‘Falsified’ Beauty

(Yahoo) Why the big hue and cry about Miss Universe's crown princess of this year? Allegedly, this year'sMiss Universe Leila Lopes used falsified documents to gain entry and win the contest. To be precise, she obtained documents that suggested she was a student of a British business school, even though she's never lived outside her home country, Angola, to enable her to participate in the beauty contest.

Beauty pageants, even those that have garnered a loyal following over decades now find themselves mired in scandals and controversies, thanks to overambitious aspirants who will not let a small thing like their citizenship, risque photo-shoots, drug possession, unsavoury connections to moneyed menand other skeletons in their closet come in the way of their beauty queen dreams.

But scandal is no stranger to beauty pageants - they just seem to be surfacing more often than they used to during the times of Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen. Last year's Miss USA and Miss Universe contender, Rima Fakih, was asked to hand over the title and the crown after pictures of her pole-dancing in a 'Stripper 101' contest made news. Hollywood actress Vanessa Williams was stripped of her Miss USA crown for similar reasons in 1984. Some contestants have actually lied about their ages or marital status. Check out this detailed slideshow on the controversies that have dogged beauty pageants over the years.

However, does the blame lie squarely with the contestant? Or are the organizers equally to blame for not doing sufficient background checks? For every claim of falsifying information that crops up after a beauty queen is selected, there's a counter claim of racial bias or political motive.

Whatever be the case, beauty contests don't seem to have the dazzle and the flair of the nineties, back when our Bollywood divas ruled supreme on the international stage. There was something sincere, if overeager and judge-friendly, about Aishwarya Rai's pearly whites or Sushmita Sen's poise and from-the-heart quotes. These pageants didn't seem so, well, manufactured. Now, not only do our country's representatives seem awkward and ill at ease, they also lack a certain je ne sais quoi that any beauty queen must possess in order to charm her way into the hearts of millions and subsequently win the crown. That aside, why do you think beauty pageants are this controversy-laden nowadays? Is it pure gimmickry? Or is the whole concept of the beauty pageant on its way out?