Snobservations

Are beauty pageants necessary?

Let’s just say I was a little peeved at being subjected to the screening of the Miss SA finals, usually I just avoid it altogether living in ignorant bliss of, who the winner is and her feigned interest in bridging various societal gaps. But unable to make my getaway I was forced to endure the monotony of the lookalike parade that was the 2012 contest and that sparked a debate about the relevance of such pageants in modern society-this is my take.

It turns out the original beauty pageants were staged in the 1920’s as promotional gimmicks, seems not much has changed advertising still uses beautiful people to sell products but we have TV, billboards, magazines etc. for that so why do we need beauty pageants again?

Proponents of these Mr/Ms contests argue that the winners help raise funds for charity and are global ambassadors of their countries. Are only 1.7m model types, with broad smiles and small waists able to successfully raise funds for charity? And if they are purporting to be representatives of a country surely they should typify what the people of that country look like. What is it then that these ambassadors actually do and what achievement are they being rewarded for? It seems to me they don’t do much other than attend high profile events and their major achievement-that demands a national title-being somewhat attractive!

Being beautiful is not an achievement (unless you have a damn good plastic surgeon!) it is something that most people have no control of. Rewarding a superficial quality in a supposedly modern and empowered society is actually rather backward. Surely no parent wants their child’s only ambition to be (not having kids of my own this is just a guess); ‘when I grow up, I want to be tall and skinny so I can be Ms(Mr) SA’.

Maybe if enough of us ignore beauty pageants it will someday just be a distant and unpleasant memory, like some of the rather unsuccessful SA TV drama series, perhaps it will just go away if no one bothered to watch it.

Until such time I say...if there has to be an Ms/Mr SA pageant rather broaden the criteria of entry since beautiful people come in all shapes, sizes and ages organisers should take the contest to a more profound level and look for the beauty within (as corny as that sounds!). Instead of earth shattering questions like; who is the deputy president or what is the national animal? rather reward positive actions. An ambassador of a country needs to be able to motivate those around them through their own actions and if raising funds for charity is a key undertaking of the winner then the person must be able to command a crowd and be able to interact with people from all walks of life. So they actually need to put in some sincere hard work, before they can boast a title they must earn it, the person who makes the biggest difference in their country should be the winner!

Instead of the sponsors throwing cash and prizes at the winner why not donate the funds to a designated charity on the winners behalf? This year Miss SA got to change her life with prizes in excess of R1 million, an NGO/NPO could have changed many lives with that money.