"Ex beauty pageant competitor wants to decide what is and isn’t appropriate for the Smithsonian."

"Great — if the administration is going to embrace stupid, it might as well go all the way. Just another incompetent boob doing a job they aren’t qualified for and they’ve no business doing. There are some parts of American history I don’t like — that doesn’t mean I get to pretend they didn’t happen or demand they be stricken from museums and textbooks. It’s how most of us learn. And if we actually learn the lessons our ancestors taught us, we don’t do those things again. Unless you are a Republican — then you embrace the wrongs of the past. And btw — art can make people feel uncomfortable sometimes — it’s supposed to evoke feeling!"

A comment, over at The Washington Post, on an article titled "She told Trump the Smithsonian needs changing. He’s ordered her to do it. Who is Lindsey Halligan, the attorney assigned to help remove 'improper ideology' from a major cultural institution?" (free-access link).

"Years before he said he was running for president to 'defeat the cult of gender ideology,' Donald Trump welcomed and praised the inclusion of transgender women in the Miss Universe pageant."

CNN reports.

Is that necessarily a contradiction? What counts as a "cult of gender ideology"? Could you favor letting transwomen into a beauty pageant without joining the "cult"? One way to be un-cultish is to make practical distinctions and accept one thing — such as, transwomen competing against cis women in beauty contests — and reject another — notably, transwomen competing against cis women in sports. That kind of thinking is characteristic of people who are not ideologues. Ideologues get hold of an abstract idea, run with it, and denounce those who won't take it to its logical conclusion, however impractical. 

Miss Ukraine.

Ukraine is SLAYING on stage, along with her beautiful feathered wings. What an inspiration to all. 💙 #MissUniverse pic.twitter.com/bP3LA4gDsx

— Miss Universe (@MissUniverse) January 12, 2023

The competition:

росія вийшла в костюмі імператриці на міс всесвіт (як їм це дозволили я не розумію)

навіть цвіркуни не кричали слей

pic.twitter.com/b9RhxN3iip

— vanya ✙ 🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@eurovanya) January 12, 2023

"Female beauty pageants are allowed to exclude transgender women, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has ruled."

"The case stems from a complaint filed by Anita Green, a transgender contestant in several Miss United States of America pageants.... Mandating Miss USA allow Green to be in the pageant would amount to forcing the pageant to say that transgender women are included in a vision of ideal American womanhood and that would amount to compelled speech, the court held. 'Given a pageant's competitive and performative structure, it is clear that who competes and succeeds in a pageant is how the pageant speaks,' wrote the judges. 'Put differently, the Pageant's message cannot be divorced from the Pageant's selection and evaluation of contestants.'"

Reason reports in "Miss USA Has First Amendment Right To Exclude Transgender Women, Court Says."

The Reason writer, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, opines: "I don't think the court is wrong about what allowing transgender contestants implies, though it is a shame Miss USA doesn't broaden its horizons a bit. Being more inclusive seems like not only the right thing to do but also a way it could shed some of its old-fashioned, intolerant image and help with its lack of resonance with today's audiences."

Me, I don't care about helping beauty pageants gain "resonance" with more people. They are inherently old-fashioned. They're into outward manifestations of femaleness, and that puts them on the same wavelength as transgender women, ironically. But it's all expression, and there's a problem with using someone else's platform of expression to amplify your own expression.

Here's the text of the court opinion.

"A Ms Great Britain contestant who was bullied at school over her appearance is to enter the competition make-up-free to 'empower young women.'"

"Elle Seline, 31, said she used make-up as a mask when she was a teen and was ridiculed for having more body hair due to her mixed Greek/English heritage. She wants her entry in the national pageant to inspire the next generation. 'There may be a young girl at school who sees it and feels that, actually, I'm good enough as I am,' she said." 

BBC reports. 

Based on the photograph she provides, I think she looks far better with no makeup...

... but it's not really such an all-or-nothing thing — heavy makeup or no makeup at all. And yet, for publicity purposes, going bare is a good move.

"With pageantry, people think it is only about beauty. But it’s how you present yourself, what you advocate for, what you’ve done and the goals you have...."

"I worked with Pride Tree, talking to kids and supporting them and helping them build a wardrobe because sometimes they don’t have access to clothes than express their gender identity.... I told the judges that as a transgender woman of color and a survivor of physical and sexual abuse, I am everything that is underrepresented in this country. Our voices matter. Those whose voices aren’t always heard deserve the chance to be heard.... It means a lot to represent Nevada.... We are an example for other states and we can create a place that is less hateful for all."

Said Kataluna Enriquez, quoted in "First transgender Miss Nevada USA calls win ‘huge honor’" (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

What happens when a Miss America contestant does a chemistry demonstration as her "talent" performance?

Answer: She wins!

Now, I think pouring those chemicals into flasks could be done by just about anyone. It's not like playing the piano, singing, and dancing — all of which take at least some talent and a lot of practice, but the woman in question, Camille Schrier "has two undergraduate science degrees and is studying a doctorate in pharmacy at Virginia Commonwealth University." She made a stage show out of real achievements that just happened not to be in the performing arts.

"When I owned Miss Universe, they always had great people. Ukraine was always well represented."

From Trump's first call to Zelensky, quoted in "Trump bragged about Miss Universe pageant — and didn’t mention corruption — in perfunctory first call to Ukraine president" (Daily News).

"You might assume that someone would have thought of this perfect Venn diagram of social media, beauty pageant, puppy adoration, grinning female empowerment, and Gilded Age excess by now."

"But in fact, this was the first ever Miss Dog Mom USA pageant....  The dogs, it would be fair to say, had no real agenda for the evening. But the women were there to win, to walk away with $1,000 and the sateen sash and a yearlong contract to wave from parade floats and officiate at canine weddings (yes, they exist) as Miss Dog Mom 2019.... Desh Valcin, 31, a tall, elegant woman with close-cropped hair and nerd-chic black plastic glasses, first came up with the idea for Miss Dog Mom a few years ago, when she was telling a friend how happy she was when she was 16 and competing in Miss Teen USA. From that moment, Ms. Valcin fixated on how to fuse her love of beauty pageants with her passion for her pets. Then, last summer, while strolling with her two dogs, it hit her: all you needed to turn a routine dog walk into a glamorous catwalk is a ball gown and an audience... Ms. Riddle, first up, was asked if pageants are degrading to women. 'How can this be degrading when we are raising money for all these great animals?' she asked, to cheers from the crowd. Then, a little flustered, she added, 'Nothing’s degrading, right?' before handing the microphone back the judges. One contestant fielded a question about pit bull discrimination (her take: pit bulls deserve equal rights)."

From "The Real Dog Moms of New York City/Inside the chaos, glitter and absolute furry cuteness of a puppy pageant" (NYT).

Pageantry.

Miss India contestants. They all have the same hair, and the SAME SKIN COLOUR, and I'm going to hazard a guess that their heights and vital stats will also be similar. So much for India being a 'diverse' country. pic.twitter.com/L4yXG0WvRu

— labellagorda (@labellagorda) May 27, 2019

Miss U.S.A. got a little catty about the way Miss Vietnam and Miss Cambodia don't speak English... and got trashed for "xenophobia" and had to apologize.

Here's the whole article at WaPo, "‘What normalized xenophobia looks like’: Miss USA apologizes for comments about other contestants' English."

The 24-year-old had just finished talking about how Miss Vietnam H’Hen Nie “pretends to know so much English,” capping her remarks with an imitation of her fellow Miss Universe contestant. Later, Summers touched on how “confusing” things must be for Miss Cambodia, Rern Sinat, because she doesn’t speak English and “not a single other person speaks her language." “Poor Cambodia,” Summers added.

The comments, which were streamed on the Instagram page of Miss Colombia, Valeria Morales, to her more than 300,000 followers earlier this week, have since gone viral, with many calling Summers a “bully” and condemning the remarks as “racist” and “bigoted.” Morales and Miss Australia, Francesca Hung, have also been criticized for their part in the video....

“Regina George, is that you?,” one post said, comparing Summers to the notoriously two-faced queen bee from the 2004 film “Mean Girls.” “This is basically what normalized xenophobia looks like,” the post went on to say. “If she’s trying to show empathy, the condescending, intolerant tone tells a different story. A reminder that you’re participating in a competition in a country/continent where English is NOT the primary language.”

Other critics said Summers’s behavior was representative of “Trump’s America.”...

Why not blame Trump?

Remember the old meme "Thanks Obama"? Here's Obama spoofing it:

"The Kate Spade brand was like a ray of sunshine — an antithesis to pessimism, self-conscious ennui..."

"... and even the sarcastic humor of her brother-in-law David Spade during his “Saturday Night Live” heyday. The company’s calling card was unabashed optimism."

Robin Givhan writes (in WaPo) about how Kate Spade's designs (handbags, etc.) were so nice at "a time when much of the highbrow fashion industry was fixated on minimalism and the washed-out, dour aesthetic known as heroin chic."

And then Kate Spade killed herself. Was the fashion always a facade, some desperate grasping to climb out of horrible darkness? Were the women who wore "heroin chic" happier than those who went for Kate Spade's clear colors and happy shapes?

It's interesting to think of these questions after blogging about Miss America's effort to get away from "outward appearance." What are other people really like on the inside? Well, the inside is private. We get to choose how much access to give to our inner selves, and to show what's on the inside, we need to let it out — by actions and gestures and by words but also by how we look. We've got to wear something, and we can choose to reveal what we are inside through what we wear, but we don't have to tell the straightforward truth.

You can wear yellow-and-white polka dots when you are gloomy and nothing but black when you're doing just fine.

This made me think of the Teri Garr character in "Afterhours":

How can there be a Miss America contest where "We are not going to judge you on your outward appearance"?

The quote is from Gretchen Carlson, the chairwoman of the Miss America Organization. I'm reading "The Bikini Contest Is Over, but We Are Living Inside the Beauty Pageant," by Bari Weiss in the NYT.

I think what Carlson meant was they're eliminating the part of the show where the contestants walk around in bikinis and high heels and the idea is to judge (or just admire) their bodies. They can't mean "outward appearance" more generally, can they? They can't switch to judging women by their insides! How would that be done? I know the contest always had a segment where the contestants were asked questions and had to show some intelligence, but a contest to see who has the most beautiful mind would not even be recognizable as a beauty pageant.

From the Bari Weiss colum:

The real reason the bikini contest was done away with is that it’s simply too explicit for our euphemistic era, where “strong” is the code word for skinny, and “healthy” for beautiful. Our culture hasn’t stopped objectifying women. We — men and women both — are just getting better at pretending it’s not happening.... Standing up on a stage in stilettos and tiny squares of nylon held up by string is just too gauche for 2018.

Weiss gets onto the topic of all the things non-gauche women do for outward beauty. My favorite is: "We lie under fluorescent lights and hold our thighs open for strips of burning hot wax while we chat about the new season of 'The Handmaid’s Tale.'"

Weiss's conclusion: "I won’t miss the bikini contest a lick... But there was also something strangely honest about it."

What Miss Turkey 2017 tweeted that made them take away her crown.

"To celebrate July 15 Martyr's Day, I began the morning by getting my period. I am celebrating the day by bleeding representing the martyrs blood."

Later, Itir Esen, 18, said "as an 18-year-old girl, I had no political agenda when I posted" and "I made this post with innocence during a sensitive time without thinking. As any one who feels like a victim during their menstruation, it does not contain any meaning other than 'it is July 15 and this is my situation right now.'"

I had to look up the term "Martyr's Day." My understanding is that the countries who use this term — including Turkey (and with the exception of Uganda) — use it to refer to military deaths. So the issue in this case is about disrespecting the military, not violating religious sensitivities.

The oldest meaning of the word "martyr" in English is specifically religious: "A person who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce faith in Christ or obedience to his teachings, a Christian way of life, or adherence to a law or tenet of the Church; (also) a person who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce the beliefs or tenets of a particular Christian denomination, sect, etc." (OED).

The other meanings of "martyr" in English (according to the OED) retain the original religious connotation.  So: "In extended (esp. non-religious) contexts: a person who undergoes death or great suffering for a faith, belief, or cause, or (usually with to; also with of, for) through devotion to some object."

To my English-hearing ear, "martyr" isn't the right word for someone who fights within his country's military, no matter how much he believes in its cause, because the enemy isn't targeting him because he's adhering to his beliefs and he can't save himself by renouncing them. But obviously Turkey is not operating in English and its connection to Christianity is complicated.

Anyway, I'm heartened that a teenager in Turkey felt free enough to tweet about her period.

All the best to Itir Esen.

"My presence here is an anomaly. My presence shows that people that look like me, that are Pakistani, that are Muslim, are here for peace. We are the sex symbol. We are the people that everybody wants to hit on."

Says Ali Mushtaq, fit to print in the New York Times in "Pakistani-American From California Blazes a Gay Leather and Fetish Trail."

By “here,” Mr. Mushtaq meant at International Mr. Leather, an annual gathering of men (and a few women) in Chicago who are into kink and leather, and culminates with the pageant-style crowning of the year’s winner....

Although he calls himself a Muslim (he studied Arabic and the Quran as a child), Mr. Mushtaq says his relationship to Islam today is “an ethnic identity as opposed to a fundamentalist religious identity.”... His Islam is not “the crazy people with the swords,” as he put it, but professionals “who consider themselves Muslim” and who “might approve of gay marriage.”

Where do Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump want to see the Supreme Court "take the country"?

At last night's debate, the moderator, Chris Wallace, chose to make the first question about the Supreme Court. This perked me up. It's what I've concentrated my attention on for the past 35 years, and we've got an open seat and maybe 2 or even 4 seats that may open up in the next presidential term. What I remember from watching the debate last night is that both candidates were absolutely awful. Now that I've slept on it and have access to the transcript, I want to double-check my own opinion. So come along with me and judge for yourself.

Wallace observed that the topic of the Supreme Court had yet to be discussed at a debate in any depth, and he wanted to "drill down." Going to Clinton first, Wallace said:

[W]here do you want to see the court take the country? 

The idea that the Court is in the lead taking us somewhere is all wrong, but no one is going to point that out.

And secondly, what’s your view on how the constitution should be interpreted? Do the founders' words mean what they say or is it a living document to be applied flexibly, according to changing circumstances? 

That's a simple way to prompt the candidates to talk about interpretive methodology, and it's an invitation to bungle, because candidates don't really want to get stuck at either end of those seemingly opposite positions. (I say "seemingly," because you can say that the founder's words meant that this is a living document to be applied flexibly, according to changing circumstances.)

Clinton goes first:

You know, I think when we talk about the Supreme Court, it really raises the central issue in this election. Namely, what kind of country are we going to be? What kind of opportunities will we provide for our citizens? What kind of rights will Americans have? And I feel strongly that the Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people. Not on the side of the powerful corporations and the wealthy. 

I was already loudly arguing with her. The side? The Supreme Court isn't supposed to take sides. She's blatantly saying she wants a Court that doesn't act like a court but gets on one side. Her Court is a Court that ought to have to recuse itself constantly.

"I’ll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed. No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it."

"'Is everyone OK?' You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. 'Is everybody OK?' And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that."

Said Donald Trump to Howard Stern in a newly released recording — just as 4 women from the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant say that Donald Trump walked in on them while they were undressed.

“I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a man in here,’” said Mariah Billado, the former Miss Vermont Teen USA. Trump, she recalled, said something like, “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before.”

He's saying that to teenagers. Maybe the 4 women are not being completely honest — they might oppose him as a political candidate — but you have that corroborating statement from Trump himself. And look how his statement is an idea we've heard before: "I sort of get away with things like that" is like "They let you do it....  Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything" and not all that different from "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."

"Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?"

"Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGEMENT! Hillary was set up by a con."

"Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an 'angel' without checking her past, which is terrible!"

Things tweeted by Trump first thing in the morning. Via the L.A. Times: "Trump continues attacks on former Miss Universe with middle-of-the-night tweets." Is 5 a.m. for Trump the middle of the night? As someone who often blogs at 5 a.m., I can tell you that's not the middle of the night. That's morning for a person who gets up early, and I'm perfectly sharp and lucid, much more so than at 9 or 10 at night. I don't know about Trump. Some people think he's never right in the head.

Barry Blitt mocks Trump's mockery of his beauty queen.

"Watching the debate, the artist Barry Blitt recognized a significant moment in the Presidential campaign. Of all Trump’s dangerous beliefs, Blitt said, his misogyny 'might just be his Achilles’ heel.'"



ADDED: That might be the ugliest New Yorker cover ever. I've been looking at New Yorker covers for more than 50 years, and I'm very familiar with the light touch and sweet charm of most of them. Blitt brings more political satire than anyone else, but he has a light touch too, with his very thin quill pen marks and highly diluted watercolor washings. But this one... yeesh.

At least he put Trump in a one-piece bathing suit. When's the last time pageant contestants wore one-piece suits?

ADDED: The original swimsuit competition — with Miss America in Atlantic City in the 1920s — had one-piecers like this...



... kind of a cool mini-dress. I like the dots. It's sort of: woman as Wonder Bread.

2-piece suits began in Miss America in 1997, when they were first permitted — with the top of the bottom no lower than 1-inch below the belly button. That rule went away.

And I can see that an occasional contestant still does wear a one-piece suit. I see some discussion back in 2011:

In this year's competition, all but one contestant wore a black bikini and high heels. (Apparently pageant officials give contestants few swimsuits to choose from.) The young woman who donned a one-piece swimsuit was not 17-year-old Teresa Scanlan, Miss America 2011, former Miss Nebraska, and a devout Christian. No, the brave one-piecer was 19-year-old Miss Idaho Kylie Kofoed, a Mormon and music major at Brigham Young University.

So, notice: It's not just feminists who have a problem with the body-judging in the swimsuits. There are also some conservative religionists. Trump has to appeal to a middle group that is more easygoing about exhibiting and enjoying the seeing the female body. 

Is it right — is it nice — to wield Miss Universe as a weapon against Trump?

Here's Hillary at the debate, bringing up Alicia Machado, who won the Miss Universe contest and then gained a lot of weight and got criticized by Donald Trump — who owns the contest.



Trump responded on a higher level of generality, with the idea that Hillary was going low and he was choosing not to follow her. He had some great low material, but he wouldn't use it, and her use of it wasn't nice. He wanted to be nice. That fit with something he said to her very early on in the debate: "I want you to be very happy. It’s very important to me."

After the debate — with a lot of people talking about Machado and giving her air time — he got specific:

Mr. Trump has acknowledged pressuring her to lose weight, saying it was her job as Miss Universe to remain in peak physical shape. On Tuesday morning, he made no apologies for that.

“She gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem,” he told Fox News.

I said what I had to say on the subject last May:

What was Donald Trump supposed to do about that? He owned the business, and she had claimed — and beat out other women for — the job of acting as if she's the most beautiful woman in the universe, and then she radically changed her appearance....

Wasn't she obligated to control her weight according to the terms of employment? If you can't do the job, don't apply for it. No one has to enter a beauty pageant. I think it's a foolish business, but if you participate in foolishness, you owe something to those who gave you that platform. It takes some psychological grit. If you're sensitive about what people say about how you look, what are you doing there?

This is another example of anti-Trump media purporting to champion women but in fact treating them as if they are weak, fragile, not responsible for their own choices, and in need of protection. It seems to me that Trump was treating her the way he'd treat a man — holding her to her obligations and razzing her for her foibles.