Tom + Lorenzo: Darlings, it’s the most wonderful time of the year once again; that brief period when starry-eyed women with big goals and even bigger pieces of luggage all hop on a plane, fly to a previously agreed-upon location, and then participate in an international drag revue for money. And of course, our very favorite part of this silly little shitshow is the parade of national costumes, which bases its traditions on ethnic folkwear, showgirls, superheros, drag queens, strippers, and street festivals. Sometimes all on the same gal at the same time! Don’t ask why, darlings! You’ll only get a headache!
3 comments:
While I appreciate the indignation, this article does come off a little culturally insensitive. Yes, it is ridiculous to expect women to wear these back-braking costumes in the name of only national pride, but the section at the end of the article that criticizes individual countries' costumes is cringey. I would say that it is appropriate to call Canada's costume a mess of glitter and feathers. But to call Vietnam's weirdly giant rice hats "HORNS OF INFINITY," or to look at Malaysia and go “MALAYSIA! Where we have … big… LEAVES! And… wear eggs on our … hips? What the fuck is all this?” shows a lack of care. In today's environment it is not enough to combat just sexism, just racism, just anything-ism. We have to be totally aware of our comments and (if not just fight all -isms in an intersectional way) make even satire articles inoffensive. It is totally possible to create intelligent and stupid humor without offending anyone.
I agree with Sydney completely in the assertion that this article comes of as incredibly culturally insensitive. Beauty pageants are problematic enough as it is, and criticizing certain countries' costumes add a whole other layer to this. It's a little frustrating to see certain areas of the world warp their traditional garb into what looks like something of an over-the-top sexy halloween costume. While I can appreciate the artistry and many hours of craftsmanship that likely went into the construction of these costumes, sexualizing traditional wear is something of an issue when things like cultural appropriation in halloween costumes is already so prevalent today. These women and their costumes would be less of a spectacle in this pageant if the blatantly problematic and culturally insensitive commentary did not follow along with it.
Beauty pageants are often times misconstrued, they often times ask unreasonable requests from women, and a huge costume like this is nothing less. Though I find each of the costumes incredibly stunning in their own regard, especially that of Miss Bolivia and Miss Spain, I think that the entire attitude of the Miss Universe pageant needs to start changing, its often times just a competition for countries, not keeping track of the woman representing them except for keeping track of the way they walk and their faces. Frankly, its a tad bit degrading to women. But I do think that there can be portions of the Miss universe Pageant where that attitude can change, no one ever keeps track of the questions and answers portion of the pageant. Overall, this article does an excellent job of showing how unreasonably extreme the Miss Universe pageant can be, I hope that from here on forth, the pageant can be geared towards a direction that is more sensitive of women and cultures.
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