Miss hungry

Last Sunday, a beautiful 18-year-old woman from Puerto Rico, Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza, won the title and a $250,000 crown of Miss Universe.\nAbout 40 minutes later, at a news conference, she passed out. The Associated Press and Reuters News Online reported she'd been standing under hot stage lights for hours "in a stifling auditorium" while wearing a dress composed of metal chains, causing her fall.\nA valid explanation -- but I can't help but think there's more to it.\nUpon studying beauty pageants, their complexities and cultural implications in class (going well beyond the 'they are degrading for women' argument) and screening documentaries about contestants' experiences in the pageants, I can't help but think that Mendoza passed out partly because she hadn't consumed a substantial meal in days -- or even weeks.\nBeauty pageants are not inherently "bad," and their contestants are not (all) shallow or participating with a false consciousness -- that is, being unaware of mainstream pageants' connotations for women and, really, society in general.\nIn fact, I would argue that many pageant participants, especially those in Miss America-esque pageants, are extremely admirable in their philanthropic endeavors and academic ambitions. For example, Miss IU, graduate student Betsy Uschkrat, was reported early this month to have founded a concert whose proceeds (up to $70,000) go to feed hungry Hoosiers. Additionally, Uschkrat is pursuing a masters degree in opera at the Jacobs School of Music, one of the best (if not the best) music schools in the country. \nMeanwhile, Mendoza has aspirations to become "an actress of infinite range," according the Miss Universe Web site. Ambition. Good.\nStill, neither Mendoza nor Uschkrat or any crowned beauty queen would win if she were not pretty. She could be a tenured professor of political science at Yale. She could be a social worker who works daily with children with cancer. But if she's not pretty, in shape, under 25 and thin, she will not be crowned queen.\nThe Miss America pageant tries to hide the fact that an ideal feminine body is crucial for winning. They do this by providing her a scholarship, requiring her to champion a cause and making only women who have never been married or had a child eligible for the crown (because she must be a virgin? yyyyyyeah). But the fact of the matter is that the women are judged upon their bodies.\nMore unfortunately, women in these types of pageants put in effort that sometimes causes them health problems (malnourishment, for one) to achieve the beauty ideal essential for winning. More disturbing is when contestants undergo plastic surgery, perpetuating a beauty standard that is naturally impossible.\nI acknowledge that atypical beauty pageants exist that also may have unfortunate implications: male beauty pageants, drag pageants, pageants for obese women. But those contests aren't broadcasted and viewed by millions.\nBottom line: The beauty of a woman is essentialized in her being perceived as successful and deserving of a title which allows her to "represent" a nation (or a universe?). \nSo, what does that mean for the rest of us?