The appeal and visuality of beauty pageants on a local level:

‘Unlikely’ Misses and their answer to staring

Frauke Velle

Abstract

Beauty is not universally given. In different times and spaces dominant beauty standards can vary.
Marginalization can be found within representations of beauty, for example in societies or cultures where
lighter skin is more favored than darker skin (Craig, M., 2006). A beauty pageant is one of the platforms
where beauty and its visualization are displayed extensively. How do these beauty pageants gain
popularity with both a local and a global audience? The appeal and the interpretation of beauty pageants
can differ in regards to cultural, social and political meanings given to it (Craig, M., 2006; Mani, B.,
2006; Bloul, R., 2012).
In a more and more globalizing world, visual images are everywhere. Popular and visual culture
reaches a worldwide audience and beauty pageants are an example of this global cultural flow (Wilk, R.,
1995). They appeal to an audience on an international, a national and a local level and create a stage
where identities and cultures can be made public and visible (Mani, B., 2006). Furthermore, also ideals,
values and conceptions of beauty are made visible through the framework of a beauty pageant, whereby
it is exposed to the reinterpretation and imagination of others (Gilbert, J., 2015). Using beauty pageants
as an illustration, this article attempts to explore the concept of visual activism with the Mr. and Mrs.
Albinism beauty pageant as a starting point. This article centralizes around ‘unlikely’ misses and the use
of the popular global format that a beauty pageant is to change the dominant narrative on their
stigmatized embodied identities (Bloul, 2012).

[Keywords: beauty pageants, visual activism, dominant beauty ideals, stigmatized embodied identities]
Introduction

In the year 2013 I was meant to attend a meeting for a school assignment in the Atlas-building in
Antwerp. In the hallway where I was waiting happened to be a photo exhibition on the hardships people
with albinism face in several African countries (Mean, Bon Mugamba & Ngiedi Lelo, 2013). That is
when I crossed the theme of albinism in Africa for the first time. The photographs struck me and I felt for
those people, but after that, I didn’t give it any more thought. Until almost two years later I attended the
inaugural lecture on anthropology and disability by Faye Ginsburg at the KU Leuven. I remember
thinking about the exhibition and the daily struggles for people with albinism again. Since then, I
couldn’t shake the topic and chose albinism as the main theme for my master thesis. In contrast to the
other contributors, this article will be based on relevant literature instead of ethnography, and will fit
loosely under the overarching theme of my thesis, namely the influence of dominant beauty ideals on the
self-image of people with albinism in South Africa.
Within the frame of visuality, this article uses the first ever beauty pageant for people with albinism
in Kenya as a starting point to assess the appeal of beauty pageants on a local level. One of the main
statements here is that ‘different sorts’ of beauty pageants can be, despite the association of beauty
contests with objectification of the body, forms of resistance and awareness for people who are
considered outsiders. As mentioned above this article will start with a case, namely the Mr. and Mrs.
Albinism contest in Kenya, followed by a more in depth analysis of local beauty pageants in Africa and
their share in reintegrating people with stigmatized embodied identities. Subsequently the more
theoretical core of this article will be discussed with a general description of visuality and the global
appeal of beauty pageants. This paper will end with a final conclusion.

Beauty pageants with ‘unlikely misses’

On the 21th of October, 2016, the founder of the Albinism Society of Kenya and Kenya’s first and only
parliamentarian with albinism, Isaac Mwaura, spearheaded the first ever beauty pageant for people with
albinism (Duggan, 2016; Fisher, 2016; Akwei, 2016). The Mr. and Mrs. Albinism beauty pageant, with
the motto ‘Beauty Beyond the Skin’, was organized to change the narrative and the attitudes towards
albinism and focused on redefining albinism as a sign of beauty (Duggan, 2016). Mwaura explains that
the beauty pageant was organized to celebrate the beauty of people with albinism and to challenge stigma
and persecution associated with the medical condition (Akwei, 2016; Fisher, 2016). The coordinators of
the pageant have high hopes for the future of the pageant, dreaming of a Miss Kenya with albinism and
making the pageant pan-African and eventually global (Fisher, 2016).
With the support of several political leaders, other prominent guests and the Albinism Society of
Kenya, twenty contestants, male and female, entered the Mr. and Mrs. Albinism beauty pageant. After
some training, they walked confidently on the catwalk, showing their dancing and singing skills
(Duggan, 2016). Kenyan people with albinism struggle with finding a job, facing social exclusion and
stigmatization, resulting in isolation and a low self-esteem (Akwei, 2016). While walking down the
catwalk in a creative attire, a professional attire and a dining attire, the contestants took their chance to
challenge their starers, step out of the shadows and say ‘I can do this!’ (Akwei, 2016; Mahugu, 2016;
Albinism Society of Kenya, 2016). The contestants were for example dressed as a fisherman, a cook, a
soldier, a skater, a boxer or a rugby player, an air stewardess, a firefighter or a garden worker. They
chose their outfits based on the work they would like to do, and show that they too can contribute to the
workforce of their country (Albinism Society of Kenya, 2016; Akwei, 2016). With the accompanying
song ‘Different colors, one people’, the twenty contestants displayed their modelling skills, in a variety
of colorful outfits and different hairstyles, drawing a crowd of about 1000 people to watch and support
them (Mahugu, 2016; Akwei, 2016; Fisher, 2016; Albinism Society of Kenya, 2016).
The Mr. and Mrs. Albinism pageant showcases that in some non-Western countries beauty pageants
are used in a different way than its more global counterparts. Reischer and Koo explain that even though
beauty is a very subjective concept, it is about more than just aesthetics. They emphasize the role of
cultural ideals of beauty in the construction of social values (Reischer & Koo, 2004: 298). Emancipation,
reaffirming cultural uniqueness, recognition of non-white beauty ideals or reintegration are among the
more recently defined intentions or opportunities of beauty pageants (Bloul, 2012). Similar examples
have preceded the beforementioned pageant, like for example the Miss Landmine contests in Angola and
Cambodia (Bloul, 2012), the Miss Genocide pageants in Namibia (Förster, 2008) or the Miss HIV
pageants in a few African countries (Bloul, 2012). Miss Genocide does not entirely fit in this list as the
aim of the beauty pageant is more important than providing a stage for stigmatized people. After the
1904 war in Namibia people started, and continue to, remembering, interpreting and reinterpreting the
war. Beauty competitions were organized on memorial days, like the Ohamakari Battle Commemoration
and are still very popular. Instead of being crowned ‘Miss Herero’, the winner of the contest would be
crowned ‘Miss Genocide’ in order to celebrate the survival of the genocide and the recovery after that
(Förster, 2008). Despite not fitting the list entirely, the Miss Genocide contest used this title to visualize
the strength and resilience of the war survivors and the future generations (Förster, 2008).
Other examples are the Miss HIV pageant and the Miss Landmine pageant. The Miss HIV pageant,
or Miss HIV Stigma Free pageant as they call it in Botswana, is organized in a number of countries in the
world and especially in African countries. Although having HIV isn’t always visible on the outside, the
contest is organized for the reasons that Garland-Thomson mentions. People living with HIV are often
stigmatized and suffer from hegemonic ideas about HIV and AIDS. By using beauty pageants and their
popularity, dominant ideas and representations about people with this condition can be changed. The aim
remains to humanize and normalize stigmatized and marginalized groups, in this case people living with
HIV (Hoad, 2010). The same can be said for the Miss Landmine pageant in Angola. The contestants
were female landmine survivors entering the competition to present a different perspective on dominant
beauty ideals and re-install their self-respect and dignity instead of being treated as a stigmatized subject
in daily life. Bloul argues that this sort of beauty pageant can function as a re-integrative ritual for the
stigmatized identities of these landmine survivors, turning the negative gaze of the public into a positive
and including one (Bloul, 2012).
Despite the fact that beauty contests are regularly associated with the objectification of female
bodies, these examples of ‘unlikely’ misses showcase the other side of beauty pageants, namely
(feminine) empowerment. The organizers of these sorts of beauty pageants took a globally appealing
format and transformed it to fit a more local audience and provide a stage for those stigmatized and
‘invisible’ groups.

A beauty pageant as a global format

Before we reach the core argumentation of this article, it is important to pay attention to the globalizing
and visualizing context in which it is set. As Appadurai (1999) formulates it, the world is fundamentally
characterized by objects in motion. Mirzoeff (2011) formulates it rather clearly: ‘If there is to be a field
of visual culture studies, it will need to properly engage with the global. (…) It will be necessary to think
about the flows of images, ways of seeing and visualities that are in one sense constitutive of
globalization.’ (Mirzoeff, 2011: 286). Due to globalizing changes and different flows of technologies,
media (platforms), images and messages or ideas and ideologies, there is no denying that visuality is very
much part of everyday life for many people (Appadurai, 1996; Appadurai, 1999; Pink, 2009; Pink &
Mackley, 2013).
Popular and visual culture is increasingly present, whether it is on television, on paper or on different
stages all over the world and more and more people are engaged in the production and consumption of
visual culture (Luvaas, 2014). The different contributions in this special issue will elaborate more on this.
Consequently, different digital and visual theory, methods and media are an important part of
ethnographic research, Pink states (Pink, & Mackley, 2013; Pink, 2014). Beauty pageants are excellent
examples of the above, or as Wilk describes it, are ‘an exemplar of global cultural flow.’ (Wilk, 1995:
117).
Cohen, Wilk & Stoeltje, editors of ‘Beauty Queens on the Global stage: gender, contests and power’
argue that pageants: ‘showcase values, concepts, and behavior that exist at the center of a group’s sense
of itself and exhibit values of morality, gender and place. The beauty contest stage is where these
identities and cultures can be – and frequently are – made public and visible.’ (Tzu-Chun Wu, 1997: 6).
Two important things are stated here. Firstly, beauty pageants showcase ideas, values and morals.
Secondly, they are a platform where these values and identities are made public and visible for an
audience (Mani, 2006; Gilbert, 2015). Beauty pageants are ‘places where cultural meanings are
produced, consumed and rejected’ and where differences are expressed, commodified and contained
(Wilk, 1995: 125; Mani, 2006: 718). They are also very complex, Wilk (1995) explains, as they balance
between distinctions among themselves and the way they portray themselves to the global ‘others’ gaze.
Although, he continues, it’s not about the differences, but about their power to create a common focal
point for debate and expression of differences (Wilk, 1995).
 Even though beauty pageants remain ubiquitous and appealing on both a local community level, a
national level and an international level, for quite some time now, there has been feminist critique.
Critics argue that beauty pageants exhibit the objectification of women and men, for commercial intents
and the reinforcing of many prejudices on beauty and being feminine (Banet-Weiser & Portwood-Stacer,
2006; Mani, 2006; Bloul, 2012; Gilbert, 2015). Yet, against these critiques, the beauty pageant has
changed a lot, and finds itself on a crossroad between feminine objectification and feminine
empowerment (Reischer & Koo, 2004). Banet-Weiser (as cited in: Reischer & Koo, 2004) explains:
‘Today’s beauty pageant is much more than a carefully rehearsed spectacle of femininity. The beauty
pageant participates in the realm of politics because it produces a national identity for its viewers
through the mediation of ethnicity and femininity on the stage.’ (Reischer & Koo, 2004: 312). Moreover,
she continues, the beauty pageant has become a space where female identity can be renegotiated and
reconstructed (Reischer & Koo, 2004). While, as mentioned earlier, beauty pageants showcase standard
ideals, values and morals on beauty and identity, they also raise questions to who decides and maintains
these ideals (Gilbert, 2015).
Whereas beauty pageants are very popular all over the world, the standard beauty ideals are not
applied everywhere in the same way. Foreign models of beauty, gender and identity are given a new
cultural content on a local level (Wilk, 1995). As Crawford (as cited in: Reischer & Koo, 2004)
formulates it, the body is not only a symbolic field for simple reproduction of dominant systems of
meaning, it is also a way for resistance to and transformation of those systems (Reischer & Koo, 2004:
308). In several (African) countries, beauty pageants are popular for creating community representatives,
for providing scholarships and other educational and career opportunities, and creating a public platform
for social activism (Hoad, 2004; Gilbert, 2015). The latter provides an insightful importance for this
article.

Albinism in Africa

Albinism (or OCA: Oculocutaneous Albinism) is a rare genetic disorder, whereby the body produces
little to no pigment in the hair, the eyes and the skin (Hong, Zeeb & Repacholi, 2006; UTSS, 2012). The
prevalence of the condition varies from 1 in 37.000 people in the United states and 1 in 20.000 people
worldwide to 1 in 4.000 in Zimbabwe and South Africa and even 1 in 1.429 people with albinism in
Tanzania (Hong, Zeeb & Repacholi, 2006; UTSS, n.d.; UTSS, 2012; Brilliant, 2015; Velle, 2015).
People with albinism face many hardships in several African countries, including medical obstacles, such
as cancer due to exposure to the sun or visual impairments. In addition, they are confronted with
exclusion and stigmatization due to their condition, and mainly in Tanzania, Malawi and neighboring
countries, mutilation – or in the worst-case scenario, murder – due to the belief that the body parts, bones
and hair of people with albinism can be used in potions and amulets to gain success and wealth (Alum,
Gomez, & Ruiz, 2009; Cruz-Inigo, Ladizinski, & Sethi, 2011; Schülhe, 2013; Burke, Kaijage, & John-
Langba, 2014; Velle, 2015).
 Knowledge on albinism as a condition is not that widespread in various African countries (Hong,
Zeeb & Repacholi, 2006). People with albinism are frequently alienated, discriminated and excluded
from social life, often lacking opportunities on several domains. In the first place, people living with
albinism have medical obstacles, such as their sensitivity to sunlight, a higher risk of getting skin cancer
and a reduction of their eyesight. This causes difficulties in school and later at work. Secondly, they also
experience many social challenges, like isolation and stigmatization because of their skin color and
condition (UTSS, 2012; Burke, Kaijage & John-Langba, 2014; Velle, 2015). Finally, people with
albinism have to deal with many dominant preconceived ideas about their condition, believed by many
people in several African countries. Such beliefs include thinking that people with albinism are not fully
human but ‘ghosts’ or possessed by the devil and that they therefore cannot die, only disappear, that
people with albinism have lower brain capacities or that by having sexual intercourse with a woman with
albinism one can cure himself of HIV/AIDS (Baker, Lund, Nyathi & Taylor, 2010; Cruz-Inigo,
Ladizinski & Sethi, 2011; UTSS, 2012; Schühle, 2013; Velle, 2015). Some people also find people with
albinism to be lazy, since they hardly ever work the field during the midday, avoiding the sun (Schühle,
2013).
Consequently, people with albinism experience stigmatization in both the health domain as the
education and relational domains of life. The stigmatization is often based on their skin color, disabilities
and several beliefs that circulate to try to explain the ‘unexplainable’, as to why a black woman could
give birth to a white child for instance (Wan, 2003; Baker, Lund, Nyathi & Taylor, 2010; Schühle, 2013;
Burke, Kaijage & John-Langba, 2014; Velle, 2015). Because of their stigmatized embodied identities
and their condition, people with albinism spend a lot of time, literally and figuratively speaking, hidden
in the shadows.

Stigmatized embodied identities and staring

Goffman (as cited in Braathen & Ingstadt, 2006) sees a stigmatized person as ‘(…) someone who
possesses undesirable characteristics that are not within the ‘normal’ characteristics in the category to
which he belongs. This person is thus reduced in the minds of society from a whole and normal person to
a tainted, discounted one.’ (Braathen & Ingstadt, 2006; Velle, 2015). Parker and Aggleton (as cited in
Braathen & Ingstadt, 2006) counter Goffman’s idea of stigma as static, and claim that stigma is a
dynamic social process, continuously in relation to the differences and social inequalities in societies
(Braathen & Ingstadt, 2006). Goffman (as cited in Wan, 2003) continues by stating that specific human
differences that are being viewed with a negative gaze from others create the basis for stigma (Wan,
2003). When people, like the contestants of the Miss HIV Stigma Free contest, the Miss landmine contest
or the Mr. and Mrs. Albinism contest, experience stigmatizations based on bodily characteristics, this
also affects their self or their identity. The self is seen as a unity of mind and body, we cannot be
separated from how we are embodied, Kašperová and Kitching argue. Embodiment is integral to sense-
making and sense-giving, whereby the visibility of ‘undesirable’ or stigmatized bodily attributes help
create stigmatized embodied identities (Kašperová & Kitching, 2014). Consequently, this visibility
seems to transform the personal experience, and the internalized individual experienced stigma, into a
collective one (Alexias, Savvakis & Stratopoulou, 2016).
In general, stigmatized embodied identities are often not included in beauty pageants. Garland-
Thomson (as cited in: Bloul, 2012) explains that the exposure of disabled or stigmatized bodies is rare
because it invites staring. She defines staring as ‘intense looking’ that is commonly experienced as rude
and voyeuristic. Starers are seen as the perpetrators and starees as the victims, whereby the staree is
considered the outsider or the stigmatized other (Bloul, 2012: 5). By organizing beauty pageants like
Miss Landmine, Miss HIV and Mr. and Mrs. Albinism, the stares directed at stigmatized people are
destabilized and shifted from something negative to the opposite (Bloul, 2012). Garland-Thomson
concludes: ‘(…) by putting themselves in the public eye, saying ‘look at me’ instead of ‘don’t stare’,
people (…) practice what might be called visual activism (…).’. It stresses the agency of the staree in
confronting the inequality of the stare (Bloul, 2012: 8). The pageant is therefore used as a tool for visual
activism to change the stigmatizing narrative on people with albinism and the cultural meanings attached
to the body (Craig, 2006; Bloul, 2012).

Reception and imagination

Although the Miss HIV, Miss Landmine and Mr. and Mrs. Albinism pageants are organized with a very
clear goal and intention, namely to reach a broader audience and convey a message, a big part of it is left
to the reception and imagination of the audience to give meaning to it (Pink, 2009). As Gilbert said,
beauty pageants allow for ideals, morals and values to be made visible. Yet, this visibility also ensures
some challenges and exposure to reinterpretation by others (Gilbert, 2015). Audiences are granted the
power to interpret and read certain images and messages as they wish. The spectators consume the visual
media that is offered through beauty pageants and do this through their own imaginative perspective
(Moores, 1993; Pink, 2009). This imagination is crucial in forming and reforming social relations and
allows people to take action (Appadurai, 1999). Wilk elaborates by saying: ‘The cultural forms of
pageants do not speak with a simple voice, nor is their message always effective or convincing. Their
ostensible purpose is to bring people together as equals, to promote a common identity and build support
for a particular party (...).’ (Wilk, 1995: 129).
Important hereby is to acknowledge that, despite the noble intentions of these activist beauty
pageants, they may not always reach a very diverse audience. Their aim is to change and redirect the
opinions and preconceived beliefs present in society, but these events could possibly only attract people
already conscious about the hardships and stigmas that the contestants encounter in daily life. We could
therefore reflect on the extent of the visual activism displayed in beauty pageants with ‘unlikely’ misses,
to a broader and more diverse audience.
Conclusion

In spite of the feminist critique on beauty pageants and their inclination towards objectification of
women and the female body, some organizers of beauty pageants have managed to change this and direct
their focus to other causes. Through the use of the popular format of a beauty contest, a different
audience is reached and a different message is sent. People with stigmatized embodied identities can use
this stage to tell a different story, show a different perspective and step out of the shadows. The examples
mentioned in this article, like the Mr. and Mrs. Albinism beauty pageant, have shown this accordingly.
By transforming a global format, in this case the beauty pageant, and by using visual activism, the
contestants could own the stage and show their stigmatized embodied identities to an audience. By this
they could defy naysayers and challenge the dominant beauty ideals and beliefs apparently linked to their
body. The efforts made in the past decennia are huge, and they continue to be of help for people with a
stigmatized and marginalized position in their community. Even though people could argue that the
beauty pageants for ‘unlikely’ misses are even more excluding and separating, than empowering, that
doesn’t stop the contestants to enter these pageants and let their voices be heard. Many other examples
can be found, like for example the 19-year-old Somali-American girl who competed in the Miss
Minnesota pageant on November 26th, 2016, in a hijab and a burkini, to show other girls that you do not
have to change the way you look to be considered beautiful (Sharpino, 2016).
Roughly around that same time, in October, the Ms. Senior America pageant was organized, which
has been held for 30 years already. Women of 60 years and older enter the competition under the motto
‘It is never too late for anything!’. Despite reactions of friends and family to ‘act their age’, these ladies
claim to have the age of elegance, and let nothing stop them for performing and competing in the beauty
pageant (Ellin, 2016). Several models with albinism are gaining popularity as well, like Diandra Forrest
and Thando Hopa. Another example is Winnie Harlow, a professional model with the skin condition
vitiligo, who is gaining popularity in the fashion world as well. Times are changing, and stigmatized
embodied identities are no longer hidden but are coming out of the shadows and challenging the
dominant beauty ideals in the world.
There is however still a lot of work to be done to break the hegemony of dominant beauty ideals.
There are still many cases and growing numbers of people that use body modifications like plastic
surgery and the more harmful practice of skin bleaching to attempt to reach the ideal image of beauty. In
the case of skin bleaching, these practices are proven to be immensely dangerous and can cause
irreversible skin damage due to the applied creams and products to try and attain a lighter skin (Lewis,
Robkin, Gaska & Njoki, 2011). This shows that the self-esteem of people, mostly girls and women, is
still very much exposed and affected by a biased and dominant idea of what being beautiful means.

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