Beauty Pageants. The name itself suggests that the contest is primarily based on judging women’s bodies and picking the prettiest one in a group of say 50 to 100 other pretty girls. In other words the way that beauty pageants are presented makes it seem like a bunch of judges look at the contestants like pieces of meat and crown the one they like the best. There are many different portions to the pageants themselves but the interview and talent sections are usually overlooked by the public and the modeling categories are what people associate pageants with. Judges are looking for beautiful, talented and intelligent women who are good role models for young girls but the rail thin girls walking down a runway in bikinis get more media attention than talented and intelligent part. The way that the Miss America Pageant scores its contestant actually holds less weight in the superficial aspect of the contest than one might think. The scoring system is roughly as follows:
Interview- 40%
Talent-30%
Evening gown and onstage interview- 20%
Swimsuit- 10%
So, in theory, the judges are really looking for a smart, talented girl who just happens to look good in a gown and has a 23 inch waist. The contestants pick a platform before the pageant that concentrates on a national or world issue and if they win then they spend their reigning year promoting that platform. Although the media chooses to focus on the negative aspects of pageants (i.e. the body image promoted to young girls through the contestants) the motives behind it are really to give women a role model who is well rounded.
http://media.www.dailynebraskan.com/media/storage/paper857/news/2004/02/23/News/Beauty.Pageants.Subsist.On.Talent.Intelligence-1740851.shtml
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i think that this is a rally interesting topic and it was able to somewhat relate it to my won. My topic is focusing on the lifestyles of young professional athletes, specifically young gymnasts. Like the girls completely at high level for beauty pageants, gymnast are taught at a young age the need to work hard with rigorous schedules and that winning is vital to success.
I thought that your entry about the media's portrayal of Beauty Pageants was especially interesting, with movies such as Little Miss Sunshine, where the very young girls are almost scary looking with their big hair and fake tans, beauty pageants are portrayed as a joke and a sick way of making young girls appear older than they actually are.
I also was watching TV with my younger cousins over this holiday break and when watching an episode of Zoey 101 on Nickelodeon the episode was about a beauty pageant taking place at the school. As a role model for young girls Zoey clearly stated that beauty pageants were a degrading making them compete over beauty, and the show went on to show that competitions like that only cause girls to be over competitive and catty.
I think that beauty pageants are the kind of thing that has been extremely stereotyped over the years and you did a nice job relating that information as well as going in-depth into the great opportunities that they are able to provide. I also think you did a good job of recognizing your own opinion and still being able to present unbiased. Overall very interesting!
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