The smartest boobs in town: Miss Singapore Universe 2006

Last year, I was prompted to blog about the MSU pageant because of the horrific fashion on display. This year, I did not watch the whole pageant, juggling between the Superband Superjam, CSI and Chelsea playing West Ham in the EPL. From what I did see:

• Was host Adrian "The Horndog" Pang speaking from a script? The tongue out, salivating act got old before the 8 pm mark.
• The judges: Oy!! Sponsors aside (and what a can of worms it is to have sponsors also judging), could they not try to up the glam quotient a bit more than that? Denise Keller is fine. Joanne Peh is fine. But BOTH of them at the same time? A bit of overkill. We needed a youngish male celebrity to balance things out.
  
• The mothers in the evening wear section: Why?? So the judges could tell what these women would look like in 30 years? Is that part of the judging criteria now? "Sure, you're hot now, but if that's what the future holds, sorry, bzzzt!"
  
• Why the monotonous colour code of black for the evening wear parade? It's a classic, classy colour. But in such competitions, we expect to comment on at least one contestant's unfortunately garrish tastes. It's part of the fun of watching beauty pageants. Talk about letting the viewer down.
• The swimwear segment - sigh, this is one of the Trump pageant trademarks that I am least fond of - godawful choreography and background music. The choice of orange for the bikinis was at least original, but not complimentary to the fairer-skinned contestants.
  
• The top 10 Q&A session- the transitions to the recorded question segments were atrociously amateurish. Were the technical people so dazzled they could not press a button on time (and could not do it properly 10 times over)?
• The questions: good questions for the most part, and genuinely testing the contestant's poise and wit under pressure. I felt that a few of the questions were much harder than others (the one on laws that should be changed is particularly challenging) but there is luck involved even in beauty pageants.
• I didn't hear anyone mention "world peace" - but I did not catch all the interview sessions.
• The winner Carol Cheong: sizzling physique, but not particularly beautiful nor well-spoken, in my opinion. Passably okay as a winner, but not oustanding.
  
• Conspiracy theory time: the judges obviously knew from the start who their top 5 would be. The same few women kept coming up top of the rankings. I was waiting for things to fall apart when a few of the "chosen ones" faltered at the Q&A, but the judges managed to pull them through. It was all very much like figure skating - separate points for technical elements and artistry. If they fall short on one (usually the technical part, ie the demonstration of the ability to make sense), one could always compensate with points for presentation (ie the aesthetics of looking good in a swimsuit and a low-cut V-necked gown).

Do they choose the winner with the Miss Universe pageant in mind? Or are they after Joanne Peh mark 2? Someone whom they can groom into a starlet to blood the talent pool at Mediacorp? It seems to me to be more of the latter than the former, which is in the grand tradition of Hong Kong pageants. I suppose it is a legitimate enough way to go about things. After all, the odds for a Miss Universe from Singapore are slim anyway, so Mediacorp might as well realise their investment by getting some "talent" out of it. I expect to see Genecia (or is it Geraldine) Luo on Channel 8 sometime soon. 1st runner-up Jade Seah will sooner or later turn up on some infotainment program and be the thinking woman's Fiona Xie. As for the winner? After she comes back from the MU pageant, she will be hosting shows like Villa Wellness. Or maybe be the object of desire on Eye for a Gal. After all, she had already openly espoused the value of such "unscripted" reality tv programs.

What is up with the New Paper's coverage of this pageant? If anything, it was the media that hyped up the whole "brains" quotient of this year's contestants. It seems disingenuous to suddenly get all huffy about the "touted" postgraduate-degree-holding contestants being outshone by their less academicall decorated counterparts. I certainly did not think that the scholars would somehow do better in the Q&A section. If anything, I think sholastic training could be detrimental to the ability to produce soundbites (which, in essence, if what is needed to do well in this part of any beauty pageant). If asked "If you could change one law in Singapore, what would it be and why?", any scholar worth her salt would:

a) seek to clarity what exactly is meant by "change". Does it include abolishment or merely amending? Does the introduction of new legislation constitute change?

b) diagram the current legislative framework in Singapore

c) perform a gap analysis of laws versus environmental requirements

d) perform a feasibility analysis

e) request extension of deadline due to additional research needed.

See, it is not possible to condense a scholar's thoughts into 60 seconds. It's not that she does not have anything intelligent to say. Just that she needs a lot more time to say it!

As for that final question on Singaporean men and how they are perceived as second best to foreign men, I wish someone had said:

"Darling, you ever tried asking a foreign man to take you to the IT show at Suntec?"

Pondering Pageantry: Miss Singapore Universe Pageant

I was flipping through the latest issue of 8 Days and came across their one page coverage of the Miss Universe Singapore finals, held 2 weeks ago. I was overwhelmed by work back then, or I would have said something about the pageant earlier.

There was a photograph in 8 Days that reminded me about the one thing that I was dying to comment about. For a change, it's not about how unimpressive or embarassingly inarticulate most of the contestants are (this is my usual sore point about local pageants in Singapore and Malaysia). The thing that most affronted my senses was the fashion parade during the announcement of the top 10 finalists. A few of the horrendous dresses are on full display in page 12 of this week's 8 Days.

I was not really paying attention to the whole pageant, so I might have missed some announcement about what the ladies wore during that segment. Were those clothes designed by some local top-notch designer, or perhaps by students in a fashion design school? The loud prints and clashing colours were in themselves already too much to take. What really pushed the dresses over the line from "ugly" to "hideous" was the way they were cut. These dresses looked like costume rejects for a retro-1960's musical revival. Yikes! I half expected to blink and suddenly see the ladies wearing their hair in foot-high beehives. I know that retro, vintage fashion is back in style now, but it certainly is not meant to look this BAD!

The garishly blinding spectacle was also not helped by the contestants' one-hand-on-hip pose. This was so cheesy and played up to all the stereotypes of beauty pageants being a meat market display. What was wrong with standing with the hands naturally at the side? Hand-to-hip poses work fine when modelling and that's about it. When the ladies were maintaining the pose for long periods of time as they stood still, I felt certain someone would get a muscle pull in their lower arm.

Away from the clothes, it was an enjoyable pageant to watch. The top finalists were satisfyingly articulate and gave intelligent answers. The questions asked in the top 10 round were varied and did not encourage the "world peace" type of response, which was a refreshing change. One contestant did try to insert a referrence to 'racial harmony' when asked about her favourite cultural festival outside of her own culture. She must have been studying her copy of "Answering Beauty Pageant Questions for Idiots, 1995 edition".

The final question was very good, too: "What is the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of a woman?". Actually, I was concerned that this might turn into an opportunity to parrot a oft-quoted line that they must learn in Beauty Pageant Basics 101 about how "women are capable of anything if they believe in themselves". A few of the answers were in the same spirit, but spoken without the cringe-worthy sentiment. Maybe they have revised those Beauty Pageant text-books!

Some questions that I wish they would ask in a beauty pageant:

"If you had to choose between being incredibly stupid and being horribly ugly, which would you choose, and why? (Please note that whichever you don't choose, it doesn't mean you would be the complete opposite. Ie, if you don't choose to be horribly ugly, it would just mean that you are conventionally unattractive.)"

"Which current world leader of a democratic country would you most want to kick in the backside? Why? What's stopping you?"

"If you had a chance to have dinner with three famous serial killers from the past, who would you choose and why?"

"What qualities do you have that would make you a good role model for young teenagers who aspire to become anime artists?"

"If you run for election and become Prime Minister of your country, which three campaign promises will you break in your first month in office? "None" is not an option, get real, young lady."

"If your hair could talk, and you could ask it one question, what would you ask, and why?"

"What do you consider more important, mascara or lip gloss?"