Beauty Pageants – Do They Have A Place In Modern Society?

Many little girls dream of being a Miss U.S.A. or a Miss World. I didn’t. Heck, I don’t even know if they are the appropriate terms or not. All I do know is that once a year, we are bombarded with who won what and when, and peppered with snippets of silly or controversial answers and sashaying swimsuit-clad contestants.

And even though this year’s crown has been awarded to the lucky – what do you call someone who just wants to be the prettiest person they know? – we are still seeing sound bites from a previous year’s shudderingly stupid reply, where one beaming beauty (and I am paraphrasing here) blamed a critical lack of maps for the stupidity of Americans.

Stupidity highlighted beautifully by her daft answer, in which she got ‘South Africa’ right (although she probably thought it was the lower part of Australia) but ‘the Iraq’ wrong. People have laughed (and still do, me included) at the answers given to questions that, seriously, should only be answered by postgraduates in a 5000 word essay.

The question I want answered is, “how can so much importance be placed on the answer someone gives to such a loaded question, when in the next part of the competition the size of their waistline is deemed equally as important to the overall value of the person”.

Surely the answer given to the question ‘what is the reason why Americans can’t locate America on a map’ is of higher value in today’s society than how well the contestants can walk in heels. Maybe I am in the wrong business, as it appears that their heel-walking ability is important.

Then you have the answer given this year to a politically loaded question about gay marriages. An honest response was given, and as the person asking the question was a gay man, the answer was given far too much airtime. Finally someone gave a reply that was not what people were expecting – or wanting – to hear, and what happened? The contestant didn’t win.

She did, however, divide the nation and caused a teeny furore (well, she got a mention in the morning television gossip segments). Perhaps she should have dotted her answer with more “likes”.

I suppose if how good someone looks in a swimsuit, or how well they can walk in heels, is important to you, then beauty pageants are crucial to life as you know it. If being pretty is how you value a person, then you’ll only want to be surrounded by pretty people – and more than likely, you won’t understand anyone who may not be as pretty, but who are more intelligent that you, anyway.

Me, I like to know I am talking to someone who has more brains than a sea slug, even though they are prettier than one – not that that matters. I am also secure enough to know that my intelligence more than outweighs my appearance.

But the question then is, ‘who will we talk about next year?’ if there are no more beauty pageants? Perhaps they do serve a place in modern society.

The SPA Way London PR agency combines considerable experience in Corporate PR, Consumer PR, Digital PR and Crisis Management with an in-house Public Affairs capability specifically structured to enhance media potential. Interested? Visit http://www.thespaway.com/ to find out more!

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