Behind the beauty contests – Do they really have to do with beauty?

（People's Daily Online）  15:25, September 06, 2012

Edited and Translated by Xue Meng, People's Daily Online

Recently, “beauty contest” has been a very hot topic among the public. Many results of the contests have surprised the audiences and challenged people’s aesthetic standards again and again. A lot of netizens have written down their comments on the internet about top three of Miss International of many divisions such as Chongqing, Shandong, Hainan, Fuzhou, Anhui and so on, expressing how surprised they are about the definition of “beauty”.

The top three beauty contests in the world, Miss International, Miss World and Miss Universe have brought some disappointments to the general public. Maybe you can already imagine the quality of other smaller beauty contests. The results of these contests have triggered questions from the netizens: “How come many of the beauty contests winners are not so beautiful?”, “How are the championships of these beauty contests selected?”

According to a summary by Southern Metropolis Entertainment Weekly, there are four main reasons that a “beauty contest” has turned into an “ugly contest”. Firstly, the condition to hold a beauty contest is very easy to fulfill for many sponsors. Secondly, many of the contests are hold to attract funds and sponsorships rather than to select beauties. Thirdly, the levels of the contestants are uneven. Finally, the contest system has not changed for a long time and many of the trainers and judges are not well qualified.

In fact, beauty contest is not a simple cultural event any more. Some contests are hold to promote the sponsors; some are more of a commercial activity; some are to select a spokesperson for an enterprise… Different contests adjust differently according their needs and sponsors put their own requirements into the event. This is a main reason why the winners are often criticized by the public.

Although often having 'fashion”, "environmental protection", "charity" as their slogan, beauty contests seem to have not much relationship with "beauty".