Carl Bower
Chica Barbie | The pageants of Colombia provide a distilled environment for examining the nature of beauty and how we cope with adversity. Set against a backdrop of poverty and decades of armed conflict, nowhere are the contests more ubiquitous and revered. In these carefully scripted shows of fantasy, beauty as a concept, commodity and singular goal is stripped to its raw elements. There is no ambiguity or pretense that anything else matters.
The queens are celebrities. Icons of a rigidly defined ideal, the contestants highlight the conflated relationship between beauty and attraction. Many of them seem familiar, stirring recollections of the same perfect features seen elsewhere, along with identical flirtatious laughter, mock surprise and relentless optimism. In their quest for adoration, they erase all traces of individuality.
While the inherent objectification of the contests and the values they convey to young women often provoke outrage and ridicule elsewhere, in the Colombian context the issue is more complicated. The millions who pack stadiums and follow dozens of national contests on live television often have a vicarious relationship with the queens, clinging to the fantasy of magically transcending poverty. The queens themselves often claim to be working the situation to their advantage, even as they perpetuate a mindset which ultimately limits their opportunities.
The popularity of the pageants ebbs and flows with the level of violence in the country. The contests project an image of normalcy and vitality in the face of social upheaval and fear, a refusal to be defined by the violence or to live as if besieged. In a country rife with conflict, the pageants are a form of both denial and defiance. www.carlbower.com
Public presentation of the candidates in the Plaza Bolívar. Miss Coffee pageant, Manizales, Colombia.
Aguardiente shots backstage at the beginning of the Miss Light pageant, Mesitas del Colegio, Colombia.
Judges evaluate candidates in a private viewing session in Cartagena. Colombians take pride in a specific ideal of physical beauty, and the contests leave little ambiguity that anything else matters.
Pageants usually include at least one serpentine parade allowing much of the town a chance to see the contestants in person. Tight security keeps the overly enthusiastic at bay. Miss Tourism pageant, Girardot.
Candidate for National Beauty Contest learns which facial muscles give the most effective effect of acting pleasantly surprised.
A coach vascillates between admonishing and encouraging a candidate prior to a swimsuit competition at the Miss Sun & Steel pageant. Sogamoso.
Squat thrusts in an attempt to firm thighs before a poolside swimsuit competition. Miss Panela pageant, Villeta, Colombia.
A photographer from a Cartagena newspaper prior to swimsuit judging. Pictures of anticipated front runners appear daily on front pages and special sections for a week or more before the actual coronation night. Candidates to the national contest will dominate magazine covers for months.
Candidate for Miss Tourism passes through crowds. Many Colombians have a somewhat vicarious relationship with beauty queens and view any deviation from a narrowly-defined ideal as a personal affront.
Candidates for Miss Sun and Steel present themselves for final evaluation by judges and audience members.
Coronation of Miss Sincelejo, held in a baseball outfield of a public park. The Reinado Popular, or people's pageant, took place in the shadow of the national Miss 20th of January, held each year in a cattle-growing region near the Carribbean coast.
Following a 2 a.m. coronation, Miss Cartagena exits the bullfighting stadium amid a crush of media and supporters.
Coronation ball at the Miss Tourism pageant in Girardot. Aside from children's contests, most pageants assign an escort to each candidate, usually a student from a police or military academy. They are there for protection by necessity, but also a reflection of the status of the armed forces in a country that has known decades of violence.
At the National Beauty Contest. Heavy ropes and tightly-spaced soldiers must routinely push spectators back to make room for the floats. Cartagena.
A culture of machismo is at home in the pageants. Many of the escorts flirt heavily with their assigned candidates, usually with little success. People's Pageant, Cartagena.
Many high schools in Colombia have an annual Miss Paper contest. Every classroom elects a candidate who competes in sportswear and evening wear competitions. All clothing must be made from newspapers.
A specific ideal of beauty is instilled from an early age. Colombians will lavish praise and occasional scorn on one's ability to meet that standard. Physical measurements and the shapes of body parts are discussed as easily as sports statistics. Aside from football, the pageants are often the sole unifying thread in a country with deep regional, political and social divisions.
Girls learn at an early age the power and importance of being a coquetta. Charm, grace of movement, and a narrowly-defined ideal of femininity are seen as the keys to success. El Peñol.
At the Chica Barbie pageant in Medellín, a 5-year-old rolls what will someday be hips in her best attempt at seduction. Modeling schools coach girls as young as four in the proper ways to walk, wink and smile with their eyes, on demand. Ask young girls what they want to be when they grow up and the most common answer is "Miss Colombia".
Former queen with current candidate awaiting makeup in the afternoon before coronation night in the People's Pageant of Cartagena.
National contests often have a shadow competition, or people's pageant, of local candidates chosen by each neighborhood within a town. The young women compete from a much more modest position than their more glamorous counterparts, with friends and neighbors pooling resources to allow them to compete for cash prizes or scholarship money. In Sincelejo, a candidate rides the bus back to her neighborhood at 3 a.m.
