Women should be free to enjoy stupid fun too
- Source: Global Times
- [22:16 March 16 2010]
- Comments
As for the official assertion that the competition will promote cultural awareness, everyone understands, really, that that's simply the kind of alibi such organizers routinely use to try to inject some gravitas into proceedings. The phrase "cultural exchange" almost begs to be spoken with an obligatory snigger and wink.
In reality, any serious contestants are in this for self-promotion; for what they can get out of it: Money, fame, guanxi, or just a good story.
Western society is still confused about the gender fault lines, and the hazy logic has drifted across here. If you raised objections toward the global Mr Gay competition, for example, a male equivalent of Miss World widely praised for its "empowering nature," you'd come across as a serious killjoy; scantily clad models competing for a stereotyped role of vain sex objects are completely acceptable in the Western world (if they're male).
Actually, the authorities did object enough to have the Mr Gay China event in Beijing shut down, at almost literally the last minute, under the traditional pretext of "papers not being in order."
The right of all people to choose to freely participate in, and enjoy, such competitions, and for society to permit them, seems to trump the ill-defined, unproved objections that preoccupy some.
There are, of course, far more pressing questions. Mainly, for one, how come the winner of the so-called Miss Universe is always an Earthling? Where are our Martian beauty queens?
The author is a copy editor with the Global Times. robertfoylehunwick@globaltimes. com.cn
