That's such a stupid article.
It's like saying Sachin Tendulkar is not representative of India because
he's a better cricket player than the average Indian.
Of *course* the contestants are better looking/fitter/more
graceful/whatever than your average Indian woman - that's kind of the
point.
There is a certain amount of truth to the point that they are being
moulded to fit the standards of beauty of the West and more specifically
moulded in every way to win one particular competition.
I don't see the problem - it's just like training for any sporting
competition.There are certain criteria for winning Miss World..if you want
to win it, you pick the people who are likely to win it and train them to
the best of your ability. If the concept offends you, don't compete in
that competition.
But it is rather unfair to criticize people doing their best (and rather
successfully) to train for a competition. ("Oh no, it's against our
principles to compete in Western imperialist sports like football..we'll
stick to kabaddi and cricket, thank you..").
Blah blah, "objectification", blah blah. Not that I'm an expert but vague
memories from college suggest that there is a pretty strong school of
feminist thought which considers beauty contests to be empowering to the
women who *choose* to compete in them.
As for "international standardization of physical allure", I believe that
there is research which has established that historically, across
cultures, there ARE aspects of looks which are universally considered
attractive (not so much stuff like skin colour - more like symmetry of
features, proportions of various body parts to each other, etc).
Badri
> While in India this past January, I witnessed on
> television the height of
> Western cultural imperialism. And that height, it
> turns out, is five feet
> six inches (or, more precisely, 167.5 centimeters).
>
> That's how tall a young woman must be, minimum, to
> enter the Miss India
> contest. Never mind the fact that Indian women, on
> average, stand at five
> foot two and, therefore, the winner and various
> runners-up--who will go on
> to represent India in the Miss Universe, Miss World,
> and Miss Asia Pacific
> pageants--will appear strikingly unrepresentative of
> their country. And
> never mind that only three routes exist for a woman of
> India to reach or
> exceed this internationally approved minimum altitude
> requirement: Western
> diet, partial Western ancestry, or atypical genetic
> endowment. Clearly,
> there are those who believe that, if India is to
> secure its rightful place
> in the family of nations, its people will have to
> stand tall.
>
> But the issue doesn't end there. Vinita Deshmukh,
> writing in the January 23,
> 1999, New Indian Express, adds that, after a woman
> becomes a contest
> finalist, the behind-the-scenes "experts" commence to
> further enhance her
> "unIndianness" by thoroughly making her over:
>
> Your limbs, hips and waist go for a trimming process
> through exercise and
> gymnasium regimens. Your diction, your attire,
> everything is moulded in a
> way that you acquire universal (read Western)
> appeal. Remember, you have to
> show off your thin arms, expose those lanky legs and
> reveal your recently
> chiselled shoulders in a way so graceful and natural
> that the platform of
> international beauty pageants becomes a cakewalk for
> you.
>
> And of course, you are taught to give impromptu
> replies that blend
> philosophy with ultramodernity to show that you are
> a woman of
> substance.... In short, you are forced to look
> beautiful apparently as per
> the dictates of some international marketing
> requirements.
>
> It should come as no surprise, then, that Indian
> contest winners from recent
> years --if the photos posted on the World Wide Web are
> an indication--all
> look suspiciously Western.
>
> Then there's the color factor. India's population
> includes light-skinned
> Aryans, primarily in the north, and dark-skinned
> Dravidians, primarily in
> the south. That those of lighter complexion tend to be
> favored throughout
> Indian society is as obvious as the billboards that
> line the streets from
> Kashmir to Kerala, the celluloid stars who populate
> the Indian cinema, and
> the statuesque models who appear in advertisements
> placed in various
> domestically published magazines. Ditto for every one
> of the Indian beauty
> contest winners appearing on the Web.
>
> Yet, as if to ensure that the focus will remain on
> this lighter side, suntan
> oil manufacturers are among the sponsors of
> international beauty
> competitions--a lifetime supply of their product being
> one of the prizes
> conferred on winners. The unstated expectation, it
> seems, is that all women
> who win, place, or show will be sufficiently
> melanin-deficient to actually
> need the oil (or at least be favor ably disposed
> toward the Western pastime
> of sunbathing--a thing that Indians as a group,
> despite having an awesome
> 3,500-mile-long coastline, simply aren't into).
>
> So there they were: the twenty-nine finalists in the
> Palmolive Femina Miss
> India contest, gathered in Pune near Mumbai (the city
> formerly known as
> Bombay). Each had already won some lesser coveted
> title, such as Colgate Gel
> Miss Body Beautiful. But now--as they were sent across
> the stage in their
> make-up, jewelry, and designer outfits--they resembled
> assembly-line
> products to such an extent that the voiceover
> declaring that each was a
> would-be cultural ambassador for India didn't seem to
> go without saying. The
> abbreviated duration of the swimsuit competition was
> one of the few other
> indicators that I wasn't in Kansas anymore--since
> wearing swimwear in public
> in India is frowned upon as immodest. But, overall,
> the globalization of
> culture marched on: internationally standardized
> canons of physical allure
> strutting arm in arm with the objectification of
> women.
>
> Of course, I'd long ago concluded that these types of
> pageants are bad
> enough when viewed from home. But seeing one elsewhere
> made their inherent
> prejudices and defects all the more glaring. Thus, my
> prior opinion--that
> those who run or promote these competitions are among
> the ethically
> challenged--stood stunningly reconfirmed.
>
> (Fred Edwords is the executive director of the
> American Humanist Association
> and editor of the Humanist.)
>
>
