I must confess that at a certain level, I am somewhat ambivalent about the current trend of transsexual beauty pageant winners. Yes, I giggle when Miss Universe Netherlands is compared to the winner of the Kentucky Derby, and somehow I remember the scary part of Carlo Collodi's masterpiece in such cases, but all in all, who wins beauty pageants really doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me. More or less, Def Leppard's song Photograph, and Van Halen's song I'll Wait, come to mind at the prospect of watching dozens of women strut across the stage in various forms of attire, singing Veggie Tales' song Puppies for the talent competition. I think I've got a book to read....
But that noted, a quick comparison to athletics comes to mind. I've got four objections to men in women's athletics, including innate male advantages that go beyond just testosterone, the likelihood that "Megan's List" members would find themselves in the dressing rooms, injuries due to competition, and finally the reality that spectators are paying to watch women compete, and won't show up if a large portion of the competitors aren't....feminine.
All in all, though, male features don't help much in a beauty pageant, injuries are rare, and non-participants really can't get into the dressing rooms, so we're really down to "will people watch?". And although some "trans" contestants do pretty well imitating femininity, Marvin Gaye's song comes to mind. There really ain't nothing like the real thing, and if one wanted to kill off pageants altogether, it's hard to come up with a more effective method than filling the stage with imitations of femininity. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Miss Universe TV ratings as spots are filled by people who are not women.
My guess is that it would make New Coke, the Bug Light fiasco, and Target's Pride fiasco look positively mild in comparison.
3 comments:
Mmm... actually delicately featured men can be the winners in the modern pageant/modeling space because their features are more pronounced and they have naturally lower body fat. It's like a picture in high-focus/hyper colored. And of course the best plastic surgery money can buy.
If I ran pageants (assuming I thought they were moral, etc) I would put everyone in identical clothing, with freshly washed faces, clean (no product) hair, and have a strict no-plastic-surgery clause (exceptions made for necessary reconstruction). At that point, the boys would not win.
I would also stage nurse-ins to discourage trans parades. But I'm subversive.
You've got a point about body fat and facial features--I've thought for a while "the pageant look really isn't that attractive to me" for a while, hadn't quite made the connection to this issue, though. Your proposal sounds good, and perhaps I would add "judges must be either women, or men who are attracted to women". No Carrie Prejean nonsense anymore.
Androgyny (in either direction) is very popular with a certain demographic to which neither of us belongs.
Also, glamour and beauty are not synonyms.
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