Beauty pageants without swimsuits, weather without beautiful women

Beauty pageants are just that, about beauty. It doesn’t mean other people are ugly. It means that there are some who are more beautiful. The others only become ugly when we stigmatize the beautiful as being “obscene” and we start to implement politically correct ideas to make everyone “equal.” Unfortunately, not everyone is equal. But not being equal doesn’t mean everyone is bad. If they eliminate the swimsuits, I won’t waste my time watching Miss America

By Ray Hanania

I used to buy Playboy Magazine when I was young because I enjoyed the well-researched articles.

Well, that’s not true.

It’s also not true that I’ll continue to watch the Miss America contest this Fall if it goes ahead with plans to eliminate the Swimsuit Competition.

The Miss America organization announced it will no longer judge contestants, all women, on physical appearance, eliminating Swimsuits. Instead, it wants to emphasize scholastic achievement, creative accomplishments, healthy living and community involvement in is contestants

Suddenly, this for-profit business wants to become Harvard University?

Why just eliminate swimsuits? Let’s eliminate gender discrimination and include men, too. Make it the “America Competition.” Put housewives, men, old people, and anyone on the “Miss America” stage?

Woman in a berqa (burka) By Hans Braxmeier (pixabay) [CC0 or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Why? Because it won’t work. Everyday people with everyday lives like to look at beautiful things.

The “Miss America” competition was created precisely to use beauty as a way to boost up business sales. The first Miss America pageant was in September 1920 and involved Atlantic City businessmen pushing 350 wicker chairs carrying beautiful women dressed in various attractive clothing to boost their business sales.

Funny. People, especially men, like to look at beautiful women. In fact, I bet, it’s not just men who like to look at beautiful women. Women do, and it’s not about sex. Lots of women like to look at beautiful – handsome – men, too!

Miss America wants people to think that appreciating physical beauty is shameful and degenerate? Why not just parade all the Miss America women in berqas (burkas) (full coverings, not hijabs)? Why even see their faces, then?

Why doesn’t every TV news station in America hire overweight, ugly people to read the news?

You think beauty isn’t a mandatory criteria for Television? Or movies? Or advertising sales marketing? TV stations aren’t selling news. They are selling sex. Otherwise, we would see businesses using overweight manikins with unattractive features sell their clothing, food, computers, iPhones and then profit.

The simple truth is most overweight people – me included – don’t want to aspire to weight gain. Seeing “beauty” motivates us to be better. That creates a chain reaction that extends to personal achievement and higher education.

“Looking good” motivates people. We wake in the morning, take a shower, put on nice clothing, sprinkle ourselves with perfume or aftershave, style our hair, add makeup, and then smile because we feel good.

Imagine, if we eliminated that from our society and everyone just got up and went to work never showering, never washing their clothes, never combing their hair, never brushing their teeth. That’s exactly the message Miss America is sending to the world by eliminating swimsuits.

What? People who stink aren’t good enough for you, Miss “too good for the rest of us” America Competition?”

I get that some people think beauty pageants are disgusting and appalling. They are offended that women are paraded around like cattle in a meat-market, judged on their “beauty.”

But if a woman wants to compete in that environment, and millions or men AND women want to watch women parade around in bikinis, why not? Suddenly there’s something wrong with it because a handful of activists are offended by perfection in the human image? They want to decide what’s acceptable and what’s not.

If I wanted to watch a program where people are judged for their intelligence, I’ll rent a Yale University Graduation Video. I’m not going to waste my time watching this year’s “Miss America” pageant.

Take “beauty” out of “beauty pageants” and watch advertising dollars disappear. Had those Atlantic City businessmen put old men in those wicker chairs hoping to bring attention to their businesses, maybe the city would just be a dirty swamp today.

If I want to enjoy something that looks beautiful, I’m not going to allow some shallow activist into shaming me into turning away from looking at a beautiful woman or enjoying the beauty all around us. A bird. A Frank Lloyd Wright home. A magnificent painting. Or, Cheryl Scott doing the weather on WLS TV each morning. It’s the only time I pay attention to the weather report. And I’m glad I do.

(Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author, and former Chicago City Hall reporter. Reach him at his personal website at www.Hanania.com or email him at [email protected].)

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

His award winning columns can be found at www.HANANIA.COM Subscribe FREE today

Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

Email Ray Hanania at [email protected].

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