Nuestra Belleza Latina
Beauty pageants continue to hold a very controversial position
revolving beauty as physical appearance or persona. They have been claimed as
misleading the public into believing that physical appearance is much more
important than persona, and in many ways we can see how these ideas still
continue to play out in beauty pageants but at the same time are contested.
For
many years beauty pageants have been driven by weight, appearance and skin
complexion, which are "ideal aspects" not only visible in beauty
pageants, but also in magazines that continuously display women in photoshopped
bodies that are far from perfect in real life. Nuestra Belleza Latina is one
pageant that has recently crowned one of their contestants, Francisca Lachapel, and has showed both sides to the beauty pageant dilema.
Francisca Lachapel is an Afro-Latina women whose skin complexion is dark, body
weight is "ideal", but her beauty, that of her physical, was not that of a queen's, as one of the judges claimed. I would watch the show every Sunday night and, personally, I think there were contestants more beautiful than the winner herself, however I am grateful that the pageant is not solely based on physical
appearance.
Throughout the show Francisca's personality and attitude was always complimented by judges and the public (including me!). In comparison to the rest of the contestants, her charismatic, humble and sweet personality out shined everyone and really gave her a foundation to getting the majority votes to become the new Nuestra Belleza Latina.
Mr. Sousa measures beauty by the European standard, and he is not shy about saying it. In 1997 in a Latina Magazine interview, he described his bias against contestants with African features saying that "black Venezuelan women are not very beautiful," he continued saying that "he would only choose a black girl if she had white features, just painted black." He has been the head judge of the competition since it started. It was no surprise to anyone why Ms. Lachapel, who has clear Afro roots, was not Mr. Sousa's favorite.
I find this very disturbing and enraging to hear someone say a lighter skin color is preferable to that of a darker skin color. Beauty should not be decided on by skin complexion, and I think with the victory of Frncicsa we can see how people are disregarding this "ideal" skin complexion that has been a factor is identifying beauty for many years. Being dark, brown, or white is beautiful and no one should tell you its not.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hello We are OddThemes, Our name came from the fact that we are UNIQUE. We specialize in designing premium looking fully customizable highly responsive blogger templates. We at OddThemes do carry a philosophy that: Nothing Is Impossible
Once you decide to define beauty by any set of values, as they often do in beauty contests, you are walking a very fine line. I'll have to admit I haven't watched a pageant since I was ten and Miss Universe was on the television, but it seemed to me the Q&A section was simply a poor attempt to add an air of complexity to a competition that was essentially an attempt to equate beauty with physical appearance. It's sad, as so many of the things that make humanity beautiful, comradery, curiosity, will, love, etc. are reduced to who has the best proportions and looks best to three judges in a swimsuit. The issue to me at least, in the very concept of the pageant itself. It's no wonder beauty contests have lost viewership, the message it sends is a harmful one.
ReplyDelete