Beauty Pageant Information

A beauty pageant or beauty contest, is a competition that mainly focuses on the physical beauty of its contestants, although such contests often incorporate personality, talent, and answers to judges' questions as judged criteria. The phrase almost invariably refers only to contests for women and girls; similar events for men or boys are called by other names and are more likely to be body building contests. Winners of beauty contests are often called beauty queens. Children's pageants mainly focus on beauty, gowns, sportswear modelling, talent, and personal interviews. Adult and teen pageants focus on makeup, hair and gowns, swimsuit modelling, and personal interviews. Possible awards include titles, tiaras or crowns, sashes, savings bonds, and cash prizes.

History

Choosing symbolic kings and queens for May Day and other festivities is an ancient custom in Europe in which beautiful young women symbolized their nations' virtues and other abstract ideas. At the Eglinton Tournament of 1839 - a re-enactment of a medieval joust and revel held in Scotland in which many distinguished guests took part and which gained much public attention at the time - a Queen of Beauty was chosen, Georgiana Sheridan, the wife of Edward Seymour, 12th Duke of Somerset and sister of noted author Caroline Norton.

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 contests taking place in Atlantic City, New Jersey (“Fall Frolic”) and Galveston, Texas ("Splash Day"), where the events attracted women from many cities and towns.^[2]

Universal produced a newsreel of the Texas Centennial Celebration beauty pageant in 1935, which shows models attempting to fit into life-sized cutouts of the Centennial Committee's concept of the "perfect figure."^[1]

Purpose

When beauty pageants began, they were viewed as “trivial events whose interpretation required no scholarly effort.” The “clubs” that each contestant supports may be referred to as “platforms.”

Some pageants award college scholarships, to the winner or multiple runners-up.^[3]

Types of pageants

In beauty pageants, there are 3 main types. Often, semi-glitz pageants do not permit the contestants to be artificially tanned. Additionally, there may be restrictions on the amount of make up that is permitted.

International Pageant of Pulchritude

In May 1920 promoter C.E. Barfield of Galveston organized a new event known as "Splash Day" on the island. The event featured a "Bathing Girl Revue" competition as the centerpiece of its attractions.^[2][4][5][6] The event was the kick-off of the summer tourist season in the city and was carried forward annually. The event quickly became known outside of Texas and, beginning in 1926, the world's first international contest was added, known as the "International Pageant of Pulchritude."^[5] This contest is said to have served as a model for modern pageants.^[6][7][8] It featured contestants from England, Russia, Turkey, and many other nations and the title awarded at the time was known as "Miss Universe."^[6][9] The event was discontinued in the United States in 1932 because of the Depression (the international competition was revived briefly in Belgium).

Around the globe

Major international contests for women 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 "Big Four" pageants, the four largest and most famous international beauty contests.^[10][11][12] 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 " Maid of San Diego County", " Maid of California" "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 countries with a majority Muslim population. In that year Miss Lebanon, Christina Sawaya won the Miss International pageant, Miss Turkey, Azra Akın 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, the Muslim nation of Pakistan crowned its first Miss Bikini Universe, Mariyah Moten, which later became a controversy worldwide.

Some beauty pageants have taken a less conventional route in modern times. In 2011, Dirty Beer Hole, a website that is popular among the users of social-media giants Twitter and Facebook, began seeking contestants for its irreverent, yet entertaining, Miss Cheap Beer beauty pageant.^[13] Additional online beauty pageants are certain to follow in this trend of online competitions.

Selecting a "beauty queen"

Beauty pageants are generally multi-tiered, with local competitions feeding into the larger competitions.

Criticism

Critics of beauty contests argue that such contests reinforce the idea that girls and women should be valued primarily for their physical appearance, and that this puts tremendous pressure on women to conform to conventional beauty standards by spending time and money on fashion, cosmetics, hair styling and even cosmetic surgery. They claim that this pursuit of physical beauty even encourages some women to diet to the point of harming themselves.^[14][15][16]

Some beauty pageants have also been found to be fraudulent. The promoters charge large fees, require additional photos or specific attire that must be purchased from a sponsor, and in some cases award a prize to a confederate within the contest.^[17][18]

See also

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Universal Newsreel (1935). "Lone Star State Selects Beauties for 100 Year Pageant". Texas Archive of the Moving Image. http://www.texasarchive.org/library/index.php?title=Lone_Star_State_Selects_Beauties_for_100_Year_Pageant&gsearch=beauties. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
2. ^ ^{a b} Stein, Elissa (2006). Beauty Queen: Here She Comes.... Chronicle Books. p. 37. ISBN 9780811848640. http://books.google.com/?id=x98xu9DPmjEC. "Revues and other Vanities: The Commodification of Fantasy in the 1920s". Assumption College. http://www1.assumption.edu/ahc/vanities/. Retrieved 2 October 2009.
3. ^ Miss Teenage California scholarship awards, from the pageant website
4. ^ "The Sloane Collection, no. 4 - Galveston Bathing Girl Revue, 1925". Story Sloane, III Collection. Texas Archive of the Moving Image. 1925. http://www.texasarchive.org/library/index.php?title=The_Sloane_Collection%2C_no._4_-_Galveston_Bathing_Girl_Revue%2C_1925. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
5. ^ ^{a b} "Miss United States Began In Galveston". The Islander Magazine. 2006. http://www.theislandermagazine.com/history/february2008/missus.html.
6. ^ ^{a b c} Cherry, Bill (25 October 2004). "Miss America was once Pageant of Pulchritude". Galveston Daily News. http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=623557678868710e&-session=TheDailyNews:4A0612E91631c3859FiIR3DFCB8A.
7. ^ Brown, Bridget (17 May 2009). "Isle bathing beauty tradition reborn". Galveston Daily News. http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=ca097dc8342ddcc5.
8. ^ Savage, Candace (1998). Beauty queens: a playful history. Abbeville. p. 33. ISBN 9781550546187. http://books.google.com/?id=x-PM9-i19aIC.
9. ^ The Billboard: 49. 25 September 1948. http://books.google.com/books?id=Tx4EAAAAMBAJ.
10. ^ "Beauty with scandals". The Standard. 21 July 2011. http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/sports/InsidePage.php?id=2000038924&cid=123. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
11. ^ "24-year-old former Tian Zhizi elected as "Miss Japan 2011"". Business Times. 4 July 2011. http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businesstimes.com.hk%2Fa-20110704-120058%2Fqiantianzhizi-japan-sister&act=url. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
12. ^ "Controversy Hounds Miss World Pageant". Philipine Headline News Online. 29 September 2006. http://www.newsflash.org/2004/02/sb/sb004301.htm. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
13. ^ "Miss Cheap Beer Beauty Pageant". http://dirtybeerhole.com/2011/06/miss-cheap-beer-pageant-2011/.
14. ^ "Beauty and body image in the media". Media Awareness Network. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_beauty.cfm. Retrieved 2009-01-17.
15. ^ "Reigning Miss Universe Suspected of Having Cosmetic Surgery". http://cosmeticsurgerytoday.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/reigning-miss-universe-suspected-of-having-cosmetic-surgery/. Retrieved 2010-08-23.
16. ^ "Plastic Surgery: Bollywood, Miss Universe, and the Indian Girl Next Door". Gujarati Magazine (Sandesh). http://www.shahfacialplastics.com/media/plastic_surgery_bollywood.pdf. Retrieved 2010-08-23.
17. ^ http://www.bbb.org/us/post/dont-be-fooled-by-beauty-pageant-scams--2253
18. ^ http://www.modelingscams.org/beautypageantscam.html

References

1. Sones, Michael. "History of the Beauty Pageant." Beauty Worlds: The Culture of Beauty (2003): n. pag. Web. 4 November 2009.
2. Liben, Lynn S., Rebecca S. Bigler, Diane N Ruble, Carol Lynn Martin, and Kimberly K. Powlishta. "Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Evaluating Constructs and Pathways." Developmental Course of Gender Differentiation. 67.2 i-183. Print.
3. Harvey, Adia M. "Becoming Entrepreneurs: Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender at the Black Beauty Salon." Gender and Society. 19.6 (2005): 789-808. Print.
4. Craig, Maxine. "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity.." American Journal of Sociology. 105.6 (2000): 1805-1806. Print.
5. Wilk, Richard. "The Local and the Global in the Political Economy of Beauty: From Miss Belize to Miss World." Review of International Political Economy. 2.1 (1995): 117-134. Print.
6. Burgess, Zena, and Phyllis Tharenou. "Women Board Directors: Characteristics of the Few." Journal of Business Ethics. 37.1 (2002): 39-49. Print.
7. Huffman, Matt L., and Philip N. Cohen. "Occupational Segregation and the Gender Gap in Workplace Authority: National versus Local Labor Markets." Sociological Forum. 19.1 (2004): 121-147. Print.
8. Ciborra, Claudio U. "The Platform Organization: Recombining Strategies, Structures, and Surprises." Organization Science. 7.2 (1996): 103-118. Print.
9. Lamsa, Anna-Maija, and Teppo Sintonen. "A Discursive Approach to Understanding Women Leaders in Working Life." Journal of Business Ethics. 34.3/4 (2001): 255-267. Print.
10. Bell, Myrtle P., Mary E. McLaughlin, and Jennifer M. Sequeira. "Discrimination, Harassment, and the Glass Ceiling: Women Executives as Change Agents." Journal of Business Ethics. 37.1 (2002): 65-76. Print.

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