My Two Cents On Miss 2010

So I'm a bit late to the scene to talk about the Playmate of the Year selection this year, I apologize. We did all see this coming, what with Playboy's obvious hint and all, and it was made official last week: Hope Dworaczyk is the 2010 PMOY.

As you all know by now, I ranked Hope a paltry #8 on my rankings for 2010. It was perhaps the lowest I've ever ranked a PMOY winner. Some might have thought I was crazy, and may still call me crazy for what I'm doing now - standing by my choice. Hope still stands low on my rankings for all the Class of 2009. There is no way Hope deserved the title above many of the other lovely ladies, especially Kim Phillips, Jessica Burciaga, and Dasha Astafieva, who were all incredible Playmates.

I've argued from the very beginning that Hope's fatal flaw has been her utter lack of material. Sure, she is a very beautiful girl, what with her great height and interesting features. But, she's no Dasha, or Kimberly, or Jess. She doesn't deliver the way those girls do, and she still hasn't with her PMOY pictorial.

An examination of her winner's pictorial shows that she just doesn't have the range and versatility to carry an entire collection of photos. Although she's incredibly curvy and beautiful in certain angles, she ultimately has a difficult body to shoot properly. Oftentimes, her thighs look too large, and her head too small. The way to photograph a girl like Hope is to accentuate her height, not her proportions. This comes across great when she's prone, or when her entire body isn't shot full-on.

Now, before you all get enraged at my denouncing of a clear fan favorite and the rightful winner of the crown (democratically, that is), you need to know that I think Hope has great potential to be shot well. The proof? Hope's Playmate Preview pictorial was spectacular, before her PMOM series took her out of the race, in my eyes. Shot for shot, it offered the very best of Miss April, complete with a very flattering outfit, just the right amount of touch-ups for hair and makeup, and had great poses. Hope was meant to kneel on the bed and lay down prone -- exactly the poses that such a sizable girl should be making. The preview pictorial is proof that what we have here is a very capable and beautiful model, but once again, Playboy overthought the concept, and ruined the moment.

Can we have that old Miss Dworaczyk back? The one with the fluttery hair and the bright lighting? Unfortunately, no. What we have here is a girl who probably didn't deserve to win in a deep and incredibly talented Class of '09. In terms of talent, perhaps we haven't truly seen what Hope can offer to justify the choice.