What is it about beauty pageants that captures the popular imagination? Our reporters try to make sense of it all
Brenda Atkinson: Miss South Africa 1997
The Miss South Africa competition at the Sun City Superbowl last weekend was a model of new South African behaviour. While the VIP guests below the stands exchanged rainbow kisses, audience members from far- flung regions of the country whistled and cheered for their flavour of the year. It was a bit like the rugby, only with nicer people.
“Please show the girls what a good time you’re having,” someone on the distant stage told us, after explaining that this was a live television broadcast. And could the Johannesburg guests please put away their “Gauteng earrings” (that’s cell-phone jewellery for you lesser types).
The show began with a flourish. The stage set – neo-classical meets New Age Egypt – was soon swarming with lithe male bodies, half-naked or swathed in rich fabrics, in the company of exotic parrots, horses and Great Danes.
A clutch of butch slave-boys carried Cleopatra, alias Peggy-Sue Khumalo, on stage – a nice touch honouring her and heralding the end of her year-long reign.
Then “the girls” themselves appeared in black evening dresses by Chris Levin. Unfortunately, from a fashion perspective, Levin’s understated creations were to be the last with any style or dignity. Once designers Marc and Michael took over, one had the impression that the figures on stage were parrots on acid. Or, as someone next to me pointed out: “they look like they’ve just popped out of a cake.”
The three hosts for the evening, Ursula Stapelfeld, Simon Jones and Tshepo Mobona did their best to appear spontaneous, despite a script that contained such nation-a-go-go gems as “Madiba, you are the authentic African beauty!”
Ursula explained that the prejudging had occurred the day before, when each contestant had spent time alone with all of the judges. “The prejudging contributes 70% of the score totals,” said Ursula.
Then a voice-over introduced the contestants, telling us what geniuses they were. The message was clear: okay, so they may be in swimsuits rather than power-suits right now, but these are power-women who know where they’re going, have degrees, could be president (except Madiba’s prettier), and so on.
Now, it’s not that I object to beauty competitions per se. It’s just that the dishonesty about what they really are makes Hustler magazine more palatable.
Porn is about down-and-dirty sex and is proud of it; Miss South Africa is about brains, personality, and motivation, and good looks are a surprising coincidence.
Not from where I was sitting. I might not have been able to see much, but I could hear quite a bit. The soundtrack went something like this: wolf whistles. “Hey man, take it off! She’s too fat. Big hips, hey? Lose the gown, baby! Eish, she’s hot.” Et cetera. The Miss SA PR types might think that taking the “beauty” out of “beauty contest” makes it “respectable”, but as far as the men and women of the audience were concerned, this was very much about cellulite and sexiness.
The intelligence of these women is not in doubt – Miss Gauteng Jessica Motaung’s sassy response to lecturer and judge Joseph Diescho’s question about the death penalty had the crowds roaring approval. Perhaps this was a bit too sassy to win the title, and another indication that a sharp mind is not the basis for judging.
The point is, why not accept that this is as much about beauty as brainy ambition, and take the flak from there? Instead, we have yet another excuse for nation- building, wreathed in PC platitudes that slip more easily than false boobs. That said, the SABC-produced show – done on the same budget allocated to the organisation for the project in 1989 – was slick and professional, with a glam camp sensibility and a great sense of humour.
Keith Pfeiffer, executive producer, is deservedly chuffed. “We had four months to pull it altogether once it was ours,” Pfeiffer explains, “and only two days to rehearse on the finished stage set.”
He describes winning entrant Kerishnie Naiker as “great – a lot like Michelle Bruce – very determined and energetic”. Naiker’s speech to the VIP dinner guests – including such political heavies as Tokyo Sexwale and Ronnie Kasrils – seemed heartfelt, if brief. And despite rumours about the political expediency of having a first-time Indian winner, Naiker is a looker whom the audience loved.
So the ideological agenda of the Miss South Africa competition is skin-deep. There was fun to be had . And, as a friend whispered after the show: “I wouldn’t mind arranging a foam party for some of those extras. In my bedroom.”