Local Media React to Ms. Mason Pick
By Broadside Managing Editor Sherell Williams
- The election of 22-year-old senior Ryan Allen’s drag persona Reann Ballsee as Ms. Mason at last week’s Homecoming game against Northeastern University has made local headlines.
This past weekend, The Washington Post ran a feature story about Allen with the headline “Work That Tiara, Boy!” and suggested a “campus divide” over the selection of a male for Ms. Mason by the George Mason University student body. Local outlets such as WJLA ABC 7 and the Washington, D.C. bureau of MSNBC also ran stories about the election.
Soon after the story was picked up by the Associated Press wire, other news sources such as U.S. News & World Report, USATODAY.com, FoxNews.com, and HuffingtonPost.com published the story on their websites. Celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton offered Allen his congratulations on his website perezhilton.com and coverage of the election went as far as being featured on the Brazilian website g1.globo.com.
"I think people are making this into something much bigger than necessary. I think it does not reflect badly on the school because it was just a matter of Ryan getting more of his friends to vote for him,” said Ricky Malebranche, who was chosen as Mr. Mason.
“[Allen’s win] did show that Mason will hold true to being a diverse campus even when things become controversial and that to me is something to be proud of,” said Malebranche.
Vicki Kirsch, associate director of Women & Gender Studies, commented on the DC Pop Culture Examiner’s article on their website, calling the election a “significant and positive benchmark in Mason's history,” while sophomore Grant Bollinger was quoted in The Washington Post as saying, “it’s really annoying. All eyes were on us. And we do something like this? It’s just stupid.”
Despite the differing opinions within the Mason community, University Press Secretary Dan Walsch told The Washington Post that the university was “very comfortable” with the choice since the rules of the pageant do not specify gender for the contestants, despite the connotation of the titles.
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