介绍:
Lincoln: Now we take a look at beauty contests. The host of the Miss Universe competition, Steve Harvey, announced that the winner was Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez, before being forced to admit that he had made a mistake. Now this was a big gaffe, the whole world saw this, the whole world saw him make this mistake, and then have to actually announce the real winner to be Miss Philippines, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach. But besides the silliness of the mistake of the beauty contest, I actually thought it raised an interesting point about whether or not beauty contests are still a thing. Is that something that, in 2015, we are actually still going to continue to have and promote? Wu You, what are your thoughts about beauty contests?
WY: Frankly speaking, if it wasn’t for this mistake news, I wouldn’t even watch the beauty contest.
Lincoln: For the most part, to you, this seems obsolete, this seems like something that’s a relic of the past?
WY: Yes, but to some good aspects, simply for argument, I would say that this kind of contest still has some good aspects because sometimes the winner does a lot of fundraising or donations, or volunteer work around the world. Beauty contestants would eventually go to remote areas or developing countries suffering from poverty. And as an example, back in the year 2014, Miss Guatemala sells cupcakes for educating kids in her local region, because in that country, some kids don’t even go to school because they didn’t have enough money, and then they would never be able to work. With the help of Miss Guatemala in 2014, 38 children have benefited from this and they have an education for a better future.
Lincoln: Okay, so obviously there is the charity aspect of beauty contests as well, and that’s often used to defend their existence. Nick, what do you think?
Nick: Obviously, charity is a good thing, and we can’t say that any of these individual –
Lincoln: Nick’s taking a stand on this issue – charity is a good thing!
Nick: But obviously we can’t say that any particular charitable efforts made by any past winners of any of these competitions were a bad thing, of course they weren’t, but my position would be, there is so much money involved in these competitions to start with that could, perhaps, be better redirected if that is the aim of the whole thing. It’s a hugely expensive procedure that they have to go through in order to take part in the competition and then who is to judge who is the most beautiful? As it’s been pointed out, this is female-focused; there isn’t necessarily a male version of this.
Lincoln: Okay, that’s a good point.
Nick: It could be considered to be degrading to women; it’s not really compatible with equality. It’s quite damaging to the body image of many young women. These kinds of contests are being replicated, in the US, for kids!
Lincoln: Okay, I agree with you, when it comes to making them for kids. All of these women are adults, they’ve made the decision to compete in it, and who are we to say that their decision is worth less? Wu You, what do you think?
WY: Rationally speaking, the market for it is actually decreasing. We can see the audience ratings – that’s the data that will not lie. And different cities are also hosting this kind of beauty contest, with the purpose of promoting the city’s tourist scenes or tourist spots. But how many people would actually be attracted to visit a city simply because there has been a beauty contest? I mean, the market will finally choose. Maybe not only the people will judge, but also the real factors and data.
Lincoln: That’s true, audiences have been declining, and as you mentioned at the top of this discussion, Wu You, if it wasn’t for this mistake we would not have noticed [the competition] at all.
WY: I think for all these questions, maybe their first intention was good, they just wanted to choose who is the most beautiful, most intelligent as well, but the media attention it’s created has decreased. So maybe in the future, the market will tell whether this kind of beauty contest will still exist or not.
Lincoln: Beauty contests have always been market-orientated, but perhaps we’ve been a little bit shortsighted in assuming that this isn’t going to be the case.
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