The news of Qin Zewen's representation of China in the Miss World global finals recently sparked a wave of attention on the Internet, she was first questioned for "airborne" substitutes to participate in the finals, and then her academic qualifications and professional status were also considered to be suspected of fraud. But the question arises – would the public still be so concerned about the Miss World pageant without these negative news?
When was the last time you watched a pageant? You may have heard of The 2007 Miss World Pageant Global Champion Zhang Zilin, but did you know that the 2012 winner was also Chinese? The once-popular beauty pageant seems to be slowly withdrawing from the public eye.
There are multiple reasons for the decline in beauty pageants. Women dressed in bikinis stand in a row of competing beauty pageants, which seems to be suspicious in today's era. In the era of traditional media such as fashion magazines and television, beauty pageants can arouse public attention by being on the cover of magazines and live television, with the development of new media, people can see the true and false high-value "net reds" on the Internet anytime and anywhere, further promoting the decline of beauty pageants. Although attention has stopped in recent years, beauty pageants have evolved differently in different countries – in the United States, the Miss America contest allows women to no longer have to wear revealing bikinis; In China, beauty pageants have become a "quasi-pyramid scheme" model, ushering in "consumption downgrade"; In other developing countries, women are still looking forward to relying on beauty pageants to achieve empowerment.
01 The problem of "beauty"
Modern pageants can be traced back to the Miss USA pageant in 1921. The Miss America pageant was so successful that year that it quickly became popular that even the organizers themselves were surprised. In the fall of 1922, swimsuit pageants overshadowed all other activities. Kimberly A. Hamlin, a professor of history at the University of Miami, wrote in The Washington Post that the ribbons that appeared in beauty contests had a strong political connotation in that era and were directly linked to the suffrage movement. On August 26, 1920, American women gained the right to vote after a long affirmative action campaign, and just one year later, "Miss America" became a popular topic. She asked: "Which version of a woman wearing a ribbon will be remembered and integrated into our national narrative?" Women fighting for equal citizenship, or Miss America who has been recognized by men for adhering to old, narrow ideas? ”
Hamlin sees that the focus of beauty contests is not women's historical contributions or their demands for basic human rights, but women's subservience, family life, and chastity. The winners of the year had a lot in common – not feminists, without making any demands and without obvious ambitions. These women remain the youngest and most petite entrants in the history of the tournament. According to a reporter's record at the time, she was playing marbles when he went to inform the first "Miss America" That she had been selected as a representative of Washington, D.C. The second Miss America was Campbell of Ohio, younger than Gorman, whose pageant rules set the minimum age for contestants at 16, but Campbell later admitted he was only 15.
In 1968, the Miss America pageant was boycotted: in protest of the race's racial discrimination and the exclusion of black women, the African-American community held its own contest in 1968; White feminists have also expressed dissatisfaction with the beauty pageant, and radical women's groups in New York have openly opposed judging women purely on the basis of beauty. Writing in the New York Times about the protests, Blain Roberts, an associate professor of history at California State University, said the competition rewarded women who were not smart enough, spoke badly and didn't care about politics. Roberts writes that this is changing — "Recently, some of the winners and contestants have come from Ivy League schools and earned professional degrees, and some are running for Congress. But the most strident criticism by feminists — that beauty contests exploit women, ebolize their bodies and encourage adherence to ridiculous standards of beauty — still resonates today. She said that although the relevant parties emphasized that "Miss America" pursued career opportunities and so on, and also packaged swimsuit competitions as "lifestyle and fitness", is this really the case? When the contestants wore bathing suits on stage, they weren't doing push-ups, and the men were still whistling enthusiastically.
The pageant itself has policies and rules, and in general, it is a performance and competition of traditional femininity: who is the most elegant? Who wears the most beautiful swimsuit? Who has the most perfect trim dimensions? Who wears 12cm stiletto heels without tripping? It wasn't until 1999 that Miss America repealed the "purity" rule that prohibits contestants from divorcing or having an abortion, but even so, beauty pageants still have strict "moral" requirements. In 2002, Miss North Carolina Rebekah Revels was forced to hand over the laurels after being photographed nude by her boyfriend, and in 2006 Miss America, Tara Conner of Kentucky, was involved in a scandal simply because she went to a club to drink and had sex.
Not only did the Miss Usa pageant have similar requirements for participants to be "not less than 170 centimeters tall, must be unmarried and childless", according to Agence France-Presse in 2021, the organizers of the "Miss France" pageant and their parent companies were also sued because the eligibility they set was considered "discriminatory". The Global Times has published an article titled "Suspected of Discrimination, 'Miss France' Beauty Pageant Prosecuted", saying that traditional beauty pageants in other countries and regions have also attracted criticism due to outdated behavioral terms and cultural shortcomings, such as veronica Didushenko, the winner of "Miss Ukraine" in 2018, who was stripped of her title because the organizers found that she was divorced and had children.
02 Beauty pageant cools down
In June 2019, Good Morning America, which runs the Miss America pageant, claimed that it would no longer judge women based on their appearance, but instead focus on their identities under makeup, hairstyles and sexy outfits. For the first time in the ninety-eight-year history of the Miss America pageant, women did not have to wear high heels or revealing bikinis. In addition, the evening dress section has been revamped so that entrants can wear any outfit they approve of as well as the one that best suits their personal style.
Since the 1968 protests, feminists have been outspoken about sexism in beauty pageants. While there are more and more criticisms, the ratings of beauty pageants are also getting lower and lower. In the United States, the Miss America contest, once considered a must-see, has been steadily declining in ratings for decades — about 27 million people watched it when it premiered in 1954, and not every household had a TV; By 2017, the audience was only 5.6 million. At the same time, the number of players competing for the championship has also dropped significantly. In 1970, about 70,000 women competed in local, state, and national Miss America pageants, and by 2017 that number had dropped to fewer than 4,000. Without the swimsuit pageant, the Miss America ratings plummeted 36 percent in 2019, but the Miss Universe contest without canceling the bikini also saw a 30 percent drop in audiences in two years.
Around the world, beauty pageants are still seen by some as one of the paths to women's empowerment. Proponents hail beauty pageants as a way out of unfavourable living conditions and a springboard for pursuing their dreams, such as in countries such as the Philippines and Venezuela, where women's status is generally low, and beauty pageants have given them the possibility of improving their social status. In fact, the biggest profiteer is always the organizer of the beauty pageant, and the industries of clothing, jewelry, beauty, plastic surgery, and beauty are waiting for opportunities and benefits from here.
In 2015, the Miss Universe pageant made headlines for an embarrassing reason: During a live television broadcast, host Steve Harvey misnamed the winner, confusing "Miss Columbia" with "Miss Philippines." In a review article, The Guardian author Jessica Valenti argues that because in beauty contests such as Miss Universe and Miss America, "women are not individuals in any way, but literal symbols — they have no names except for the state or country they represent." This is a radical show that women are interchangeable, and they compete for the right to be the shiniest object in the room. ”
Beverly Stoeltje, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Indiana, also said in a speech entitled "Festivals of Modernity: Beauty Pageants, Gender and Nationalism" that the prevalence and prevalence of beauty contests proves the close relationship between women and the nation-state. Although beauty pageants construct the connection between women and the nation-state, the women who are shown in this connection are not herself, but are objectified as objects of beauty, and beauty pageants limit women to gain power only through the competition of beauty. She said, "Once a woman has successfully passed the rituals in the competition, then she will gain her power." But conversely, if she fails to win the race through rituals, the social roles attached to her will alienate her from the male-centered system of political leadership. ”
03 Beauty pageant in China
In the 1980s, when the beauty pageant came to Chinese mainland, the All-China Women's Federation clearly put forward its principle of "not approving, not advocating, not organizing, and not participating." That didn't stop beauty pageants from becoming fashionable for a while. From the news reports at the time, it can be seen that the beauty contest cannot be called "beauty pageant" under pressure, claiming that it is "inner beauty"; Beauty pageants were regarded by some people at the time as a political symbol of "ideological emancipation" and became synonymous with "openness", and beauty pageants were given political and cultural significance.
Beauty pageants have never only been related to the United States, but also to the international political and economic situation. In a 1993 speech entitled "Women's Challenges: Beauty Pageants Can Be Suspended," Noriko Yamada, director of the Sakai Women's Association Liaison Association, said that at international beauty pageants, especially in the Miss World pageant hosted by the United States, the adjudication process reflects political needs, and the nationality of the winners also reflects the concerns of the United States about international affairs. "1959 was the year before the signing of the Japan Security Treaty, and that year Miss Japan was elected 'Miss World.'"
Similarly, in 2001, "Miss China" Li Bing participated in the Miss World finals for the first time and won the title of "Asian Beauty Queen", and then Zhuo Ling, Wu Yingna and others also won the rankings, these achievements were interpreted as a signal of western countries to open the Chinese market, And Li Bing and others were praised as "winning glory for the country". "ELLEMEN Wise" "Airborne Championship? The article "Killed" China's Beauty Pageant also proposed that when the beauty pageant industry gradually declined in developed countries, international beauty contests began to shift their positions to China - in 2003 and 2004, the Miss World Finals were held in Hainan, and the Miss Universe and Miss International contests were also held in China. In 2007, "Miss China" Zhang Zilin won the "Miss World" laurel in Sanya, which became the peak of China's beauty pageant.
In recent years, beauty pageants have ceased to be brilliant in the hearts of the Chinese people. In the article "Miss Universe, No one knows", New Weekly's "Sharp Neweekly" attributed this change to the media: "The unprecedented mobile Internet, social media, has long been unable to hide any beautiful women. On the other hand, "the present of medical beauty, micro-finishing, and cosmetics is pervasive", and beauty is no longer scarce. According to reports, domestic beauty contests in recent years have barely come out of an important star. Twelve years ago, the organizer of Miss World China was still the Southern Press Media Group, and by this year, the organizer had become Mulanhui Culture, and the competition had changed from the original regular beauty pageant to a "business model similar to pyramid schemes", through the in-depth subcontracting of various prefecture-level cities across the country, the article used "consumption downgrade" to describe this change. All of the above, it is not difficult to understand that the beauty pageant is receding in people's vision and discussion.
Bibliography:
Jessica Valenti, Beauty pageants are embarrassing–even if you name the right winner
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/22/beauty-pageants-embarrassing-even-if-name-right-winner-miss-universe
Dana Feldman, Miss America 2019: Is The Pageant Still Relevant Today?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danafeldman/2018/09/07/miss-america-2019-is-the-miss-america-pageant-relevant-today/?sh=5551f1601474
Why we should say goodbye to the Miss America pageant
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/19/why-we-should-say-goodbye-miss-america-pageant/
The Miss America Pageant Stills Sends the Wrong Message
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/09/12/is-the-miss-america-pageant-bad-for-women/the-miss-america-pageant-stills-sends-the-wrong-message
Kang Li translated "Modernity Festivals: Beauty Pageants, Gender and Nationalism", Journal of the School of Arts, Inner Mongolia University, March 2006
Dong Ming "Suspected of Discrimination, 'Miss France' Beauty Pageant Prosecuted", Global Times, October 22, 2021, 004th edition
"Beauty pageants once attracted many beautiful women by political and economic symbols"
"100,000 yuan can set a champion? Deep beauty pageant industry chaos》
Mao Hongtao, "None of them are the "curses" caused by beautiful women"
Airborne Championship? Unspoken rules "killed" the Chinese beauty pageant https://www.ellemen.com/spotlight/a41014397/xuanmei-220829/