Beauty contest

A beauty contest, or beauty pageant, is a competition based mainly, though not always entirely, on the physical beauty of its contestants. 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 and Manhunt International.

There are also beauty contests for children. These events are often controversial, particularly when children are dressed provocatively and described in adult terms.

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 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.

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.

Other major contests include the yearly Miss World competition (founded by Eric Morley in 1951), Miss Universe (founded in 1952), Miss International 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]]. 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." Across the world, women from around the world participate each year in local competitions for the chance to represent their country's international title.

Recently there has been a movement to the Internet Beauty Pageant format demonstrated by websites such as http://www.theultimatebeautyqueen.com, with the goal being to level the pageant playing feild by allowing more variations in both contestant and judge. The organizers of the major beauty contests represent their contests as being events of world importance and judging by the fact that beauty contest are collectively viewed by more than 1 Billion people every year, they are.

Commercial

Many trade associations have multi-tiered beauty contests which select queens as ceremonial representatives. The queen may appear at official receptions to present awards, to represent the industry in parades and festivals, to present consumer information to the public, or even to lobby for the industry. For example the South Carolina Watermelon Queen may do a tour of supermarkets with tastings of different varieties, or the North Dakota Honey Queen may tour to pass out recipes that feature honey. The queens are expected to be of high attractiveness, intelligence and character, and often gain scholarships for their year of service to the industry.

Criticism

Many feminists regard beauty contests for women as degrading both to the viewer and to the contestant. A common comparison made by feminists is that beauty contests are like a "cattle market" for women that enforce society's objectification of women. Critics have particularly objected to swimsuit rounds in competitions, in which the contestants catwalk dressed only in swimsuits and high-heeled shoes. Partly because of this, beauty contests have declined in popularity in the Western world since the 1960s. But in some areas where beauty contests were long discouraged -- such as Eastern Europe and parts of Asia and Africa -- they have flourished since the 1980s as restrictions were relaxed.

In light of the JonBenét Ramsey homicide of 1996, concerns about the propriety of beauty pageants for children, as well as their psychological effect on the girls, have been raised. Critics see the "Little Miss..." genre as a possible lure for pedophiles, though there is little documented evidence of this. But in reaction there has been a surge in more age-appropriate pageants for children, without provocative costumes, flashy decór, and with minimal makeup.

The contests can be highly controversial and regularly attract demonstrators. An extreme example is the 2002 Miss World contest, which was originally held in Nigeria, the country of the 2001 winner. Quickly, mass riots killed 200 people and a fatwa against a female journalist soon caused the organizers to move the event to London.

Many national 'Miss' pageants have come under heavy criticism and some have been the subjects of direct action. Miss New Zealand was no longer televised in the early 2000s as a result of falling public interest. Preceding this, high-profile complaints were made against the Miss America contest in the late 1960s. From their advent, "beauty" contests have always been the source of criticism to some degree; however, in some cultures, such as Latin America, pageants have been much more accepted.

In addition, the common view of "beauty" in these pageants as represented exclusively by thin women has been questioned. In response, Mo'Nique's Fat Chance, a beauty pageant for overweight women, has aired on the Oxygen network since 2005.

In Finland a great tabloid furore stemmed from the pageant tour including restaurant events where the contestants were obliged to display lingerie, some of it diaphanous enough to clearly display genitalia. The issue was exacerbated by many of these lingerie events being held in venues where inebriated males made grossly inappropriate comments and even sought bodily contact. After one contestant refused to comply, the resulting public debate eventually forced the contest to review the issue and cancel the feature. The issue resurfaced in the 2007 contest where the lingerie shows were reintroduced; initially with all the contestants wearing black bodysuits covering the entire body underneath the lingerie. This however met with a resounding panning by all quarters, pleasing nobody. Displaying lingerie over black bodysuits was remarked to be downright ugly. As a compromise, the daytime lingerie shows are currently fully revealing, but those shows which happen during the evening/nighttime, with audiences likely to perhaps be drunken and with a tendency to unrulyness, are performed with the black bodysuits underneath.

Selecting a "beauty queen"

Beauty pageants are generally multi-tiered, 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.

See also

Beauty contests

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