Miss Universe just crowned its first black winner in eight years, and of the few good things to come from the beauty pageant, this may be the best.
“I grew up in a world where a woman who looks like me, with my kind of skin and my kind of hair, was never considered to be beautiful,” Miss South Africa said before she was crowned winner of the Miss Universe pageant on Sunday. “I want children to look at me and see my face, and I want them to see their faces reflected in mine.”
Crowning Zozibini Tunzi the winner of the international pageant sends a powerful message to young girls about what beauty looks like. Unfortunately, that message isn’t all good.
The Miss Universe pageant began in 1952 after the reigning Miss America, Yolande Betbeze, refused to model in a swimsuit after the pageant. “I’m an opera singer,” she said, “not a pinup!” So, the clothing company that sponsored Miss America founded a pageant of its own. From the get-go, Miss Universe has prioritized pretty faces over personal dignity, but that makes it no different from any other beauty pageant.
While news websites fawn over these pageants for featuring gay contestants or crowning a record number of black women, they miss the truth underlying pageants’ efforts to appear progressive. No level of diversity can change the fact that they’re predicated on parading women around in bikinis and calling it female empowerment.
This same faux-woke narrative has been offered by Sports Illustrated, which featured a model in a hijab for its latest swimsuit issue, and Victoria’s Secret, which finally canceled its annual fashion show after complaints that the show wasn’t diverse enough. Often, this is a rare crossover controversy where conservatives and feminists agree.
But, of course, plenty of men will argue that women enjoy these competitions, and they’re totally benign. When Miss America canceled the swimsuit portion of its competition last year, conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager whined that the Left had “destroyed” the pageant. He wrote: “One of the Left’s favorite terms to describe the Miss America swimsuit competition (and even the evening gown competition) is dehumanizing.’”
Sad that men won’t be able to ogle women anymore! It’s also telling: If you’re upset that you can no longer see women in bikinis, you’re only there for the dehumanizing spectacle. Speaking of dehumanizing, it’s actually not a left-wing talking point to argue that promoting women for parading around half-naked is a bad thing. When a woman’s value seems to come from her appearance, that is dehumanizing. And that’s exactly what these pageants do. Let’s be honest: No one watches pageants to hear what the contestants have to say about world peace.
There are so many things worth celebrating more than whether a 20-year-old can afford plastic surgery or look good in a low-cut dress. Beauty pageants minimize women to mere objects, and no amount of diversity will change that.
