Beauty contest
Only eight days after this nation ended a week of national mourning, a fuss started brewing over the issue of Indonesia's participation in an international beauty pageant.
Besides the already well-known objections on the part of Indonesian women's groups, the timing is indeed unfortunate.
The objections to beauty contests are usually that they are degrading for ladies, are a veiled sex exploitation and are like cattle auctions. Besides, it is not true that participation in beauty contests help boost tourism. The comparison to bovine muscularity, however, is certainly uncalled for, if not outrageous. Indeed, imagination has no limits, but one must use it in discriminating ways.
An old friend of mine whispered to me that in his personal view, a bikini is like barbed wire: it protects without spoiling the view (beautiful view, he added).
Beauty contests seem to corroborate Oscar Wilde's observation on woman that ladies are to be admired not analyzed. But men should beware. For a man's admiration of beauty could be his downfall.
Do beauty contests help boost tourism? Spain and Italy, to take two countries as examples, annually attract tens of millions of tourists, contests or no contests. Besides, the notion could be interpreted as a slur, if you have fleshpots in mind.
There is also an element of unfairness in beauty contests. In rich western countries, beauty comes more naturally than in countries with low GNPs per capita. Girls with tall statures and Cleopatra noses, for instance, are not an uncommon sight in the former. In Indonesia, they are an exception.
Whether a beauty contest is an exercise in inanity or vanity, many young and ambitious girls find it both alluring and challenging. For a young lady to be selected to run for a beauty contest is a great achievement, made possible only by years of training and conscientious care.
Those who see no particular danger in beauty contests would maintain that women more than men need recognition in aesthetical achievement, called beauty. In sports, records are measured by instruments. In beauty contests, tastes still play an important role, despite an agreed criteria. Is this the thing which makes beauty contests exciting?
Why have men preferred to keep silent on this matter? Maybe because beauty contests are the ladies' sacrosanct domain? Why the strong objections on the part of Indonesian ladies? Beauty contests are certainly only good for the girl concerned, her chaperon, and the sponsors. Her country gains nothing.
The main reason for the strong opposition to the beauty pageant business seems to be that in such international events, beauty could easily slide into vulgar sensuality. Showing beauty can certainly be done in many other more decent ways.
For future contests, sponsors would be well advised to propose to the organizing committees concerned that contestants should participate in their own names, and not on the names of their countries.
The names of participants' countries should not be printed on the sashes. Only during the introduction or presentation would the master of ceremony mention the countries from which contestants come.
Well, it would be wise to hear what Victor Hugo says in Les Miserables: Le beau est aussi utile que l'utile. Plus, peut-etre.
SOEGIO SOSROSOEMARTO
Jakarta