Beauty pageants in the eye of the beholder

After an emotional breakdown, Paul Dano’s character decries the beauty pageant in all its forms in the Academy Award-winning film “Little Miss Sunshine.”

A lot of people feel the same.

As the Miss Indiana pageant gets underway, concerns have been voiced about the dangers such contests can produce.

Body image is a sensitive issue, especially for women.

During the Miss USA pageant earlier this month, the contestant from Indiana, Mekayla Diehl, was praised for having a “normal” body.

She’s not typical model skinny, but normal would be a stretch. Diehl is 5-foot-8-inches and a size 4. The average American woman is 5-foot-3-inches and a size 12.

There’s a worrying disconnect between what women are presented as and what they actually are.

People are afraid, with good reason, that impossible standards will damage the psyches of girls and that beauty pageants are reinforcing these issues.

How could a girl watch one and not be misinformed about her own beauty?

Impossible standards aren’t a single-gender issue. Men also have standards they are expected to uphold.

 Sometimes it’s physical. More often it has to do with how successful they are or how much money they make.

So we have a problem in our culture with what we expect ourselves to be and the self-worth associated with those expectations. Are events like Miss Indiana the problem?

I see nothing inherently wrong with entering a beauty pageant.

Self-improvement is a good thing. You should strive to be the best person you can be.
If you want to lose weight, good for you.

If you want to be more successful, go for it.

And if entering a beauty pageant helps you down that road, I say do it.

The problem is that pageants generally uphold a specific standard for a subjective ideal, attractiveness or beauty, and it is seen as objective in the eyes of many.

Different people find different things beautiful, so why say one person is the best at it?

I think the problem boils down to how we perceive our own self-worth. We got it into our heads that in order to be successful and happy, we have to meet some sort of passing grade in specific areas in which others decide the cutoff.

But if we’re always judging ourselves against the standards of others, we’re never going to be happy, no matter how much we achieve.

I’m sure all the contestants of Miss Indiana are beautiful and deserving of victory.
But so are many others, for a variety of reasons.

Beauty contests, or any contests, are fine.

If you succeed in them, that’s great.

But if you don’t, you can’t sweat it.
It doesn’t say anything about you or your accomplishments.
It’s not some judgment from above; it’s a few people’s opinions.

You’re worth more than that

I think there’s a good message to be taken away from “Little Miss Sunshine” and its beauty pageant.

If you want to succeed as a person, you need to do it on your own terms. Find what makes you happy and go after it.

Who cares what other people think?

That is a beautiful way to live.

sckroll@indiana.edu