Of Tiaras and World Peace

The other day I caught a glimpse of Oprah on television. Now I’ve always been cynical about things that ring of the self-help genre of anything. I’m not sure whether I’m suspicious of those who endorse the self-help text or TV show and prey on people’s insecurities by simply rephrasing pop psychology (thus creating vocabularies of new-agesy buzzwords to provide shallow advice while ringing in oodles of money, which is surely helpful for themselves) or whether I nurture a disdain for those who hang on to the self-help vehicle and continue to circumvent real solutions in order to find superficial self-security. Either way it’s a genre I don’t have much respect for. So my watching Oprah isn’t one of those regular telly-time occasions where I marvel at how she’s helping people. It’s a channel surfing thing. The episode I saw interestingly happened to be a collection of Cinderella stories, one of which was the tale of the new Miss America - which probably just made the cynic in me a little harsher (though well-amused) and the voyeur in me a little more interested than usual.

I guess the turn of the year brings new anxieties for teenaged girls around the world as beauty pageants are hosted anew and last year’s beauties hand-down their crowns to next year’s queens. We hear more of world peace on the stage and see more blood shed in the real world but we take it all with a pinch of salt and allow them their moments of glory. And I think it is kind to let them get away with their desperate cries of "beauty-with-a-purpose" and "non-skin-deep" criteria (read: where-has-the-money-come-from-this-year?) as long as we don’t begin to believe it ourselves. I talk of beauty pageants because Oprah was playing host to the newest Miss America on the Cinderella-galore show I happened to watch. An excited Ericka Dunlap sashayed in wearing a purple some-label suit, and if not for the captivating victory video that was played twice during the show it would not have registered that I was looking at America’s latest-agenda-driven icon of beauty.

The video was interesting because of a number of reasons. But let me recap it for you before saying more: a tall, 20 year-old black American woman stood nervously in a lemon-yellow dress, hair pulled neatly back, as was the hair of most contestants who were hopefully anticipating that the 2004 Miss America crown would grace their heads. She was wearing large dangling earrings that would nicely complement the crystal tiara were she to win. The announcement of her victory, however, created a different sight altogether. She screamed the silent scream of the pageant winner hands extended on her cheeks in bewilderment, while an earring slipped down damaging the picture-perfect poise of the winner that she had probably practiced long before a mirror. Unable to contain her excitement she bobbed up and down up and down several times in disbelief while the prior Miss America smilingly struggled to place the trophy on her head. However clumsy, the moment was engrossing and produced a stirring nervous energy that strangely brought a tear of excitement even to my eye. When it was replayed on the show the energy did not subside. The moment was electric without a doubt.

What stirred in me when I saw her? No matter how suspicious I may be about pageants, commercial ideas about beauty and political/financial agendas that underlie the choice of the year’s reigning beauty queens I was fascinated. First, I think it was nice that someone was so undeniably happy for a moment. Keeping the sorrows of the world on one hand it was very nice to know that the euphoria of one exultant moment can uplift the worst of cynics and somehow balance the tears of the world. But at the same time I was disturbed that it took something as shallow as winning a tournament of beauty - a petty contest by any standards - to produce a moment of such pure joy. And when you align a happy Miss America against a war-crippled Palestinian child the wholesomeness of the moment just doesn’t seem so refreshing anymore - and it surely doesn’t help that promises of world peace figure into the equation of such triumph.

Beyond ephemeral excitement what does an Ericka Dunlap or any pageant winner offer us? Are promises of social work under some umbrella necessary? And if so, are they enough? Why at all do the participants and organisers of these shows struggle so hard to provide justifications for the contests they stage? And most importantly of all, when they bait us, do we bite?

In the first place, why do we expect anything beyond the glorified peep show that a beauty pageant really is? Why formulate cheap excuses for watching women, girls rather, (who are mostly minors under any legal system making them unqualified to enter contracts without some kind of guardian), who parade their bodies in scanty clothing? Someone I rather respect, points out that teenage modelling also qualifies as a kind of child labour. I take the point but doubt that anyone will regard it seriously because of the (somewhat ironically) fat amounts of cash involved. To return to my point, I don’t see why there is this pressing need to turn the parade into anything more than it is. Desperate attempts to attach extraneous value to beauty contests, international ones no less, are just that - desperate. If pageants are to continue as viable entertainment (and to my mind, entertainment is all that they are) then they should have something of inherent value - and they do. There is a voyeur in everyone (I’m not placing any qualifiers here) and pageants can serve the purpose of satisfying the voyeur in all of us. So they should be touted as just that.

When one takes the spectacle to the level of humanitarianism and attaches real social causes to trivial exhibitionism to find some kind of meaningful reason for being, the logical question arises. How much does an organisation that judges’ people, mostly women, on loosely defined ideals of "beauty", really contribute to the world? Besides establishing physical biases (tall, thin, smiling automatons are the preferred norm) that damages shorter, stouter girls for life how much damage control do they manage on other fronts? If one argues the logic of every-little-bit-helps in order to defend such objectification of women and offers that these "ambassadors" take the message of peace and good will across borders, besides providing financial assistance to favourite causes, then yes a case for pageants can be made. But in all fairness, even if we give maximum leeway, the case will always be a weak one.

The beauty pageant is a show of glamour. And glamour does not come without money and effort, which could be well spent elsewhere. The budget on which these contests are staged can feed a lot of hungry mouths and house a lot of unsheltered heads in a sustained manner. To mesmerize an audience into accepting someone else’s ideals of beauty using dazzling lights and fancy costumes is essential because it is the creation of the illusion that fools us into buying that Ericka Dunlap is beautiful regardless of what our own eyes tell us. It takes so much to give one woman the credibility of an ambassador of goodwill that it is surprising why year after year so many of us are still taken in by all the pomp and show.

For its’ own sake the creation of glamour is all right. It is refreshing in many ways. But why are we so afraid to take pleasure in it without the call of the social cause? Why are we so guilt-ridden about indulging ourselves? Is misery so overpowering? Is it the only emotion that does not need validation in this world? We are forced to feel the guilt of living a good life while others suffer. The world has become entwined in such funny ways that it almost seems as if one always has to explain one’s laughter. Someone or the other is always ready to point out the victim at whose expense that laughter is created no matter how far-fetched or ridiculous the connection. It is in vogue, I think, to wear our hearts on our sleeves. And because it is fashionable to do that someone has to give a pageant of beauty - however trivial its’ nature - the umbrella of the social cause. I guess that’s the same reason why begums in urban areas turn to social work to while away the hours and justify their lifestyle. And there it is - that thing about fashion - it is infectious everywhere.

My last question still dangles. Do we buy that these crowned women participate in their competitions for anything more than personal glory? Do we believe that beyond the year when they have to contribute to a cause because of competition protocol, they actually get their hands dirty helping deserted children and other downtrodden segments of society? Across the border, except for a few queens who rule the film industry one doesn’t hear much about the "ambassadors" after the end of their respective years of reign. And though I’d love to give Ericka Dunlap the benefit of the doubt, I’m not sure whether she will stick around for long after she crowns Miss 2005. I think I have much more respect for the woman who boldly admits that she lives the life of glamour because she wants to without having to cower behind social causes. And think about this: if we stop and live our lives without having to explain ourselves all the time we will not develop the anxieties that drive us to the self-help section of a bookstore. And we might find ourselves tuning out the cynics that live in us and tuning in to Oprah for tales about truly inspirational heroes.