But why are there so many beauty contests today? Is this a sign of the Filipino race improving? All I can say is that the younger generation is taller at least, those who were properly nourished. Pageants are dime a dozen today because the small-time ones in barangays had become profitable to mount. It has become a source of income not only for the organizers, but for the contestants as well for those who win that is.
Of course, nobody turns into a millionaire in these beauty contests. But it has become profitable. The people involved earn if they know how to manage what is now obviously a business. For the organizers all they have to do is close a street to traffic and build a makeshift stage and with proper coordination with the barangay, they could mount an event.
Better yet if the place has a gymnasium where there is already a built-in stage. Where to get the crowd? Parade a bevy of beauties in bikinis and you have an instant audience the more seasoned organizer can even sell tickets for additional income. You get all types here females, males at least you have them till the swimsuit competition and gays. For the kiddie contests you already have ready sets of parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. The male pageant is the least profitable because you only get basically the third sex population, which though continuously growing is still a limited audience.
The sure-fire formula, however, is to organize a Miss Gay this and that. This will bring in all types of crowds who get a kick out of heckling cross-dressers for all the gay liberation being espoused, there is still discrimination. Also male gays are usually very funny and witty providing instant entertainment. How do the contestants earn from pageants? They need to win something if not the title, at least, a runner-up position or even a special award that spells cash.
Believe it or not, there are professional gay beauty contestants who move from one pageant to the next in one evening. Those who do not make it to the semi-finals and have no hope of winning any prize with monetary equivalent will go to the next town and try their luck in a nearby place with a similar contest they know when an event is scheduled. The gutsier and desperate ones may even try streetwalking, which used to be a form of business among cross-dressers after midnight along Ayala Ave.
This scenario was even depicted in the Sharon Cuneta-Christopher de Leon suspense film Biktima in As for the organizers, they make a profit by soliciting cash from sponsors. In a small town, you can go from sari-sari store to sari-sari store soliciting for cash donations. A thousand pesos per store will go a long, long way to cover not only the pageant expenses to buy the tiaras, glass trophies, bouquets and even for the cash prizes and there will still be extra money for the effort of the organizers in putting up such event.
The Miss Universe contest will be returning just seven months after the last winner was announced. It will be held in Israel in December, Insider reports. The return of the pageant is accompanied by the question of whether beauty pageants still have relevance. A consideration of attempts to be inclusive, as well as the value that such contests hold for their participants, is necessary to answer this question.
To say that beauty pageants are designed to serve the male gaze would be to state the obvious. The need to adhere to a certain body type, or the inclusion of elements such as the swimsuit competition which is no longer a part of some contests , aren't just ways of measuring and comparing women's beauty which is problematic in itself ; they are a means to put on a display sexualised versions of women for the male gaze, under the guise of "celebrating women's beauty".
In , the Miss Universe pageant made headlines for an unusual and embarrassing reason: Host Steve Harvey named the wrong participant when announcing the winner, during a live telecast.
Pageants are also big business for all stakeholders — except participants, who often spend more than the amount they could potentially win, reports International Business Times. From a participation fee to the expenses incurred over hairstyling, makeup, outfits and personal trainers, the services availed by participants alone could constitute an industry, considering how popular pageants continue to be.
Morality featured, and continues to feature, prominently in the qualifications required to participate. For example, until , Miss America reportedly did not allow women who were married, divorced or who had undergone an abortion to take part in the pageant.
There have been cases where women have also withheld the truth about being married and having children, in order to participate. It is evident that for very long, these pageants expected participants to perform a very narrow definition of femininity, while belonging to a very narrow section of society, too. The Philippines is a country obsessed with beauty pageants.
In the past decade, it won nine international crowns, which triggered a surge in beauty contests and pageant hopefuls.
But as more women — and men — vie for attention in an increasingly crowded space, these pageants have also become fertile hunting grounds for sexual predators. Across the nation, local beauty contests have sprung up; every village, city and province now has its own beauty queen.
Chinese-Filipino model Mercedes Pair knows full well that winning a pageant can launch her as a celebrity in the Philippines, where endorsement deals can run into the millions. She aspires to be a beauty queen partly because her mother is battling a chronic kidney disease in Hong Kong. The money from winning a crown and the endorsement deals could go towards paying off those medical bills. So she left her modelling career and family in Hong Kong to take part in the Binibining Pilipinas contest in Manila — a contest that produced all four of the Filipina Miss Universe winners.
Thousands sign up for this pageant, but only 40 girls are selected for the next stage, where five winners are chosen and each given endorsement contracts worth close to 1. They also receive the honour of representing the Philippines in five international contests respectively. The road to the crown, however, can be costly; some of the girls turn up with budgets of , to , pesos. Some of these women also face a risk of unwanted advances on the part of predatory sponsors, who are often powerful people.
William, who has worked as a pageant reporter for 15 years, saw an incident in which the pageant organiser asked the contestants to sit with guests who had paid tickets to attend the event and who had been drinking.
No one files cases … They all live in fear. In , the Miss Earth contest in Manila hit the world headlines when three contestants levelled accusations of sexual harassment and indecent proposals against one of the sponsors.
Jaime VandenBerg, who represented Canada, said she was harassed by a sponsor who called her almost every day or showed up to look for her. I could go to your hotel, or you could come to my hotel. She wanted to leave the Philippines, but the organisers were holding on to her passport.
They returned it to her after she threatened to contact her embassy for help. She was cooped up in a theatre and not allowed to have a phone, computer or any devices with her, nor any contact with the outside world, including her relatives, for three months.
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