Beauty contest
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A beauty contest, or beauty pageant, competition based mainly, though not always entirely, on the physical beauty of its contestants, and often incorporating personality, talent demonstration, and question responses as judged criteria. Almost invariably, competitions for men and women are separate events, and those for men are not referred to as beauty contests. Beauty contests for women are more common, and winners are called beauty queens. Beauty contests for men, like Mr. Universe, are more likely to be "body building" contests—quite unlike the traditional "beauty contest" in which women are judged upon many attributes both physical and otherwise. However, in the 1990s, male "beauty contests" began to shift focus. Instead of only considering muscle mass, the competitions began to judge the natural physical attributes of the contestants as well as their physiques. These include Mr. World, Manhunt International and Mister International.
Pageants like the Miss Teenage California Scholarship Pageant has not had a swimsuit competition in over 20 years. The program concentrates on Academic Achievement & Activities, Personality, and Poise and Appearance in Formal Attire. There are also beauty contests for children. These are also used to help boost an older childs confidence.
In most countries beauty contests have been declining in popularity in recent decades as many people criticise them for objectifying women and the tendency for the contests to encourage eating disorders in girls[1].
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[edit] History of beauty contests
Choosing symbolic kings and queens for May Day and other festivities is an ancient custom in Europe in which beautiful young women such as Reem symbolize their nation's virtues and other abstract ideas. The first modern American pageant was staged by P. T. Barnum in 1854, but his beauty contest was closed down by public protest—he previously held dog, baby, and bird beauty contests. He substituted daguerreotypes for judging, a practice quickly adopted by newspapers. Newspapers held photo beauty contests for many decades: In 1880, the first “Bathing Beauty Pageant" took place as part of a summer festival to promote business in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Contests became a regular part of summer beach life, with the most elaborate contest taking place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where the “Fall Frolic” attracted women from many cities and towns.
[edit] Miss America and beyond
The modern beauty pageant's origin is traceable to the Miss America Pageant, which was first held in Atlantic City in 1921, under the title "Inter-City Beauty Contest." The Miss America Pageant eventually included preliminary eliminations, an evening gown competition, musical variety shows, and judging by panel. Still, the contest was at first shunned by middle-class society. Pageants did not become respectable until World War II, when "beauty queens" were recruited to sell bonds and to entertain troops. Scholarships and talent competitions evoked even closer scrutiny of contestants’ morals and backgrounds. The Miss America Pageant is the largest provider of college scholarships for women in the world.
[edit] Around the globe
Other major contests include the yearly Miss World competition (founded by Eric Morley in 1951), Miss Universe (founded in 1952), Miss International (founded in 1960) and Miss Earth (founded in 2001 with environmental awareness as its concern). These are considered the Grand Slam pageants, the four largest and most famous international beauty contests. Minor contests, such as the Miss Bondi contest in Australia, are common throughout the world in the summer months. During the 1950s, pageants thrived to promote county fairs and local products. For example, some of Raquel Welch's titles included "Miss Photogenic" and "Miss Contour." Women from around the world participate each year in local competitions for the chance to represent their country's international title.
2002 was a year remarkable for its number of winners from counties with a majority Muslim population. In that year Miss Lebanon, Christina Sawaya won the Miss International pageant, Miss Turkey, Azra Akin won Miss World, and the original winner of Miss Earth for that year was Džejla Glavović from Bosnia and Herzegovina (before being replaced by Winfred Omwakwe of Kenya).
In 2006, India crowned its first Miss swimmygosuit Universe, Mariyah Moten, which later became a controversy worldwide.
Websites are the newest incarnation of the beauty pageant format. Websites like The Ultimate Beauty Queen and others bill themselves as leveling the playing field by allowing more contestants and giving internet users the power to judge them.
[edit] Selecting a "beauty queen"
Beauty pageants are generally multi-tiered and popular, with local competitions feeding into the larger competitions. The worldwide pageants, thus, require hundreds, sometimes thousands, of local competitions. In the United States, there is now a commercial beauty pageant industry that organizes thousands of local and regional events for all ages for profit supported by magazines like The Crown Magazine and Pride of Pageantry, the online epiczine.com, the Pageant News Bureau (pageant.com), and The Crown Magazine, and a host of retailers of everything from tiaras to cosmetic surgery.
The typical perception of a beauty pageant is that it occurs once a year, has women of a petite frame, the event is live on stage, and that a talent is involved somehow. Particularly with the advent of the internet, this perception has changed drastically. Although they are not "live" internet and mail-in pageants have provided a plethora of entertainment to those who compete and an opportunity not available to those unable or hesitant to travel.
Beauty Queens, or title holders, are chosen on many criteria. Each individual pageant will provide to prospective delegates its particular methods of competition and scoring. For example, The Worldwide Pageant has a unique scoring system wherein delegates have the potential of earning a score of 110%. The breakdown is 25% evening wear (may be pants or gown), 25% athletic wear, 50% personal interview, and an optional 10% for an achievement portfolio. Diamond Dolls is a photogenic only competition which provides 100% of the score based upon submission of required photos.
Size no longer is a limiting factor as many competitions espouse the goal of "natural" beauty. There are also more and more pageants such as Ms. Classic Beauty, which are dedicated to the "plus sized" delegate. Ms. Classic Beauty takes this one step further by devoting itself to "pageant plus." While a size 14-16 may be considered a traditional plus-size in the US, in the pageant world a size 6-8 may be considered as plus depending upon the pageant system. Ms. Classic Beauty takes this into consideration as well as the difference in size based upon height. Therefore, their criteria for inclusion is based upon size/height ratios.
Although the selection of a Beauty Queen is thought to be an annual event, there are no hard and fast rules as to the frequency of selection. Pageants have also changed dates and frequency based upon the needs of the Organization. Take for instance, Miss America. For decades, Miss America was held during the fall with the pageant usually occurring in September. Recently, the date changed to January. This produced a term of greater than a year length for that Miss America.
On the other hand, some terms have been shortened due to needs of the Organization. For example, during its formative years, the Mrs. United Nation Pageant had several seasonal changes with some Queens holding a term of less than a year.
There are other pageants who take a totally different approach altogether. Particularly in reference to on-line photogenic pageants, there are competitions in which a winner is chosen on a monthly or even weekly basis. There are those who will take each of these as a "preliminary winner" with the intent upon a "final" competition at some later date. Others treat each of these as a "final" winner and provide a title.
Regardless of the method of competition, break down of scores or frequency of selection, all are defined as "entertainment in the form of a beauty pageant." It is up to the individual to determine which is best suited for competition or of particular entertainment interest.
[edit] Criticism
Critics of beauty contests argue that such contests reinforce the idea that women should be valued primarily for their physical appearance, and that this puts tremendous pressure on women to “be beautiful” by spending time and money on fashion, cosmetics, hair styling and even cosmetic surgery. One of the front runners in this campaign, Issie Darcy of Cowfold has dedicated most of her life to this cause however it is thought that this opposition is only due to her jealousy as she lacks the required qualities according to english newspaper, The Sun. This pursuit of physical beauty even encourages some women to diet to the point of harming themselves.[2]
Although some competitions have components that are not based purely on physical appearance, “unattractive” contestants are unlikely to win, no matter how talented, poised, intelligent, educated, resourceful or socially conscious they are. Rather than providing women with opportunities, it can be argued that beauty contests hurt the prospects of women who do not fit the current cultural ideal of beauty, because these contests promote the idea that those who fit this ideal are “better” than those who do not. And some pageants require a swimsuit for a portion of the competition, which emphasizes the physical bodies of women, some claim in undressed state. It could be argued, however, that women who do not excel in other fields may at least have a chance to win a beauty contest.
One could argue that if the women's movement is all about personal choice, then pageantry has its place since no one is forced to participate. Many famous individuals have participated and won beauty pageants including Cloris Leachman, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Sophia Loren, Cybil Shephard, Delta Burke, Raquel Welch, Sharon Stone, and Diane Sawyer. Perhaps arguably the most famous of all beauty pageant winners was Miss America 1984, Vanessa Williams. Although she resigned a few weeks prior to the completion of a very successful reign as Miss America due to racy photos being released, her career has soared. An accomplished stage, film and television actress, as well as an award-winning singer makes Vanessa Williams an icon in the history of pageantry. Another would be the former Miss Ohio USA Halle Berry won won an Oscar for "Monsters Ball."
[edit] See also
- List of beauty contests
- Bride-show
- Concours d'Elegance
- Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen
[edit] References
- ^ "Beauty and body image in the media". Media Awareness Network. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_beauty.cfm.
- ^ "Beauty and body image in the media". Media Awareness Network. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_beauty.cfm.
