The signs of the end of times. The outbreak of e-coli in Germany. RJ Ledes-ma judging a beauty contest. The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.
But since only two of the three predictions have come to pass, the world did not end on May 21, 2011.
You see, my three female readers, during these apocalyptic times, I have become something of a beauty pageant expert. During my heathen bachelor days, I even had to judge a beauty contest. (Well, it was actually just the talent portion of the beauty contest, but that’s besides the point.) And no, I didn’t become a judge just because the selection committee had suffered a bout of temporary insanity (the test results came back inconclusive).
This is because — after years of writing about Brazilian waxes, bodily gases and enhanced pink parts — I understand that beauty contests are actually a biological imperative for men to make sure that their gonads are continuing to perform their intended function.
According to the book Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps, men are pre-programmed to ogle at the shape of a woman’s body. In fact, the gonads are paying close attention to the woman’s hip-to-waist ratios. Cambridge University’s Dr. Devendra Singh surveyed men from diverse nationalities and discovered that men were hardwired to “desire” women with a 70-percent waist size relative to their hips because these women were shown to have higher fertility rates and better health than other women (which raises the question: How many Playboy magazines were sacrificed to conduct that survey?).
This is presumably the reason why straight men can withstand two hours of nationally televised beauty pageant contests: they are a socially acceptable form of ogling to exercise a biological function. (“Whoa! Look at those fertile hips and socially acceptable bosom!”)
Once my NBI records had been verified and the bouncers conducted a mildly enjoyable body cavity search on me, I limped into the beauty pageant talent contest venue and immediately noticed that the audience was split right down the middle. On one side of the room were the relatives of the contestants who had brought along those who were nearest and dearest to them — all family members within the seventh degree of consanguinity, their neighbors within a five-mile radius, their barangay captains and all the tanods, their parish priest and the Marian devotees, their lawyers, their textmates, their Facebook friends and some assorted livestock. On the other side of the room were the rabid gay beauty pageant enthusiasts who have an encyclopedic of every candidate, special awardee, finalist, winner and dethroned winner of every major beauty pageant contest since the invention of beauty contests stored in their brain and backed up in a spare brain they keep pickled at home. As I made my way to the stage, I was caught in the middle of a heated exchange between two balding gay men were ready to bitch slap each other into heterosexuality as they disputed the grand winner of the 1972 Binibining Pilipinas contest.
In the midst of all their bitch slapping, chest hair-pulling and the creative use of swardspeak expletives, I came to the realization that it might be a whole lot more interesting if the major networks were to air the talent portion of the beauty contest instead of the beauty contest itself! Why should the talent portion be regarded as the appendix of beauty pageants when it should be the spleen? Or at the very least, the gallbladder? Don’t these network executives realize that the talent portion has the same type of universal appeal as watching auditions during the first few episodes of American Idol? Much like a five-car pileup on EDSA, we can’t help but watch Idol hopefuls who belt out cacophonous tunes that could shatter glass, weak metals and dignity. And though we may be afraid to admit it, we relish cringing and involuntarily wetting ourselves during those performances while secretly thanking the creator of our gonads that it was not us shattering our dignity onstage. (However, I do find dignity to be overrated.)
Airing the beauty pageant talent show would even be of great public service for those of us with gonads: not only will we be able to fulfill our biological programming, but we will also get much better entertainment than any of the so-called reality shows out there. During the talent show that I judged, there may not have been any biting off of chicken heads, or juggling chainsaws or interesting tricks with ping-pong balls, but some of the contestants performed feats that would at least get them a minute or two on Showtime.
These included a contestant who delivered Shylock’s monologue from The Count of Monte Cristo while decked out in sequins, a contestant who channeled Geneva Cruz by belting out Paraiso while scribbling a work of art in Crayolas, a contestant dressed in rags who dipped her hands in paint and hand-painted Jesus Christ on a canvas, a contestant who performed an interpretative dance number which even UN interpreters would have difficulty translating, a contestant whom I had absolutely no clue as to what she was doing, but she sure had a lot of nice sparkly things covering up her socially acceptable bosom, a contestant who threw fake money at us during her dance performance to the song Big Spender. (DOM reading this column: Big deal, I throw around fake money all of the time.) There was a contestant who dressed in a fairy outfit and wailed “Ang kakapal ng muka ninyo (You are all so thick-faced)!” (I thought she was singling me out, but apparently she was referring to how we all treat Mother Nature.) And finally — a staple of any beauty pageant talent competitions — there was a contestant who performed the Hawaiian hula-hula dance.
This could have been just another run of the mill hula dance, except for the part where she blew fire in my face.
Aside from the talent show, the only other portion that deserves nationwide coverage is the question-and-answer portion of a beauty pageant contest. The excitement of most men while watching a contestant answer a question has the ability to cause hernias. For example, do you remember the answer of a then 17-year-old local beauty pageant finalist to a seemingly benign question in a 2008 beauty pageant contest? Her answer posed new quandaries to philosophers, was remixed into a hit song, and sent shudders down the spine of Melanie Marquez.
And the question was: “What role did your family play for you as a candidate in this beauty pageant contest?”
Her verbatim answer (Brace yourselves, now): “Well, my family’s role for me is so important because there was… there wa… they’re, they was the one whose very… (Laughter) Oh, I’m sorry… Ahhmmm…. my pamily… my family… Oh my God! I’m… Okay, I’m sorry. I... I told you that I’m so confident. Eto… Ahmmmm… Wait. (Laughter) Ahhhmmm… Sorry, guys, because this was really my first pageant ever because I’m only 17 years old and... (Laughter) I did not expect that I came from, I came from one of the top (pronounced “tough”) 10. Hmmm, so… but I said that my family is the most important persons in my life. Thank you.”
I have since learned to appreciate the contestant’s fortitude and ability to continue smiling amidst the heckling of some (insert swardspeak expletive here) audience members, her ability to laugh off stress in even in the midst of nationally televised incidents and her staunch advocacy behind family values.
And from a relative standpoint, her reply wasn’t all that bad. Granted that it won’t win her any Nobel prizes, but it certainly wasn’t the worst ever answer in the annals of pageant history. That major, major honor belongs to Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 Lauren Caitlin Upton. Lauren is a native English speaker (at least that is what we are led to believe) who single-handedly managed to achieve world peace, the declining quality of education and the lack of maps at the expense of common sense:
Judge: “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the United States on a world map. Why do you think this is?”
Lauren: “I personally believe that the US Americans are unable to do so because, uuuhh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uuuuhh, I believe that our, uuuhhh, education like such as in, uuuhhh, South Africa and, uuuhhh, Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uuuhhh, our education over here in the US, uuuuhhh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children…”
On second thought, I am unsure as to whether or not her answer did achieve world peace. But I am almost certain that it has triggered the end of the world.
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For comments or suggestions for world peace, please e-mail ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.net. Follow rjled on Twitter. Marquez.