Sunday, September 15, 2013
Blog #3: Miss America
I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I watched the Miss America pageant on ABC tonight. I’d usually avoid it but I was forced to actually watch it this year in its entirety because a childhood friend was in the running. Besides for the everything just SO obviously wrong with basically everything about it I felt especially shocked actually seeing it this year. How sad to think about little girls sitting at home idolizing basically identical tan, blonde, skinny girls walking around in high heels and bikinis. I can’t think of a worse thing for any child to see: a beauty competition that masks itself as a service and education organization. One of the contestants said that she chose her dress because it reminded her of her favorite childhood movie: Beauty and the Beast. *eye roll* Miss America’s website says “Developed by the Miss America Organization, the Miss America program exists to provide personal and professional opportunities for young women to promote their voices in culture, politics and the community. It provides a forum for today's young women to express their viewpoints, talents and accomplishments to audiences during the telecast and to the public-at-large during the ensuing year.” Whoever wrote this is so out of touch with reality. I could seriously go on for hours about why the idea of “Miss America” makes me so sad and angry and exhausted but seriously what is wrong with our society that anyone thinks it is o.k. to send a message that only these so-called "opportunities" and "rights" and "voices" are granted to women who fulfill a very specific ideal of beauty? How this even still gets broadcast in this day and age is completely beyond me. The New York Times posted an article a few days ago about the subject: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/09/12/is-the-miss-america-pageant-bad-for-women/the-miss-america-pageant-stills-sends-the-wrong-message
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I agree! The organization claims to want to promote these women for their service and virtue but what are they actually hailing as virtue? Those who fulfill a very specific beauty standard and when that standard isn't met, the outcry is ridiculous. I find the hate comments about the winner's ethnicity that can be found on every social media site, but especially Twitter to be greatly disturbing.
ReplyDeleteI think not only was the pageant itself terrible, but the racism that came out after someone who was Indian won... it's so sad.
ReplyDeleteWhile the backlash against an East Indian winner this year was dreadful, I thought it was slightly amusing (not really in the "funny" sense of the word) that a lot of people were measuring our country's "progress" made against racism within the realms of this beauty pageant (for the reasons you've all stated above). More reasons why we have so much work to do!
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