Source 10: Queens of Academe: Campus Pageantry and Student Life

Citation:

Tice, Karen W. "Queens Of Academe: Campus Pageantry And Student Life." Feminist Studies 31.2 (2005): 250-283. Literary Reference Center. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.

What Strikes Me Most:

3. On my search for more pro-pageant articles within KSU’s database, I came across this article. I read the bit of abstract or summary that it offered and found it to be something definitely worth looking in to. The abstract states that it “Focuses on the interplay of college-based beauty pageantry and student life” which to me is great because I am a college student myself. I would like to believe women at this age are pretty feminist in their views and so I thought the article would address the relationship between idealism in pageants and actual normal students. Is it promiting better or worse self body images?

Source Notes:

3. “Because divergent notions of nation, region, markets, race, ethnicity, cultural identity, class, and sexuality have been historically mapped onto women's bodies, beauty contests have been significant sites for constructing notions of locality and community.”

“Consequently, they often reinforce hegemonic social relations and domesticate race and class divisions, but they nonetheless can articulate divergent identity projects.”

“On first consideration, colleges and universities seem to be unlikely venues for showcasing beauty, yet they have been in the business of sponsoring student beauty pageants for more than seventy-five years.”

The Source Reconsidered:

4. When I said earlier that pageants can be great for any number of reasons, well this article definitely put those floating thoughts into a coherent piece. I thought the tidbit about how colleges support pageants because it’s a great mix of beauty and brains showcased. It empowers women to take the courage and pursue their own personal and political agendas, and that ultimately makes a stronger woman. A stronger woman is a more challenging woman, and the world today still has residual feelings of inferior women.

In a nutshell, that kind of controversy is why pageants are good platforms on dragging out underlying issues and shining light on to them.

Source 9: Beauty Queens: Gender, Ethnicity, And Transnational Modernities At The Miss India USA Pageant

Citation:

Mani, Bakirathi. "Beauty Queens: Gender, Ethnicity, And Transnational Modernities At The Miss India USA Pageant." Positions 14.3 (2006): 717-747. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.

What Strikes Me Most

2. I decided to take a break from surfing the web for resources and focused on trying to discover resources within the KSU database. I figured that my first research paper was all about finding articles that were moderate or non-bias, but its time that I tried looking for pro-pageant articles. I came across this article because the title of “Gender and Ethnicity” definitely seemed promising to look at. I’m hoping that it talks about how beauty pageants can benefit women, obviously, but more importantly what they say about how certain issues can manifest themselves within the grounds of beauty pageants.

Source Notes:

3. “Beauty pageants, which at the international, national and local community levels are identical in format, present unique opportunities to study the production and representation of culture and power.”

“beauty pageants are where cultural meanings are produced”

The Source Reconsidered:

4. The article is indeed quite lengthy, and after reading a good chunk of it, I think that this article isn’t going to be used much in the future. I am dismayed to say while the article had a good point here and there, it focused too much on how popular beauty pageants like Miss India USA have become in Indian communities.

Then again, it’s an interesting to think in the abstract that perhaps the article is getting towards the idea where second generation Indians create an entirely new identity for themselves. Is this answering my question by saying that the evolution of a culture and it’s values can be easily showcased in pageants?

Source 8: Not irony: Beauty pageants make strong women

Citation:

Nooruddin, Sabrina. “Not Irony: Beauty Pageants Make Strong Women.” USA Today Educate. USA Today, 27 March 2011. Web. 14 October 2013.

http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/blog/beauty-pageants-strong-women

What Strikes Me Most

2.  What struck me the most about this article was that it wasn’t a typical pro-pageant article or at least that’s how I feel. Just reading the first paragraph gave me the sense that this was taking every bad you have ever heard about beauty pageants and acknowledging that it is the reality that exists. It’s not made up. As indicated by the title, the article seems like it’s pro pageant so I’m interested in what I could be reading.

Source Notes:

3. “My entire life I was convinced that the perfect woman looked exactly like Barbie, and I had every reason to believe so.”

“beauty queens in Miss America were just that: tall, blonde, and skinny, and that’s where it hit me: by only crowing a certain "Barbie-like" image we as a society are deeming that others outside of that very small population are inferior in terms of beauty. So I made it my mission, to become part of the solution, and start with the problem.”

“With three titles to my name I have made it my mission to speak out about my platform and talk to young girls about what it really means to be “beautiful.” I understand the irony in promoting “Beauty Without Barriers” in a beauty pageant, but the pageants that I participate in and coach other young women for are scholarship organizations that require women to be poised, elegant, talented, and well-spoken. I have personally seen the difference pageants can make in a young woman’s self-confidence and her ability to present herself in interviews and in front of large audiences.”

The Source Reconsidered:

4.  I find the most interesting part of this article was that it was in first person, so there was an air of conviction in the author’s voice as she described what she thought ideal beauty was. She made some good points, and I think the best source to use when convincing someone is always first person. For sure, the article talked about the major downs of pageantry, but it’s core message is to take things in stride and make it the best.

This stuff is gold!

Source 7: First Miss America of Indian descent embraces discussion on diversity

Citation:

1. Botelho, Greg. “First Miss America of Indian Descent Embraces Discussion On Diversity.” CNN. CNN, 19 September 2013. Web. 14 October 2013.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/us/miss-america-nina-davuluri/

What Strikes Me Most

2. As I had mentioned earlier, I was in the search for articles and journals that was ultimately pro-pageant. I was lucky to have two major pageants happen in the past month and one of them being Miss America. It was tumultuous win for Miss New York as she is the first Indian American to have won, but got denounced by many haters for being Muslim and  Arab. Ironically, she is neither and their was a recent winner not to long ago who was actually Arab. My experience with this news was pretty limited to tidbits on facebook or youtube comments, so I actually was not aware of the bigger picture. I thought to remedy that, I went to search for articles via CNN.

What I found was that the article was very pro-pageant yet it also answered my question on whether or not pageants are good platforms to bring forth social issues and perhaps provide solutions to them.

Source Notes:

3.) "I have always viewed Miss America as the girl next door," Davuluri said. "But the girl next door is evolving, as the diversity of America evolves. She's not who she was 10 years ago, and she's not going to be the same person come 10 years down the road."

“Davuluri sees it as her mission to tackle such stereotypes head on. It's why the daughter of two Indian-born parents has a pageant platform of "celebrating diversity through cultural competence."

“And Davuluri couldn't be happier with the reality she's now living -- as a groundbreaker, and a talking point, in a country addressing its cultural diversity.”

The Source Reconsidered:

4.  Truth be told, there wasn’t much to reconsider after I looked over the source. I knew what I was getting from the beginning and I got what I needed. The source is very valuable, because some of the things Nina says gives me food for thought about what I could write about.

Source 6: Religious fury alters Miss World in Indonesia

1.     Quiano, Kathy. “Religious Fury Alters Miss World in Indonesia.” CNN. CNN, 27 September 2013. Web. 14 October 2013.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/world/asia/miss-world-pageant/

2. When I began searching for the next few sources for my topic, I though perhaps I wanted to revisit two the biggest topics in my research: Miss America and Miss World. Lucky for me, both pageants have had some big media exposure and controversy in recent events! Looking through my old resources, I realized that I had news sites but I didn’t have ones that I knew very well (i.e I hardly read the Huffington Post or Jakarta News) so I decided that CNN would be a great resource. Personally, CNN has been good with their news.

What struck me the most about this particular article was that it was a lengthy in comparison to the others ones I have found. It details how the protests of Muslim communities took what was supposed to be a fun night for women to dress up and dragged politics into it. I think this fundamentally supports one of my questions: do pageants bring issues to the forefront of people’s thoughts? In this case, are beauty pageants religiously degrading?

3.) “Demeaning, exploitative, degrading. Beauty pageants have been called lots of things.”

“Islamic groups urged the government to shut the contest down. Hardliners burned signs featuring the image of last year's winner Wenxia Yu of China that read "Reject Miss World." They also presented what they deemed as appropriate attire for beauty contestants -- long dresses and full head scarves.”

“Miss World's 127 contestants competed in beach fashion, fitness, world fashion, talent and "Beauty with a Purpose" meant to honor charitable work.”

“"It's only beauty, beauty and beauty, but also body, body and body, so that's why we consider it as a contest that exploits women physically," said Ismail Yusanto, spokesman of Indonesia's Hizbut Tahrir, a conservative Islamic group.”

4.) This time around, I wanted to get a head start on researching topics that where pro-pageant. However, this is probably an article that is less about pro-pageant and more about why these communities are anti-pageant. Admittedly, I was trying to keep my mindset as pro-pageant, but some of the quotes in the article made me think how awful pageants can really be. I guess in the end, I realized after some time that these communities are very conservative… which to me is a bit archaic. Miss World is trying to get the world to come together in good competition and promote relations, and these protests while understandable, is a bit to a lot backwards.