A Thorny Crown

The Miss USA pageant was on last night and it got me to thinking.

When I was little I used to watch the pageants (Miss America and Miss USA) with my mom every year.  It was always fun to pick our favourites and groan a little for the ones that just could NOT get out a straight answer to the interview questions to save their lives.  Or, in this case, their crowns.  

After the newest queen had been crowned, I would always go and stand in front of our bathroom mirror and wait in imagined anticipation of being crowned Miss America.  Even though I was Canadian.  Hey, what did I know about geographical jurisdiction when I was seven?

Inevitably the announcer in my head would call the name of the runner up, leaving me standing there shocked and crying to have been named Miss America.  I would take whatever headband was closest and place it tremblingly on my head, always holding it on precariously as I made my triumphant walk to the strains of "There she is...Miss America!!!" floating through my head.

I would generally lay a shampoo bottle across my forearm to act as my flowers.  (This was usually the same shampoo bottle that would act as my fake Oscar later when I gave my fake acceptance speech at the fake Academy Awards.)  I would blow kisses and wave at the cheering crowd.  

I was a little girl, pretending to have grown up into what every little girl (or most, anyway) dream of growing into - a modern day princess complete with a crown. 

And looking back it was kind of sweet.  Except.  I was being taught, without my knowledge of it, that beauty gets rewarded and striving to be the most beautiful one out of the pack is the way to go.

Let me say, right off the bat, that there is (obviously!) nothing wrong with being beautiful.  If you've been born with a gift of beauty count yourself a lucky person; and then, forget about it and concentrate on cultivating your mind and character.

Shouldn't that be what we're all striving for?

But, unfortunately, as much as the producers of these pageants might claim that they're about "scholarships" and "inner beauty", that's really a big fat lie.  Because when was the last time a contestant won both Miss Congeniality and the title of Miss America?  And they still parade the women around in bathing suits and bikinis, like pieces of meat on display.  How, exactly, does that show off their inner beauty and what does looking good in a bikini have to do with being worthy of a scholarship?

The producers will claim that the swimsuit portion of the pageant is to show off the women's health and fitness.  Except.  The majority of these women are NOT healthy.

For example, do you remember a while back there was a woman named Alicia Machado.  She was Miss Venezuela and then went on to win Miss Universe.  

She looked like this when she won the pageant:

You can see a little in the second picture how prominent her collar bone is.  Unfortunately we're so used to seeing women like this in the media, we just accept it as the norm.  However, when she won Miss Universe Miss Machado was 5'9 and 118 pounds.  According to most doctors and fitness charts, the "ideal weight" or healthy range for a woman who is 5'9 and has a medium frame, is between 139 and 153.  

So, when Miss Machado won she was at least 21 pounds underweight, if not more.  As she traveled around as Miss Universe, she began to put on some weight.  They never said how much weight she gained, (because it was so scandalous and terrible!) but this is what she looked like AFTER she gained the weight that almost got her stripped of her crown.  

(It's pretty tough to find pictures of her after the weight gain because they made her stop doing most public appearances.  This was from a banquet in Thailand.)

Healthy and beautiful.  

But this gorgeous body almost forced her to forfeit her win as a "Beauty Queen".  

Which is why beauty pageants are SO dangerous.  We are teaching the young girls who are watching them (you REALLY don't want to get me started on the poor little girls that are COMPETING in these things!) that not only is BEAUTY the most important thing to strive for, but they should be striving for this ridiculously unhealthy, and mostly unattainable (certainly unsustainable) idea of beauty.  

So, for my part (even though there is still a part of me that remembers my plastic, headband tiaras with fondness) I am going to keep my daughter from viewing these pageants for as long as possible.  

Maybe we'll watch the Scripps Spelling Bee competition instead.  And maybe she can stand in front of the bathroom mirror and cheer with joy after pretending to spell a particularly hard word.  

Or...she could do the pretend Oscar acceptance speech too.  I'd be fine with that.