Miss Japan was forced to give up her crown: Are beauty pageants fading?

The beauty industry has lost its magic and so has the beauty pageants, not only in India, but worldwide too. But what brought about this dry spell? Is it the quality or is it that pageants can’t keep up to the standards that they used to have in the 90s when beauty queens were considered to be ambassadors? And what happened to Ukraine-born Miss Japan was completely bizarre.

The euphoria that was there in the 90s is no more at least when it comes to India. Late Pradeep Guha, the person who made beauty pageants popular in India with the Femina Miss India contest had once mentioned the charm of the pageants went down when it became a common thing when every lane and by-lanes of India started having their own beauty pageants.

True so when a thing becomes common, it loses its glamour and most importantly its novelty. And that’s how it rang the death knell of the beauty pageants.  Once upon a time the beauty pageants, especially when it was just the Femina Miss India contest, were like a launching pad to get a break in Bollywood. Now, the young girls today are not even interested in participating in beauty pageants because most of them don’t want to fit into any particular beauty standards set by the organisers. Most importantly, nobody wants to go through the disgrace and the character assassination done by a certain set of people.

Going back to what happened recently in a rather distasteful manner when Miss Japan was forced to give up the crown; it becomes a big question mark to the youngsters that is it worth the humiliation? Karolina Shiino, the Ukraine-born winner of last month's Miss Japan, had to renounce her crown after a local magazine exposed her affair with a married man. She had earlier caused controversy by becoming the first naturalised Japanese citizen to win the title. She was the first woman of European descent to win this title. But she soon became a target of online hate. Karolina Shiino admitted that she was having an affair with a married man and she had to part with the crown.[caption id="attachment_13695202" align="alignnone" width="640"]

Karolina Shiino, the winner of the Miss Japan 2024, poses with other prize winners at the contest in Tokyo, Japan. Reuters[/caption]Say 'NO' to beauty pageants!

With all these humiliations, is it really worth your time and effort to be a part of these beauty pageants? We need to understand that back home too that beauty pageants are primarily based on beauty which is your external looks and not personality. But now the definition of beauty has also changed and women today are owning their body and looks and most importantly accepting their flaws. And for us it is these flaws which make 'WE the women' beautiful. There can be no beauty without imperfections and women today are understanding that.

And if you want to enter the entertainment industry or cinema, there is much more to explore than just Bollywood. There is a place for all whether you are short, tall, fat, thin, dark or fair in the digital platform that is OTT.

And fashion brands too have become inclusive and we have plus size models, models with vitiligo, alopecia and even differently abled models. Most importantly, today’s women are unapologetically flaunting their flaws. They are owning their stretch marks like tiger stripes. They don’t want to be perfect. They don’t want to fit it, rather they want to stand out. So, let this tribe grow.