Function of Beauty Pageants

Friendship is a mutual experience. Because you are friends with other individuals, you get to share in mutual experiences in which you would not have otherwise considered. This is why a Saturday night a few weeks ago, I found myself in an auditorium watching the Miss Thomasville pageant competition cheering on one of my good friends. The pageant circuit is something that I have only been privy to through such things as “Toddlers in Tiaras” or “Miss Congeniality”.  

The pageant world is an abnormality to me. Growing up, and many would say I still am, I was the biggest tomboy. My mother would have fights with me if we had to go to an event that required a dress. I would have rather been in shorts and a t-shirt riding my bike, playing basketball, or even searching for bugs in our very large backyard. Although now I do appreciate dressing up for formal occasions, odds are you will not see me walking across campus in a dress unless something important is happening. 

So when I was told that my friend would be competing in the Miss Thomasville pageant, a precursor for the Miss North Carolina, and ultimately Miss America pageants, I was dumbfounded. I wondered why would someone put themselves through such an ordeal? What is the purpose, or as some British Social Anthropologists would say, What is the function? 

A quick and easy answer is that participants are able to win scholarship money which would allow them to continue with their educational pursuits. The Miss America foundation awards $340,000 in scholarships at the National competition level, with Miss America herself walking away with a cool $50,000 (http://www.missamerica.org/news/press-kit/scholarships.aspx).

However, many would quickly say the amount of money invested is often far greater than the amount able to be won. In the Miss Thomasville pageant competition, one of the contestants evening gown dress cost over $2,000 – far greater than the award presented to the overall winner. 

Malinowski, a (psychological) functionalist, would argue that the pageants are an institution created by culture in order to meet the basic needs required by all humans. It is quite easy to take Malinowski’s interpretation and see how pageants would prepare women to have their reproductive needs met by preparing them to present themselves more favorably to any suitor, or even their intellectual growth by requiring pageant contestants to be abreast of current events in the world today. 

However, an individual like Emile Durkheim, one of the individuals setting the stage for functionalism to rise as a theory of cultural explanation, would see the pageant scene as an example of how our cultural values expressed through functions of our society on the larger scale. Beauty and sex are two major concepts that although no one would outright say we “value”, they are concepts that we as a society put great emphasis on, and incorporate into almost every part of our society 

By applying Durkheim’s idea of social facts, shared beliefs and values that shape and regulate society, it is evident that beauty and sexuality is a social fact that is ever present today. This is particularly exemplified by the media surrounding us. You can’t leaf through any magazine without seeing advertising featuring scantily clad women and men in insinuating positions. Often times, I am not even quite sure what an advertisement is selling until the end of the commercial because the commercial doesn’t even feature the product until the last few seconds!

A great example is a website that hosts a quiz which asks “Fashion or Porn?”. The quiz shows a small section of an image and you have to guess if it’s from a fashion advertising image or actually pornography. I won’t link to the website because it is very NSFW (Not Safe For Work), as it shows a lot of nudity and, as the title suggests, pornography. However, it shows how similar pornography and advertising can be, and how many are now almost interchangeable with pornography. A good example to see, without going to that particular website, would be any of the American Apparel advertising photos posted on their website (http://store.americanapparel.net/). 

Through the over-saturation of the advertising world with sexually-charged images, you can see through Durkheim’s explanation, the high value placed upon sexuality in our society and culture, and how it shapes and regulates members of society. 

Thus, it’s very easy to understand why pageants exist and are quite popular throughout America through the functionalist view. My friend thought it would be a great opportunity to practice her public speaking and modeling skills, to which I applaud her, and congratulate her on her winning Miss Congeniality. This example just shows that any activity can have many functions to different individuals and can be interpreted and explained by any number of functionalist viewpoints.