When I think of the documented atrocities the US foreign policy had inflicted on countries in Indochina, I couldn’t help but find the staging of the US-based Miss Universe Pageant in Vietnam suspect and open to several questions. By staging one of the enduring symbols of American popular culture in a land the US imperialist foreign policy had wreaked so much havoc on in the 1960’s and 1970’s but failed to defeat, is America trying to symbolically redeem itself? What does the staging of an American-owned/sponsored beauty contest mean to the freedom-fighting Vietnamese people?
If reports that the Vietnamese people are not generally warm to the staging of the international beauty pageant are true, one shouldn’t be surprised at all. It may have been more than four decades since the US-Vietnam war, but gruesome images of the impact of America’s post-World War II imperialist agenda in the Far East still linger. I wonder if the staging of this spectacle is strategically designed to erase the iconic image of a running Vietnamese girl naked and napalmed (Will the image of the very pretty Miss Vietnam Nguyen Thuy Lam eventually replace that of Kim Phuc, the “Vietnam Napalm Girl” photographed by Pulitzer award winner Nick Ut?)
When the Philippines first staged Miss Universe in 1974 – several years before I was born and became a beauty pageant fan – there reportedly was so much festivity in the air (at least in Metro Manila). Not only was this due to the internationally well-known/infamous Filipino passion for pageants. The reigning queen, Margarita Moran, was a compatriot making it possible for the former US colony in Southeast Asia to have two Miss Universe title holders in a brief span of five years. And in spite of the renaissance of nationalistic fervor in the 1970’s, Filipinos generally loved/adored anything American. There must have been protests against the staging of the pageant – and I’m wild guessing that one of the staunch protesters was beauty queen-turned-activist Nelia Sancho, Queen of the Pacific 1971, first-runner up to Gloria Diaz in the 1969 Binibining Pilipinas, and I must hasten to add, a University of the Philippines alumna – but they must have been overshadowed by the cacophony of support from Filipino pageant fans and, yes, Marcos supporters. We were not just warm to the idea of hosting Miss Universe back in 1974. We embraced the idea, celebrated the staging, and the rest, as they say, was history.
Vietnam’s experience with international beauty pageants is rather more recent. It is only since the early part of this decade that it has been sending representatives to major international beauty pageants. It is quite natural then for the Vietnamese people not to welcome the event with very open arms.
But I wonder if there are protests and formidable display of resistance from the locals. I don’t know about the pageant fans documenting the situation in Vietnam, but I believe this is one significant aspect of beauty pageants that shouldn’t be swept under the rug. There is so much to learn from these acts of resistance where tension thrives. To me, they constitute the liminal space that would remind us that beyond the spectacle lie critical issues that we have to confront and address if we do not want to be complicit to the inhumanity that is involved in anything that displays pleasure/entertainment amid atrocities inflicted by the very same people/institutions/transnational corporations that sponsor/support/control these fun factories or enterprises. And I am not just merely talking about hypersexualized women parading in front of the awestruck public (I think I have made it clear earlier that these are active choices some of the candidates make – and they do not necessarily rely on the male chauvinist panopticon that some feminists claim beauty contestants have in their minds.) I am talking about beauty pageants – yes, Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss International, Miss Earth – being political.
Staging an international beauty pageant in a developing country is a political act. More so, if that developing country had been formerly the target of a colonial power’s napalm bombs and other weapons of mass destruction – a (neo)colonial power that is curiously home to the pageant under question.
It is perhaps easy to see the pageant in Vietnam as America’s way of striking back, of exercising cultural imperialism in a country whose spirit it never defeated through more-than-a-decade-long exercise of military might and hard power. It is, however, another thing, curious as it may seem, to view Vietnam’s seeming “complicity” as its unique manner of telling the world’s lone superpower that the indomitable Vietnamese spirit is again ready to take another challenge posed by the once formidable foe. Only this time, it shall not face the challenge with its mortars and world-famous guerilla tactics; it shall do so with this thing curiously called “beauty”. And yes, on a stage where (un)fortunately, napalmed bodies won’t be running amok to remind the world what America really stood for in the war. Only nice-looking, beautiful bodies clad in pastel-colored bikinis.
(Note: This is partly inspired by the documentary "Hearts and Minds" available at http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=168)
Images used:
Vietnam Napalm by Associated Press Photographer Nick Ut, 8 June 1972. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4517597.stm
Nguyen Thuy Lam, Miss Universe Vietnam 2008, competing in Beach Beauty. Available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/medoubleq/2543185549/
Miss Universe 1974 with Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos. Available at http://www.missosology.org/philippines/ ... mited.html
Margie Moran in Miss Universe 1974. Available at http://www.missosology.org/philippines/ ... llery.html
Nelia Sancho as Queen of the Pacific 1971 and now as advocate of women's and children's rights. Available at http://www.balita.com/xshell.php?id=%0A%091608
Miss Landmine.Available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scraaaaatch/2048150644/
Fascist America by Ryan Brown. Available at http://www.fascistamerica.net/fa-05.html
Misses Australia, Germany and Philippines. Available at http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u ... 2ae3fbf2be
