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opinion:
revelations
Miss Universe
pageant puts sex over peace
The 2001 Miss
Universe Pageant, long thought to objectify and degrade women,
is shaping up to be quite an interesting event this time around.
The pageant, which
takes place in Puerto Rico and airs Friday on CBS, is having
its fair share of controversy this year, which in turn is
raising some very important questions that need to be addressed.
The first revolves
around the reigning Miss France, Elodie Gossuin. There was
quite a furor last week concerning the exact biological sex
of Gossuin, which culminated with pageant organizers forcing
her to take a chromosome test.
Gossuin proved
that she was indeed a woman.
But who cares if
Gossuin was a man? How would her situation be any different
than the rest of the pageant contestants?
As far as I'm concerned
it wouldn't really matter if Gossuin was a man or not, because
there is no fair competition in these types of pageants anyway.
Venezuelan women
spend approximately $60,000 each for training and plastic
surgery during a five-month beauty academy. As a result, Venezuela
has won four Miss Universe contests since 1979.
I'm sure that Venezuela
is not alone. I would almost be willing to bet that competitors
in this year's pageant have had at least one surgical procedure
that is designed to enhance their chances of winning.
Who really cares
anyway?
Everyone watching
knows that the women competing are not real to begin with,
they are just figments of the imagination that surface in
physical form for one night and one night only.
Therefore, if Gossuin
was a man, she would probably still have as many surgical
operations as anyone else in the competition, so she should
still should be able to compete.
Another controversy
surrounding the Miss Universe pageant involves a dress designed
by a young Tel Aviv designer Galit Levi.
Levi has designed
a diamond encrusted bulletproof vest and gown that will be
worn by Miss Israel.
According to Levi,
the dress is intended to show that life still goes on in Israel
despite the fighting that continues to escalate between Israeli's
and Palestinians.
Levi's recent creations
include the dress worn by last year's Miss Israel that had
a picture of former President Bill Clinton coaxing the historic
handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
But this year's
creation deals with war instead of peace and is a welcome
change to the vapidness that usually surrounds the Miss Universe
pageant.
With so many countries
competing on such a grand stage, you would think that there
would be more attempts to end prejudices and make statements
that need to be heard like Levi's dress.
Instead, it is
just a shallow competition that is more concerned with the
actual sex of a contestant instead of addressing problems
of countries that continue to compete even as peace eludes
them.
Alex Roman is
a print journalism major at Cal State Long Beach.
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