Where Have All The Contests Gone? : If we all grab for an egalitarian (if infinitesimal) chance at millions, does this signal the decline of literacy?

When was the last time you entered a contest? I don’t mean buying a lottery ticket, I mean a real contest.

When I was a teen-ager, I entered the Pillsbury Bake-Off. I tossed a jar of baby food (strained sweet potatoes) into a spice cake and became a finalist. Emboldened, I then entered a National Chicken Cooking Contest with my recipe for “Scarborough Fair Fowl”--flagrantly seasoned with (how did you guess?) parsley, sage, rosemary, etc. Imagine my chagrin when my little sister won with her “Saucy Italian Breasts.” That was my last attempt at cooking competitions. From then on, I devoted myself to contests requiring literary rather than culinary skills.

For years, I entered almost every 25- or 50-word contest that came my way. I ended up with a closet crammed with last-place prizes--curling irons, barbecue tools, tote bags. I finally decided to be more selective, entering fewer contests and working harder on those I chose.

One day, while thumbing through “Cosmo” (even literature professors can’t always be reading “Studies in Philology”), I saw a contest I longed to win. The grand prize was a role in a TV commercial, and all I had to do was write about a brand of deodorant. I bought a dozen bottles of the sponsor’s roll-on. After weeks of sweat-free labor, I mailed off my best efforts.

Months passed, and one morning I was awakened by a phone call from Massachusetts announcing that out of 24,000 entries I had won top prize--an all-expenses-paid trip to Hollywood (no great treat since I live in L.A.) where I would make the commercial and be pampered like a star. For a week, I would be put up at a luxurious hotel and ride in a limousine. Since I was in the middle of a term at my university, it made life difficult to be staying at the Century Plaza, especially as the limo driver didn’t know how to get to Caltech and, with my perfect sense of indirection, I wasn’t much help. Hating elevators, I was also exhausted from trudging up and down 18 flights of stairs.

Yet none of this mattered when I thought about the commercial. It might change my life. After all, hadn’t Diane Keaton originally jogged her way to fame in a deodorant ad? I wished I had started jogging years ago. Was there still time to lose 10 pounds, have my teeth capped, hire an agent, get implants, change my name?

At the studio, I was told I would merely be an extra. The prize was to be in a commercial and treated like a star, not to star in the commercial. Besides, the company felt that a professional actress-model should have the speaking role (all eight syllables). Gone were my dreams of glory.

As it turned out, it was a fascinating experience. And I did receive $155 (less $73 withheld for taxes) from Hollywood Casting Agency.

Since my Big Win, I haven’t had much success. The Chiquita company didn’t like my lyrics for a new banana tune. I wrote many a passionate passage for a Romance Contest (judged by Barbara Cartland herself) hoping to win “replicas of jewels that Princess Diana would be proud to wear.” I had fun even though all I received was a Silhouette paperback sent to everyone who entered.

Last week, I started getting excited over a 50-word contest (“Why I want to get away to St. Tropez”) until I noticed that you must include proof-of-purchase of a certain brand of cigarettes. Guess I’ll skip that one. Still, contesting is as addictive as smoking. Maybe I’ll save the entry form in case I find an empty pack.

Sadly, there are fewer and fewer real contests these days. This may strike most people as no great loss, but I suspect it is symptomatic of significant changes in our culture. Sweepstakes now dominate the contesting world. I keep a stack of 3-by-5 slips of paper in my desk and occasionally hand-print my name and address on one of them, but my heart isn’t in it. Random drawings don’t excite me: I want to be judged. I like the idea that there is a National Judging Institute somewhere. But perhaps that is precisely what many people don’t like. They would rather have the gods of chance descend on them than risk a contest meant to measure skill. After all, if you lose a sweepstakes, it doesn’t mean you’ve been found wanting.

And I wonder if the gradual disappearance of writing contests doesn’t also say something about a decline in literacy--or at least in the enjoyment of language that underlies literacy. Maybe, instead of a lottery, we need a California state essay contest. Forget about picking the winning numbers. Find some winning words. Even if you don’t win, you won’t lose.