'll get a take on what it's like to be a teenage girl in the United States at this current point in time through the lens of a new podcast called The Competition. Have you heard of the Distinguished Young Women Program?

Every year, 50 of the country's brightest young women, one high school senior from each state, head to Mobile, Alabama, to participate in this program. It's a massive competition consisting of choreographed dance numbers, strenuous 10-minute fitness routines, all done while smiling, of course, talent shows, and tests of self-expression. By the time they arrive, their scholastic achievements have already been tabulated into their final scores. At the end, one winner takes home a life-changing sum of money to use for college.

Why do we bring this up today? One of our former colleagues, who you might know from the podcast, Dolly Parton's America, has come back with The Competition, a podcast centering the Distinguished Young Women's program. We meet a few of these distinguished young women along the way and learn about the nature of girlhood along the way. It's Shima Oliaee back at WNYC for this. Shima, hi, welcome to The Brian Lehrer Show today.

Shima Oliaee: Thank you so much for having me. It's good to talk to you, Brian. It's been a second. I used to sit across from you.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, I know. [laughter] We will play a one-minute montage or one-minute clip, I should say from episode one to set this up for our listeners. Do you want to say anything first about what exactly the Distinguished Young Women Program is?

Shima Oliaee: I think you did a really good job that it is a very competitive scholarship program. It is the most lucrative scholarship exclusively for Teen Girls in America. The series itself, even though it does look at the program -- The Competition itself is a frame to very closely listen to the voices and the thoughts and opinions and struggles of today's 17 and 18-year-old girls. We follow seven girls very closely, but you will meet one girl from every state throughout the series. Let's hear the clip.

Brian Lehrer: In this clip, a minute and three seconds, is a montage of successful previous winners of the competition here from episode one.

Shima Oliaee: The competition's been around for almost 70 years,

Speaker 4: Mobile, Alabama. It's the America's Junior Miss Pageant, featuring 50 of the most outstanding young women in the nation.

Shima Oliaee: For decades it was on live TV in front of millions of people

Speaker 5: Live from Mobile, Alabama, CBS proudly present America's Junior Miss--

Shima Oliaee: When I was in Mobile, I thought I'd made the big time.

Speaker 5: Have you ever seen 50 brighter smiles in all your life?

Shima Oliaee: Winners got written up in The New York Times, appeared on talk shows, even went to the White House.

Speaker 6: Mr. President, this is Junior Miss [unintelligible 00:03:26].

Speaker 7: Hi.

Shima Oliaee: Some winners became household names.

Speaker 8: America's Junior Miss of 1963.

Shima Oliaee: Like media icon, Diane Sawyer.

Speaker 9: Kentucky's Junior Miss --

Shima Oliaee: Grace from Will & Grace, repped Rhode Island in '86. The program's alumni have become governors --

Speaker 6: Artists.

Shima Oliaee: Aerospace engineers

Speaker 6: Lawyers, doctors.

Shima Oliaee: Judges, CEOs.

Speaker 6: Senators-

Shima Oliaee: Tech leaders.

Speaker 6: -and astronauts.

Brian Lehrer: I will say that Shima herself competed in the 2001 Distinguished Young Women's Program. Isn't that right?

Shima Oliaee: That is right. I lost [laughs]. From what I recall now, I think I did pretty badly. To get to nationals, you have to win at the local and state levels. There, it's a little bit different than when you get to that national stage. It does feel like 1,000 bolts of pressure. You are away from home for two weeks, most of the girls for the first time in their lives. You live with them and every day you practice, you prepare to get ready for semifinals and the finale

Brian Lehrer: Pressure to be the next Diane Sawyer or the next Grace from Will & Grace. That's a lot of pressure. I'm curious what you think of the particular pieces of competition in The Competition, because I'm sure listeners are already thinking, "Oh God, is this like the Miss America Pageant?" Is this testing exactly what we don't want to be testing of our girls in this country and in the 2020s? What do you think of the particular things that I mentioned in the intro that you compete on?

Shima Oliaee: It sounds very similar. Of course, there's never been a swimsuit portion. They are teenage girls. Academics and scholastic achievement and honors are such a big part of the program and matter more than anything else in your score. Also, the judge's interview, which is-- I was a judge this year, so for 10 minutes-- That's how the whole podcast got started. They actually wrote me an email.

They said, "Will you come back to Judge?" I asked them, "Sure, but could I bring two producers to record everything behind the scenes?" Shockingly, they said yes. I couldn't know anything before I got there, specifically about the girls. I knew I wanted to capture the diversity of America.

The thing that's really interesting about this program and the girls, a lot of the girls cringe over the word pageant. For a lot of them, that is a dirty word. It does have aspects of that. You are smiling. You are getting interviewed. There is a live question on stage that can be very horrifying when it's on a live TV show, which is what happened during my year. You do perform a talent, but again, the judges' interview and the scholastics portion are 50% of your score.

That judge's interview, we can ask them any question about any topic, personal or political from around the world. They have 10 minutes to get across who they are. It's really difficult. It is. I was a very ambitious kid. For me, the reason I joined the program was I was a middle-class girl from Reno, Nevada, and I really wanted to be an artist, even though I was a nerd and a straight A student. My parents were horrified that I wanted to be a music artist. I knew I'd have to pay my own way for school.

I found the program in this book called How to Go To College Almost for Free.

In the glossary, they talked about this program. They said, "Don't worry, it's not a pageant." It's almost like they knew that a nerdy kid would wonder. It's the culmination of your teen years put on a stage. When you're 17 years old, whatever instrument you play, or the dance that you have perfected, or the singing skills, if you don't continue with that, they're at a peak level that you will never get to again, your ability to talk about all of these ideas.

I think that's really why I wanted to go back was to show people that we have this idea of teen girls and agreed upon idea, "Oh, maybe they're mean girls," or maybe they're like Barbie, or they're a little weak, a little too sensitive, or clueless. I grew up with the movie Clueless, which I loved, but I knew that there's so much more complicated than that, obviously as a former teen girl. I think we would nod to that idea.

Once you hear their voices- and the seven girls are very different that we follow closely- your mind is blown about what a girl can be and how she thinks at 17 and 18. You want all of them to be leading the country.

Brian Lehrer: We'll hear from one of these contestants from your podcast in just a second. I just have to say though, I never knew you were from Reno, Nevada. Maybe that's part of what qualified you to, or made you such a special contributor to the Dolly Parton's America series working with all those New Yorkers from Radiolab [laughs].

Also, it's not just the pressure of alumni, as you say, cheekily known as has-beens, that create such intense pressure on the contestants. It's also the accolades of your competitors. Here's a clip of Amy Fam, the contestant from Tennessee from episode one.

Amy Fam: When you come from a small town, it's so easy to be the best of the best unlike, "Oh, I'm cheer captain, I'm senior class president, I'm president of four other things," but these girls are president of eight other things and they run a business. It humbles you and opens your eyes to, you're not always going to be the best of the best.

Brian Lehrer: Want to say anything about that clip and what it reflects about the environment?

Shima Oliaee: I think the girls that end up in Mobile to compete for the grand cash prize they all come from a world where they never lost anything. One of the big questions of the series is what does it mean to win and what does it mean to lose? Again, this happens actually the summer after they graduate. It's in June after all of their high school graduations. While everyone else is having fun, you take this two weeks to fight one more time to pay your way for school. For most of them, they have finished high school without ever losing. Tennessee, or Amy, that you just heard, besides being first in everything that she took part in in high school, she was also very well-liked and was nominated for Homecoming Queen a record four times.

One of the things that happens at the competition is the things that you maybe did so well in high school for, you are now with 49 other girls that are just as similar, are just as strong in all those aspects. They're beloved, they're smart, they're funny, they're really ambitious. One of the best things that happens while you're there that you don't understand at the time, because it can feel really intimidating is that being around 49 other girls that are dreaming so big and are not afraid to say it- everyone's like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. I'm going to cure cancer- that energy is a little bit overwhelming but at the end, it is so good for you.

Even though you think I have to be the winner of all these other winners, the key value of what happens is, oh, when you leave and go to college and all these girls are in college right now, if you can imagine around the country, they take with them like, am I going to actually fulfill the promises I made as a kid to myself of like that I won't give up on myself. You know that there's these 49 other girls around the country and world who are all fighting for their dream and not afraid to put themselves out there.

Brian Lehrer: I guess it's also like when you get all these valedictorians from small-town high schools and suddenly they're in a very selective college with all the other valedictorians, or people who are the best player on their high school baseball team and suddenly they're in the minor leagues with the other best players on their baseball team. It ups the level and what kind of peer group you're in, and then probably your self-esteem when you see yourself in that light for the first time.

Listeners, if you're just joining us, my guest is Shima Oliaee, who is the creator of a new podcast called The Competition. She is founder of Shirazad Productions and was the co-creator of the Dolly Parton's America Podcast that the Radio Lab-associated team put out from WNYC. Also, the creator of the podcast Pink Card that some of you may know. Here's another clip.

Oh, and I guess listeners, we don't have a lot of time for phone calls in this segment, but if anybody, whoever was in this competition wants to call in or anybody with a question or comment, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Shima, herself, a former competitor representing Nevada, right?

Shima Oliaee: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Now a judge. Here's a clip of another contestant from this year, from the podcast. It's Kaitlyn Kai, if I'm saying that right from Arizona, talking about the energy of that room and that group.

Kaitlyn Kai: A lot of the girls were crying, and I never seen any of them cry before. Like Alabama, Minnesota.

Shima Oliaee: Arizona, as she'll freely admit, is having trouble processing her feelings.

Kaitlyn Kai: I think I was just numb. I feel like I'm generally a very rational person. My first thought is like, "We shouldn't panic. We haven't read the actual decision. We don't know what the parameters are."

Shima Oliaee: Arizona was speech and debate captain in high school. She spent six years debating all kinds of controversial topics. She's used to having to intellectualize really messy issues.

Kaitlyn Kai: I had never really been in that many spaces where emotion was acceptable before.

Shima Oliaee: Being in this room is very different.

Kaitlyn Kai: I guess in that moment, I realized the power of emotions. I was feeling it so much from the girls around me and something in me just shifted, and then I burst in tears and couldn't stop crying.

Brian Lehrer: We should say, to be clear, this was just after the Dobbs decision was announced by the Supreme Court, and I guess the competition was taking place at that time.

Shima Oliaee: Yes. This is what was very different from my year, is the real world found a way to crash into the competition. Just like as an overview, the girls are not allowed to have their cell phones for two weeks straight; only at evening times, and for a very short amount of time, There was no way for them to know about the news. The way the news breaks is very upsetting for most of them. I don't want to give it away, I don't want to spoil it for the listener but episode five, you please get to episode five because it's probably the most emotional piece of journalism I've ever worked on and made.

You hear in one room, 50 girls with very different opinions facing each other and forced to process the decision in real time. Again, the way the news breaks is really hard for a lot of them. Also, their reactions are very different. Then that night, they have to get on stage for semifinals and decide what they're going to do about what happened. Anyway, the whole thing turns on its head. I don't even know how to say it. As a documentarian, it was such a mind-blowing moment to hear everyone and their journey that day and what happened afterward. We do follow the girls into the next year, two years of their lives to unpack how those two weeks and that day in particular, and the relationship they had, how that followed them and changed the course of their lives even within the next year or two.

That's the other exciting thing. You know how in a high school film you'll go like, this person's here, this person's there, you'll see the flash forward? In this series, you will get to see what happens later. You'll be able to hear from the girls in college and know exactly how they've changed, what happened, how they think about those two weeks in Mobile.

For me, it was really healing. I think everyone is a little bit embarrassed about things they do in high school or who they were. This was a really awkward time for me, personally from when I look at the pictures and the videos, I was so out of my realm. I had never done a pageant or anything of this caliber. I'd never met one girl from every state in one location where they were all brilliant and walked on water. I was always a little bit comedic and I felt I would trip a lot. I was really serious. I loved performing. It was probably the biggest thing that had ever happened to me and I think that's true for a lot of the girls.

Also, I got so many scholarships that year. It was called Junior Miss at the time, was one of them. I was able to fully pay for school and also take money for my free time. Of course, I still had to work a minimum wage job when I ran out of that money. It made me believe that things were possible because when I would look at the girls, I believed in their dreams so much. I believed in them, and it helped me believe in me .

Now, meeting these girls, it made me have some peace about we might be embarrassed of who we are when we're 17 or 18 when we get older and wiser, but I was in awe of them. I wished as an adult I was a little bit more like them. They were so willing to put themselves out there. They have no fear and that part of me, I think I lost in the grownup world. I have a little bit of it, but you have to work hard and you have to keep a lot of that hidden as you advance as a woman in the world to be taken seriously.

I do reflect on that too as a judge in The Competition, and as a narrator, what do we ask of girls, and how does that follow us into womanhood, and how can the beauty of teen girlhood stay in our hearts as we get older and in who we are? A lot of the lessons the girls learn, I feel like, oh, that's a lesson for us, even making the podcast as grown women. Anyway, that girl that had a lot of guts, I really reconnected with her. Even though she fell on her face a lot, it made me really proud of the awkward teen, 17-year-old I was at that time.

Brian Lehrer: To that point, maybe the most feared category amongst the contestants with all these different tests and competitions that it includes is the judge's interview. Here's a clip of Emily Lee, the contestant from California, describing the essence of the interview in episode four.

Emily Lee: You're building this image of yourself to sell to be like, "This is who I am, and it's great. Pick me. Love me. Choose me." [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Pick me, love me, choose me. You named episode four after that quote. Now, did you say before that at this year's competition, you were one of the judges who got to choose an interview question? I wonder what question you chose?

Shima Oliaee: Oh, no. I asked many questions, and you will hear the girls describe those questions in episode four and their reactions to the questions. [laughs] I don't want to give it too much away, but my MO was like, I'm going to make this the best experience of these girls' lives. I spiraled during my interview, from what I can remember. I can't even quite recall what happened. Herschel Walker actually was one of my judges. Fun fact.

I'm a little bit of a hippie in that way. Like I wanted them to have the time of their lives. It's hard to pick a winner if just everyone is cozy. [laughs] The questions are really tough. I think they are tougher than questions that we give to interviewers, even reporting out in the world. Part of that is to- it's just to test everyone so that you can come up with a top eight, which is one of the big moments after semifinals is who makes the final night, is the top eight.

One of the questions I asked was, and this is a funnier one, but I asked, what is an ideal marriage? I think I was thinking like, mutual love and respect, or something about dividing laundry. One of the girls was like, "I think it's love between a man and a woman." You're like, "Oh," It's a cultural exchange program for the girls, but also as a judge, you get to see the diversity of viewpoints around the country. It's such a great snapshot of America today through the eyes of these driven, brilliant teenage girls. Yes, I don't want to--

Brian Lehrer: Well, what do you do with that answer? If we take that as a homophobic answer and these girls are competing to be crowned the one, what do you do with that?

Shima Oliaee: You know what? We get a binder as big as a phone book about all the guidelines of judging. We also don't get paid to judge. It's a lot of work. Side notes. One of the guidelines is no matter what the girl's opinion is, you should not judge her on that opinion, like if you have a different political belief. Obviously, the girls know that the judges are human.

It's funny, I think this is true of our idea of the American dream and meritocracy. There's this belief that there is one chosen winner, that she is incomparable to the rest. There's almost this mystical quality about who rises to the top. When you're that age about to go to college and you really want to do well in the world, you really do have big dreams, you are so scared that you're not going to be someone who can fulfill them. There's these markers in teenhood, like running for class president, becoming valedictorian, becoming a top swimmer. The things that I was fighting for at that time and that these girls are fighting for is to prove to yourself that you're going to be okay once you get out into the real world.

Part of that is we all buy into the fact that there is one winner, that there is a chosen one. I don't say it directly, but I hope you can see that's not quite true. There is someone that has to win and she is amazing, but so are all the girls.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, just being the number one in your state in that process to get to the finals, such a big accomplishment. Let me sneak in one call for you that just came in before we run out of time. Amanda in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Amanda: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. Thanks for this segment. I actually participated in the competition when it was called Junior Miss. I didn't get past the state level. I wasn't a state finalist. I didn't go to the big hurrah. I just wondered, a question for your guest, in the course of being a judge or in doing the podcast, if you ever came in contact with people that didn't have a great experience because I didn't, at the state level?

I very much felt a little ostracized and a little bit like, oh, I'm not the pretty cookie-cutter perfect girl that they're looking for. I'm a little more quirky. I'm a little more this, I'm a little more that I have things to offer, but I don't think they're what all of these other girls seem to have. I have a very distinct memory of a dance party and everyone just being a lot cooler and not wanting to be talking to the nerd.

It's so interesting to hear you talk about a very different experience than I had. I just wonder if you came in contact with people that had, or maybe two years down the road were talking about some of the not-so-great peer pressure or influences that they experienced at all.

Shima Oliaee: Even from the [crosstalk]--

Amanda: Go ahead.

Shima Oliaee: Yes. Go ahead,

Brian Lehrer: Shima. Go ahead.

Shima Oliaee: Okay. Great. You will hear some of my recollections from that time of times that I felt very uncomfortable when I was there as a teenager, but also-- I was there when it was called Junior Miss too. What I saw in this year's class is that the kind of girl applying is a little bit more diverse than my time. You will meet girls that feel very alone. You will hear directly from them. You will hear them critique the program.

The episode two title is literally, What Am I Even Doing Here? That is a direct quote. Every episode title is a direct quote from a girl. You get that. There was one girl who got runner-up at her state program, and two weeks before she gets an email like, "Will you come or call?" She shows up. That's the other thing. As much as it's very exciting to see so many girls who are really going for it, it's also so intimidating because you start to recognize, you might not have what everyone else has.

You might not have had access to the same classes, to the same even monetary funds to fund your way there or fund the things you have to wear there on stage, even for your talent routine. The inequality in America is also something that you have to stare in the face. There is a girl who feels just like you did. Her journey is one of the best and most heartbreaking and heartwarming of the show. Yes. Anyway, I hope it's-- I don't want to say who it is, but I'm sure if you listen, you'll find out.

Brian Lehrer: You are not obligated to come out with spoilers of your own podcast. Amanda, thank you for your call. We leave it there with Shima Oliaee, host and creator now of The Competition, amazing podcast series from her Shirazad Productions and Wondery, wherever you get your podcast. Shima, thank you so much for sharing this with us.

Shima Oliaee: Thank you, Brian, for having me.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.