Say ‘no’ to beauty contests
Young speak
By Randeep Wadehra

RITA FAREIRA was the first Indian woman to be crowned Miss World. Since then we have had two more Miss Worlds in Aishwarya Rai and Diana Hayden, and one Miss Universe in Sushmita Sen. Some consider this as a matter of national pride. Others look upon the ‘crowns’ as tribute to the Indian womanhood. But...

Every time a woman is crowned a "beauty queen’ one reaches for the salt cellar — not for a pinch but fistfuls of it. Is this lass really the most beautiful in the world? Yes? Oh come on, what about those who do not bother to enter such contests and may well be more deserving of the title? Moreover, since when has beauty become normative? Aren’t we mistaking glamour for beauty? After all glamour is the facade that either enhances the essence of beauty or, as is generally the case, hides its absence. Glamour dazzles and blinds us to the drawbacks in the person who is being evaluated. Moreover, it provokes and disturbs the onlooker. Beauty, on the other hand, is sublime — it soothes one’s senses and reassures with its serene presence. Unlike glamour that needs repeated affirmation, beauty needs no articulation.

For some women beauty pageants are a means of climbing up the social ladder. The opening up of opportunities for instant worldwide publicity and riches have made these cut-throat competitions enticing. What exactly do the contestants display at such contests? Certainly, physical attributes get prime attention. Otherwise how does one account for such rounds as Miss Photogenic, Miss Beautiful Eyes, Miss Catwalk, Miss 10 etc wherein skimpily clad candidates strike provocative poses for the benefit of the judges?

"But there is the Talent Round too in which the girls show their intellectual prowess," protest the apologists. If yodeling raunchy numbers and shouting profanities — as was done by a couple of contestants some time back — or adlibbing somebody else’s thoughts are instances of intellectual accomplishments then they speak volumes for the calibre of the organisers of such shows. Some even describe the beauty queens as our roving ambassadors. A dubious distinction that. I don’t think these decked-up dolls add anything positive to the country’s image. If one recalls the embarrassment that India’s first Miss World had caused to the nation, the point will become clear. Rita Fareira was fulfilling her contractual obligations by entertaining US troops in Vietnam even when our government was vociferously condemning the inhumane carpet bombing to which the hapless North Vietnamese civilians were being subjected to.

Coming back to the point, what exactly is evaluated at such pageants? Yes, it is charisma — a concept quite different from beauty. Painted faces and skimpily clad bodies paraded in an alluring manner may be deemed glamorous but certainly not beautiful. One feels sickened by the very idea of pretty girls being made more instruments of commerce by the sponsoring corporate bosses who calculate the chances of multiplying their trillions if a particular face is launched in the ad market. What’s a beauty queen but a glorified salesgirl selling everything from soap-cakes to airlines? But even a salesgirl has to have wit and intelligence backed by honest labour to sell products; and do not forget — she is answerable to customers for the products’ quality too.

True beauty, on the other hand, defies definition. It can be found in the most unglamorous of persons, places and things. It can neither be made nor unmade; and is certainly not at the mercy of the beholder’s eye. It is a state of mind that manifests itself in a myriad ways.

To understand beauty one must have a look at its flip side — ugliness. In the novel, The Bluest Eye, author Toni Morrison’s creates a family called the Breedloves, and tells us that Pecola, her brother Sammy, father Cholly and mother Pauline had convinced themselves of their unremitting ugliness: "No one could have convinced them that they were not relentlessly ugly ... You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realised it came from conviction, their conviction."

The same can be said of beauty where one’s conviction is vital too. If you feel you are beautiful, you are beautiful. Beauty has the power to transcend all physical drawbacks. To paraphrase Morrison — beauty is not something to behold; it is something one can do. Why should beauty not be taken for granted? Why does it need public adulation to exist?