The Business of Beauty Pageants

By Jenny Chen

In 1921, an Atlantic City hotel man came up with the idea of a beauty contest to bring more tourists to the city. The “National Beauty Tournament” aimed to find “the most beautiful bathing beauty in America.” The first Miss America winner was Margaret Gorman, a Washington D.C. native, who was crowned for her “wholesome beauty.” In 1945, Lenore Slaughter, the first female pageant director, created a scholarship program to help young women attend college. Although money was tight due to the war, Slaughter was able to raise $5,000.

In 1951, the catholic school educated Yolanda Betbeze, refused to pose in promotionals in a swimsuit. Miss America officials supported her decision but Catalina swimwear quits as a major sponsor of the Miss American pageant and started planning rival pageants “Miss USA” and “Miss Universe.”

Today, there are two major types of beauty pageants – the scholarship pageant and the beauty pageant. Scholarship pageants often provide large scholarship opportunities for young women, while beauty pageants focus on beauty and only top winners receive any cash prizes and there is no talent portion or the talent portion is not as emphasized as in a scholarship pageant.

While many of the pageants in Asia are strictly beauty pageants, many Asian American pageants in the US are a hybrid of the two. For example, the Miss Asian American pageant, the longest running Asian American pageant in the United States, includes a talent portion but also concerns itself with beauty (the application requests your measurements and asks for the photo that “exhibits your physique”). The Pacific Culture International (PCI) Asian American beauty pageant held in Rockville, Maryland takes into account beauty, talent, and public voting (each vote costs a dollar).

Regardless of the cash prizes involved, participating in a beauty pageant can be expensive. Evening gowns can cost upward of $2,000. Coaches for interview questions or fitness trainers can cost anywhere from $450 – $1,000. Entry fees for beauty pageants can be prohibitive as well, costing up to $1,000 and interview outfits can run around $200.

But competing in pageants don’t always have to be expensive says current Miss DC Bindu Pamarthi. The North Carolina native says she’s learned over the years that one doesn’t need an expensive evening gown to participate in a pageant. She is also not allowed to have a coach for all the pageants in the Miss America circuit (including Miss DC). Current Miss Vietnam DC Catherine Ho agrees. “It all depends on what you want to get out of it,” Ho said. Ho said many of the participants in the larger pageants are in it for the experience rather than winning because there are just so many competitors.

Is the experience worth it? Ho thinks so. “It’s made such a big impact on my life,” she said. “You have to learn to portray yourself in a positive light, you have to deal with different people, and it’s made me a more confident, stronger individual.” Ho says that it’s enlightening to learn to deal with people are both “your friends and your competition.” She also says that in order to provide unique answers in the interview, a contestant really needs to know herself inside and out.

Many scholarship pageants aim to provide girls with this kind of self-confidence building experience. For example, the Miss. Teenage Philippines Pageant, Inc., run by Trinidad Padama who has been running the pageant since 2007, charges no entry fees, provides girls with evening gowns, and trains girls for presentation and interview sessions. They offer a $1,000 savings bond to the winner and a $500 savings bond for all the participants.

“Many years ago my daughter joined a pageant and they had to sell ballots to win. Her prize was to go to the Philippines. She was embarrassed that she won because of selling ballots. When people asked her how she won, she made up all these judging criteria like poise and talent, and interviews. When I got home I told her I was going to put together a pageant [just] like what she said,” Padama said.

For Padama, the pageant is really a journey where girls build self-esteem and learn more about their culture.

Not all pageants are created equal, however. In 2010, the Better Business Bureau of Central Virginia said several female students from Richmond-area high schools were asked to participate in a beauty pageant in Los Angeles. When one of them responded, she received a letter stating she was already a finalist but would have to pay $240 to attend a training session and guarantee a slot in the pageant, said Barbara Homiller, vice president of the local BBB. An additional $200 would be required later.

The pageant industry is a booming money maker in the United States: 2.5 million girls compete in over 100,000 pageants every year in the U.S. The Better Business Bureau offers the following tips for deciding whether or not to participate in a pageant:

•Find out how long the company has been operating pageants and who its directors are. Many of the organizations are for-profit businesses.

•Learn the total cost of pageant participation for the entrant and the chaperone.

•Verify the place of business of the pageant company and the location and date of the pageant.

•Find out the names of the judges and their qualifications. Do they have any affiliation with the company?

•Determine whether refunds are possible if a contestant decides to withdraw from the pageant.

•Find out exactly what criteria are used for selection of the winner.

•Determine the obligations of the winning contestant.

•Seek references, particularly names of former contestants and winners.

•Ask what benefit would be derived from participating or winning.

•Read any contract carefully and thoroughly before entering a pageant.

•If you are contacted by a pageant company, contact the BBB first for a reliability report on the company. Call the local BBB office at (804) 648-0030. The reports are also available at BBB.org.