by Taylor Ruckle (@TaylorRuckle)
“There She Is, Miss America” played over the PA as Caroline Weinroth of Cinema Hearts made her way to the mic on the crowded rooftop terrace of DC’s MLK public library. Decked out in her sash and tiara, mugging with her most self-deprecating award-show face, she handed out roses to her hometown audience. For a second, you could have forgotten you were at an installment of the Punk Archive’s summer show series, but then Weinroth joined her band and picked up her guitar. The floor shook and her voice rose to a shriek as she delivered the chorus of her latest single “Your Ideal,” eyes rolling: “I wanna be, I wanna be your ideal / My favorite woman is the one that’s not real.”
You may be familiar with this riff on idealized femininity from the prom queen aesthetics of Pom Pom Squad, Olivia Rodrigo, and yes, Courtney Love (who gets a shout-out in the song). It works as a visual extension of the sequined surf rock guitars and girl group harmonies of Cinema Hearts’ new Bartees Strange-produced EP, also called Your Ideal, but for Weinroth it stems from her experience as the winner of Miss Mountain Laurel, a local preliminary to Miss America. Her pageant success came with a grad school scholarship, a larger stage to advance her platform of empowerment through the arts, and a shot at the Miss Virginia crown. It also came with a high standard to live up to, hence: “My favorite woman is the one that’s not real.”
Weinroth was careful to explain the nuance of that line when I interviewed her back in 2017, shortly after she wrote it (she would go on to win Miss Northern Virginia and Miss Roanoke Valley in subsequent years). “All the women who compete in pageants, they’re very real, and that’s the kind of person who you want to win and represent your pageant,” she said. “But I was trying so hard to be something that wasn’t real and wasn’t attainable. The song is less about pageantry and more about the pressure I put on myself to be perfect.” See also: the video for “Your Ideal,” where that pressure erupts and sends a pageant stage into chaos, Weinroth grinning in her tiara as black goop pours out of her mouth and covers her arms.
In five songs with infectiously catchy 50s progressions, the EP narrates the highs and lows of the Miss Virginia experience with a similar blend of high camp and disarming realness. Opener “Mirror,” with synth harps and cymbal flourishes to complement Weinroth’s theatrical delivery, may as well be accompanied by a spotlight flicking on and red velvet curtains going up. Contrast that glamor with lyrics about objectification and the grueling travel demands of pageant life (the subtext being that it’s not so different from DIY touring). You can sway and sigh and slow dance to it, as well you should, but you don’t get the feeling Weinroth is just being melodramatic when she talks about closing her eyes in the middle of the mountain highway drives that took her to competitions.
You feel the loneliness even more urgently in the chorused guitar lament “Every Day Is a Day Without You,” where it becomes fuel for a talent-portion spectacle, the key rising higher and higher as Weinroth builds to a grand finale. The one bittersweet moment of camaraderie shows up in the slow, synthy closer “Sister,” where she dreamily reflects on the other women she’s met through pageants–though she remarked at the library show that she’s found indie music to be a more welcoming scene. Being Miss DIY DMV doesn’t come with a crown, and there’s probably not much money in it either, but whatever its many gatekeepers will tell you, it also doesn't have to be a competition. Especially not for a band like Cinema Hearts, whose unabashed femininity, Broadway drama, and punk ethic put them in a refreshing lane allall their own.