Pageant Advocacy: What is it?

One story has it that an old gentleman was walking on the beach littered by thousands of starfish. He then noticed that a young boy was throwing the starfish back one by one. Curious, he asked the boy what he is doing. The boy replied that he is saving the starfish. But there are way to many starfish, replied the gentleman. “How could you possibly make a difference?” asked the gentleman. The boy picked up one of the starfish, tossed it into the sea and replied, “It made a difference to that one!”

The moral of the story should remind us about the advocacy of Miss Earth. Some people misconstrued that Miss Earth’s advocacy is about stopping the global warming or giving instant solutions to our environmental maladies. Like the boy in the story, Miss Earth is questioned if it is making any difference at all.

The advocacies of the Big5 pageants are pragmatic and not driven by hallucinations and hubris. Miss World never said that it aims to solve child hunger and neither did Miss Universe promise to solve the AIDS problem nor did Miss International promise to fight for children’s rights everywhere. They are more about picking one starfish at a time, making small contributions here and there. Miss Earth’s core advocacy is actually to “propagate environmental awareness” wherein its winners and candidates become “spokespersons and role models using their influence to send the urgent messages across”.

An advocacy of a beauty pageant should confront reality and restrain itself from pursuing something too lofty. Jamie Herrell’s lecture at the Philippine Presidential Palace or Tereza Fajksova’s tree planting in Indonesia will not solve global warming but it is a step forward and that makes a difference. Alyz Henrich’s lecture on environment in Colombia will not solve the country’s environmental problems but rather she is trying to raise awareness because awareness is the first step towards a lasting solution.

Miss Earth is also expanding its advocacy in many ways. It is known to work with UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), recognizing that reproductive health care plays a crucial role in our environmental problems. The pageant however never promised to solve the ballooning population growth of the world. Miss Earth also partnered with the Green Initiative, an organization that works to offset the greenhouse gases but never did the Miss Earth promise to solve the growing threats of CO2/greenhouse gases emissions.

Indeed, a true advocacy never promises the impossible. When one sees a pageant advocacy that is too good to be true, then it probably is. It would be a phony, pure PR and a deceptive advocacy that is both sick and ridiculous. It has no place in the world of pageantry and those who participate in it, in any level, should be ashamed of themselves.

After all, a true pageant advocacy is not about saving “all the starfish in the world”. It is about raising the awareness and saving “one starfish” at a time. It is recognizing the fact that a pageant advocacy is there not to make the pageant look nice but rather to achieve something real.

This is the second of the four-part series regarding advocacies of Big4 pageants so that fans can have an overview on what is the true meaning of advocacy when today, some are using it for the wrong purpose.

First part of the series: http://www.missosology.org/miss-world/featured-article/20243-pageant-advocacy/