What Lies Beneath The Crown
Rachel Hannah Beltran | Malaya
Steve Harvey’s infamous mistake in Miss Universe 2015 is not what this is all about. It is the shallow advocacies and misrepresentation of winning titles that live up to this day.
Beauty pageantry has been a norm in the Philippines as these competitions are regularly heard in every barangay hollering the winning sashes, tiara, bouquet of flowers, and even cash prizes.
It is usual to see men and women angling their curves and abs during the swimsuit competition—being praised by these avid pageant fans while the other participants who have thick thighs, dark skin tone, and wobbly arms are treated as ‘something new and brave’ when in the first place, these are what a person and the reality truly is.
There exists a narrow beauty standard that remains a question whether these beauty pageants truly embrace the diverse definition of beauty or the judges primarily emphasize the looks, swimwear, and even the evening gowns.
On the other hand, these competitions in beauty pageants might contradict Binibining Pilipinas Charities, Incorporated’s (BPCI) primary instrument to accomplish its mission of spreading peace and love across the nation is through pageantry.
It is a matter of fact that beauty pageants are considered businesses that commodify men and women to sustain the net income of the owners. This further crafts the debate that they are being objectified through this means as flaunting the inaccurate narrative of beauty.
Do these pageantries reach the ground where the systematic problem the Philippines faces currently lies? It is an echo of doubt if these physical standards truly uphold the advocacies of the winning titles.
Society is turning a blind eye to the misrepresentation of beauty pageantry. The dazzling makeup and the silver lining dresses become so bright that even the advocacies and stances of the participants are just noises in the background.
It can be remembered that Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray was often called as someone who set the standards too high because of her impressive performance. However, her answer was also one of the most talked about on different platforms without even grasping what she had said.
"I work a lot in the slums of Tondo, Manila and the life there is very... It's poor and it's very sad. And I've always taught myself to look for the beauty in it; to look in the beauty in the faces of the children, and to be grateful.”
As a consequence of her winning moment, her answer was not criticized. She admitted it—life in Tondo is poor as it is also one of the largest slums in Manila.
In a place where education and healthcare are inaccessible, toxic positivism is not the answer.
To look for its beauty and to be grateful is to sound unbothered by the government’s unaccountability and its poor governance. These flowery words do not have a space for the country’s continuous increase in inflation rate, killings of journalists, and even the enforced disappearances.
This issue does not only tackle Catriona—these beauty standards considering the question-and-answer portion of the pageantry world are mere reflections of the image-obsessed society that we live in.
The answers that beauty queens are being trained to often fail to consider the grassroots level problem of the system, instead those flowery words are used to get the attention of the people to win the crown.
Beauty pageantry is more than the looks and rhetoric answers. The representation that society must uphold is to walk on the stage without judgment—to dress boldly while shouting their advocacies walls within walls.
More than that, the representation that society must uphold is to go down the stage and face the existing status quo to constitute answers based on the realities from the masses’ perspective.
Rachel Hannah Beltran is the Managing Editor for Administration of Pacesetter for A.Y. 2023–2024. She is a fourth-year legal management student from the College of Criminal Justice Education.
