I’ve been trying for years, to no avail, to get my feminist friends to see the contradiction inherent in their opposition to beauty pageants. They continually insist that, like prostitution, these pageants degrade women and only reinforce traditional notions of male chauvinism.
My more evolved and consistent view is that, like prostitution, beauty pageants reflect the choices feminists fought so hard for women to be free to make. This is why I see nothing wrong with fully liberated and intelligent women choosing to be prostitutes (whose profession should be decriminalized) or beauty queens. It is also why I accuse my feminist friends of engaging in an ironic form of paternalism by hurling indignation at women who make these choices.
My only criticism of the more popular pageants, namely Miss USA and Miss Universe, is that they seem to have morphed into little more than just another franchise in the growing reality-TV enterprise of their owner, Donald Trump. And nothing demonstrates this quite like reports that Trump has as much of a hand in picking the finalists in his pageants as he does in determining who gets fired on The Apprentice.
The choreographer of the Miss Universe pageant has claimed in an interview that Donald Trump hand picks 6 of the 15 finalists in the pageant…
‘At all the shows, he pops in the day before the telecast and we line up all the girls in alphabetical order behind microphones. And they say their name, age and country.
‘Then we line them up in alphabetical order in one single file line across the stage. And he basically walks by and has an assistant that takes notes on all the girls. And it’s just kind of common knowledge that he picks six of the top 15 single-handedly.’
(The New York Daily News, September 2, 2009)
Granted, this begs the question: How then does Trump pick the winner? Well, let’s just say that it’s very easy for him to indicate to his hand-picked judges who he thinks should be crowned. And it’s reasonable to assume that none of the judges would want to disappoint The Donald.
That said, it came as little surprise that my sentimental picks, Miss Bahamas and Miss Turks and Caicos Islands, did not even make the first cut during Monday’s live telecast of the 60th anniversary of the Miss Universe pageant from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
And I’m ashamed to confess that my cynicism is such that when Miss Angola Leila Lopes was the only black contestant who made the first cut to 15, I exclaimed out loud, “well, she’s just the politically correct token black.”
Mind you, I am ashamed only because this reaction betrayed the fact that Miss Angola was so clearly the “fairest” of them all that even Donald Trump could not deny it. Indeed, she became my (real) pick even before the 15 were cut down to the five finalists. And, naturally, when she handled the final question and answer as follows, I felt certain she would win:
JUDGE LEA SOLANGA: Good evening. If you could change one of your personal characteristics, which one would it be and why?
MISS ANGOLA: Thank God, I’m very well satisfied with the way God created me and I would not change a thing. I consider myself a woman with inner beauty. I have my principles. I have acquired many wonderful principles from my family and I plan to follow this through the rest of my life.
In other words, she said it loud, I’m black and I’m proud!
All the same, I should hasten to note how comforting it is that there was no cause to preface her coronation by proclaiming her “the first black” to wear the crown. After all, black women have been winning beauty pageants with such regularity in recent times, including this one which Miss Trinidad and Tobago Janelle Commissiong was the first black to win in 1977, that Miss Angola’s race is clearly no big deal.
Of course, I would be remiss not to acknowledge that her selection was greatly enhanced by the fact that Angolans and Brazilians share the relatively rare mother tongue of their former colonial masters, the Portuguese. But it is a testament to Miss Angola’s undeniable beauty that she seemed even more popular among the locals than (the white) Miss Brazil.
Congratulations Angola on your native daughter being crowned Miss Universe!
NOTE: First runner-up was Miss Ukraine; second was Miss Brazil; third was Miss Philippines; and fourth was Miss China. Like my sentimental favorites, Miss USA, who many pageant observers reportedly thought would win, did not even make the cut. But they can’t blame this too on the first black president of the United States because the Miss USA contestant hasn’t won this pageant since 1997.