The impact of beauty pageants on our perception of what is beautiful.
As a young girl I loved watching beauty pageants. My favourite beauty queen was Suzette van der Merwe. She wore a bright yellow dress the evening she was crowned Miss South Africa 1991. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.
However nowadays, my interest in beauty pageants are of a more critical nature. A recent email has made me rethink beauty pageants, and sparked the idea to focus on it as part of our anthropological discussion. I received an email stating: “there are no ugly people, only poor people”. To prove this statement the email included a before and after picture of 10 women. The women in the attached picture fascinated me, because they all looked the same. They all had bright white teeth, fake tans, hair extensions and large breasts.
I discovered after some ‘research’ that these women were part of a series called “The Swan”, a 2004 reality show by Fox Television (Bianco, 2004:online) . A group of so called ‘ugly women’ were chosen and then went through a gruelling 3 month make-over. After three months, they would have a contest to crown Miss Swan.
I was a bit confused. They took “ugly women”, made them “pretty” and then told all of them, except one, that they are still not pretty enough. I wonder how these women would feel about themselves once the hair extensions grow out and the tan fades? I have to admit that “The Swan” is an extreme example of a beauty pageant. But it is proof of the extreme measures that women, (and men I’m sure) will go to in order to attain to a certain “standard of beauty.”
The cancellation of this year’s Miss Matieland (Maree, 2010:4) also made me think about the impact of beauty pageants in Stellenbosch. Do they still have a place on campus? Most residences still have beauty pageants. How do the people who participate in beauty pageants feel about being judged by their appearance? Or should we consider it harmless fun? So under the broader theme of "how beauty is perceived in South Africa and more specifically Stellenbosch", I will focus on beauty pageants.
In order to answer the above mentioned questions I shall do ethnographic research by consulting people from different ages, economic backgrounds and race groups. Firstly, I will pose a number of questions in order to establish what the impact of these competitions are, and secondly whether they consider beauty pageants relevant in today’s society. In an attempt to look at the subject of beauty pageants in balanced fashion, I will also interview people that have participated and/or benefitted in these competitions.
Nicola Basson
Nicola Basson
There’s nothing beautiful about “The Swan”. 2004. USA Today: online. 4 Dec.
Mej Matieland gekanseller. 2010. Die Matie: p.4. March 10.
