While Miss Universe attempts to find the most beautiful woman in the entire universe, some parts of the contest bring out the ugly side of the people who watch it. It is disappointing to see how a contest that started out with good intentions can create so much air of bitterness and stupidity among some of its viewers. Let’s take two examples.
Of Costumes and Crass
On one of my previous morning newspaper runs, I came across one article from www.times.com entitled Photos: Miss Universe 2011's Most Bizarre National Costumes. It was written by a certain Mr. William Lee Adams. As we all know, a part of the Miss Universe competition is where the candidates showcase their national costumes and this piece focused on that particular segment. The article was composed of forty slides of pictures of the delegates during the national costume part of the pageant preliminaries. Underneath it was a small commentary depicting how the author felt about the costume.
It was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek humorous take on how fashionably “tacky” the national costumes were. Let’s take a look at a few of Mr. Adams’ commentaries. Note that these were taken verbatim from his article.
 |
| Miss Ecuador — Claudia Schiess A flock of chickens attacked her bed sheets, so Miss Ecuador tied the foul fowl to her head. image and caption courtesy of www.times.com |
 |
| Miss Nicaragua — Adriana Dom Adriana thought this brightly-colored costume was a good idea until a group of school children mistook her for a pinata. image and caption courtesy of www.times.com |
 |
| Miss Thailand — Chanyasorn Sakorchan If the hotel’s satellite dish malfunctions, Chanyasom will be very popular among the other contestants. Her headpiece gets amazing reception. image and caption courtesy of www.times.com |
I understand that the author intended to make it a humorous article although one cannot help but be appalled by his choice of words.Some of the write-ups were really offensive that one begins to wonder if the author was drunk when he wrote it or if he was just intentionally being rude.
I can’t stress enough how I am not a huge fan of the Miss Universe pageants but I find that some of his comments were very unprofessional. First, these costumes represent the culture and the beliefs of the country that these women represent. It shows their legends, their festivals, their gods. And for someone to make fun of them, make them sound "bizarre" and "tacky" is really ill-mannered. As far as I know, the article wasn't published on Entertainment part of the online magazine, but on the News Feed. And even if it was the case, no one has the right to make fun of something that represents a country's well-preserved traditions. It is one thing to be humorous, it is another to be crass.
Second, costumes are supposed to be loud, extravagant, flamboyant and over-the-top--otherwise they wouldn't call it a "costume". That segment of the pageant is called National Costume for a reason and not National Evening gown, so I really don't see the point of rating and reviewing it as if it was a Hollywood fashion red carpet event where couture is all what matters.
As other commentators have pointed out as well, had the author done his research as a good writer should, he should be able to appreciate the ideas behind these costumes and he should be able to come up with other ways of sending his message across without being too offensive.
I am seriously disappointed at the editors for running such offensive article, especially in a well-respected literary beacon as the TIME magazine. It is their responsibility to see to it that articles they publish are free of bias and should uphold journalistic integrity. The act was rather intolerant of other people's cultures. Seriously, the author needs to learn a thing or two about cultural diversity. If that is his writing style, he should consider taking another job. Is TIME magazine going down the dumps? If you go to the site, you should be able to see that I am not alone in sharing these sentiments as other people have posted comments of the same nature as mine.
I sent the editors an email regarding my grievance. I have yet to receive a reply from them as of this writing.
The Oprah Statement and Our Lack of Ability to Move On
Miss Universe 2011 is Angola’s 25 year-old Leila Lopes who won the coveted title and the country’s representative Shamcey Supsup placed fourth (3rd runner up). Shortly after the results were publicly announced. a quote spread like wildfire among netizens and online blogs. A few of my friends posted it on their Facebook pages and soon the passage had a life of its own. It involved our candidate and no other than Oprah Winfrey. Here is what the quote said:
I have reservations with the results. If the only basis is the Q and A portion, after having been trimmed down to 5, Ms. Philippines deserved to win. What made her different from the rest is that she had no seconds to rethink of her answer as she had no interpreter to break the ice. The rest had their interpreters and having breaks on seconds to think about their answers. Hands down, Ms. Philippines answered straight to the point.
The alleged statement was supposed to be given by Oprah in an interview with apparently, NBC news. I understand the sentiments of people wishing it was true. After all, only three places away and the glory could’ve been ours. And it was The Mighty Oprah who said that our bet should’ve won. But who cares? Oprah wasn’t in the panel of judges, so why should her opinion matter in this case? It certainly sounds ten times better when an international powerhouse takes pity on a third world country like ours however I express disdain over how this particular quote was used by netizens to express their discontent of the results. It was plastered everywhere online. Bloggers didn’t even check the veracity of the claim as there were no direct statements either from Oprah’s site and NBC news verifying the said interview. There was no video proof or link to show that such claim exists. It’s truly disgusting how people can whip up lies just to satisfy their delusions and frustrations over a contest. All in the purpose of boosting a wounded ego, bleh.
It turns out, the quote was a hoax. Surprise, surprise.
It turns out, the quote was a hoax. Surprise, surprise.
 |
| As one of the moderators from oprah.com pointed out, there is no truth to the statement. |
I admit that Ms. Supsup was a worthy contender and based on seeing her pictures and reading her answer to the Q&A (I didn't watch the entire contest), I think she did her job pretty well. Placing fourth among 89 contestants is already a feat. And I believe the judges were supposed to look at the totality of the contestants and not just base the winner on the final question. If the latter was true, then we wouldn't need the skimpy bikinis and the shiny shimmering evening gowns and we would have just pitted the contestants in an intellectual debate to determine the winner.
Miss Angola won. I’d like to think that she truly deserves it. Everyone should get over themselves. I get that we unavoidably play favourites in these things but bitching on whether the "interpreter factor" might have affected the result is just silly. Yes, the interpreter breaks the ice and Miss Philippines had an unfair disadvantage of answering right off the bat, but how much thought process can you squeeze in those seconds of break? Are they enough to juggle your memory for a well-rehearsed answer in front of the eyes of thousands of people? I certainly don’t think so.
If people have problems with the results and really can't sleep at night because they think we were once again robbed of the title, I suggest they take it up to Donald Trump, the owner of the Miss Universe franchise. Stage a protest if you want to. Or you can write a letter to the organizers and demand that they change their Q&A system. To have all the contestants forcibly use English for the final question, for all the contestants to be given equal questions so that they are on equal footing, for the interpreters to be banned from paraphrasing or removed from the contest at all. If they don't want to do it, I suggest they shut up and move on.
Moving on isn’t hard to do, we should try it sometimes.
End.
No comments:
Post a Comment