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Stop picking on Miss India! Why the global media’s interest in Indian beauty pageants is so ugly

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DailyBite
DailyBiteJun 01, 2019 | 13:00

Stop picking on Miss India! Why the global media’s interest in Indian beauty pageants is so ugly

If you can't ban beauty pageants altogether, then please just stop it.

Now that the international media (CNN, BBC) is abuzz with 'what’s wrong with Miss India contest', based on a thread started on Twitter, we will tell you what’s actually wrong.

1. Beauty sells. So, while there can be thousands of things going wrong in India, the international media will pick up beauty controversies — and then laugh at the subcontinent’s fixation with white skin.

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2. Yes, there’s a problem. Yes, they all look the same. With the same skin colour, the same head tilt, the same shine on their teeth — but that’s the problem with the global beauty industry! And if we start discussing that, a rather large can of worms will be opened. (By this, we are not suggesting that we sweep the issue under the carpet. But we should not bark up the wrong tree either).

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Ms Whatever: You'll never be able to spot the difference. Not in 1978 (Miss Universe), nor in 2019. (Photo: AP)

3. Miss India is a beauty pageant which toes the lines of Miss World, Miss Universe, etc. All these beauty pageants scale and measure 'women’s beauty' — of course, we are not talking about inner beauty. No one talks about that in an industry driven by cosmetics, cosmetic surgeries, etc. There are beauty standards which can literally kill you. But they are there because of course lots of people are profiting from that. And those 'lots' are effectively a lot more to be found in the West than in India.

4. OMG! Will the world stop swooning over beauty transplants, nose jobs, skin corrections, lip enhancements, breast augmentations, miracle diets, etc., already?

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5. Words like ‘beauty with brains’ or ‘dusky beauty’ are serious problems which need to be acknowledged. It shows you always thought beauty and brains can’t go hand in hand, just like 'dusky' and 'beauty' don’t. Now that there’s an awakening and you don’t want to miss the woke bus, you try to make room for both. That’s the problem. And that’s exactly why it's not only all Miss India contestants who look like clones — all beauty pageants across the world look exactly the same.

Can you ban beauty pageants altogether instead?

You can’t because that would throttle a huge industry based on the deepest insecurities of the human mind.

Then, stop blaming India because you don’t consider fat, short and dark 'beautiful' either.

Last updated: June 01, 2019 | 13:00
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