Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 | 7:26 a.m.
Jeff German's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the Sun. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4067.
Last week the nation's porn stars were in Las Vegas promoting the adult side of the Consumer Electronics Show.
This week the Miss America pageant is in town.
In a city that markets itself under the slogan, "What happens here, stays here," how are we able to attract such a symbol of American purity?
The simple answer, according to Michael Green, a history professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada, is that we do it because we can.
"It's totally contradictory, but so is Las Vegas," Green says. "We've always had this contradictory set of images about ourselves, and if we ever change, we're going to be in trouble."
We thrive as a world-class destination because we are constantly reinventing ourselves.
"Las Vegas has always been perceived as just a little bit dirty," Green explains. "But almost always we have sold the idea that you can come here and do something you can't do somewhere else."
Miss America, struggling to overcome falling television ratings in recent years, has bought into that theory. It's hoping Las Vegas will give it a naughtier edge.
People and various organizations always seem to tailor their image of us to fit their own needs and social values.
It's why the National Football League won't let us advertise during the Super Bowl, but the National Basketball Association wants us to host its all-star game next year.
Today's image is anything goes in Las Vegas.
"But you don't have to go back too far, to the early and mid-1990s, when people had the impression that Ward and June Cleaver were here," Green says.
Logically, that would have been the time for Miss America to come to Las Vegas.
Prior to the 1990s Las Vegas had a very different image. It was considered open territory for the nation's organized crime families.
And yet, as Green explains: "I'm sure there are people who come here today certain that there will be a mob hit at the next table, even though the mob has been out of here for two decades."
We are whatever people want us to be.
"Vegas offers something for everyone," says Vince Alberta, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. "You have that freedom of choice when you come here."
The Rev. Tom Grey, a longtime national gambling critic, however, isn't so sure that's a good thing for the people who live in Las Vegas.
"You are a city of extremes, and whenever you have that, you leave yourself open to the question of what are you going to evolve into and what effect it will have on the people of the community," he says.
But even Gray, a Methodist minister from Illinois, marvels at the adaptability of Las Vegas.
"In Las Vegas it's not build it and they will come," he says. "It's host it and they will come."
Miss America is simply the latest traveler to follow the road to Sin City.
The pageant's promoters haven't even thought twice about the irony of being welcomed here by our mayor -- a hard-drinking former mob lawyer who promoted the city last year by posing as a Playboy photographer.
Then again nobody is surprised that Miss America is in town, either.
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