Friday, December 15, 2006

A Packaged Personality

By Rishav Bashyal

"Beauty lies in the eyes of the beer holder"

-Anon

The first person to stage a modern beauty contest was also the same man who once said, “There is a sucker born every second”. But then, P T Barnum, who flaunted carny freaks for a living can be hardly qualified as an authentic judge in the beauty contest debate.

The notion of a formal beauty contest spread its roots later in 1921 when the idea was used to keep tourists at Atlantic City. But it was only after WWII that pageants became respectable; when beauty queens were recruited to sell bonds and entertain troops. Also, the introduction of scholarships and talent competitions led to a closer scrutiny of contestants’ morals and background. It was only a matter of time before the Miss World pageant was started in 1951. And the following year, answering the E.T-esque question of “Are we alone?” once and for all, the Miss Universe pageant was launched. The trend continued and in 2000, the earth-firsters also jumped the bandwagon with Ms Earth and Miss International, two pageants with environmental awareness as their main concerns.

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