Beauty Contest

In 1994, the whole country was in such a fuss as it rolled the preparations for hosting the Miss Universe pageant. As a nine-year old, I couldn’t fully understand the hype that almost equaled the national elections two years prior. To me, the closest things to beautiful, model-ish girls were my Barbie dolls. I couldn’t care less if the girls trooping to the Philippines were the pre-selected muses representing many countries of the world from whom the girl to dominate the universe was said to emerge. Most girls—both big and small—dream of being the one.

Though I’ve never been a fan, I had voluntary fills of beauty contests. On the few occasions I watched one, it was either because my whole family was glued to a beauty contest on TV or I had to support friends in university-wide contests. Not that I was threatened finding girls with more beautifully structured facial features than mine (read: insecure), I just don’t get the whole thing. I mean, how could have they managed to decide—those who introduced the concept of beauty contest—that the women’s significance, integrity, intelligence, and beauty would be defined based on how well they parade their bodies in gowns and swimsuits, which have now shrunk to become bikinis, pose for photographers almost seductively, and engage the public in the ceremonial and, usually, superficial question-and-answer portion.

“What would be your legacy as a beauty queen?” the question would go.

“I’ll be an ambassadress of peace, unity, and good works,” she would say as if on cue.

“How do you plan to do that?”

“I’ll put up a charity, I’ll give to the poor, and I’ll be an actress.”

If not an actress, a singer, a host, or whatever profession that would allow us to see her in all kinds of medium on a regular basis. Though not all beauty titlists end up being instant celebrities, there are ample of them who enjoyed and still are enjoying their personal space on TV, magazines, and movies. Being a beauty queen, in the first place, puts them in a position where glamorous and lucrative job opportunities, which are usually not easily available to ordinary women, land right at their doorsteps. This makes joining beauty contests a means to an end.

I have a gay uncle who for a time breathed and lived beauty contests. He didn’t join one as far as I know. His participation was only limited to designing gowns, doing make-up, and scouting for possible contestants. Possible meaning any girl who fits into the usual standard of physical beauty. And my cousin was an easy fit. She has long, flawless legs; her straight, black hair is grown down to the waist; her skin is perfect; and she, in every way, is a beauty. The problem is, she is married. Had she been single, she would have joined since that was one of her plans several years’ back, but today is a different story. She has two young kids to look after and a husband whose name she has to protect. My uncle doesn’t take that as a problem, though, and insists she join a beauty contest for married women. My cousin, understandably, is as hard as a boulder to be pushed.

My version of the problem starts when my uncle shifts his attention to me. He would alternately say I should join one and that there’s a so and so beauty contest in so and so town. And the prize money would always be temptingly huge. I don’t know what kind of potential he sees in me to actually attempt “recruiting” me. I am not about as good-looking and tall and flawless as my cousin. In other words, I don’t fit the mold exclusively made for beauty queens. So it’s either my uncle has been looking for other girls but could find no one or he saw me as a diamond in the rough, only that I was never a diamond only full of rough. I once in while fake an interest partly to show him respect and partly to save myself from his cranky comments, but I still find a forgivable excuse to hint that beauty contests are not my type of thing.

“I am too short,” I once protested.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Others are only 5’4.”

“I am only 5’2.”

Silence.

My height shortage is clearly an easy pretext. But there are other reasons I wouldn’t ever consider participating in any beauty contest. First, I don’t wear swimsuits without shorts, and I think if I sashay that combination on stage, the organizers would forever hate me. Second, I am not comfortable telling people, half-shouting and half-robotic, my name, my city, my age, coupled with “Mabuhay!” Third, who said I could even get the nod of organizers and screening committee? “What can I do for you, miss? “I’d like to join the contest.” “Which contest?” “This beauty contest.” “What the! Guard, why did you let her in?!”

That I wouldn’t even get past the screening stage deflates my ego. But not for a long time because, and I think this is the most important reason, I know that no piece of crown or title can give a definitive measure to my value, intelligence, integrity, and beauty as a woman. And that I don’t have to compete with other ladies for some attention and applause to deserve good opportunities. I am honorable enough just being me, even without dominating the universe, the world, the earth, or my own city.

Playing grown-up

NOTE: This entry originally appeared in my Multiply site (eibibiway.multiply.com) and was published in Youngblood section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer on April 25, 2009.

“I want to be a telephone operator,” said my sister when she was a kid. To be a telephone operator, which today could be roughly translated to a call center agent, was not yet the trend then, but my sister saw some sophistication in the job. She said it was the telephone operator’s voice that caught her so much that she wanted to be heard as well from the other end of the line. Thinking it was an odd pick, I was not so much in favor of the professional choice she had then—I thought to be a doctor or other more popular careers were better—but I was nevertheless glad she at least had an idea of what she would like to be.

In this respect, my sister and I were different. As a child, I never really had a clear picture of what I would become as an adult. So I thought if I joined any of the kiddie beauty contests on TV that were the craze then, I wouldn’t know how to respond if asked by Tito, Vic, or Joey the perennial question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” In the culture that is ours, it was kind of expected that kids have a staple answer to that question, whether asked on TV or asked by a distant relative during a family reunion. It is sorely upsetting to hear from a child, “Um, I don’t know. Let me ask my mom,” or “Wait till I’m old enough to actually decide for myself,” or “What do you mean when I grow up?” I don’t know, but maybe adults either think that parents are responsible to feed into their kids what they ought to be, or kids, their youthful naivety notwithstanding, can clearly set out a plan for their lives that young.

To not feel a little left out, I tried a many times to respond with a truism like any child would. A doctor. A lawyer. A nurse. Or whatever job I knew by name then. I of course knew nothing about what it would require me to assume such jobs, but as long I had a steady answer, it was fine with me. But it didn’t take me that long to live in that truism, so for a time, I nearly convinced myself I really wanted to be a doctor. I am a little queasy over the sight of lesions, human insides, operations, and hospitals but it didn’t bother me at that time. I thought it was cool to give people the impression I wanted to be a doctor. That would make them think I was smart. Smart not entirely because I wanted to study for an average of ten long and painful years, but smart because I’d taken a time out to carefully weigh my options—which were abundant, by the way, since I was only a kindergarten and had no idea how to weigh options really—plan my future, and envision a good life for myself. Besides, isn’t it cute hearing from a five-year old she wanted to be a doctor? Then you would try to picture her clad in white, like what commercials do, with a stethoscope around her neck.

I watched a lot of TV before and after school when I was a kid. Like other regular kids, I had a fixation for cartoons, which populated the morning and afternoon airtime just so they could fit into the TV viewing schedule of schooling children. But unlike regular kids, I would get past the afternoon cartoons and continue my way to the primetime magazine shows and newscasts. I am sure I had slight understanding of what they were airing back then, for how could a gradeschooler fully understand economic inflation and deflation, political filibustering, horrendous carnages, cross-marriages in show business, and other stuff kids shouldn’t bother knowing? If there was one thing that kept me watching these shows, it’s my curiosity slash silent admiration of the TV industry then. Such was the influence of these TV shows on me that I thought this little exposure to the adult world changed every strand of naïve perspective I had as a kindergarten. Upon hitting my fifth grade, I automatically ditched the thought of becoming a doctor, a lawyer, and whatever job that came afterwards and I officially and quite deliberately managed to define what I wanted to be when I grow up: I wanted to be part of that TV industry, and not just any part—I wanted to be on TV.

I inched my way towards my career goal, even despite my mother, a teacher, wanting me to take Education. She said that teachers have the most stable job of all and that it would be nice if we become teachers like her. She didn’t put any force in convincing us though, and in all fairness to her, it was more like I’m-just-giving-you-an-option-and-maybe-you-would-want-to-give-it-a-thought kind of thing. It was a gentle coax, something like a mom would do when asking her child to scrub her back for her. I did appreciate her show of concern for my future, but being the idealistic ilk that was me, I instinctively took the course I wanted and sealed my plan as if I was certain the way ahead of me was not as jagged and as rough as it was in reality.

What I failed to realize is that it was more than jagged and rough, it was utterly confusing. Four years in college and a lot more years prior to that, I was sure I wanted to be on TV. A year after college, just when I was working for TV, I realized it wasn’t for me. I guess it’s the usual case of discovering more about the thing you like when you already have it than when you were just eyeing for it. Sometimes you like it because it looks good, but if it doesn’t feel good, things start to get sour. Had I known better, I could have asked my mother to decide for me, so I would be saved from the trouble of being at the receiving end of her reprimand about my career decisions. But on thinking that she could have talked me into taking Education, which I have a little interest in either, I feel a certain relief I didn’t allow her to take control of my career choices. Maybe the only thing that I’m sorry about is not taking the wrong course, but figuring out what I really want to be just a little late.

A few months from now, my niece is going to college. She has been thinking since last year what she would take up. She has a few choices, but she hasn’t really decided which would take her to the top of the employment trend. She is 17 years old, and I say so much young to decide for her future. But when I was in her shoes several years ago, at age 16, I felt I was old and wise enough to know what I wanted. Had I realized early on I was hardly capable of making such an important decision, I could have taken a reroute. But that is how it is in this part of the earth: 16, 17 year-old kids—and I mean kids in its truest sense—who might have known how to solve an algebraic equation but not what exactly lies ahead in the real world, get to decide on something that would supposedly contour their future. Good, if they manage to stick to their decisions until retirement age. Bad, if until retirement age they brokenheartedly stick to what they’ve decided for practical reasons. Good, if, upon realizing what they want a bit late, they bravely take a rebound. Bad, if they don’t recognize an opportunity for a rebound at all.

For a time, I had a deceiving conception about education. I unconsciously thought that my career options were limited only to the jobs that categorically correspond to my degree. This sent me to a sudden confusion, which I later recognized as typical to early and mid-20’s who are compelled to practice what they earned in school. What I realized is that it’s not about the degree, but how I manipulate and put to good use whatever innate skills I have. I know a few people who take on a career, a flourishing one mind you, far from their degrees: an Advertising graduate turned teacher, an Economics graduate turned creative director, and so on. I know you know a lot of their kind, or maybe you’re one of them. These stories are kind of odd, aren’t they? But even so they do prove to me that theories learned in school are soon forgotten; the innate skills, on the other hand, could ferry you to where you are supposed to be if consistently honed. A degree, at least in some cases, seldom does.

In my pressing times, I’d like to put the blame exclusively on myself, but then I would immediately withdraw, thinking there’s no point in blaming myself, or anyone or anything for that matter. I am glad I took my course. Were it not for it, I wouldn’t have met my friends, wouldn’t have recognized my skills, and wouldn’t have learned the ropes of thinking, analyzing, and problem-solving, which are glaringly necessary in coursing through any career. Education has done me good, although it did not help me establish a career I’ve initially and blindly seared into my brain. It’s okay. What’s important is that even though I’ve begun my career with unimpressive decisions, it’s not too late for me to start anew.