In an effort to move away from competitors being evaluated only on their physical attractiveness, Miss America discontinued the swimsuit competition from the pageant in 2018. This was a sad year for the organisation.
The part was previously eliminated in 2014 by Julia Morley, who succeeded her father Eric as Miss Great Britain in 2000. She said that ladies just wandering about in bikinis “doesn’t do anything for the lady, it doesn’t do anything for any of us.”
Melissa Raouf, a politics student and competitor for Miss England, decided to depend only on her natural beauty during this week’s semi-finals by forgoing makeup. In the 94-year history of the programme, this has never occurred.
Next, what? No tooth whitening product in a reference to the days when our bad teeth naturally dropped out? Stop washing your hair since it is naturally greasy due to the presence of sebaceous glands underneath the hair follicles?
What is it that people have against beauty? This should be a moment to celebrate femininity rather than relegate it to the box where it has been dormant for generations at a time when women are being denied their own identity.
On a little, black-and-white TV that my parents rented, I watched beauty pageants as a child. They had lives that were quite different from mine growing up in a little Welsh hamlet, and I admired their otherworldliness.
One of the best days of my life was the day my parents switched the old TV for a colour one, and, oh my gods, the first time I saw Miss World in all her rainbow splendour, I thought I would pass out from ecstasy.
My parents used to put my brother and I to bed at 6 o’clock with the promise that they would wake us up at 8 o’clock to begin the competition if we slept for two hours.
Oh, the excitement of returning downstairs in our dressing gowns and being given an additional two hours of adult time to spend in front of the rainbow of beauty!
I could only hope to someday resemble one of the hourglasses in a bathing suit. I was taking ballet lessons at the time, and it was immediately obvious that I would never be able to make it on the catwalk.
The group was split into two parts for the end-of-term performance: six fisherman would dress in brown shorts, sandals, and a white and brown gingham blouse, while 32 snowflakes would wear tutus and pink satin heels.
My character was a fisherman (I can still feel the elastic pinching my plump arms to this day).
I still recall the “dance”—and by “dance” I mean walking onto the stage with my fellow fishers, casting the net, looking for a fish, and shaking my head when I saw the empty net. We then cast our nets once again, amazed at the imaginary fish we had captured, and walked away. There it was.
Later, when I was a junior in high school, I was chosen to play Cinna the poet in Julius Caesar. In essence, the bard enters the stage, introduces himself as “Hello, I’m Cinna the Poet,” is stabbed, and then is taken off.
I was never going to play Mary in the school nativity plays; that role always went to the girl with the long blonde hair. My hair even then looked more like Hitler’s than Marie Antoinette’s.
Despite growing up knowing that I would spend the majority of my life in the background, I still had a strong admiration for women who had figures that were superior to mine and who were also prettier, taller (I am 5 feet, but I think I’m starting to get shorter), and generally more attractive than I could ever hope to be.
They remain my heroes. Penelope Cruz, Jennifer Aniston, and Gwen Stefani – I can only watch in awe when the results of the draw are announced. Also, awe.
Yes, they are all naturally beautiful, but they also put on makeup for their individual vocations, and the result is that they seem much more gorgeous. I don’t watch television or go to concerts to see how I look every day reflected back at me.
It may be rather frightful to watch Dame Joan Collins without her wig and without any makeup. I don’t care how long it takes her to paint on her slap because I want her to be the superstar that she is.
She embodies vintage elegance, which is encouraging in this downtrodden time. I would download Planet of the Apes if I wanted to see it.
Like many women, I feel better when I get my hair done, wear makeup, and dress professionally. Look at Ru Paul’s Drag Race, the most wonderful programme that is a celebration of the art of makeup and costume — and swimwear, I should add — to see how many men I know feel the same way about makeup (and I will certainly never look as gorgeous as these guys).
Whether we want it or not, the beauty business is enormous since the majority of us lack “natural beauty” and average to poor physical appearance. Melissa Raouf, 20, has prominent cheekbones and is unmistakably the rare quality known as a natural beauty. Wish the rest of us were that fortunate.
We’re not, however. The renowned Romantic poet John Keats once stated, “A item of beauty is a delight forever.” Its beauty grows and will never vanish into nothing. Yes, to that.
Let’s thus keep appreciating beauty, particularly now when there is so much ugly in the world.
Keep the swimsuits coming, Ru Paul.