June 1, 2019

Pageantry.

109 comments:

FleetUSA said...

But they don't all have the same intelligence.

Temujin said...

And...they are all beautiful. But why should that be a factor in a beauty pageant?

rhhardin said...

Need to see boobs.

whitney said...

To be fair most of the world has has black hair and black hair brown eyes with varying shades of brown skin. There's only one small group of people that has red and gold hair green and blue eyes and pink skin

robother said...

Don't castigate what you don't understand.

MadisonMan said...

The fallacy that because women look the same they aren't diverse. What a very shallow definition of diversity.

Patrick Henry was right! said...

What is the empirical basis for the assertion that diversity is a strength?

stlcdr said...

What state is India in?
...
Oh, it’s not a town? Which part of the US is the state of India?
...
Oh, it’s not part of the US? It’s a foreign country?
...
So they are a different culture with different ideals? Different language? Just different everything? So, does this make them bad? Are they better than us, or worse than us? I can’t tell what our betters are telling us to think about this.

Maybe I’ll just go with...it is what it is.

mccullough said...

Trump is one of the judges this year.

tds said...

It's not bad at all. They're almost as diverse as gang-of-eight from the recent Spelling Bee finale

AlbertAnonymous said...

Here’s an idea.... don’t watch.

Jeepers.

Two kinds of kids in the world, those that build things with blocks, and those that knock down what other kids built.

Two kinds of adults in the world... those that build and those that knock things down.

Quit knocking things down. Just move on. Or better yet, build something of your own.

Bruce Hayden said...

To be a bit contrary, India does have significantly more racial diversity than shown in these photos. Part of it is, I believe, the result of multiple migrations or invasions, with a darker, earlier, group having been pushed by later groups into southern India. I suspect that these are all higher caste, upper middle class to upper class women, thus their homogeneity. Notably, the bottom line in each bio was “college”, suggesting that few, if any of these women grew up in poverty.

Wilbur said...

So does The Beautiful Fat Woman on Twitter want more plus-size women entered? Or is her complaint limited to skin color?

Ralph L said...

Vestigial socialism means India has only one foundation.

Birches said...

One of those girls in the last row definitely looks more East Asian...

Kevin said...

Where is it written that each nation having a diverse population is an imperative, rather than a choice?

Once again we’ve taken a statement like “diversity can have benefits” and turned it into a vision of a purified global reordering not seen since the fall of Nazi Germany.

Earnest Prole said...

We're infinitely varied; The Other is all alike.

Birches said...

Also Nikki Haley would fit in, which is interesting because the left doesn't think she's Indian enough. Apparently, some actual Indians aren't Indian enough.

Gahrie said...

Well now we know why skin lightening and hair straightening products are so popular in India.

Curious George said...

It's like the Miss Muslim contest. Same eyes. Same burqa.

tcrosse said...

No trannies?

Douglas2 said...

Those photos were all taken in front of the same blue backdrop as well, so it seems that the makeup artist who called this a photo-editing screwup is probably correct.

traditionalguy said...

Now you see why blonde women are the Holy Grail of womenhood for the men in the all black haired countries.

traditionalguy said...

Maybe that's not a typo for Miss Indiana?

Leland said...

So I guess the new progressive thing is to look at a group of individual women and claim they are all the same.

pacwest said...

"What is the empirical basis for the assertion that diversity is a strength?"

Cause I say so. Is that empirical enough for you?

Fernandinande said...

They all have the same hair, and the SAME SKIN COLOUR

No ugly old bald men with RED WEEPING SORES. And people are whining about racism.

whitney said...

That Twitter feed is insane. I highly suggest everyone go read it. Also, despite the same hair color and skin tone those women all look very different. I'd say the Korean beauty pageant is the one where they are identical because they've all had plastic surgery to be identical

Bay Area Guy said...

Nice lookin' babes!

RK said...

If you watch TV in Mexico City, all the actresses in advertisements could pass the paper bag test. Probably the same in India.

Here in the US, you'd think blacks were the majority race if all you saw was our TV commercial.

rcocean said...

And they all have great hair.

rcocean said...

Indian needs more beauty contests for ugly chicks.

Wince said...

"Bathe her, and bring her to me."

rcocean said...

Pretty much every country in the world favors:

Lighter skin over darker skin
Thin over fat
Tall over short
Hour-glass figure over Pear or Square shape
Small nose over Big Nose
Large eyes over small eyes.
Full lustrous hair over thin, short hair.

I think its due to something called "evolution"

SDaly said...

Not a lot of "untouchables" in that lineup.

SDaly said...

Check out the finalists for Miss Korea 2013!

madAsHell said...

So much for India being a 'diverse' country.

Seriously seeking outrage!! What a stupid twit!!

"labellagorda".as in La Bella Gorda. My latin is weak, but I see "the pretty fat girl". She has an axe to grind.

She doesn't see her face on the poster with the other contestants, so she spreads sour grapes. This is what immature women do. See Hillary Clinton.

Henry said...

For a second I thought they were all the same woman.

But some of them are smiling, so that's different.

robother said...

The soap opera ain't over until La Bella Gorda sings.

Doodad said...

I'm upset because there are no men who identify as women in the list. (Just kidding)

Oso Negro said...

In a country of 1.37 billion, the prettiest girls are going to be exceptional beauties.

Sebastian said...

They are a diverse country. They also have common standards.

William said...

It's all Trump's fault. He got involved in the beauty pageant business and corrupted it. Beauty pageants used to represent a diverse segment of a nation's population with an emphasis on those girls who could play the clarinet passably and give banal answers to innocuous questions. After Trump it was nothing but swimsuit competitions and a total emphasis on beauty with almost no regard for clarinet playing ability. I tremble for our nation's future if these trends in India are allowed to continue. Impeaching Trump will go a long way in helping to restore diversity to Miss India's beauty pageant.

William said...

Would it help if some of them had pixie or page boy cuts? There's not much diversity in their haircuts. You'd think some of the beautiful women would try something to make them stand out from the other beautiful women.

Bill Crawford said...

"Variety". I see what you did there. Heh.

Krumhorn said...

There’s only two of them I wouldn’t happily .....oh wait. Those were my thumbs on my iPad screen.

Never mind

- Krumhorn

mockturtle said...

I kinda favor the second one in the top row but it's probably ethnocentric of me.

n.n said...

Over one billion, of which approximately half of the human population are female.

Ah, you mean diversity as in color judgment, including racism. Diversity in India ranges from light to blacker than black.

Ken B said...

The Canadian Open golf tournament starts this week, less than a half mile from my house. I looked at the contestants.
What a shameful lack of diversity. No one under 4 ft, no one over 89, no one 300 lbs, no one blind. And all of them, every damned one, spends a lot of time golfing.

chuck said...

Gosh, it's a big, diverse world. @labellagorda's eurocentric colonialist judgments are not welcomed everywhere.

Sam L. said...

The HORROR!! The horror...

Jeff said...

Second row, fourth column. Those eyes.

Mary Beth said...

I saw a complaint about the finalists yesterday. The problem is that they all have fair skin. The complainer blamed it on colonialism and influence from the West, as if light skin isn't idealized in virtually every Asian country and has been for centuries - even before contact with the West.

I do think that their skin tones don't look anything like most of the Indians or Indian-Americans I know. Skin lighteners are huge sellers in India. If the contestants have the same light tone because of artificial means, I don't see much difference between this and the chest binding in the other post.

I'd want to see the contestants in a video. The similar skin tones could be a result of photo editing. This would also be a problem because it adds to the pressure on women there to lighten their skin artificially. Whether it's editing or they are only choosing light-skinned women, they are sending a message that this is what beauty looks like. It's not a good message in a country with a much wider range of skin tones.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Hubba hubba. Did someone open a Sonic in Mumbai? ‘Cause it’s full of milkshakes!

RK said...

I decided row 3, column 5 looked the smartest. But she's also the most mature-looking, IMO.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

they all have high cheekbones-- they must be related to Elizabeth Warren

Browndog said...

I get mad when people look like me.

I get mad when people don't look like me.

Diversity is our strength. I am a liberal, hear me roar.

ken in tx said...

Of course they're diverse. Diverse means non-white. Didn't you get the memo?

Narr said...

Darker skinned women want lighter skin, white American women want deep tans.

Women almost always want their hair to be different than it is, and go to enormous expense to make it so.

As to the potential benefits of diversity, I had always understood that mixing divergent genetic lines was a good idea; better than the alternative, anyway.

Narr
But I'm just a wandering humanist here

Tomcc said...

Would it be too late for Elizabeth Warren to enter?
(What's that? Wrong kind of Indian?)

mockturtle said...

MB the c observes: The complainer blamed it on colonialism and influence from the West, as if light skin isn't idealized in virtually every Asian country and has been for centuries - even before contact with the West.

Both men and women of the upper classes in medieval China, Japan and Korea carried parasols because whiter skin was a sign of status. Nothing to do with colonialism.

effinayright said...

I have to say that I've seen some damn fine-looking South Indian women in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Many with VERY dark skin.

Where are they?

Let's not forget Miss America 2014, Nina Davuluri, whose parents came from Andra Pradesh in South-Central India.

https://tinyurl.com/y4e6knkz

Apparently she wouldn't make the cut over there.

buwaya said...

Row 3, column 4 looks like Natalie Wood.

Rockeye said...

Labellagorda would fit right in here, based on the tiny photo of her. Skin tone and hair color seem identical. I'm not exactly sure what that signifies, but I only report what I see.

buwaya said...

Long hair is an Indian beauty ideal.
Ancient thing.

Yancey Ward said...

We need more information. Where are the bikini shots?

ALP said...

What mockturtle said...

I thought that lighter skin in many parts of the world was an indicator that you were not out in the fields all day, toiling under the sun. Urban vs. rural, rich vs poor, white collar office job vs dirty, outdoor work. My guess is that half of these women would be much darker if they allowed themselves to be.

LA_Bob said...

Many countries are ethnically diverse. Standards of beauty? Not so diverse.

Birkel said...

Light skinned folks in Japan, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico, Egypt, and more countries tend to be disproportionately in positions of power.

Damned America causing that to be true for millennia!!!

/LeftistSpeak

JAORE said...

Amid the buzzing,what I hear is, "They wouldn't pick MEEeeeee!" So they must be evil.

JAORE said...

Maybe I'll contact her with a less-than-flattering (i.e. accurate) picture of this paunchy, old, white guy (me) with expressions of romantic interest. Surely she'll respond favorably in the interest of diversity.

Narr said...

Eyebrows, they all seem thick (in the thumbnails). Is that a beauty thing cross-culturally?

I'm guessing that on all these ladies, collars and cuffs match.

Any Euro-seeming surnames? Can't enlarge enough to see.

Narr
I knew a Braganza from India (no beauty), a Portugee back there somewhere

YoungHegelian said...

I like this Bollywood video because the chicks in the corps de ballet look "ethnic". They all have relatively light skin, especially for India, but they don't all look like Brahmins.

Hey, if you want darker complexions, there's always Tollywood.

tcrosse said...

Take it easy, guys. This is not a catalog.

Bilwick said...

Once I was getting a haircut from a hair stylist who was from India. I think she may have been flirting me because she kept mentioning ways that she apparently thought made her extra-desirable. (And in truth I did find her attractive, if a little chunky.) She had that same look: dark hair, fair skin, pretty features (by my Western standards). She told me she came from northern India where her look was somewhat common, and that people from southern India were darker skinned and, in her view, less attractive. She then went on to explain that southern India was once part of Africa, and that was why south Indian people looked the way they look. She added, "We in the north of India consider them more like Africans than Indians." She shied away from the n-word, but that's what she seemed to be going for.

YoungHegelian said...

@Bilwick,

Needless to say, the IT industry is full of folks from the Indian subcontinent.

I have often suspected that one reason that many of the southern Indians, many of whom speak Telugu & not Hindi as their native tongue) come to the US is that they actually experience less discrimination over here because of the color of their skin.

Over here, they're all just Indians, & the Indian community is known to be a "good" immigrant group, who are family oriented, law abiding, work hard, & don't go blowing up the rest of us.

RichardJohnson said...

Young Hegleian
I have often suspected that one reason that many of the southern Indians, many of whom speak Telugu & not Hindi as their native tongue) come to the US is that they actually experience less discrimination over here because of the color of their skin.Over here, they're all just Indians.

You may well have a point. As an example of tension between Hindi and non-Hindi speakers, consider what a Dravadian- Telegu is a Dravadian language- told a friend visiting India: "We don't speak the conqueror's tongue." He was quite content to speak to my friend in English, as English was not the conqueror's tongue. Hindi was the conqueror's tongue. The conquest happened what- 2,000 years ago? That is a LONG time to hold a grudge against a conqueror.

This doesn't exactly support the "diversity is strength" narrative, does it?

buwaya said...

Much better pictures -
https://beautypageants.indiatimes.com/miss-india/contestants/miss-india-2019/contestantslist/68175725.cms

madAsHell said...

She added, "We in the north of India consider them more like Africans than Indians." She shied away from the n-word, but that's what she seemed to be going for.

We travelled to Madagascar, and the tour guide went out of his way to point out that his ancestors were Indonesian. He said the Africans live in stick houses on the beach.

Trust me, they sell stick houses at the hardware store.

Don't tell Ikea!!

buwaya said...

Based on the India times, I'm rooting for Miss Telangana, she has lovely eyes, if otherwise slightly dark.

But Miss Uttar Pradesh comes across as rather saucy. I like that.

Hmm.

Yes they are all college girls, though in many cases we are talking of way out in the boonies. The Indian version of Cal State Stanislaus.

buwaya said...

And in the India Times pictures they all look more Indian.

madAsHell said...

Traveler alert: If you're coming from the States, then don't bother with Madagascar. Good people, good food, but what a long haul. You should have jumped off the airplane in East Africa.

DavidUW said...

It’s almost as if there are convergent ideas on beauty standards.

Fernandinande said...

Eyebrows, they all seem thick

Keeps the sweat out of their eyes while they grind grain with the chakki.

Fen said...

because whiter skin was a sign of status.

Why? Because darker tones signified a laborer class that spent more time under the sun?

That would seem like the obvious conclusion, but it's a mistake Historians guard against*, so I'm curious if we are certain why they valued lighter skin.

*there's a short fiction by Frank Hebert - two scientist frogs are observing a human female bathe, one shares his "conclusion" that the bumps on her chest are to cushion her against the strong embrace of the human male. :)

Fen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fen said...

as if light skin isn't idealized in virtually every Asian country and has been for centuries - even before contact with the West.

When our Marine unit (31st MEU-SOC) did a port call in Surabaya Indonesia, none of the prostitutes would take any our of black troops. Very very racist towards blacks.

I'm ignorant of China's history, but I seem to recall ancient China had some huge trading vessels and that Africa was part of their trade route. Imagine the Asian culture coming into contact with what they thought were creatures more ape than human. Wouldn't they want to distance any genetic association with Africans? Maybe that explains the contempt they have for blacks, and the pursuit of lighter skin in their own culture - they are not trying to be more white, they are trying to be Not Black.

I wonder if that's the origin of racism towards Africans. They remind us we evolved from chimps. And don't go pearl clutching about racism, I don't believe any of that racial superiority bullshit. I'm just wondering, why so much hate for no apparent reason?

Think about it - if your family lifts itself from poverty to live in Martha's Vineyard, but there is that one Uncle who's lack of teeth and manners is a constant reminder to the others that they were once "poor white trash" from West Virginia, isn't he going to be treated with resentment? The anger may not manifest directly, but he is likely to be treated unfairly by the rest of the family, because they resent his very presence - it reminds them where they came from.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

...and where are the dots?

Fen said...

Maybe I'll contact her with a less-than-flattering (i.e. accurate) picture of this paunchy, old, white guy (me) with expressions of romantic interest. Surely she'll respond favorably in the interest of diversity.

Very likely. Being an American Marine in Indonesia was like being Willy Wonka with one Golden Ticket left - a lifetime of wealth and leisure for one lucky girl and her entire family. They girls really weren't hookers as we think of them, they were small town girls trying to not to starve to death. I almost married one to bring her back, out of mercy. The poverty was soul-crushing. And they were treated like cattle by their men.

American woman are the most spoiled creatures on the planet. They have no idea how many 3rd world women would literally kill them to take their place.

Fen said...

As to the potential benefits of diversity, I had always understood that mixing divergent genetic lines was a good idea; better than the alternative, anyway.

Yah, that always seemed counter-intuitive to me. Your "tribe" is superior so you are going to conquer all the other tribes on the island to put them under your rule and... take their women as slaves to breed with? Okay...

Fen said...

Take it easy, guys. This is not a catalog.

Binders full of women? But yes.

RK said...

When our Marine unit (31st MEU-SOC) did a port call in Surabaya Indonesia, none of the prostitutes would take any our of black troops. Very very racist towards blacks.

I was part of one of the first Navy task forces to port-of-call in Perth, Australia in the 1980s. The black guys didn't have to pay at all. They were a novelty to the Australian women.

Earnest Prole said...

We are talking of way out in the boonies. The Indian version of Cal State Stanislaus.


In the boonies wearing a Cal State Stanislaus sweatshirt is like wearing a Harvard sweatshirt in San Francisco.

Fen said...

I was part of one of the first Navy task forces to port-of-call in Perth, Australia in the 1980s. The black guys didn't have to pay at all. They were a novelty to the Australian women.

Interesting. We hit Perth on a MEU in 94. Couldn't find any hookers. It was more like a small college town then. Local girls were bored and found us exciting.

effinayright said...

madAsHell said...
Traveler alert: If you're coming from the States, then don't bother with Madagascar. Good people, good food, but what a long haul. You should have jumped off the airplane in East Africa.
******Why? I'm genuinely interested, because my son has always wanted to go there to see the island's unique wildlife.

Why did you go? What were you expecting that left you unsatisfied?

As for a "long haul": my entire family went to South Africa ten years ago. It took 17 hours from Atlanta to JoBurg, then another 3+ hours to Capetown. Longest flight in our lives, for everyone. (wife is a Flight Attendant; I'm a very seasoned trans-Pacific traveler)

It was well worth it. But I fear it won't last, now that "they" have taken over.

Fen said...

"It bothers me that none of them cut their hair short because the patriarchy demands that women should have long hair no matter what"

"I would love to see a lovely chocolate skinned girl, someone with short hair, or intense curls for that matter, or someone who is short, maybe someone who is plus sized"

"being fair skinned, tall, skinny, with long hair is NOT the beauty standard!"


As an authority on female beauty, I have to disagree. Maybe you don't understand how beauty works. It's the men who determine what is desirable in a woman, just as the women determine what is desirable in a man. We chose tits and ass, you chose 6 foot and 6 figures. Who are you to argue?

effinayright said...

Fen said...
I was part of one of the first Navy task forces to port-of-call in Perth, Australia in the 1980s. The black guys didn't have to pay at all. They were a novelty to the Australian women.

Interesting. We hit Perth on a MEU in 94. Couldn't find any hookers. It was more like a small college town then. Local girls were bored and found us exciting.
***************

Reminds me of Bangkok in the mid-70's. GIs were fine, but the girls didn't like the Japanese customers, who treated them roughly.

Of course they could be pretty tough themselves. In Phuket (which had ZERO hotels then) I learned that "dakling" in Thai meant "monkey ass".

So back on Patpong Road in Bangkok, when a working girl sidled up to me and said pleasantly, "Hello, dakling", I replied with a wounded expression:

"Oh, why do you call me Monkey Ass?"

She shrieked with laughter. "Who told you that!?"

It turned into a very pleasant evening.




Narr said...

@Fen (and some others) do you know the work of the journalist Robert D. Kaplan? Your stories resonate with some of his coverage, and other reading.

As to genetic-mixing, I was referring to the alleged benefits that used to be called "hybrid vigor." And I would bet as a historical matter that conquest followed by a whole lotta love is more frequent in the record than the opposite.

Men have joined armies and navies for no higher reason than getting some strange.

Narr
Victors, spoils . . . spoils, Victors

Narr said...

Fashions or looks that are either hard to attain, or extremely impractical, signify that the bearer or wearer is free of any obligation to work. Pale skin among elites says, "I never have to expose myself to the elements." Ridiculous clothing says, "I can afford to dress like a mental deficient because I never have to do anything but hang out."

Narr
All as old as the hills

madAsHell said...

My daughter had her USA passport renewed while living in Korea.

The Korean bastards photo-shopped her skin color, and her eyes.....just so slightly. I still think it was funny. She doesn't.

Makes you wonder about passport security?

fivewheels said...

"That Twitter feed is insane. I highly suggest everyone go read it."

I took a peek. Nothing struck me as outlandish. However, I read her little story about the Whatsapp group. She gave her side with her spin, but if you look at just the facts presented, it's certainly possible, as Scott Adams might put it, to see another movie.

To wit: She was on a discussion group where people had some lively debates, and they disagreed a lot but managed to coexist, but then she waded in and escalated an exchange into such rancor that the whole place blew up and ceased to be. She sees that as a heroic act on her part. She might not be a reliable narrator.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Hair Straightening? Reminds me ... Maxine has James Brown's hair! He got it from Rip Taylor!!!

mockturtle said...

That would seem like the obvious conclusion, but it's a mistake Historians guard against*, so I'm curious if we are certain why they valued lighter skin.

Pale skin was considered beautiful in Asia and men's beauty was cultivated as well as that of women's. For instance, in Tale of Genji, a novel written by a noblewoman in the 11th century [kind of a Japanese version of Tom Jones], much more is made of Genji's beauty than about the beauty of any of the female characters.

We see a similar trend in Renaissance Europe, where women of nobility were far more attracted to a man's figure than to his social status.

madAsHell said...

Why did you go? What were you expecting that left you unsatisfied?

ummmm.....I married well. The in-laws were buying, and I went with my wife, and kids. I had no expectations.

There are only so many lemurs, mongoose, and chameleons to admire.

Most of the tour was a bus ride. A Simon and Garfunkel song...."We've all come to look for...."

effinayright said...

madAsHell said...
My daughter had her USA passport renewed while living in Korea.

The Korean bastards photo-shopped her skin color, and her eyes.....just so slightly. I still think it was funny. She doesn't.

Makes you wonder about passport security?

************

I've had my passport renewed abroad, at a US embassy or consulate.

Who are these "korean bastards" you speak of? Were they Korean employees at the US embassy or consulate?

Unless you tell us when/where , you're full of shit.

And oh: give us an undoctored photo alongside the real one.

Otherwise it never happened.

n.n said...

Over one billion people... persons. It rarely gets more diverse than that.

Clyde said...

All around us, we hear white people being demonized. And yet, so many people want to have light skin and straight hair. What's up with that?

DEEBEE said...

To this self-unconscious twit, it does not conclude that axes of beauty she has mentioned do not constitute diversity measures. Only in the putrid minds of progs does color of skin and not of mind, though in a beauty pageants that could be a rare commodity to be worshipped fir a moment.

Jeff C said...

Next thing you'll tell me is that the Miss Norway contestants are all white with blonde hair. Shocking!