Long-time readers may remember that I used to cover the main international beauty pageants, Miss Universe and Miss World. Why? Two reasons: I generally admired the young women who competed in them, and it seemed like almost every time, an interesting news story would emerge from the pageant. Plus, it was fun to post photos of contestants and identify favorites.
So why did I stop? To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I didn’t leave the pageants, the pageants left me. They became politically correct; they downgraded the swimsuit competition or abandoned it completely; and, worst of all, they started producing terrible web sites with zero content that would make it possible to write an interesting post about the contestants.
But pageants and their contestants continue to make news, of a sort. Thus:
Miss Finland Sarah Dzafce was stripped of her title on Thursday, weeks after competing at the Miss Universe pageant over a racially charged social media post.
Oh my! Racially charged? Sounds awful.
Dzafce, 22, posed for a photo pulling the corners of her eyes with the caption “kiinalaisenkaa syömäs,” which roughly translates to “eating with a Chinese person,” in a social media post from late November.
This is the offending photo:
The troubling image was shared on the anonymous German app, Jodel, by a friend who allegedly made the caption without Dzafce’s knowledge, the Helsinki Times reported.
So, wait: she didn’t even post the photo herself? Nevertheless, Maoist self-abasement was the only path open to her:
“I fully understand that my actions have caused ill will in many people and I am deeply sorry for that,” Dzafce wrote. “I want to apologize, especially to those who have been personally affected by this situation. That was not my intention in any way.”
And so on. But it never works:
“For over 90 years, this title has represented Finnish values such as respect, equality, responsibility, and human dignity,” Finnartist Oy, the owner of the Miss Finland beauty pageant, wrote. “These values are not mere words to us — they are the foundation of our entire work. The Miss Finland title is a position of trust, representing Finland and Finnish people to the world.
“The events of recent days have caused deep hurt, disappointment, and concern both in Finland and internationally — fully understandably. The content published on the reigning Miss Finland’s social media has been offensive, harmful, and completely against the values of the Miss Finland competition.”
And more to the same effect. Beauty pageant operators are like sports organizations and producers of men’s shaving products. And beer brewers, too: they apparently have no idea who their customers are.
So, a fond farewell to Miss Finland, who was, FWIW, a solid pageant competitor:
When I was covering pageants, it was common for Miss Israel to be in the news, not, of course, on account of anything she did. In this year’s Miss Universe pageant, it happened again:
Miss Israel is getting death threats in the wake of accusations she gave the side-eye to Miss Palestine on stage at the Miss Universe pageant last week, she told The Post.
The side-eye? OMG: that totally cancels out the October 7 massacres.
“It’s not only death threats, but sexual assault threats,” Shiraz, a former campus advocate at UC Berkeley, told The Post from Thailand on Friday. “I experienced antisemitism before but I didn’t think it would be this bad.”
It is always worse than you expect. Whether Miss Israel actually looked askance at Miss “Palestine” is doubtful, but that seems like the smallest possible news story. Subsequently, of course, it turned out that Miss “Palestine” “married the son of jailed notorious Fatah terrorist, Marwan Barghouti, and even named a child after him.” Oops.
Miss Shiraz, too, is a worthy pageant contestant:
From Finland to Israel to Canada and Slovakia, we conclude with the case of Miriam Mattova, a former Miss Slovakia who also has a PhD in political science, who had the misfortune to mention a trip to Israel while riding in an Uber:
The 33-year-old dual citizen of Canada was seven minutes into a late-night Uber ride when the female driver, adorned in a hijab, overheard Mattova on the phone with a friend discussing her recent trip to Israel, Mattova said.
The driver allegedly slammed on the brakes at an intersection in a bad part of town, and ejected the blonde beauty, telling her, “I don’t drive Jewish people,” Mattova alleged.
After going public on her social media stories and reaffirming her strong Jewish identity, the cover girl faced an avalanche of antisemitic hate with messages.
Of course! Ms. Mattova committed the crime of Existing While Jewish. She is a model in addition to being a PhD:
And, if you dig back into her pageant days, you find this:
So despite everything, pageants continue to produce news of a sort. Maybe I would go back to covering them, if only they could come up with decent web sites.
