Tall and Tan and Young and Lovely
by Fred EdwordsPublished in the Humanist, March/April 1999
| While in India this past January, I witnessed on television the
height of Western cultural imperialism. And that height, it turns
out, is five feet six inches (or, more precisely, 167.5
centimeters).
| | That's how tall a young woman must be, minimum, to enter the Miss
India contest. Never mind the fact that Indian women, on average,
stand at five foot two and, therefore, the winner and various
runners-up—who will go on to represent India in the Miss Universe,
Miss World, and Miss Asia Pacific pageants—will appear strikingly
unrepresentative of their country. And never mind that only three
routes exist for a woman of India to reach or exceed this
internationally approved minimum altitude requirement: Western diet,
partial Western ancestry, or atypical genetic endowment. Clearly,
there are those who believe that, if India is to secure its rightful
place in the family of nations, its people will have to stand
tall.
| But the issue doesn't end there. Vinita Deshmukh, writing in the
January 23, 1999, New Indian Express, adds that, after a woman
becomes a contest final-ist, the behind-the-scenes "experts" commence
to further enhance her "un-Indianness" by thoroughly making her
over:
Your limbs, hips and waist go for a trimming process
through exercise and gymnasium regimens. Your diction, your
attire, everything is moulded in a way that you acquire universal
(read Western) appeal. Remember, you have to show off your thin
arms, expose those lanky legs and reveal your recently chiselled
shoulders in a way so graceful and natural that the platform of
international beauty pageants becomes a cakewalk for you.
| | And of course, you are taught to give impromptu replies that blend
philosophy with ultra-modernity to show that you are a woman of
substance. . . . In short, you are forced to look beautiful
apparently as per the dictates of some international marketing
requirements.
| | It should come as no surprise, then, that Indian contest winners
from recent years—if the photos posted on the World Wide Web are an
indication—all look suspiciously Western.
| | Then there's the color factor. India's population includes
light-skinned Aryans, primarily in the north, and dark-skinned
Dravidians, primarily in the south. That those of lighter complexion
tend to be favored throughout Indian society is as obvious as the
billboards that line the streets from Kashmir to Kerala, the
celluloid stars who populate the Indian cinema, and the statuesque
models who appear in advertisements placed in various domestically
published magazines. Ditto for every one of the Indian beauty contest
winners appearing on the Web.
| | Yet, as if to ensure that the focus will remain on this lighter
side, suntan oil manufacturers are among the sponsors of
international beauty competitions—a lifetime supply of their product
being one of the prizes conferred on winners. The unstated
expectation, it seems, is that all women who win, place, or show will
be sufficiently melanin-deficient to actually need the oil (or at
least be favorably disposed toward the Western pastime of
sunbathing—a thing that Indians as a group, despite having an
awesome 3,500-mile-long coastline, simply aren't into).
| | So there they were: the twenty-nine finalists in the Palmolive
Femina Miss India contest, gathered in Pune near Mumbai (the city
formerly known as Bombay). Each had already won some lesser coveted
title, such as Colgate Gel Miss Body Beautiful. But now—as they were
sent across the stage in their makeup, jewelry, and designer
outfits—they resembled assembly-line products to such an extent that
the voiceover declaring that each was a would-be cultural ambassador
for India didn't seem to go without saying. The abbreviated duration
of the swimsuit competition was one of the few other indicators that
I wasn't in Kansas anymore—since wearing swimwear in public in India
is frowned upon as immodest. But, overall, the globalization of
culture marched on: internationally standardized canons of physical
allure strutting arm in arm with the objectification of women.
| Of course, I'd long ago concluded that these types of pageants are
bad enough when viewed from home. But seeing one elsewhere made their
inherent prejudices and defects all the more glaring. Thus, my prior
opinion—that those who run or promote these competitions are among
the ethically challenged—stood stunningly reconfirmed.
| | Fred Edwords is the editorial director for the American Humanist Association.
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