Miss World

Beauty's rites and wrongs

Quentin Crewe

There are all sorts of good reasons for not watching the Miss World contest, ranging from the moral to the cynical, from the snobbish to the aesthetic. Yet the BBC assure us that twenty-five million people are glued to their TV sets for this annual jamboree.

It is a very British paradox. The more vocal among us are nearly always opposed to simple and artless pleasures. Reviewers who find themselves laughing against their will at, say, the Whitehall farces talk of, "leaving your critical faculties behind". At the extremes of the social scale enjoyment is more straightforward. In White's Club, the uncomplicated members guffaw at the tremblings of Miss Nicaragua's exuberant corsage, weighing the contestants much as they might consider the bloodstock at Tattersalls. In every pub the scene is much the same, the only difference being that the ribaldry is less tinged with travelling reminiscence.

Of course, the whole thing is immensely British, based as it is on assumptions as flimsy as the notion that cricket is an exciting game.

In the first place the girls are selected by some yardstick completely removed from any of the usual characteristics which might prompt anyone to prefer one girl to another. They are not sexy. Indeed a great deal of trouble is taken to see that they shall provoke no desire. Contestants who are known to have boyfriends are severely discouraged and any actual proof of being attractive to somebody, such as having a husband or a child, automatically disqualifies a girl.

They are not intelligent. It was considered almost unsporting of Miss India, some years ago, to show more interest in her career as a doctor than in a year of breathless engagements in the world of show business.

It is interesting that whatever the mysterious Meccan measure of beauty may be, they have managed to impose it upon all the other nations who compete. Miss Japan, one feels, wouldn't merit a second glance from her compatriots in the streets of Yokohama. She looks like a Japanese girl imagined by someone who has never seen one. From her mouth, too, come the banalities of Balham.

Having selected girls who conform to this anodyne pattern, the next step is further to destroy any chance they had, by dressing them in a garment as ugly as its name — the swimsuit. And if there is one thing which commonsense, taste and an understanding of the ridiculous dictate that one should not wear with the swimsuit it is the high-heeled shoe. Yet that is what some still do, though most now go barefoot. Add to that a velvet cloak and a tinsel crown and the poor winner looks like a sex-change Batman.

No wonder she cries — but that is right and proper in a British contest; only dreadful foreigners make a fuss when they lose.

In a sense, all that is unimportant. The boys in the local and the members of White's still cheer and boo. What seems more of a pity is the sense of opportunity missed.

Think of the passions innocently aroused and assuaged. In all its twenty-five years not one contest can have gone by without some disaster or crisis. Is Miss South Africa really a ringer for Miss Rhodesia? Is Mis5 Cuba a veritable contestant?

The pity is that, quite apart from the false premiss in the matter of beauty, Miss World is no such thing. Half of the entrants come from countries for whom the contest seems to represent the last desperate hope of recognition — Miss Taiwan, Miss Costa Rica, Miss Panama.

Black countries are usually limited to judiciously coffee-Coloured representatives from Jamaica, Mauritius or the Philippines. We do not have Miss Third World. We have no Miss China, no Miss USSR, Miss Saudi Arabia.

A real Miss World contest could be a game to replace war, with all those passions stirred and soothed. No more democratically elected representative exists than the Beauty Queen. Just think of this year's Miss United Kingdom, Vicki Harris, She started in Great Yarmouth and has graduated through the posts of Miss Cinema, Miss Battle of Britain, Miss Gibbs Toothpaste, Miss Hammersmith Palais and Miss England. Could our Ambassador in Washington or Moscow claim to have been elected by so many popular votes? Imagine the rapport between her and a similarly chosen Russian girl Miss Nishny-Novgorod, Miss Stakhanovite, Miss GUM, Miss Heroine of Labour, Miss Crimea, Miss USSR.

Membership of the United Nations could be decided according to the stringent Mecca rules. Mr Eric Morley would be Secretary-General. The worst outcome of any international dispute would be a flouncing off the stage in tears, the worst sanction a lecture from Mrs Morley.

As a system of government it may seem somewhat in its infancy, but remember that the first parliament was a small enough affair in Iceland. It took nearly a thousand years before that system was perfected and then started to crumble. In another thousand years, who knows, we may be called upon to vote for Miss Cosmos, choosing between Miss Black Hole, Miss Anti-Matter and Miss Neutrino.

It might not seem so different from the political choices now confronting us.