A few random thoughts on beauty queens

Remember this?

Sadly, it’s more representative than exceptional. I shit thee not.

Oh come on, admit it. You know it as well as I do, gentle reader: Beauty queens are twits. It goes with the territory. They don’t need no stinkin’ depth; they have their looks, and in general, that gets them further than any dumbass has a right to go. They have no time or need to fill their heads with any information more useful than maybe which hairspray gives the best hold without actually looking like industrial-strength lacquer. Or which plastic surgeon does the best nose bobs and/or boob jobs.

No matter what anyone bleats about the brains or talent of any particular Miss, the fact remains that there has never been a Nobelist among them in any field. It’s either dieting your way into that winning swimsuit, or saving the world; you cannot do both simultaneously. As Kim Chernin and Naomi Wolf have both eloquently pointed out, you cannot think straight and obsess over every mouthful at the same time. Your brain burns more calories than your thighs, so when you try to slim the one, you end up starving the other that much more. Food for thought, girls!

(And good luck trying to be a beauty queen without dieting; if you dare, you get viciously ripped like this Miss England wannabe.)

That said, I wonder how long it will be before the current Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza (presumably from Venezuela, but really from Mars) experiences a complete collapse of the skull. Her recent gushy gaffe about Gitmo is just as par for the course as the stupidities of Miss Teen South Carolina in the video. It’s also not the first time a Miss Venezuela-turned-Miss Universe has put her foot in it; the first of the line, Maritza Sayalero, visited Chile, chatted up Augusto Pinochet, and thought he was simply divine. (No, I’m not shitting you about that, either.)

I don’t like anything where women get judged directly (and let’s face it, solely) on their superficial traits. But I have to admit I’m not a total militant about abolishing the beauty pageant, as inane and dangerous as it may be. I mean, we smart goodlookings will always have our smarts to fall back on if our looks fail us (and believe me, they will). What about the dumb ones? If there were no Miss Whatever pageants, whatever would become of the poor, intellectually ungifted Misses? As much as I roll my eyes over the idiocies of these girls, I’d hate to see them on a bread line or blowing creeps for crack near Queen and Roncesvalles.

Fortunately, there’s a vast marketplace for female flesh that’s been dieted, hairsprayed and surgically altered half to death. Miss Whatever can always find work peddling conflict diamonds, blue jeans sewn by slaves in Singapore, or–glory be!–the jewel of a beach resort that is Gitmo. At least, until her reign is over, whereupon she’s free to become a billionaire’s bride (or a millionaire’s mistress), a soap opera star, a game-show letter-turner, even a high-end call girl…really, the possibilities are limited only by her IQ.

At the very least, she could always serve as the muse for a song like this one.