Comments on: Pageantry

By: CEF

CEF — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:42:02 +0000

After reading all of the comments here, I am a little embarrassed to say that we put my youngest daughter on a plane yesterday to fly to Mobile, to participate in “America’s Junior Miss” program.

First let me say that the Junior Miss program is not a beauty contest, but mostly a scholarship program for girls that push themselves to excel in academics and talent.

I am sure there are parents out there that push their daughters to compete in pageants, but this was entirely up to my daughter, I never encouraged her to do this.

My oldest daughter won the title of Junior Miss in this little town we live in, but did not win the title for the state. She said it gave her a lot of confidence and was glad she did it.

Anyway, just the other side of this coin for whatever it is worth. :)

You can see the girls at the link below and read about the program in the home page.

http://www.ajm.org/about/contestants/

By: CS Eric

CS Eric — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:45:48 +0000

There are many reasons to enter a pageant. When I was at BYU, a sister in my ward who had absolutely NO chance at winning entered one of the pageants on campus. It wasn’t just that she was only moderately attractive (to be generous), she also had no talent to speak of, and was not well spoken. She didn’t have a dressy dress–she just wore one of her Sunday outfits. I don’t think there was a swimsuit portion of the contest, but if there were, she would not have done well there either.

So why did she enter? Somewhere she had decided that she was too shy and had spent too long hiding in her shell, and that she needed to do something to help break out of that shell. Even though she did not win, she could always tell herself that she had participated in a pageant.

I continue to admire her for her courage to step out of her comfort zone. I have long since forgotten her name, but I will never forget her excitement when she came off the stage saying “I did it, I did it! I tried out for the pageant!”

By: HP/JDC

HP/JDC — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 05:22:14 +0000

Tatiana,
If nothing else, these young girls choose to participate in these pageants, while those raped do not. It is in the spirit of trying to make the choices of those young girls less repulsive to themselves and others that my wife and I got involved. I agree that there is too much emphasis in these pageants (and in the rest of life) on mercurial standards of beauty (I keep walking by those homecoming queens after all). Asking substantive questions was an attempt to get at the whole girl (not that it worked, of course, I’ll get more into that later).

In all honesty, if my daughter wanted to participate in a pageant, I would support her in it 100%. But if she did not, I would be very, very happy. I’ll say more on all this tomorrow.

By: Tatiana

Tatiana — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 04:16:54 +0000

Kristine, you’re right that my last sentence was inflammatory, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get across in a visceral way the utter debasing humiliation of the whole experience. Can you think of a less inflammatory metaphor that brings the idea home?

By: Ray

Ray — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:38:18 +0000

I do believe in preaching an impossible ideal for which we should strive, as long as it is coupled with an understanding that’s it’s OK to not be able to reach it. The ideal itself often is what inspires us to do and become what we wouldn’t do and become otherwise. (One of my favorite songs is “The Impossible Dream”, and one of my favorite books is Don Quixote.)

Having said that, preaching an impossible physical ideal based almost solely on a subjective and cultural standard of beauty – nope, I don’t like that. I have four daughters, and I hope they NEVER want to enter a beauty pageant.

By: Sam B

Sam B — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:07:52 +0000

I don’t know; I’m no fan of pagents, but they don’t seem significantly more pernicious than reality TV, which also uses some surface-level criterion (whether it be physical appearance, physical ability, decorating or haircutting or cooking or dancing ability, or whatever) to judge people, without getting to know their inner beauty. Or, frankly, the NBA finals. Maybe there is something more pernicious about the sole criterion being appearance, as opposed to something else, but I don’t find anything inherently wrong with being judged based on a limited number of preconceived criteria.

That said, how about a question to the effect of, Your best friend just took third in [the pagent, her piano competition, or whatever], for which (s)he’s been singlemindedly training for the last X months. How do you help your friend see her/his full worth in spite of the loss? (‘Cause it seems a little on the mean side to say, You took third; how do you maintain your self-esteem.)

By: Kristine

Kristine — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:21:42 +0000

Whoa, Tatiana, I was with you until the last sentence, which I think is needlessly inflammatory.

Still, put me in the camp of people who find it utterly impossible to find pageants anything but absolutely abhorrent. I believe they are something no Latter-day Saint should be involved with in any way.

By: Tatiana

Tatiana — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:56:27 +0000

“Let us suppose, for a moment, that it is possible for a pageant to be a good thing.”

I simply don’t see how. “Let’s judge you based on superficial and unimportant qualities which are mostly genetic traits, unearned, and over which you have little to no control. Let’s parade your flesh in front of a large audience and a panel of judges who know nothing about your character or choices, and who will judge your flesh to be either worthy or lacking.”

Honestly, I wouldn’t show my cats, because the judges can’t possibly know their inner beauty. I would never, ever show my daughters.

It’s as though the rapist, after the rape, gives the victim a score based on how pleasing the experience was to him, and as though she earnestly hopes her score will be high.

By: HP/JDC

HP/JDC — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:28:33 +0000

Thanks, PDoE. I was hoping someone would pick up on that and start talking about it. Oh well…

By: Proud Daughter of Eve

Proud Daughter of Eve — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 14:55:56 +0000

Slightly OT:

So, todayâ€™s third question is: are impossible ideals worth the trouble?

Interesting question coming from an LDS person who, in theory anyway, believes we’re on earth to become like God. :)