The Miss America Beauty Pageant has decided to scrub the bathing suit portion of the competition. It’s true. It was on the news the other night – there is still a Miss America Beauty Pageant!
I remember watching ‘Miss America’ when I was a kid, back in the day when TVs had rabbit ears and test patterns. I’d lie on the floor, head propped on little girl’s hands, and wait for the spectacle to begin. The contestants were beautiful. I used to imagine myself in their place, sashaying down that runway. The handsome master of ceremonies announced the vital statistics of each contestant as she smiled and was ogled by the world. “Miss Delaware – five feet seven inches…. 112 pounds…. measuring….’ and on and on. The bathing suits, the evening gowns, the talent show and then the suspense and the crown. What a show! What a spectacle! What an odd thing to witness and dream about.
I was a chubby Canadian prairie kid, I had freckles and pigtails and couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. But I could dream. All those contestants with beautiful smiles and twenty-four inch waists were Barbies in the flesh. I didn’t have a hope in hell of ever growing up to look like any one of them but when you’re nine years old anything is dream-able.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only little girl dreaming about the pageant, imagining beautiful tears streaming down an unblemished face, a sparkling crown balanced on a bouffant. And I probably wasn’t the only kid who wondered when my transformation would take place – how old I’d have to be to burst out of the cocoon of youth and emerge a perfectly formed, beauty pageant worthy woman. Somewhere beneath rolls of baby fat was, I was certain, a twenty four inch waist just waiting for its day in the sun.
Well there wasn’t – wasn’t a twenty four inch waist, wasn’t a day in the sun and sure as hell wasn’t a sparkling crown with my name on it. ‘Miss Chubby Canadian Prairie Kid’ never took the long walk down the runway, never basked in the glow of flash bulbs or applause, never cried pretty tears. And she never weighed 112 pounds even once after the age of ten.
‘Miss Chubby Canadian Prairie Kid’ grew up to develop an eating disorder. Grew up to never see in the mirror the beauty queen of her imagination. I’m not blaming the beauty pageants or Barbie for my problem with self esteem, but they sure planted a seed of what perfection was supposed to look like. I’m not sure beauty pageants are healthy for little girls to watch. I definitely don’t think young women should ever have been paraded across a stage like cattle at an auction. Canceling the bathing suit portion of the competition seems long over due and a small, but welcome, change in how we view beauty and women. Who knows, maybe the pageant itself will be the next thing to go.
Comments (2)
Wow!
Pretty powerful!
I was forever trying to equal or even come a close second to
“Miss Chubby Canadian Prairie Kid”
And I only wished to be you.