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Saturday, November 19, 2005
Beautiful Beatitudes: Beauty Pageant & Codes
By By Edgar Dignadice Cadiente
Live Pen (Lithe & Velvet Pen)
"SPEAK from the heart in the interview portion", I told Bea in one of my sessions with her. Bea is a candidate I am coaching now for a local beauty contest slated this November. Typically, I prepare a training module that includes speech fundamentals, posture and projection enhancement, and handling stage fright, among others, custom-made for a candidate, depending on which field of improvement she needs.
Normally, Filipina delegates to international beauty tilts undergo said training before they are sent to compete abroad. But you would be surprised to know that even aspirants for an inter-barangay or inter-municipality beauty gala go through such intricate training. I figure, it is because even local beauty tourneys engender a beguiling glamour that young women are drawn to it. They can not afford to represent themselves poorly. In a beauty competition, it is almost a cardinal sin. And, considering Filipinos are -- I'm sorry to say this -- a mean audience always ready to unleash hearty hoots at a lousy candidate, an elaborate training becomes a necessity. I hope I am making a logical subtext, huh.
Philippines is a country of beauty pageants. It is an anywhere, anytime event. I can't imagine a Philippine town fiesta in this country without a beauty contest. More often than not, a beauty competition is the celebration's highlight. Conveniently, Filipinas are naturally beautiful, so bakit hindi. Filipinos' fondness for this pageantry is unmistakable. We even created one international tourney -- the "Miss Earth" -- that debuted in 2001. Not surprisingly. Like many modern Filipino fascinations adapted into mainstream culture, pageant acculturation is I suppose, courtesy of western domination.
The origin of beauty pageants can be traced to as far back as 1920s in America. From being a simple sideshow it evolved into a worldwide multi-billion enterprise. Today, beauty spectacles abound with said hype and well, controversy. Illustrious as these are, pageants are oftentimes hounded by scrutiny -- ranging from morality slant to skepticism. Many feminists criticize the parade of women in skimpy swimsuits, specifically. On general terms, they say beauty contests degrade females. Other critics even question the intentions of beauty competitions.
Once, I saw myself in the critics' fold. Handling candidates for a local contest not too long ago, I ended up writing the organizers a grunting manifesto. Point by point, I documented my objective observations on how they handled that year's beauty search. My gripe centered on the event's messy management. Here's one of the many ill-fated instances. As planned and required by the organizers, the winners were to be paraded aboard a float the day after the coronation night. At the designated rendezvous the following day, not only there was no float, not only there was no single organizer around, worst, the candidates, donned in their long gowns, make-up melting under the midday blazing sun, had to hail one passing vehicle as the parade was already moving along. How abysmal!
Well, I did not quit as an advocate of beauty pageants after that. That particular team of contest handlers is not beauty pageant per se, after all. Sensible as it is, the organizers' atrophic handling stemmed from their seeming lack of purpose. Obviously, the pageant for them just started and ended during the pageant night itself. End it did. The beauty search is now dissolved.
Call it sweet-lemon philosophy (in my case, the organizers branded my move as sour graping), but sometimes, complaints especially objective and valid ones, are meritable criticism. For one, I regard beauty competitions as a venue where young women can explore their potentials as human resources. It's no different from other personality quests anchored on personality development. Aspirants' talents are honed and self-confidence enhanced, equipping them with a positive experience that should leave a positive mark in their young lives.
Seen this way, I deduce this is the context of Miss World beauty pageant's slogan: "Beauty with a Purpose". Major international pageants in fact, foster a cause, often charitable. Though beauty competitions are largely based on beauty of face and physique, it is not always form. Substance matters so much. That's where intelligence, inner beauty and other abstract positive ideals come in as important criterion in the contest. The proverbial "grace under pressure" during the question and answer portion is a factor that is expected to surface.
To some extent, beauty pageants are seen as events of worldwide importance. Countries send representatives in the spirit of goodwill and worthwhile universal involvement. What benefits ultimately from these events are thousands of children in hunger-stricken nations and victims of catastrophes. For this reason, notwithstanding the downside and regardless of what critics say, beauty contests today have become a respectable entertainment with a noble goal. Beyond spectacle and grandiosity, there is a decent purpose.
This is what I hope local pageants should deepen. Giving a candidate sophisticated training will only be complementary to the beauty pageant's well-meant intentions. Beauty queen aspirants -- young women like Bea -- will surely gain beautiful experiences from joining. But what's more beautiful is when they embrace and share the beauty of purpose that a beauty contest espouses. Surely, amid the blinding footlights and flair of beauty pageantry, a well-meaning candidate will spontaneously speak from her heart, because she knows, she is joining a hearty cause.
Comments and suggestions are welcome. You may send e-mail to my_eyeview@yahoo.com
(November 14, 2005 issue)
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