The Fall and Rise of the Beauty Pageant

©Icqurimage 2005

Fashion if nothing else can be relied upon to change, and now, as in ancient Rome, the contestants within the public arena are no longer shown sensitivity, dignity or respect, even if they win. The loser’s tears, the sour grapes of the humiliated, and the wounds of the fallen are as much a part of the entertainment as the winner’s jubilation and the extravagant surroundings and ceremonies. These are in fact the very emotions that hold the modern audience transfixed for the advertisers. Viewers crave ever increasing excitement and titillation, whether it is by asking Miss World contestants to compete athletically or strip to previously unimagined levels of immodesty, in this the age of the pornographer.

The evolution of the pageant

So how did this modern phenomenon first come into being? The pageant started life as Miss America in 1921 in the form of a bathing beauty contest on the Atlantic City boardwalk. In an era that pre-dated television, the pageant was essentially a device to entice summer tourists to vacation in Atlantic City beyond Labor Day. At that time Atlantic City was the equivalent of Las Vegas or Blackpool today, and there could have been no better venue outside of Hollywood.

By 1923 Miss America had become so popular that the supply of eager young women willing to participate exceeded the capacity of the event itself, and the "no marriage" rule was instituted as one means to restrict entry. Why a married woman may not be selected to be the most beautiful woman in America seems a paradox, and this raised questions as to the true intentions of the contest. Moral questions from a conservative press and the economic cloud of the Great Depression briefly forced the Miss America contest to be stopped from 1929 to 1932, although the pageant resurfaced in 1932 in New Jersey. Disaster struck again in 1933 in Atlantic City after the contest was won by a 15-year-old girl named Marian Bergeron. The uncovering of an underage beauty queen added public consternation to the strain of a loss making event.

Repackaged to include a talent contest in the 1930s, the winners of Miss America received Hollywood screen tests. This brought the welcome attentions of Hollywood’s many moguls, yielding such silver screen goddesses as Dorothy Lamour. After a brief hiatus for the Second World War, the pageant recommenced with scholarships for its winners. A Jewish lady, Miss Myerson, won the 1945 contest in defiance of Nazi ideals of physical perfection and beauty. Further reforms, such as an attempt in 1948 to replace the traditional swimsuit with evening gowns, caused uproar amongst reporters. Clearly to the press the image of Miss America posing in a swimsuit had become an enduring symbol of the American dream and the aspiration of all young men and girls. This was not the only time that the bathing suit became a focus of controversy. In 1951 Miss America winner Yolande Betbeze refused to pose in a swimsuit, leading to the angry departure of swim wear sponsor Catalina to form the rival pageants known as Miss USA and ultimately Miss Universe.

In 1951 the pageant went international when the first Miss World Pageant was held in Britain. The contest in an attempt to convey political correctness adopted the slogan "Beauty with a Purpose", and collaborated with Variety Clubs International to raise funds for world charities. In response, Catalina held the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants together in Long Beach, California. The pageant achieved additional popularity with the coronation of the beautiful Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, an event which inspired the first national television broadcast of Miss America - the beauty pageant had married its perfect medium. A heady mix of pomp and ceremony, combined with the first public glimpse of a Sultan’s harem, the Miss America contest not only captured the imagination of the American public, but was the first socially acceptable televised presentation of scantily clad young women. Gaining popularity, the pageant became a musical extravaganza in the 1950s and continued its rapid growth.

Scandal, popularity and unrest – the new era of the Pageant

In 1957 Miss USA, 18-year-old Leona Gage, was forced to resign after it was revealed that she was not only married to an Air Force sergeant, but was also the mother of two small sons and had entered the contest to supplement the family income. In 1970, after concerns of civil unrest and the founding of a rival Miss Black America pageant, Cheryl Browne became the first African-American woman to compete in the Miss America Pageant, although she was eliminated before the semi-finals. Further scandal followed in 1973 when Marjorie Wallace, the first American to be named Miss World, was stripped of her title after rumours emerged of promiscuity amongst a cast of infamous bachelors including George Best and Tom Jones.

In 1973 the Miss Universe pageant was broadcast live worldwide via satellite for the first time from the Parthenon in Athens. Despite its modern image feminists began to challenge the event in force, and in response David Marmel purchased the flagging Mrs.America Pageant in 1977 to create a glamorous televised beauty pageant for married women. Finally in 1983 Vanessa Williams became the first African-American to win the Miss America title, although this PR triumph soon backfired when in 1984 it was revealed that Miss Williams had posed for Penthouse magazine before her victory. Following publication of the sexually explicit photos Miss Williams was forced to resign as Miss America, although good fortune ensured that her replacement Suzette Charles was of African-American descent.

The fashion for more exotic looks continued as a Eurasian woman won the Miss USA title in 1984, followed by Laura Martinez Herring, a naturalized Mexican-American in 1985. That same year a Puerto Rican, Miss Deborah Carthy-Deu, won the Miss Universe title.

Finally the image of the pageant began to change when in 1988 an oncology nurse from Michigan won the Miss America title. She voluntarily devoted part of her year of service to advocating hospice care and nursing, and in doing so she redefined the Beauty Pageant winner as a social role model, an image that soon became tradition. 1992 Winner Miss Carolyn Sapp used her title as a platform for her high profile campaign against domestic violence, a pattern which was to continue Miss America 1992, Miss Leanza Cornett, achieved national recognition for her platform on AIDS Education and Prevention. Later winners included a diabetic and a deaf woman, establishing the beauty pageant as a politically correct institution with real opportunity to overcome prejudice and to raise issues of social concern.

Despite a series of African-American winners, scandal again returned to the pageant in 1991 when the reigning world heavy weight boxing champion Mike Tyson was convicted of raping a contestant during pageant week. Controversy continued as business tycoon Donald Trump purchased the Miss Universe & Miss USA franchise in 1997. The heavens finally broke when in 2002 when the Miss World contest was held in Nigeria. Islamic fundamentalists staged anti-pageant protests, and rioting soon broke out after the contest was declared to be both offensive to Islam and sexually immoral. After several hundred people were killed in the ensuing violence the pageant was moved to London at short notice to a poor reception. Worse was to follow. At the Miss Universe Pageant Miss Lebanon withdrew after refusing to compete in a pageant with Miss Israel, and Miss Israel was too afraid to wear her titleholder sash in public, fearing for her security. The reigning Miss World, Miss Russia resigned after learning of her arduous schedule, and the clouds of chaos hung over the credibility and future of these International pageants.

A changing of the guard

The good times finally came to an end this year when the ABC television network finally dropped the Miss America pageant from its Fall schedule after audience viewing figures for the September 2004 pageant fell below 10 million for the first time. Whilst most specialist markets would gratefully receive an audience of 9.8 million, the big broadcaster was unimpressed, even though the show was still the highest rated Saturday night broadcast in eight months for the network. It is perhaps tempting to think that the price tag was simply too high. In contrast, the less conventional Miss Universe Pageant ratings are still in the ascendant as the show attracted an audience of over 11 million, a 40 percent increase on the previous year. Miss America officials, realising that their traditional format had lost some of its lustre, are seeking change in the light of the success of prime time “reality” knock-out shows such as American Idol and Survivor. In line with this trend Mr.Trump’s franchise has elected to appeal to a more contemporary audience, recently holding a ‘Fear Factor’ Miss USA which aired before the Miss USA pageant, in which bikini-clad models were baptised with worms and other humorous indignities. The rival Miss USA and Miss Universe competitions, co-owned by Mr.Trump and NBC, are gaining stronger audiences as they meet the market trend for more interactive model contests.

The beauty pageant has not shaken off its critics. It is popular to liken the beauty pageant to a dog show, with each dog paraded in front of the judges who evaluate its temperament and precise physical attributes. Others question the effect of such physical cultural ideals upon health. One Johns Hopkins study claimed that more than half of the Miss America winners since 1970 have been physically malnourished according to World Health Organization criteria. This they claim creates a culture rife with eating disorders that affect tens of millions of otherwise healthy women and girls. The idealised culture of the Miss World pageant is suggested to lead to a false perception that fitness equates to ‘thinness’, and that health is synonymous with a low percentage body fat. This to many is as ridiculous as the Body Mass Index which describes the physically robust as overweight and bodybuilders with only 3% body fat as obese. It seems that many resent physical ideals being imposed upon them by a eugenic minority, ideals which appear to change with the winds of high fashion.

In its heyday over 80 million Americans watched the transformation of a small town beauty queen into a national princess. However in this day and age, the advent of cable & satellite TV, the Internet and reality TV shows has led to an abundant supply of adult material that leaves far less to the imagination than the distant fantasies afforded by Miss America and its unattainable harem. That said, the advent of new technologies has resurrected the popularity of model contests. The cruel fashions of reality TV contests combined with portable mobile handsets and audience participation has made the model contest an interactive democracy. Empowering the audience appears to correlate with increased enjoyment, and this in turn leads to increased viewing figures. Many model contests are now beamed live via satellite to hand sets and computer screens around the world, to be viewed live or at the convenience of the consumer. A powerful example of this is the Miss Hawaiian tropic contest, a modern pageant beamed live to eager judges on their mobile handsets. The Internet has increased the public consumption of all forms of model entertainment from model contests to DVDs, and from personalised imagery to merchandise.

With the resurgence of interest and the advancement of media technologies, the beauty pageant has simply evolved into a multitude of model contests to suit every taste and whim. The Pageant is making a comeback in many and varied forms. Changing attitudes towards sexuality, together with the growth in popularity and new social acceptance of adult and glamour models, means that there is more money than ever before in the global pot, and there are far more men’s magazines and broadcasting companies than ever before to publicise the winners. As with almost every sport, there are rival contests and categories of models, and consequently modeling, as with any other lucrative industry, has splintered from the original Miss Universe and Miss World beauty contests into literally hundreds of rival money-spinning contests.

©Icqurimage 2005