Watching "Miss India Georgia" took me back to my own pageant days.
I went into it with my good friend Sarah, intending to make our story the sequel to Sandra Bullock's "Miss Congeniality." And there was money in it too, money that would help me pay for my first semester at Willamette. Talking before the pageant rehearsals began, Sarah and I laughed alot about the idea of parading around in a bikini and performing a synchronized dance in front of 500 people. We were fearless.
The theme? Dreamgirls.
In retrospect, there's so much wrong with the "Dreamgirls" theme I don't even know where to start. If you listen to the lyrics of the "Dreamgirls" song its not about what it means to be a woman, its about what it means to be a woman serving the needs of a man, to be a man's "Dreamgirl," saying nothing of self respect and ambition. Not only that, we were all pale white girls from a small county making the incredible struggle of a trio of black female soul artists during the 1960s our platform for feminine performance. I shudder just thinking about it.
Up until I began "training" for the pageant, I had never really cared what people thought about how I looked, what I wore, whether I was fat or skinny. I just was ME, an athletic, incredibly geeky, but confident young lady and I felt pretty comfortable in my own skin...most of the time. Then rehearsals started, and I had to start learning how to dance, squeeze into hand-me-down past pageant dresses encrusted in sequins that the morbidly obese director told me I would have to "work" to get into (despite my 125 lbs...oh the irony!), and learn how to cake makeup properly on my face so I could be beautiful. Then I had to learn how to walk in heels in a hot pink bikini. I remember practicing with the video camera in my living room one day when my parents weren't home, so I could learn to get my walk "right", with the hip swaying, the turns, the placement of my feet. Even with the support female contestants I began to feel inferior. At that point, I didn't have cleavage or the hips, nor did my legs hit the floor like Barbie. I had a plain normal looking body, but I had to learn to act like the ultimate feminine object of beauty. I didn't think I fit the part. While the air of solidarity and encouragement between the female contestants helped us get the most from the pageant experience, it also symbolized my loss of innocence about the incredible value placed upon those that fit the stereotype. We had to learn how to be "women". Carry ourselves like "women". In the end, the mastery of our sex divided us: only one woman could wear the glittering crown, leaving the others left behind wondering.
This performance - this act of perpetuating a caricature of female identity, of how women are supposed to look, act, and feel about themselves, their identities, their sexuality - was like opening up a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup: completely disappointing, predictable, yet so easy to mindlessly consume if one doesn't pay attention.
When I think about the Miss India Georgia pageant, I realize how much greater the struggles of Misty, Nisha, Anu, and Mini must have been. I would have been one of those "intimidating white American girls" that Misty said caused her to not want to actually participate in a "real" American pageant. Additionally, having to reconcile their own identities, as first generation Indian-Americans, rooted in two separate worlds and cultures, contributes to the challenges that they face in portraying themselves in a venue that emphasizes sexuality. What that means as an American woman, a traditional Hindi woman, and for a woman having to straddle the expectations and stereotypes of also race and class... truly harrowing. What frightens me however is how consumed by the pageant all the girls became, even though they originally entered into it playfully. Mini especially saw the pageant as her chance to prove herself, to prove that she had worth. "If only I won this, and all my friends saw me," I remember hearing Mini say in one of the interviews.
And this is one of the main reasons that I don't see pageants as an effective means of empowering women. Like the fashion industry, pageants are a business and don't necessarily revolve around the betterment of female solidarity. I do believe somewhat in a sisterhood; a sisterhood united in our common struggles. But I also refuse any development of a mutually exclusive paradigm in definining what a woman is and what she isn't.
That's up for her to decide. Not a panel of judges.
Okay more like pageant six-months-of-my-life-that-I'll-never-get-back..
Six months of my life in which I lost nearly 15 pounds, drooled over the thought of eating half of a granola bar, and constantly compared my 17 year old undeveloped body to women 2-5 years older than me, competiting for the title of Miss Poulsbo/Miss Kitsap.I went into it with my good friend Sarah, intending to make our story the sequel to Sandra Bullock's "Miss Congeniality." And there was money in it too, money that would help me pay for my first semester at Willamette. Talking before the pageant rehearsals began, Sarah and I laughed alot about the idea of parading around in a bikini and performing a synchronized dance in front of 500 people. We were fearless.
The theme? Dreamgirls.
In retrospect, there's so much wrong with the "Dreamgirls" theme I don't even know where to start. If you listen to the lyrics of the "Dreamgirls" song its not about what it means to be a woman, its about what it means to be a woman serving the needs of a man, to be a man's "Dreamgirl," saying nothing of self respect and ambition. Not only that, we were all pale white girls from a small county making the incredible struggle of a trio of black female soul artists during the 1960s our platform for feminine performance. I shudder just thinking about it.
 |
| Karina (me) and Sarah, hours before the show |
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| Lining up at the end in our evening gowns, waiting to hear the results |
This performance - this act of perpetuating a caricature of female identity, of how women are supposed to look, act, and feel about themselves, their identities, their sexuality - was like opening up a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup: completely disappointing, predictable, yet so easy to mindlessly consume if one doesn't pay attention.
When I think about the Miss India Georgia pageant, I realize how much greater the struggles of Misty, Nisha, Anu, and Mini must have been. I would have been one of those "intimidating white American girls" that Misty said caused her to not want to actually participate in a "real" American pageant. Additionally, having to reconcile their own identities, as first generation Indian-Americans, rooted in two separate worlds and cultures, contributes to the challenges that they face in portraying themselves in a venue that emphasizes sexuality. What that means as an American woman, a traditional Hindi woman, and for a woman having to straddle the expectations and stereotypes of also race and class... truly harrowing. What frightens me however is how consumed by the pageant all the girls became, even though they originally entered into it playfully. Mini especially saw the pageant as her chance to prove herself, to prove that she had worth. "If only I won this, and all my friends saw me," I remember hearing Mini say in one of the interviews.
And this is one of the main reasons that I don't see pageants as an effective means of empowering women. Like the fashion industry, pageants are a business and don't necessarily revolve around the betterment of female solidarity. I do believe somewhat in a sisterhood; a sisterhood united in our common struggles. But I also refuse any development of a mutually exclusive paradigm in definining what a woman is and what she isn't.
That's up for her to decide. Not a panel of judges.
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