- [Amber is being filmed in her bedroom in her trailer. Annette is heard coughing]
- Amber Atkins: That's my mom.
- Annette Atkins: [from outside] Hey, Amber, did ya get my smokes?
- Amber Atkins: Oh, yah, I'll get 'em in a sec.
- Annette Atkins: [walks in and sees the camera crew] Aw, shit.
- Amber Atkins: Oh, they're from Los Angeles. They wanted to see my room and film me for their movie.
- Annette Atkins: Yah, well, if they ask you to take your top off, get the money first.
- [she leaves the room]
- Annette Atkins: And go get my smokes!
- Amber Atkins: My mom never hid the fact that my dad chose his career over us. What was it she always said?
- Loretta: Once a carnie, always a carnie.
- Amber Atkins: Mom still cries every time she sees a tilt-a-whirl or a fat lady in a tube top.
- Pastor: And so, dear Lord, it is with deep sadness that we turn over to you this young woman, whose dream to ride on a giant swan resulted in her death. Maybe it is your way of telling us... to buy American.
- Mount Rose Mayor: [about the town sign, which says "Home of Freda Hegstrom, Minnesota's Oldest Living Lutheran"] Oh, yeah, sure, Freda, sure. She was the oldest living Lutheran, now she's dead as a doornail. It's the damn Shriners who won't take down the Goddamn sign, the lazy sons of bitches. Every year, every damn year, I tell 'em, "Take down the Goddamn Freda sign, you lazy sons of bitches!"
- Loretta: Why do I think Becky'll win? You're talking about the richest family in a small town. It's front page news when one of them takes a shit.
- Becky Ann Leeman: [holding up a pistol] My mom gave me this 9-mil for my 13th birthday. Yeah. I'll always remember what she put on the card, "Jesus Loves Winners". That's why no matter what I do, I aim to win.
- Loretta: Say, you boys been to the Leemans'?
- Annette Atkins: Shut it, Loretta.
- Loretta: If ya have, you got all the pictures of the winner you need.
- Annette Atkins: [giving her hair a yank] Shut up, Loretta.
- Loretta: Let's just say who should win, who deserves to win, is Amber.
- Annette Atkins: Who don't you just pin a big old target on your ass?
- Loretta: She's the prettiest, ya know. Best damn tapper. The most smartest.
- Annette Atkins: Most smartest? Oh, that's great, you're real educated. Most smartest! Get a picture of that, most smartest!
- Loretta: Most smartest.
- Amber Atkins: [crying after her tap costume disappears] I just wanted to compete.
- Lisa Swenson: I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe she said...
- [thinks for a moment than takes her jacket off]
- Lisa Swenson: Amber, here, my jacket, take it, cos you know I know I got my costume OK'd a month ago before the pageant, you can wear it! Come on, put it on, here...
- Michelle Johnson: Oh wow... Lisa, I don't think you should do this.
- Leslie Miller: They're never gonna let you perform naked. I asked.
- Lisa Swenson: Shut up, you guys.
- Amber Atkins: No...
- Lisa Swenson: Amber, I'm not goin' to win. OK? And let's be honest our family only needs one Liza and Peter's got much better legs than me.
- Amber Atkins: Your parents'll kill ya.
- Lisa Swenson: Come on, I love 'em... And you know that they only had me cos Peter needed that kidney.
- Loretta: What is wrong with you?
- Amber Atkins: I don't know. I just didn't wanna win like this.
- Loretta: You stop right there. You are a good person. Good things happen to good people.
- Amber Atkins: Really?
- Loretta: No. It's pure bullshit, sweetie. You're lucky as hell, so you might as well enjoy it.
- Amber Atkins: Okay.
- Loretta: Do you guys want some shots? I'm buyin'!
- Candy Striper: Hello, Miss Sad Pants, and her friend, Serious Sally! How about a nice cool mint to help turn those frowns upside down?
- Loretta: Do you think a nice cool mint would help if I shoved your head up your ass?
- Mary Johanson: With one week to go before the pageant, I was finishing my outfit, rehearsing my talent, brushing up on current events, and running 18 miles a day on about 400 calories. I was ready.
- Hank Vilmes: Harold, are we on COPS? Are we on COPS? Are we on COPS, Harold?
- Harold Vilmes: Shut up, Hanky, this here's business.
- [Harold gives Hank a smack on the head]
- Hank Vilmes: Ow! Harold, Mom said not in the head!
- Harold Vilmes: Well, Mom's dead, so shut your fly trap.
- Hank Vilmes: I will if you shut your piehole.
- [Harold starts fighting with Hank]
- Harold Vilmes: Don't make me kick ya where the good Lord split ya!
- Iris Clark: Amber, I'm sorry, I really am, but you know the rules. All talent costumes have to be OK'd by Gladys before the pageant.
- Amber Atkins: But doesn't someone taking your costume so you can't compete overrule that rule?
- Iris Clark: Amber, I'm sorry, I don't make up the rules.
- Amber Atkins: Oh! This... This is bullshit!
- Iris Clark: Amber Atkins, that is not American Teen Princess language!
- Amber Atkins: Good, cos this isn't an American Teen Princess Pageant! This is... This is... This is Nazi Germany!
- [she storms off]
- Iris Clark: [to the camera] Where do they get this stuff?
- Amber Atkins: Yah, my ma's clothes all melted onto mine forming, like, this big polyester meteor in our closet, y'know? But, in some kinda weird miracle, our neighbor boy, Kenny Hanson, found my tap costume on the roof o' their trailer while he was settin' coon traps for his dad. Here's the weird part: it was still on the hanger.
- Amber Atkins: [Running onto the scene of her and her mom's blown up trailer home] Mom? MOM?
- Fireman: Whoa, whoa, whoa... you family?
- Loretta: No, she's just yelling, "Mom, mom," because she has Tourettes! She's Annette's kid, dipshit.
- Cop #1: Oh yah, hell of a way to go there. After some thorough investigating we determined that the Curry girl must have been smoking and driving.
- [cut to Amber working in the funeral home]
- Amber Atkins: Well yah, Tammy liked to drive her dad's thresher, but I mean... I mean she said the heavy vibration helped her think. But I know for a fact Tammy only smoked AFTER a good drive. You ask me, or anyone who isn't scared to talk about it, Tammy was murdered. Oh God, I bet Diane Sawyer never had to deal with crap like this.
- Amber Atkins: [as Annette is being driven away in an ambulance] Mom! I'll be right behind you in the hearse!
- Loretta: Don't let that worry you, Annette!
- Gladys Leeman: [wearing her old pageant outfit] And can you believe it, they still fit!
- Loretta: She had a big ass then, she's got a big ass now.
- Voice of Documentarian: [Gladys has just thought of a theme for the pageant: Proud to be an American] So what was the theme of the pageant last year?
- Gladys Leeman: Oh, that was "Buy American"
- Voice of Documentarian: And the year before that was...?
- Gladys Leeman: "USA is A-OK!"
- Voice of Documentarian: And can you remember the theme of your favorite pageant?
- Gladys Leeman: Can I? "Amer-I-Can!" People ask me where I get this, I don't know, it's... maybe a gift from God or somethin'.
- [the documentary crew are filming the reigning local pageant winner, a hospitalized anorexic girl. Amber is doing her hair]
- Becky Ann Leeman: [entering with a box of chocolates] What? Oh my God, lights, camera and me without a stitch of makeup on! What are you guys doing here?
- Amber Atkins: What are you doing here?
- Becky Ann Leeman: Oh, Amber, like you're the only one who visits Mary.
- Mary Johanson: Who are you?
- Becky Ann Leeman: Who are you? Oh, Mary, you kill me!
- [to the camera]
- Becky Ann Leeman: She always says that, it's a little game we play, every week, same dippy little look on her face, "Who are you? Who are you?" Just like that. It's me, Becky. Mmmm, and I brought your favourites.
- [she gives her the box of chocolates]
- Amber Atkins: Real nice, Becky, she's anorexic.
- Becky Ann Leeman: [covering Mary's ears] She's skinny, Amber, not deaf.
- Loretta: Can one of you boys give me a ride home?
- Annette Atkins: Don't fall for it. She lives two trailers down.
- Loretta: So? Be real easy.
- Annette Atkins: [pushing her out the door] Go on home, Loretta. Come on. Go on, go on the party's over.
- Gladys Leeman: [looking for a parking space] You'd think they'd have the parking lot of America to go with the Mall of America.
- [Gladys parks in a handicapped parking space]
- Iris Clark: That's a $200 fine!
- Gladys Leeman: I told ya I would move the car if a cripple came. Now just run in the store and pick out some outfits.
- Amber Atkins: [shaken after seeing her mom in the hospital] Ummm. I'm quitting the pagent.
- Loretta: [grabbing and shaking Amber] You're WHAT?
- Amber Atkins: I'm quitting the...
- Loretta: I heard you! I was just trying to get you to change your mind. Amber, the woman clung to your tap shoes while she was flying through the air like a goddamn lawn dart!
- Colleen Douglas: I can sum up our entire philosophy with this glass. I can look at it and say it's half-full, which in the beauty pageant biz means "Where the hell's my waiter?"
- Annette Atkins: I wish my mom was here.
- Loretta: You can wave Hi, Annette you hear that?
- [Amber waves at the camera]
- Amber Atkins: Hi, Monkey.
- [Annette waves up to the TV]
- Loretta: I got some
- [she starts laughing]
- Amber Atkins: [Annette laughs again and sticks her thumb up at the TV]
- Voice of Documentarian: So you've, uh, you've judged a lot of pageants over the years?
- John: No, no, no way, no. Never judged a pageant before in my life. Mm-mm. No way. Never been around young girls. I mean, even if I was, I mean, why would I wanna be, y'know? I-I don't get off on that kinda thing and that's really why you're askin', right?
- [pause]
- John: Someone say somethin'?
- [answering "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"]
- Becky Ann Leeman: I'd have good strong roots in a town like Mt. Rose, a solid Christian trunk, and long, leafy branches to provide shade for handicapped kids on a hot summer day.
- Voice of Documentarian: Do you think that most people would say that teenage beauty pageants are a good idea?
- Gladys Leeman: Oh yeah, sure. I know what some of your big city, no-bra-wearing, hairy-legged women libbers might say. They might say that a pageant is old-fashioned and demeaning to the girls.
- Iris Clark: What's sick is women dressing like men.
- Gladys Leeman: You betcha, Iris. No, I think you boys are gonna find something a litle bit different here in Mount Rose. For one thing, we're all God-fearing folk, every last one of us. And you will not find a "back room" in our video store. No, no, that filth is better left to the sin cities.
- Iris Clark: AKA Minneapolis Saint Paul.
- Crew Guy: Fuckin' beauty queens blowing chunks everywhere. I-I've never seen anything like it before, and I live in L.A.
- Lisa Swenson: [being interviewed for the documentary] I fell in love with the big apple last summer when I was visiting my brother Peter there. He followed his dream all the way to New York... Wait, this is Peter as Liza. This is him as Madonna...
- [she kisses the picture]
- Lisa Swenson: This is Barbara.
- Leslie Miller: Oh yeah... really nervous... it's been about, 2 months. I haven't told my boyfriend yet. How did you know?
- [pauses]
- Leslie Miller: OH! You mean about the pageant! Yeah!
- Terry Macey: [when the contestants all start throwing up] Somebody call a doctor!
- Colleen Douglas: A doctor? Somebody call a priest!
- Annette Atkins: I shoved your tap shoes in my panties before I was blown out of the house. You go find the guy who cut 'em off.
- Harold Vilmes: [to Hank] Here's your paint can. And the next time you drink window cleaner, I'm just gonna leave it in you!
- Connie Rudrüd: [commercial featuring a former beauty queen turned actress] In fact, I love St. Paul Pork Products so much, I work here now!
- Harold Vilmes: So, who gets the crown? How are you going to figure this all out?
- John: Well, you know, we'll, uh, compare scores and, uh, figure out a winner because, I mean, we don't know who the winner is yet. I mean, I have no idea who Jean picked, or Harold... No idea.
- Hank Vilmes: I know who da winner is. I know who da winner - Harold! I know who da winner is!
- John: That's it... You shut your Goddamn mouth, you shut your Goddamn mouth you Goddamn retard!
- [he climbs over the table and jumps onto Hank, wrestling him to floor]
- Harold Vilmes: [pulling John away and pushing him into chair] Come on! Back off, college boy, now listen...
- [he pulls John's tie and it rips off - it's a clip-on]
- Harold Vilmes: Hanky here can't help it if he was born crazier than a shit house rat!
- John: Well, for fuck's sake, why didn't you leave him with a sitter?
- [Hank starts to cry]
- Harold Vilmes: Nice, John. That's real nice... You know the babysitter's dead!
- Terry Macey: And you are...
- Amber Atkins: Mount Rose American Teen Princess.
- Terry Macey: Funny, you don't look dead!
- Gladys Leeman: [nearly runs over a priest] Gosh darn it! Hello, Father Donegan - Sidewalks? Sidewalks?
- [Iris mimes drinking - "glug, glug"]
- Gladys Leeman: Iris, stop it. It's not his fault, the communal wine just proves too tempting for some of them.
- Iris Clark: And that's why we Lutherans use grape Kool-Aid for the blood of Christ.
- Iona Hildebrandt: I was Mount Rose American Teen Princess 1945. We were at war with the Japs. Didn't even get to keep my damn tiara. Had to turn it in for scrap.
- Gladys Leeman: [to Becky on the swan float] Rebecca Ann Leeman, what's going... You are the one that wanted this, now get up there! I don't care if you have to ride this thing side-saddle like a horse, get up there!
- Becky Ann Leeman: It smells funny. Like gasoline.
- Gladys Leeman: Oh, for Christ's sake! Everything smells like that in Mexico!
- Becky Ann Leeman: My dress will reek, Mother.
- Gladys Leeman: You listen to me now missy, this thing cost your dad a pretty penny, so you get your ass up there! And show me some teeth!
- [Becky puts on a smile]
- Gladys Leeman: Lovely, baby.
- Lars Larson: Amber, I need Stella now. The family's steaming like a cowpie in July. Said she doesn't look nothing like the picture they gave you.
- Amber Atkins: Sorry, I just thought she might not want to meet her maker looking like a cheap whore.
- Lars Larson: Well, this cheap whore is that family's loving mother.
- Lars Larson: Amber!
- Amber Atkins: [while working on Brett's corpse] If it's another stray bullet to the head, I'm gonna need more caps.
- Lars Larson: You have to go home. There's some kind of emergency at the trailer park.
- Amber Atkins: Relax, that's my ma's code for bring home milk and a carton of Lucky's.
- Lars Larson: No, Loretta called; there's been a fire!
- Colleen Douglas: Look at that one there. I think that she's had a boob job.
- Terry Macey: Oh, come on. She's too young for a boob job.
- Colleen Douglas: They do that at birth now, what are you talking about?
- Rocker Kid #1: Yo, Asswipe! Quit dickin' around with the camera!
- Rocker Kid #2: Dude, don't say ASSWIPE! Mom's got the window open!
- Rocker Kid #1: Come On we've only 2 frickin' minutes left on this camera,
- Rocker Kid #1, Rocker Kid #2: 1! 2! 1,2,3!
- [Amber's House Explodes Behind Them]
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