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Point-Counterpoint: Beauty Pageants


by Tiffany Gordon
Bathing Suits Belong at the Beach

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you know, I believe them. That is why I advocate gradually getting rid female exploitation shows, or as you may know them, beauty pageants. Public enemy number one in the beauty pageant world is the Miss America contest. I realize that if I called for the outright cancellation of that pageant, I would be met with shock and outrage. That is why I only ask that the bathing suit segment be removed from the show. It could be replaced with something that isn’t so demeaning, such as a spelling bee.
People think I’m crazy because of the things I say, but I don’t care. I have been called all sorts of names – feminist, feminazi, dike, bitch – but I will not back down. I think everyone else is crazy for not seeing how sexist and shameful it is to make these young women walk around half naked in front of the whole world. What kind of message are we sending to the little girls of today? They are the women of tomorrow, those little girls of today.
How many times has a little girl seen a contest like this and then said to herself “I have to be just as beautiful as them, otherwise I am not worth anything.” That is how girls become victims of eating disorders. They feel that they are fat no matter how thin they actually are, because the models they see are so thin. How else could a girl think that forcing herself to yak after every meal will make her more beautiful? Beauty pageants also turn homely girls into sluts. When a girl realizes she has no chance to look like a pageant star she may become convinced that the only way boys will like her is if she hands out bj’s like candy. This will most certainly get the boys to like her, but it will not be a wholesome love, it will be the love of a sinister, sexual predator.
The entire Miss America pageant forces these views onto little girls, but the bathing suit segment does it most of all. To look good in a bathing suit you need a heavenly body and nothing else. Unfortunately, people don’t really get to choose what their body will look like. All the exercise in the world will not make a short girl taller, a stubby girl leggier; that is why we must get rid of the bathing suit contest and include something that is based on merit, not on genetics.

by Dave Hesser

Get Rid of the Bathing Suits

So I was flipping through the channels during the commercial breaks on Smackdown and I happened to end up on a parade of hot girls in bathing suits. I was like, OMG! I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I watched for a little while and found out it was the Miss America contest. I never really understood that thing, but I think I do now. It seems like it is just an excuse to get all the hottest girls around onto one stage and then have them walk around in bathing suits. Where do I sign up?
Remember how I said I felt like I had gone to heaven? Well after watching for a while, I realized that I had in fact gone to hell. You’re probably thinking “Hell?!?” Let me explain: here are all these smokin’ chicks walking around in suits because all these judges are telling them to. Are these judges idiots? I wanted to rap each one of them on the head and yell “DING DONG!” Let’s get real, I don’t want to see these hoes in bathing suits, I want to see them in their birthday suits!
I could tell these girls all had bangin’ bodies, but I want to know for sure. Just imagine if these girls were strutting nude. Girls with fake knockers would be spotted and then could be ejected. This would help to keep it fair. I mean, I don’t mind fake tits if they look good, but that goes against the spirit of the Miss America pageant. Then when they got to the end of the walkway they could pop a squat and show some pink and brown, this way their whole body is judged. Better yet, there could be a pole at the end and they could do a quick show, giving everyone a good look.
If the girls were nude the ratings for the pageant would also go through the roof! This would generate a lot of money for everyone involved. The Miss America people would be getting enormous bids from the networks, and the networks would gets tons of advertising revenue. The girls that don’t win could do commercials for gyms because everyone in America saw their body in its natural state. Sounds like a win-win situation to me!