Beauty Pageant

Topic: Beauty Pageant
Research Question:
Do they serve any social development in society?
Aaron Gullraiz
17-10828

Topic: Beauty Contest We live in a world where we constantly critically examining ourselves. Women and girls are persistently striving to become beautiful and they use a variety of different mediums to achieve this. Beauty can be defined as “a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). People have constantly admiring the beauty and comparing their beauty which became a competition. “A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on the physical beauty of its contestants, although such contests have evolved to also incorporate personality, intelligence, talent, and answers to judge’s questions as judged criteria” (Wikipedia, Oct. 2014). Beauty Pageants are contributing in social development of our society as it represents the cultural image, idealize people to stay fit and create job opportunities. Beauty Pageant is a contest which carries out in different tests, some contestants get disqualified after each test and remaining contestants are judged again from the beginning. In general, first step of all beauty pageants is screening test. After the screening, candidates will be on equal grounds, since the score will be back to zero. Then remaining contestants go through pre-pageant test, and then the winner is selected by the final round. Division of points and selection criteria is described in Table 1. The first modern beauty pageant was held during the Eglinton Tournament of 1859 held by Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, a re-enactment of a medieval joust that was held in Scotland. The pageant was won by Georgiana Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, the wife of Edward Seymour, 12th Duke of Somerset and sister of Caroline Norton, and she was proclaimed as the “Queen of Beauty”. (“Beauty Contest”, Retrieved June 7th 2013). For Pakistani women, there is only one beauty pageant working known as “Miss Pakistan World”. It was founded in 2002 by Pakistani-Canadian entrepreneur Sonia Ahmed. Its first office was setup in Toronto, Canada. Presently it is working in New York, USA. The winner of Miss Pakistan World represents Pakistan in Miss Earth pageant and other international beauty pageants. Zahra Sheerazi was the first title holder 2002. Atka Feroz is current Miss Pakistan World 2014. (misspakistanworld.com, 2014) “Mr. Pakistan World” is a male model competition for Pakistani boys. It is held in Toronto, Canada. The winner represents Pakistan in international male model competitions. It was established in 2011, by Sonia Ahmed. Moonzir Butt was the first title holder, 2011. Sher Khan is the current tile holder, 2014. (mrpakistanofficial.com, 2014) The winners of beauty pageants are the role models of a society. Everyone has one or more role models whom they follow. They try to copy their life styles and follow their teachings. People idealize different personalities on the basis of their character, attitude or works. Mostly people idealize personalities related to their discipline and believe, e.g.: A sports person would idealize a famous sports person, scientists would idealize a scientist and a literary person would idealize a literary person, etc. In the same way, people related to beauty pageant are the ideals of a society. Their dressing, talk, moral and cultural values, demonstrates the image of a society. Hence they are considered as the role models for society. People, who are continuously striving to improve themselves, must have a role model. As creatures of comfort sometimes we refuse to abandon our comfort zone, lacking the motivation, not having that strong urge within us. But being also example driven, we come to realize that all of that can sometimes be found among others, or to be more precise, driven from others. Role models fill that position quit nicely. Due to globalization, our culture is being influenced by western culture and our youngsters don’t even know our cultural values. Beauty Pageant holders represent the cultural importance of our society. They encourage people to wear national dresses. They are the means to save our cultural values and inherit it to our next generation. As a role model, Beauty Contest title holders are presenting a social and cultural ideal image of a society. Mostly they are all physically healthy and fit. People follow them and try to be in shape by exercising, jogging and going to gyms etc. It is a good mean to reduce obesity and helps people to be active. But there is a darker side of the picture. Some people become too much obsessed about their physical appearance. They start dieting, go through liposuction and use drugs, just to be in shape. Hence, it is important to aware people about the disadvantages of intense dieting and friends and family members should encourage a physically conscious person. Besides skinny people, chubby people should also be appreciated in beauty pageants. And it should be remembered that beauty contest is not only about the outer beauty, it is also about the inner beauty and cultural importance. Due to advancement of mass media, western culture has influenced our new generation and now everyone like to wear jeans, t-shirts, etc and call it new fashion. In order to meet the need, western clothes are being imported. Because of this, our textile industry is facing a huge crisis. The textile industry of Pakistan contributes 54% of the total export earning and provides employment to 38% of the manufacturing labor. Because of less work, our labors are living from hand to mouth. Promoting beauty pageant, we would encourage people to wear our cultural and national dresses and help in development of our textile industry.

Table 1:
Beauty Pageant Judging Criteria
Sr. no.
Screening Test
Points
Pre-pageant Test
Points
Final Beauty Pageant
Points
1
Height
10
Height
10
Figure and Catwalk
10
2
Face Beauty
15
Face Beauty
20
Poise and bearing
10
3
Skin and Complexion
15
Body Proportion
10
Intelligence
15
4
Figure
10
Skin Complexion
15

5
Intelligence
10
Discipline and breeding
10

References:
Beauty (2013) Oxford Dictionary.
Beauty Pageant (2014) Wikipedia: Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_Pageant
CC-BY-SA. (2014) History of beauty Pageant. Retrieved from http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Beauty_contest.html
Beauty Pageants Interview questions and Answers Tips.(Sep. 7th 2014) Retrieved from http://www.pageantanswers.com/beauty-pageant-judging-criteria-scoring-systems/
AlphaBlind. (2013) Miss Pakistan World. Retrieved from http://misspakistanworld.com/
AlphaBlind. (2014) Mr. Pakistan World. Retrieved from mrpakistanofficial.com

References: Beauty (2013) Oxford Dictionary. Beauty Pageant (2014) Wikipedia: Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_Pageant CC-BY-SA. (2014) History of beauty Pageant. Retrieved from http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Beauty_contest.html Beauty Pageants Interview questions and Answers Tips.(Sep. 7th 2014) Retrieved from http://www.pageantanswers.com/beauty-pageant-judging-criteria-scoring-systems/ AlphaBlind. (2013) Miss Pakistan World. Retrieved from http://misspakistanworld.com/ AlphaBlind. (2014) Mr. Pakistan World. Retrieved from mrpakistanofficial.com