Big 5 Beauty Pageants
Frida Kosofsky
Beauty pageants are generally multi-tiered, with local competitions feeding into the larger competitions. For example, the international pageants have hundreds or thousands of local competitions. Additionally, beauty pageants offer a diverse variety of competitions. Child beauty pageants mainly focus on beauty, gowns, sportswear modelling, talent, and personal interviews. Adult and teen pageants focus on makeup, hair and gowns, swimsuit modelling, and personal interviews. A winner of a beauty contest is often called a beauty queen. The rankings of the contestants are referred to as placements. Male beauty pageants exist too. Male beauty pageants have the standard pageant trappings, including swimwear, evening wear, and interviews.[17]
European festivals dating back to the medieval era provide the most direct lineage for beauty pageants. For example, English May Day celebrations always had the selection of a May Queen. In the United States, the May Day tradition of selecting a woman to serve as a symbol of beauty and community ideals continued, as young, beautiful women participated in public celebrations.[19]
The first known beauty pageant was the Belle of the Anna-Ball, a Hungarian traditional beauty pageant, first held in Balatonfred in 1825. The contest is still being held there on Anna's day(Anna napja) on 26 July and is a national event.
A beauty pageant was held during the Eglinton Tournament of 1839, organized by Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, as part of a re-enactment of a medieval joust that was held in Scotland. The pageant was won by Georgiana Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, the wife of Edward Seymour, 12th Duke of Somerset, and sister of Caroline Norton, and she was proclaimed as the "Queen of Beauty".[20][unreliable source?] Beauty contests became more popular in the 1880s. In 1888, the title of 'beauty queen' was awarded to an 18-year-old Creole contestant at a pageant in Spa, Belgium. All participants had to supply a photograph and a short description of themselves to be eligible to enter and a final selection of 21 was judged by a formal panel.[21] Such events were not regarded as respectable. In 1880, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware held the first recorded 'beauty pageant' in the United States searching for "the most beautiful unmarried woman in our nation" and awarding her the title of 'Miss United States'.[22][23]
Beauty contests came to be considered more respectable with the first modern "Miss America" contest held in 1921.[24] The oldest pageant still in operation today is the Miss America pageant, which was organized in 1921 by a local businessman as a means to entice tourists to Atlantic City, New Jersey.[25] The pageant hosted the winners of local newspaper beauty contests in the "Inter-City Beauty" Contest, which was attended by over one hundred thousand people. Sixteen-year-old Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C., was crowned Miss America 1921, having won both the popularity and beauty contests, and was awarded $100.[26]
In May 1920, promoter C.E. Barfield of Galveston, Texas organized a new event known as "Splash Day" on the island. The event featured a "Bathing Girl Revue" competition as the centerpiece of its attractions.[27][28][29][30] The event was the kick-off of the summer tourist season in the city and was carried forward annually. The event quickly became known outside of Texas and, beginning in 1926, the world's first international contest was added, known as the International Pageant of Pulchritude.[29] This contest is said to have served as a model for modern pageants.[30][31][32] It featured contestants from England, Russia, Turkey, and many other nations and the title awarded at the time was known as "Miss Universe".[30][33] The event was discontinued in the United States in 1932 because of the Depression (the international competition was revived briefly in Belgium).[34][35]
Major international contests for women include the yearly Miss World competition (founded by Eric Morley in 1951), Miss Universe (founded in 1952), Miss International (founded in 1960), and Miss Earth (founded in 2001 with environmental awareness as its concern).[41][42][43] These four are considered the biggest and most well known pageants, the four largest and most famous international beauty contests for single or unmarried women (all apply to single or unmarried women except Miss Universe). Most pageants give an age requirement to be eligible to compete; for example, Miss Universe has a maximum age requirement of 28 years old.[44][45]
In its early years, there were two instances where the reigning Miss Universe opted to resign from her position: Armi Kuusela, Miss Universe 1952 from Finland, who held the distinction of being the first Miss Universe winner to give up her crown in less than a year to marry Filipino businessman Virgilio Hilario while Amparo Muoz, Miss Universe 1974 of Spain refused to travel to Japan and instead resigned after six months of her reign.[72][73][74] However, since the pageant had no concrete rule on resignation at that time, they were allowed to keep their titles.[75]
In Miss Earth, the 2002 winner, Dzejla Glavovic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was dethroned of her crown six months into her reign, after she failed to show up at several environmental events.[76][77] According to Carousel Productions, organizer of the Miss Earth contest, Glavovic was dethroned because of "her inability to fulfill the duties and responsibilities as the Miss Earth titleholder, in accordance with the rules and regulations set forth in the Miss Earth contract that she signed."[78][79] She was succeeded by first runner-up Winfred Omwakwe of Kenya as Miss Earth 2002.[80]
In Miss International, Ikumi Yoshimatsu, Miss International 2012 was the first titleholder of the pageant from Japan to be dethroned shortly before the end of her reign.[81][82][83] She was ordered by the International Culture Association (Miss International organizer) to skip the succession ceremony and "play sick and shut up" out of fear of scandal.[84] The Miss International organizer cited the reason for her dethronement was due to her involvement in a contract dispute with a talent agency in which she claimed that she was pressured to sign by Burning Productions, a film production company which is rumored to be linked with the Japanese underworld, but she refused and went ahead by starting her own company.[85] Yoshimatsu filed criminal charges against one of Japan's most powerful talent agency executives, Genichi Taniguchi of Burning Productions, for allegedly stalking, intimidating, and harassing her.[86]
Diversity of contestants and winners have both increased since the inception of beauty pageants. In 1945, Bess Myerson, an American politician, model and, television actress became the first Jewish person to win the Miss America title in the Atlantic city and to this day remains the only Jewish person to have received the crown. Her success in winning the title was hugely symbolic and personal to Jewish people at that time because it was during the midst of Nazi Germany's rise.[87] In 1959, Japanese model Akiko Kojima became the first woman of color to win the Miss Universe title. Her success marked the beginning of a shift away from white women as the global female beauty ideal.[88] The continued success of Asian women in American and international beauty pageants has signaled that white women are no longer considered the beauty ideal.[89] In 1983, Vanessa Williams, an American singer, actress and fashion designer gained recognition as being the first African American woman to receive the Miss America title.[90] In 1991, Lupita Jones, a Mexican actress and television producer, became the first Mexican person to win Miss Universe.[91]
Besides the international beauty pageants, numerous minor competitions exist throughout the world displaying the different perceptions of beauty. Some examples of criteria to select beauty queens that are unique to certain culture. The Miss India USA pageant uses Indian history and traditional craft skills as its specialties,[92][93] while the Miss Howard University competition takes advantage of the principles of "black beauty".[94] The winner is often viewed as a model for the "ideal" community member.[95] Through the competitions, the contestants can learn how to present themselves in public and how to cultivate certain traits such as confidence or poise.[96] In some cases, the competitors are selected to act as a representative on behalf of the community. In the African American community of Howard University, the selected Miss Howard University served as advocates for the Civil Rights Movement in the decades following the 1960s.[94] Additionally, the Miss Landmine competition situated in Angola allow victims to serve as advocates on behalf of other victims of mining accidents.[97]
Researchers suggest that the emergence of beauty pageants in countries outside the United States is linked to an economic boom geared towards a more consumeristic lifestyle. For example, in India, from 1996 to 2000, the personal care industry grew by 25% while the number of women applying for the Miss India competition increased from 1000 people in 1993 to 6500 people in 2001.[98] Additionally, after China hosted about 6 international beauty pageants in 2004, the beauty industry increased in influence in the area. At the same time, the number of regional beauty pageants in the country increased.[99]
Critics of beauty pageants argue that such contests reinforce the idea that girls and women should be valued primarily for their physical appearance, and that this puts tremendous pressure on women to conform to conventional beauty standards by spending time and money on fashion, cosmetics, hair styling, and even cosmetic surgery. They say that this pursuit of physical beauty even encourages some women to diet to the point of harming themselves.[100][101]
The London Feminist Network argues that rather than being empowering, beauty pageants do the opposite: denying women's full humanity by subjecting them to objectification, denying their full humanity by maintaining that their primary purpose is to be attractive.[102] Beginning in 1981, the International Year of the Disabled Person, campaigners in Australia targeted beauty pageants in order to, in the words of activist Leslie Hall, "challenge the notion of beauty" and "reject the charity ethic." High profile demonstrations led to some charities abandoning their use of such contests for fundraising and also saw some remove offensive language from their organisational titles.[103]
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