Miss What?

The first Miss Harvard pageant is less than a week away. Although organizers Gretchen R. Passe ’03 and Eric P. Fenstermaker ’04 from the student group Impact emphatically assure us that it will not be a beauty pageant, just what it will be remains unclear.

On its surface, Miss Harvard sure looks like a beauty pageant. Its four rounds, introductions, swimwear, talent and interviews, sound awfully familiar. Wait, they say, this will be an “alternative” swimwear competition—the bathing suits, you see, are optional. And the formal gowns that contestants typically wear during beauty pageants—they’re optional, too. According to Impact, the show is really about “talent,” not the appearance of the eight contestants. To this end, they were even so wise as to include the women’s studies department on the judging panel.

There’s merit to Impact’s concern about common objections to beauty pageants—that they demean women by putting them on display as physical marvels devoid of personality. Pageant consultants teach contestants to layer on the make-up, rip off the wax, fill out the bra, and above all else, not to think too much. Interviews are not about authenticity; they’re about practice. Winning competitors must manufacture an identity and, in so doing, discard emotion and intellect in search of validation.

But Impact does not know how to confront these objections. It hides from them, with words like “optional” and “alternative,” which do absolutely nothing to challenge the beauty pageant regime. Had it more courage, Impact would make the absurdity of beauty pageants the center of the show. To allow men to compete, and to encourage them to do so in drag, is only a start.

Impact ought to confront objections head-on by emphasizing how ridiculous beauty pageants are and by over-doing—and, indeed, celebrating—the drag. After all, women in a standard beauty pageant are themselves in a kind of drag. Beneath makeup, stuffing and hairspray, how much of the person on stage really remains?

In a proper parody, both men and women would stuff some extra cotton wads into that bra, stretch the hair extensions skywards another foot and shake on another container of glitter. Were the contestants to strut around in awkward heels and flutter those unnaturally luscious lashes, no one would mistake Miss Harvard for a standard beauty pageant—and the audience would still have a good time.

Instead, on March 15, we will watch eight men and women parade around, competing to see who demonstrates the most “poise and originality.” While we may learn just how flexible the guy from section is or how many sharp objects our roommate can juggle, the show will shed no light on what makes traditional beauty pageants so distasteful. Impact’s politically correct ambitions ensure that nothing meaningful will happen. But at least they will avoid offending people—except, perhaps, with boredom.