Pageants are such a joke. I read two coffee table books on pageants (both written by FEMINISTS, in fact) which said that pageants actually started out as a marketing way to sell products, so companies used a beautiful woman in a swimsuit (or dress) and would host a parade (all the while shilling their products), to encourage people to buy crap.

Oh yeah, did you know how Miss Universe got started and broke off from Miss World? Because the Miss World organizers refused to allow bikinis in their competition, so a swimwear company started Miss Universe... in order to parade women in bikinis.

Gross.

?

"And world peace!" ;)

I have a question for heterosexual guys, when you watch this, do you actually think, "Oh yes Ms. X is so much better and prettier than Ms. Y!"??

Cuz, if I were a hetero guy, I be all, "And she's pretty! And she's pretty! And she's pretty!"

How can it be a beauty competition when everyone is pretty?

No barriers? None at ALL?

And she WON?

I think I just died inside.

LMAO is she fucking SERIOUS??!?!?!?!?!?!!??!?!

Oh God, I hope no one takes these pageant questions and answers seriously.

Dang, Miss Universe, you're totally right! I do not even realize that there are no more barriers among women!

When you're beautiful and ignorant, I suppose here aren't any barriers...

Winning answer? Really? Wow. Total surprise .

I actually saw the pageant (last 15 mins or so)...they are like train wrecks I can't help but watch. And being Latina, they tended to be like a mandatory thing in my household growing up (I tend to find many Latinos I know are wayyyyyy too into these things, taking a loss as an offense to their country as a whole). I even kept tally of the scores when I was little. *sigh*

Anyways...30 traumatized years later...that answer repulsed me. Um, really? We have no barriers? Someone should send her the link to the Mali protests NOW.

Possibly worse than her answer was Australia's ("bikinis are great so we can show off our toned bodies!"). Both answers merit a good old kick in the booty (or lack thereof).

And it should be mentioned she's from Venezuela- a country notorious for their pageant industry. Perhaps she'd change her mind about barriers if she interviewed some of the darker skinned Venezuelan women who have been told they were too dark to compete. =/

Women do pretty much have the same job oppertunities and equality to men...

I have to say that I am impressed with her response. Assuming the translation was accurate, she actually spoke in coherent and gramatically correct sentences.

HILARIOUS!! Soooo funny! Thanks Jessica! I'm still laughing---made my day!

Am I the only one where the video is dubbed over in Spanish??? I don't speak Spanish... anyone know where I could find the video in English? And why was a video in Spanish posted here anyway?

I usually wouldn't defend something like this, I get touchy about Spanish.

While her comment wasn't particularly feminist, it wasn't actually horrendously sexist. The translation of the question from English into Spanish was awkwardly phrased, and her response didn't actually say much. She used several words that could be interpreted in various ways, and ultimately, I'm willing to bet that the implication behind her pageant speak was something along the lines of "women and men should be equal" or "women are capable of achieving as much as men", rather than "we're already equal, no more work to be done." It wasn't insightful, she didn't answer the question, but really, it wasn't as awful as it could have been. Of course, she could have meant what is being interpreted, but unless she clarifies her response, it's really hard to know.

All this was was a soundbite. All the question was was a soundbite. I'd almost rather take issue with the question asked than the answer given - why ask about whether women can get to roles of high responsibility in corporations when women around the world are suffering physical violence?

I'm actually writing about reality TV depictions of pageants in my book, "Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV."

Miss America was FINALLY kicked off of network television, because the ratings were so terrible that it wasn't worth it to the major nets to air it any longer.

Then... wouldn't you know it, reality TV swooped in and brought that regressive BS back to television. Now, instead of one three-hour-long antifeminist parade, we have an entire TLC reality series called "Race for the Crown," which makes the Miss America pageant contestants compete in weekly challenges, so that we can judge (and ridicule) the women's appearances, bodies, personalities and intellectual abilities (or lack thereof) on a weekly basis. The series then culminates with the airing of the full pageant.

In my book, I discuss how this is incredibly fitting for reality TV, since the genre has always been rooted in antifeminist ideology and has always hawked a pre-feminist, regressive, revisionist version of what American "reality" is supposed to be today. They couldn't let Miss America fade away... they had to revive her in the service of the genre's backlash messaging.

I will also likely be writing about the baby & toddler beauty pageants, such as Toddlers & Tiaras, and Little Miss Perfect, in the book.

If anyone has ideas, comments or articles/blog posts you think I should see related to reality TV and pageants (or beauty/body ideas in general), let me know at Twitter (my handle's jennpozner) or email me at director[at]wimnonline[dot]org.

as a Venezuelan (queer, feminist, anti-pageant) woman, i feel the need to step in here and explain a little bit of what this is about.

yes, venezuela has a huge pageant industry. yes, racism is alive and well there and dark-skinned women don't win as often. yes, women are severely bombarded with negative body images and often encouraged to do anything to stay skinny and 'improve' themselves with plastic surgery. yes, most of the women competing here are wealthy and very privileged. but all of these things are true here as well, and we're not better than anyone else here.

i think that one of the reasons that latinas get so excited about things like this is because it's something that our countries can win. colonialism, structural adjustment programs, and years of greedy foreign policy on the side of bully countries like the united states have created some really nasty shit, shit that has, coincidentally, led to a mass emigration from latin america to the very countries that fucked us over. it has also left our countries with very few resources for things like arts programs, women's sports, and other extracurriculars. if you're a woman the big dream is to be miss universe, and if you're a guy the big dream is to become a baseball player (a sport that can be played pretty cheaply and, much like soccer in other countries that have been made poor through this shit, is popular - but not ladylike) in the u.s., because venezuela can't pay what the u.s. can.

i'm not saying that pageants aren't expensive, because they are. but the girls don't pay for any of it - this is big business, and scouts will find young women and make big promises and pay for dietitians, personal trainers, and yes, plastic surgery. and in a place where being a beauty queen in a source of national pride, who is in a position to deny that? who doesn't want to come home a hero?

obviously there are other opportunities for women, but this shit is pushed down our throats. yours truly went to a miss universe finishing school, and i have to say i loved every second of it, dreaming of my future glamorous life traveling around as the most beautiful lady in the universe. i am now (obviously) repulsed by these contests, and it makes me sad to see the women in my family and my circle of friends - smart, feisty, strong women - play into all of it. but just saying that this is gross really underplays a whole history of colonialism and exploitation, and serves to obscure the experiences of women of color and "developing-world" women. it's easy to be an upper-middle-class, educated, white feminist and to trash this shit without context. it's less easy to go into the nuances.

Aw too bad. The video has been removed for infringement or somesuch.