Bright side of Gray
Beauty contests, boxing, basketball. These are the events shown on television, perhaps in that order, that make us stick together, skip schedules, share drinks, shoot commentaries, and shout in euphoria when our country takes the victory.
Last Monday, everyone was jubilant when Miss Philippines Catriona Gray “lava-walked” her way to the top 10, then the top five, and on to the top three, and finally taking the crown of Miss Universe. Now a question to us viewers, ala-beauty pageant Q and A: What makes us love beauty contests in the age of feminism, LGBTQ rights, equality, and misogyny?
We might call this escapism or entertainment, but there’s also this thing called romanticizing the idea that we can triumph over life’s difficulties through sports or beauty contests.
That is why we loved Manny Pacquiao in the last decade, why we loved his story of escaping from poverty in General Santos City by conquering the boxing rings in Las Vegas, Nevada to capture titles in eight divisions. That was before he got distracted by singing and his getting a Senate post and before the social gaffes took away his luster.
That’s why we love beauty queens. For us it’s not the “tisay” looks but the heart that matters. Catriona, for instance, won the audience over and perhaps the judges with her answer to the final question in the pageant. Asked what life’s most important lesson is, she said her charity work in building a school in Tondo taught her to see beauty in poverty, to help build a place where negativity will not grow.
It is a romanticized view of poverty, of an outsider looking into one of the country’s poorest places. But the thing she has going for her was her taking action, and embracing an advocacy. And in action, there is analysis. During the pageant interviews, she pointed out that what killed the children’s dream was not poverty. “It is lack of child support... that killed their dreams.”
Whether this remark was crafted by her handlers or not, it shows that Catriona knows what she was speaking of. Her words threw light into the status of the children in our country.
At this time when most people blame poverty on the poor themselves, Catriona saw that the fault was not in the stars but in the system. Where 70 percent of our people feel they are poor, one could ask why the gross domestic product (GDP) has not translated into the delivery of social services, like the construction of schools and health centers, or the provision of stable jobs and irrigation of more farms.
One can also ask why martial law in Mindanao is putting Lumad and Moro children away from schools and leaving them traumatized by bombs and bullets. Where is the change that was promised by every dispensation?
It’s interesting how Catriona spoke and subverted our romantic view by sharing the realities of our children, battered and deprived. What she does next as beauty queen is our next question. Her words though are opening doors for foundations to help children realize their dreams and find the silver linings through action and linkage. That’s the power of real beauty .