\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a knotty question explored, to varying degrees, in the numerous films about pageants and their contestants that have been made, stretching back to the early days of cinema history.<\/p>\n
Women as window dressing<\/strong><\/p>\n Certainly, the very early movies about pageants hardly showed them in a good light. One of the first films on the subject, Frank Tuttle\u2019s 1926 silent picture The American Venus, saw Miss America herself, Fay Lanphier, land the titular role. The film, one of the first to use Technicolor, follows a PR man hoping to promote a cosmetic business by getting the owner\u2019s daughter to win a beauty pageant. The now-lost movie proved popular and remained in theatres for two years. Clips online reveal some of the title cards used, which detail the body measurements of the Venus de Milo, the ancient Greek statue long considered to be the ideal of womanhood, and offer such quotes as, \u201can eye feast of beautiful women and luxurious settings\u201d and \u201ca galaxy of gorgeous girls\u201d. According to critics at the time, the movie objectified the female body as much as pageants do.<\/p>\n \u201cWomen\u2019s legs, backs, sides and abdomens as low as below the navel, are shown aplenty,\u201d wrote one perturbed critic in the trade journal Harrison\u2019s Report. \u201cMany of the tinted scenes of the fashion revue were very daring in their exposure of the Atlantic City bathing girls,\u201d commented another in the Washington Herald. \u201cOne scene especially drew forth gasps from the audience; whether from shock or admiration, we cannot say.\u201d<\/p>\n The American Venus was evidently a movie of its time, in which female characters served as window dressing to the machinations of male characters, as was the case with most other pageant-centred movies in subsequent decades. Don Maguire\u2019s 1957 comedy Hear Me Good is about a conman trying to rig the Miss World Wide Beauty contest by having his girlfriend enter. A few years later, in 1964, came the release of The Beauty Jungle, a Pygmalion-esque story about a journalist who persuades a typist to become a professional pageant competitor. Val Guest\u2019s British comedy was meant to be a satirical expos\u00e9 of the corrupt pageant industry but the film itself perpetuated a negative view of women by having Janette Scott\u2019s lead trying to sleep her way to victory and showing the other female contestants in bitter conflict, calling each other names like \u201cyou bandy-legged cow\u201d.<\/p>\n Satire has often been the lens through which the beauty pageant has been presented. 1975\u2019s Smile, directed by Michael Ritchie and written by Jerry Belson, was praised upon its release with critics like Roger Ebert saying it \u201cdoes a good job of working over the hypocrisy and sexism of a typical beauty pageant\u201d. However, Christina Newland, film journalist and editor of upcoming book She Found It At The Movies: women writers on sex, desire and cinema, argues that the film is, \u201ctotally coloured by a disdain toward women\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRitchie uses [the film] to diagnose a deeper illness in American society of that time,\u201d Newland adds, \u201cbut he is also a man, and he kind of links that social illness to womanhood, or to the feminine. That\u2019s a real issue.\u201d<\/p>\n A more respectful view<\/strong><\/p>\n The 1999 dark comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous, taking its cues from Christopher Guest\u2019s mockumentaries, also satirises the pageant industry but importantly both gives respect to its lead beauty queen character, and acknowledges one of the key reasons why a woman may want to compete in such a seemingly antiquated competition: to escape. Kirsten Dunst\u2019s Amber Atkins wants a better life and thinks winning the competition will provide opportunities to leave the trailer park she grew up in. The same goes for Holly Hunter\u2019s Carnelle in 1989\u2019s Miss Firecracker and Minnie Driver\u2019s Mona in 2000\u2019s Beautiful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n