"The beauties join the contest with the highest hope of winning. After that, whether the beauty queen can do anything or not depends on her own ability" - Ms. Pham Kim Dung acknowledged.
"Just entertainment"
According to the General Director of Sen Vang Company, beauty queens are just entertainment figures, belonging to the entertainment industry. Ms. Pham Kim Dung's comments are considered reasonable by insiders.
In fact, for many years now, beauty pageants have received little attention from countries around the world. In recent years, many developed countries, especially in Western Europe, have not been very interested in international beauty contests.
Beauty pageants in Western European countries are still held, but they are not as grand as before. Many pageants have even been condemned by feminist movements as insulting to women because they only show the "surface" of women, turning them into "mobile flower vases".
Therefore, there has been a shift in beauty contests to developing countries in Asia, including Southeast Asia. Explaining this shift, many people in the industry affirmed: "Audiences in many Asian countries still value beauty contests. Many places also rely on hosting beauty contests to attract tourists and develop local tourism."
In fact, for developing or newly developed countries, especially those with strengths in tourism, organizing beauty contests or allowing contestants to participate in international beauty contests is an effective way to promote the image of the country, its people and traditional cultural characteristics. Therefore, it is not too much to consider beauty queens as "cultural ambassadors". The problem is how the "ambassadors" are prepared.
According to sociologists, contestants participating in beauty pageants need to be equipped with and possess many factors such as: physique, knowledge, behavior, communication style, dress, ability to adapt to situations... Therefore, if they are just beautiful, it is not enough.
The Organizing Committee took a souvenir photo at the press conference of the Miss Nature Vietnam 2023 contest. (Photo provided by the Organizing Committee)
Many consequences
Many regulations on beauty contests and beauty pageants have been relaxed in Decree 144/2020 ND-CP (regulations on performing arts activities). It was thought that this "openness" would make the contests more attractive and positive, but it has brought many consequences.
Accordingly, Decree 144 does not stipulate that beauty contestants must be female and have natural beauty; there is no limit to the number of beauty pageants, beauty queens, and model contests in a year. This Decree also allows Vietnamese citizens to participate in international beauty contests without needing a license from the Department of Performing Arts...
These new regulations are clearly more open to individuals and organizations involved. However, these regulations also make many people worried and have many concerns. In fact, these adjustments have inadvertently created "turmoil" in the beauty playgrounds that the public has been very upset about recently.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, economic development as well as promoting local tourism became the top goals of many provinces and cities. However, the fact that many localities indiscriminately licensed beauty contests has created the "chaos" that has occurred in recent times.
Decree 144 also clearly states: For beauty queens and models who violate the law, individuals and contest organizers are responsible for revoking their titles and awards at the request of competent state agencies. Despite the regulations, beauty pageants and beauty pageants are increasingly widespread and many violations have occurred, while the handling and revoking of titles has not been thoroughly implemented.
(to be continued)
(*) See Lao Dong Newspaper from issue dated August 21
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