Beauty is tyranny (aəter Socrates)
THE saying is true: the Greeks have known many things first. But when they told the story of the Apple of Discord, I bet they were thinking of us Filipinos. Let the ancient tale speak: The goddess of Discord or Anger, annoyed after not being on the guest list during the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, threw an apple in the middle of the carousing with these words: “To the fairest of them all.” In the banquet were three magnificent goddesses known for their allure. They claimed the fruit at the same time. They were Hera, the goddess of marriage; Athena, the deity in charge of wisdom; and Aphrodite, no less, the goddess of love and beauty.
We know the cause and we have learned about the results: abductions, wars and deaths. Also, long poems to celebrate such negativity.
Millenia after, discord again is defining a civilization—ours. The cause: a title—the most beautiful woman in the universe—was thrown up into the air and our representative failed to catch it. We lost. Badly.
In fact, as records (for there are records involved in this undertaking) show, we made the winning streak in 12 long, glittering years. We were up there, honey. It did not matter that our economy could never make it to any good list. And that, outside that list of allure, we possess one of the most corrupt bureaucracies in the world, with conditions of poverty where children and women are always placed in vulnerable, dire statuses. We were beautiful for twelve years and our selected female representative made sure the world noticed that.
And presently, we literally lost our footing, our placement and our mind.
The self-deprecating (honest, in other words) among us came up with a label—sore losers. Oh, the honest ones did not expect the backlash. “We are not sore losers... it’s just that we should have sent a representative who could communicate better in the English language. One who could express substance in English, the point being substance is not sensed but spoken out there—in English, of course.”
The language problem—mother tongue, bilingualism, multilingualism, IQ and EQ correlated with language, nationalism and national identities, etc.—was so articulated days after the Miss Universe debacle (perspective: beauty pageant fans) that you would have thought the fiery exchange was regarding the mind of our people and not the physical beauty of some beings selected by a fewer number of beings. Given the syntax and the elegance of their sentences, these individuals ruminating with nostrils flaring and eyes blazing about the role of beauty pageants in our lives could have been no less educated (formal education of, let’s say, at least two years in college with more than 12 units of the English language and English literature, throw in a few units of Philosophy).
It was actually impressive, the debates. If only we could employ the same passion to discuss our future as a people. Let me take that back and say instead: “If we could only use the intellectual acumen applied to an overclaiming Miss Universe title (we are not serious with the title, are we?) to realize, to bracket our consciousness, that we cannot waste our energy and that bit of matter between our ears on the subject of beauty pageant.”
We have given so much importance to beauty pageants, we have become blind to the collateral damages that such absurd competitions have caused our mothers and children (the fathers are absentee authorities in this social configuration). Online, we see young girls being trained how to walk on the ramp. The experts call this walk “pasarela,” which in the original refers to the runway but, in the evolution of the beauty contest almanac, indicates the kind of movement made by a contestant from point to point on a ramp. What could have been a difficult term to understand has become part of the vocabulary of a people and, by extension, a subject in the syllabus for educating future beauty queens (without a fiefdom).
As a people, therefore, we do not only talk to our pets in English but we also teach our children how to walk for a crown and a sash. In this quest for titles, it seems, as we follow the debates, we have forgotten to teach them the English language. Isn’t this the most pathetic thing that has ever happened to us? We are back to the language problem and it does not have to do with the educative aspect of culture.
While we are at this debate among “intellectuals,” has anyone paused to rethink the exploitative aspect of beauty pageants? For each foray into a contest to determine who is the most beautiful, or who could carry a bikini, we have actually thrown into the pit a public display of condemnation of our young girls and women (including, boys and men, why not?). I can understand if gay males are into beauty pageants (the straight men are into it also for a different reason) because they run the thing. There are women who are behind the organization but imagine a beauty pageant without the fashion designers, makeup artists, shoe designers, conjurers of national costumes, and review masters for the Q&A, etc. And with due respect to the pasarela teacher, I cannot imagine why women allow themselves to be taught how to walk by men!
Can an explanation from Japanese culture matter? The reason for onnagata (men who assume the form of women) onstage is because the essence of being a woman is so difficult to portray, it takes a man to do that. That sounds like a beauty pageant remark, doesn’t it?
One more thing: our national leaders should love failures in beauty pageants. Such loss makes us forget the scarcity of sibuyas, which has sent its prices spiraling up and above the universe. ■